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The dark underbelly of Kurdistan's dream
12.3.2007
By Mark Mackinnon
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Endemic
corruption risks undermining progress in Iraq's most
stable Kurdistan region
March 12, 2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- There is not much
to look at yet, just a clutch of newly built white
villas on a square kilometre of dirt and mud. But
the sign assures everyone that a "Dream City" will
soon emerge on the muddy plains of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The $350-million (U.S.) development, separated from
the rest of the country by a wrought-iron fence,
showcases the progress being made here four years
after the United States deposed Saddam Hussein and
gave Kurds their long sought-after autonomy. But it
also highlights the fundamental and dangerous flaws
in the Kurdish experiment.
The ambition on display at Dream City is huge. In
addition to 1,200 villas, some of which are already
selling for as much as $1-million, the gated
community will feature two schools, a mosque, six
commercial buildings and a giant shopping complex.
The fact that such projects can even be contemplated
right now, while the rest of Iraq is descending ever
deeper into civil war, is testimony to how good a
job the Kurdish regional government and its
peshmerga militia have done at sealing themselves
off from the chaos to the south.
"Our lives are much better than they were before
2003," said Jutiar Noori Abdullah, the deputy
governor of Sulaimaniyah, Kurdistan's second city.
"I can't say there are no problems, but I can say
that we are solving them."
But Dream City, which is due to be completed in
2010, also highlights the endemic corruption that
threatens to undermine all that is going well in
Kurdistan. The project manager says that most who
have bought property so far are government
bureaucrats who, judging by their apparent
disposable income, seem to have stored improbable
wealth while managing the affairs of a region still
deeply mired in poverty.
The regional government of Massoud Barzani has been
unable to deliver basic services to its citizens --
most homes receive two hours of electricity a day,
and there are often kilometres-long lineups for
limited supplies of fuel -- yet three brothers who
work as customs officers on the Iraq-Turkey border
have been able to purchase adjacent $900,000 homes
in Dream City. One of the homes that is nearing
completion features 10 washrooms, two sundecks and a
swimming pool.
"There's a hill of corruption that threatens
everything," said Namo Majeed, program manager at
the Civil Society Initiative, a U.S.-backed
non-government organization monitoring democratic
progress in Iraqi Kurdistan. "Everyone knows that
every government official, every political party
member, is corrupt. The general population of
Kurdistan suffers from this. It's the reason the
cost of everything is rising."
Kurdistan, and the regional capital of Erbil in
particular, at times look like a giant construction
site with monster shopping malls, brightly lit car
showrooms, bowling alleys and opera houses all
emerging from the late-winter mud.
The knock of pounding hammers and the screech of
rotating cranes fill the air from dawn until dusk,
making the violence of Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk
seem much farther away than it is.
Even more unique in Iraq, U.S. soldiers are
considered liberators by the local population, and
can be seen shopping in the markets. The red, white
and green Kurdish flag, emblazoned with a yellow sun
in the middle, flutters over everything, while the
Iraqi flag is nowhere to be seen.
But while the Kurdish leadership likes to boast of
its progress during the past four years -- and to
contrast it with the chaos to the south -- many
ordinary Kurds point to the fact that Kurdistan has
had de facto independence since 1991. They look at
the intervening period as 16 wasted years.
While developments such as Dream City are, on paper,
privately owned, analysts say that little happens in
Kurdistan without a large share going to either the
Kurdistan Democratic Party or the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan.
"The great construction campaign in Kurdistan is not
benefiting ordinary people. Only the political
leadership is gaining from all this. Those great
buildings, those skyscrapers all belong to high
political officials," said Twana Othman, the former
editor in chief of Hawlati, seen as the most
independent newspaper in Kurdistan.
"Everything is dominated by the PUK and the KDP."
The KDP is headed by Mr. Barzani, the president of
the Kurdistan Regional Government, the PUK is led by
Jalal Talabani, the President of Iraq. The two men
and their families dominate everything that happens
in the Kurdish part of Iraq.
Mr. Othman, who recently was forced to quit the top
job at Hawlati after writing articles alleging
official corruption, said the high hopes for reform
that followed the U.S. army's ousting of Mr. Hussein
have disappeared. With Iraq seemingly on the verge
of disintegration, the United States is no longer
pushing Kurdistan's elites to reform. It's only
asking that they keep their fighters out of the
Sunni-Shia fray engulfing the rest of the country.
"The only thing the United States cares about now in
Iraq is security. In the beginning, America was
going to bring democracy to the Middle East. But now
their goal is to form a strong central government,
to find a strong leader for Iraq," Mr. Othman said.
"And there's a great difference between a democratic
government and a powerful one."
But any kind of Kurdish government at all is
perceived as a threat by its neighbours. Of all the
challenges Iraqi Kurds face, their relations with
Turkey, Iran and Syria will be the most crucial to
the future. All three fear that a successful Kurdish
semi-state in northern Iraq will embolden their own
Kurdish populations to push for more autonomy.
And while they have made an overt effort to
establish good relations with Ankara, Tehran and
Damascus, Mr. Barzani and Mr. Talabani have thus far
been unwilling to crack down on the Kurdish
guerrilla movements that use Iraqi territory as a
base for staging raids into Turkey and Iran.
As crippling as the corruption in Erbil may be, the
borderless nationalism on display at a mountain
compound east of Sulaimaniyah may prove even more
dangerous to the Kurdish project in Northern Iraq,
where Kurdish-Iranian guerrillas train on Iraqi turf
for the day when they can return to Iran to fight
against the regime in Tehran.
But to Mr. Abdullah, Sulaymaniyah's deputy governor,
the threat of more regional upheaval is still a
distant one. For now, the more dangerous neighbour
is to the south, in the rest of Iraq. The Kurds, he
acknowledged, could yet be dragged into the
fighting. "We are trying to stay away, but the fire
is close to us. We're a bush by a bonfire."
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