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Kirkuk Confronts an Uncertain Future 2.9.2006
By Mohammed A. Salih
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KIRKUK,
Kurdistan-Iraq, September 2 ,-- Rahman Aziz, 37,
laughs out loud with his friend Rahman as they sit
together across from the old citadel in this Kurdish
northern Iraqi city. The city needs their laughter.
Rahman is a Kurd, and his friend, Sa'ad, 34, a
Turkomen. "We have been good friends for years,"
said Rahman, who now owns a small shop in the city.
"We don't think our friendship can ever be destroyed
by politics."
But it is under threat. Kirkuk is being claimed by
Kurds. But it has a large population of Arabs who
were settled there in the days of Saddam Hussein. It
also has a large Turkomen population - Iraqis of
Turkish descent.
Kirkuk Kurds faced severe persecution under Saddam
Hussein. Saddam's troops forced Rahman's family to
evacuate their home in the predominantly Kurdish
neighbourhood Imam Qasim in Kirkuk ten years ago.
They were allowed to take only a handful of their
possessions with them.
A few days after they left, their house was
bulldozed. The family moved to Sulaimaniyah, 120km
east of Kirkuk.
In the course of its 35-year rule in Iraq, the
Ba'ath government expelled tens of thousands of
Kurds and Turkomens from Kirkuk under its 'Arabisation'
policy. Thousands of Arab families from the southern
and central Arab regions were encouraged to move to
Kirkuk to strengthen government grip on the region's
oilfields.
Now many Kurdish refugees have started returning to
Kirkuk in hope of resuming a better life.
"We all need to make a fresh start here," Rahman
said. But conflict must be avoided, he said. "If we
don't want to fight each other, nobody can force us
to."
Despite such sentiments, the situation does not look
promising. A relatively safe city for months after
the end of the war in May 2003, Kirkuk is now
witnessing an increasing wave of killings.
Kirkuk officials blame most of the violence on
al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups, but officials
are not clear whether those behind the violence have
sectarian motives.
The mounting violence is doing its damage by way of
straining relations between different communities.
The intricate social structure of Kirkuk --
comprising Kurds, Arabs (both Shia and Sunni),
Turkomens and also Christians -- has led some
diplomatic and media circles to speculate that this
city could be one of the starting points of a civil
war.
Most people in Kirkuk do not seem to believe that
will happen. Many say that talk of civil war is led
by people who have a stake in making that war
happen.
"If a civil war was to happen, it would have
happened in the immediate chaotic aftermath of the
fall of Saddam's regime," Jawad al-Janabi, Arab
member of Kirkuk's provincial council told IPS. "I
think the common historical backgrounds and social
ties among the various nationalities of Kirkuk will
prevent such a war."
Kurdish officials in Kirkuk say there is no ethnic
clash in Kirkuk. "It is for three years some people
say Kirkuk is a time bomb," said Hasib Rojbayani, a
Kurdish member of Kirkuk's provincial council. "But
such claims are far from the reality of Kirkuk. The
situation here is under control."
Amid rising speculation about a civil war in Kirkuk,
most people dream simply of better living
conditions. "We just need some peaceful air to
breathe, and to forget the unhappy past," said a
Christian resident.
Iraq's new constitution has set up a three-step
roadmap to normalise the situation of Kirkuk.
Article 140 in that document allows Kurdish and
Turkomen refugees to return to the city, and calls
for Arabs who were brought by Saddam's regime to
Kirkuk to be compensated to leave the city.
A population census would be the second step, to be
followed by a provincial referendum by the end of
2007 on whether Kirkuk will remain a separate
federal region or be incorporated into Kurdistan
region.
IPS
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