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Problems fail to take shine off Kurds' present-day
paradise
28.10.2006 |
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October 28, 2006
Kurdistan Region (Iraq) , -- In Chamchamal, a
dilapidated Kurdish town in Kurdistan Region
(northern Iraq), a group of men chat away the hours
until the breaking of the Ramadan fast at sundown
and recount the many reasons why they have lost
faith in their government.
The Kurdistan Democratic party and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, the two guerrilla movements that
fought for 40 years against Baghdad, have proved
less inspiring in peacetime. "They were towers of
strength . . . but now they are failures," laments
one.
They complain, like others across the Kurds'
autonomous northern zone of Iraq, of shortages of
fuel, poor drinking water and other symptoms of the
corruption and administrative lethargy they claim
characterise the new administration. In Aug-ust they
took to the streets to demand changes, one of many
protests to have -broken out across the Kurdistan
self-rule area in the past month.
Yet this gathering in Chamchamal dismisses a
suggestion that they may ever support an alternative
to their current leadership.
As bad as the present might be, they also recall a
day 18 years ago when the Iraqi army rolled into
town as part of its Anfal campaign, an attempt to
isolate Kurdish guerrillas by depopulating the
regions from which they drew their support. The
Kurds estimate 180,000 people lost their lives. One
policeman recalls how men, women and children were
loaded into trucks and driven away, never to be seen
again. "The [problems] today are all paradise
compared to how it was then," he says.
Like other ethnic communities emerging from a long
struggle for independence, Iraq's Kurds are going
through a period of disillusionment with their
wartime leaders.
The region, an oasis of stability in the country, is
going through an economic boom as Iraqi capital
flees north, but many claim they have seen little
benefit.
Kurds point to the region's numerous half-finished
roads and sniff that some party crony must have
received the contract. They look at the ranks of
shiny new condominiums on the outskirts of large
towns and say they are out of the price range of all
but the party elites.
Nonetheless, there is little serious challenge to
the current government, largely because many Kurds
see their independence struggle as only
half-finished. Two years ago the region held a
non-binding referendum on whether Kurdistan should
seek independence or remain part of Iraq. Nearly 99
per cent voted to break away.
Kurdish officials frequently remind Baghdad that
they are in a "voluntary union" that could be
dissolved at any time if the centre tried to assert
too much control but, in truth, they admit secession
would be difficult, given that Kurdistan is a
land-locked region.
"It's the desire of all the Kurds for one day to
have a state of their own but one has to think
realistically," says Nechirvan Barzani, the regional
government's prime minister. "As the leadership, it
is not our role to follow the sentiments and the
emotions of the street if such objectives were not
achievable."
However, the government has set itself three
objectives which many see as a half-way house to
independence.
The first is to develop the economy. Last year the
regional government, over Baghdad's objections,
start-ed signing contracts with foreign oil
companies to develop northern oil fields. Kurdish
leaders say they plan to share the revenues with the
rest of the country once the fields start producing
commercially early next year, but they will retain
the right to sell independently if the federal
government does not, in turn, share revenue from
southern fields.
The second objective is to unify the two rival
administrations of the KDP and PUK, which fought a
mini-civil war in 1996 and which subsequently ruled
their own halves of the region. They were nominally
united in May.
A final goal is the absorption of the oil-rich
province of Kirkuk and other "disputed territories",
from which hundreds of thousands of Kurds and other
non-Arabs were deported under Saddam Hussein as part
of a plan to cement his regime's control of the
region. The Kurds say they are sticking to a
timetable included in Iraq's constitution. It calls
for a referendum in the territories by the end of
2007 on joining the Kurdistan region. They say they
have enough votes in the region to win it despite
opposition from some Sunni Arab and Turkmen groups.
As for Kurdistan's other problems, Mr Barzani says,
they require "patience and time". Kurdistan is still
dependent on Baghdad for electricity and fuel.
The people of Chamchamal appear sceptical that two
parties addicted to patronage and power can reform
themselves but, for the time being, see no
alternative to letting the leaders that have taken
them halfway to independence complete the journey.
ft com
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