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Kirkuk: Dream of happy return stalled for
many Kurds 16.11.2006
By Lauren Frayer
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KIRKUK,
Kurdistan-Iraq, November 15, -- Halal Abdul Khalaq
lives in a mud and cement hut behind a soccer
stadium waiting for a break in
the violence to start building her dream.
Three years ago she returned to a homeland she and
her parents fled when she was only a baby. They were
running decades ago from Saddam Hussein's
persecution of the Kurds.
Hundreds of other Kurds have joined Abdul Khalaq in
the anxious but miserable wait to reclaim their
past.
Saddam's bid to turn oil-rich Kirkuk into an Arab
city forced Kurds to flee by the tens of thousands
during the 1980s and 1990s.
After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the refugees
streamed back with house keys in hand -- only to
find their homes sold or given outright to Arabs.
Some returned to exile in Kurdish territory farther
north, but others, like Abdul Khalaq, stayed and
built shantytowns in which to wait it out.
"We're happy to be home, and we're safe here, but as
far as living conditions, we're suffering," Abdul
Khalaq, 22, said Wednesday as she cradled the child
she bore two years ago in a hut without running
water.
This is what she knows of her fabled hometown:
poverty, gunfire in the distance and occasional
patrols by U.S. soldiers who pass out food and
soccer balls to children.
"I see my child barefoot, and I know I want a better
life -- the one that was promised to us. I don't
care whether it's in Kurdistan or Iraq," Abdul
Khalaq said.
Kurds say they are the dominant population group in
Kirkuk, but geography works against them. The city
lies just south of the Kurdish autonomous region
stretching across Iraq's northeast. Kurdish leaders
want to annex the city, but Iraq's new constitution
calls for a census and referendum on the issue by
the end of next year.
Until then, it remains a demographics game.
The new Iraqi government has adopted a policy of
"normalizing" Kirkuk -- repatriating Kurds expelled
by Saddam, and resettling Arabs to outlying villages
or to their ancestral homes to the south.
But the process is slow: Some 100,000 claims have
been filed by Kurds who have returned to Kirkuk
since 2003, and local officials are processing fewer
than 30 a month, said Lt. Col. Michael Browder with
the U.S. Army's 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry
Division. Browder, 45, of Clarksville, Tenn., trains
Iraqi police in Kirkuk.
"Officials are learning the democratic process, but
it takes time, and meanwhile the Kurds are piling
in," he said.
Violence has also derailed progress. While the
killing is nowhere near the level in Baghdad,
bombings and shootings have increased in recent
months, as Kurds and Arabs struggle for power ahead
of the 2007 referendum.
In the past 90 days, Kirkuk has seen some 20 car
bombs resulting in about 300 civilian casualties,
Browder said.
Kurds like Abdul Khalaq are, thus, in limbo -- home
but homeless, and feeling betrayed.
"They (Kurdish leaders) encouraged us to come back,
but they don't care about citizens like us. We're
just a number," she said, wringing her hands and
then stopping to brush away flies from her son's
face.
"We want Kurdish leaders to help us as they
promised, to help us get out of this place," said
Amir Mustapha, 27, who also lives in the soccer
stadium's shadow. "The Kurdish government, coalition
forces, the Baghdad government -- whoever. Someone
has to help us."
Brightly colored laundry flaps in the breeze on a
line strung between a gnarled tree and the wall of
Abdul Khalaq's cement house. Raw sewage pools in an
oblong ditch nearby, while children with dirty faces
and blue eyes play hide-and-seek between pillars of
the stadium, which hasn't hosted a game since 2003.
Across town, dozens of Kurds have also built
temporary homes behind Celebration Square, where
scouts used to march past Saddam and his Baath Party
cronies.
"I didn't think we'd live like this. I thought Mr.
Talabani would give us money," said Awat Najat, 21,
referring to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is
Kurdish.
Najat too fled Kirkuk to escape Saddam's persecution
and grew up in Sualimaniyah, farther northwest.
Barefoot and nine-months pregnant, she waddles
around atop mats spread over the cement floor of her
one-room house, and looks up at the bleachers
overhead.
"I will stay here and wait for my child to be born
in Kirkuk, God willing," she said.
AP
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