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Oil-rich Kirkuk could hold key to Iraq's
future 27.10.2006
By Michael Howard in Kirkuk
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Kirkuk,
Kurdistan-Iraq, October 27,-- The tribal chiefs, in
traditional robes and chequered headdresses, emerged
from the dust stirred up by their convoy of pick-up
trucks and walked towards the big white tent,
gesturing welcomes to each other as they sat.
Accompanied by about 500 clansmen and a gaggle of
local journalists, the 35 Sunni sheikhs - from Mosul,
Tikrit, Samarra and Hawija - converged last week on
Hindiya, on the scrappy western edges of Kirkuk, to
swear their undying opposition to "conspiracies" to
partition Iraq and to pledge allegiance to their
president, Saddam Hussein.
Under banners exalting the man now standing trial in
Baghdad for war crimes and genocide, the gathering
heard speeches from prominent northern Iraqi
sheikhs, Sunni Arab politicians and self-declared
leaders of the Ba'ath party calling for the former
dictator's release.
"If the Iraqi government wants national
reconciliation to succeed and for the violence to
end, they have to quickly release the president and
end the occupation," said Sheikh Abdul Rahman
Munshid, of the Obeidi tribe. "But most important of
all," he added, "Kirkuk must never become part of
Kurdistan. It is an Iraqi city, and we will take all
routes to prevent the divisions of Iraq."
The heated debate about federalism in Iraq is no
better exemplified than in Kirkuk. Though largely
free of the sectarian wars taking place in Baghdad
and its surrounding area, observers say the ethnic
faultlines running through the city, which lies atop
Iraq's second largest oilfield, make it a ticking
time bomb that could pit Kurd against Arab and draw
in neighbours such as Iran and Turkey.
"There are few more sensitive issues in Iraq today
than what happens to Kirkuk," said a western
diplomat in Iraq who works closely with the issue.
"All eyes are on it, and all the ingredients for
either consensual agreement or a devastating discord
are there. If Kirkuk survives, then there's hope for
Iraq."
As if to reinforce that message, within hours of the
Sunni gathering a wave of suicide bombs rocked
Kirkuk's city centre, including one in a crowded
market and another in front of a women's teaching
college. At least 15 civilians were killed and
scores wounded.
Despite the oil riches that lie beneath, above
ground Kirkuk appears a forlorn and neglected city.
Street after street consists of humble two-storey
dwellings with barely a modern building in sight.
Litter is strewn everywhere, and there are huge
queues at the petrol pumps. The tumble-down shops
and market stalls in the centre of the city sell
cheap consumer goods from Iran and Turkey.
The city's ancient citadel lies in ruins. The
governor, Abdul Rahman Mustapha, a Kurd, blames the
dilapidated state of the city on years of Ba'athist
misrule. Neither does he have a good word for the
current government in Baghdad. "They have ignored us
and set so many obstacles in the path of our
progress and reconstruction," he said.
Only now, three years after the end of the war, is
money beginning to filter through for much-needed
infrastructure work. In partnership with the US
Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and US Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE), the provincial
government has undertaken projects to provide fresh
water to the mostly Arab south of the city, as well
as garbage collection and treatment and the
renovation of schools.
"A good sign is that Kurds, Turkomans and Arabs
still eat in the same restaurants, and mix
together," said Mr Mustapha. Yet, as with so many
other of Iraq's major cities, the trauma of history
is close to the surface. Throughout the 1980s and
1990s the Ba'ath party systematically drove out as
many as 200,000 Kurds and Turkomans from urban and
rural Kirkuk to tip the city's ethnic balance
towards the Arabs and ensure strategic control of
the oil fields.
After the fall of Saddam's regime, thousands of
Kurds returned to the city, demanding the
restitution of their land and property and the right
to vote for Kirkuk to join the Kurdish autonomous
region in the north. The Iraqi constitution promises
to remove Arab settlers, who would receive
compensation, and return Kurds to Kirkuk - an
explosive issue for many non-Kurds.
"It will be disastrous," said Ali Mehdi, a Turkoman
member of the provincial council. "The people won't
accept the rule of the Kurdish parties. A civil war
could break out any minute."
He said Kirkuk should achieve special independent
status unallied to any regional blocs. Kurdish
leaders insist, however, that they are neither after
ethnic supremacy nor Kirkuk's oil, which could give
them an economic base for future independence.
Instead they are seeking to right historical wrongs.
"We want to see the issue resolved in a legal and
peaceful way, as designated in the constitution,"
said Fuad Hussein, a senior aide to the Kurdish
president Massoud Barzani. "Kirkuk is historically
part of Kurdistan, but we will make sure it is well
run and safe for everyone regardless of race or
religion."
But he expressed dismay at the Sunni leaders'
meeting. "Ba'athists meeting openly under the nose
of Americans is not a good sign for the future," he
said.
Relatively peaceful in the first two years after the
fall of Saddam - defying observers who said civil
war would start here - Kirkuk is witnessing an
alarming increase in bloodshed as the political
tensions rise. The wave of violence is terrifying
residents and testing to the limit the fragile
relations among its Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman
residents.
The US military in Kirkuk says the city has been hit
by 20 suicide bombs and 63 roadside bombs in the
past three months. Local police and community
leaders have been assassinated and politicians
attacked. This despite a series of security sweeps
by US and Iraqi forces and the digging of a large
trench ringing Kirkuk's southern approaches,
designed to funnel traffic into the city through
official Iraqi army checkpoints.
Colonel Patrick Stackpole, who commands 5,000 US
troops in a province of about one and a half million
people, said the "violence is mainly by outsiders,
though undoubtedly they have facilitators inside the
city". "Jihadis from east and west, belonging to
groups such as Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunnah,
are targeting the city, trying to stoke civil war,"
he said. "But there's also a large element of former
regime loyalists who don't want the city to
succeed."
Nevertheless, he described himself as "guardedly
optimistic" and offered rare praise for the
province's security forces. "They are taking over
more and more functions, leading operations, and
performing more effectively without the scale of
problems of corruption and disloyalty seen in other
forces in Iraq ," he said. "We haven't seen death
squads."
guardian co.uk
The former Iraqi president forced about 250,000
Kurdish residents to give up their homes to Arabs in
the 1970s,
to "Arabize" the city and the region's oil industry.
Kirkuk city is not under the full control of
Kurdistan Regional Government administration. A
referendum is to be held in late 2007 to decide
whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be
annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region
in Iraq's north.
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