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Don't delay democracy in Kirkuk
7.6.2007
By Najmaldin O. Karim, the president of the
Washington Kurdish Institute. |
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June
7, 2007
Kirkuk, Kurdistan region border with (Iraq).
Even as the battle for Baghdad continues to rage,
the United States must begin considering the future
of another Iraqi city: Kirkuk.
Here are two critical things to know about Kirkuk:
First, it is surrounded by Kurdish towns and
villages and has a population that is majority
Kurdish — yet it lies just outside the boundaries of
the autonomous region of Kurdistan to the north.
Second, although it is a poor city, Kirkuk is built
close to one of Iraq's largest oil fields.
At the moment, there is a planned referendum on the
future status of the city (and the province in which
it is located). The referendum is scheduled to take
place before the end of 2007 and will determine
whether the province should be made a part of
autonomous Kurdistan.
However, there is a rising call for a postponement
of the vote. If this happens, as many outsiders
would like, then the entire U.S. mission in Iraq,
and the fundamental justification for the war of
liberation, could be fatally damaged.
The nub of the Kirkuk issue is how to reverse Saddam
Hussein's appalling legacy of ethnic cleansing and
genocide.
During the 1980s, the Baathist regime expelled huge
numbers of Kurds (as well as some ethnic Turkomen)
from the city.
It replaced them with Arab colonists from southern
Iraq, generously subsidized by the government.
At the same time, hundreds of Kurdish villages in
the province were razed, with farms and orchards
burned to prevent Kurds from returning. During the
genocidal Anfal campaign of 1987-'88, thousands were
"processed" through the military camp of Topzawa
just outside of Kirkuk, the men mostly taken away to
be shot en masse and buried in unmarked graves.
The murders and ethnic cleansing continued after the
1991 Persian Gulf War; according to Human Rights
Watch, an estimated 120,000 non-Arabs were expelled
from the Kirkuk area during the 1990s. These crimes
were part of what justified the U.S.-led liberation
of Iraq.
In the years since Hussein's government was toppled,
the Kurds have been exemplary in their restraint and
in their adherence to the democratic process.
Although they have ample historical claim to Kirkuk,
they have put aside the usual bickering and have
refrained from the familiar, never-ending squabble
about whose ancestors were there first.
The Kurds have not made oil a factor in the
discussion either. Although Hussein and many others
since he lost power have viewed control of Kirkuk as
crucial because they hoped it would mean control of
the lucrative oilfields in the area, the Kurds have
been very clear that they would like to see the
profits from the Kirkuk oilfields distributed
throughout the whole of Iraq on a per-capita basis,
no matter what the future of the city.
Kurds have also pushed for a legal mechanism to
reverse Hussein's crimes. Indeed, it is the
democratically ratified Iraqi constitution, backed
by 79% of Iraqis in October 2005, that mandated a
citywide census followed by a provincewide
referendum before the end of this year.
Sadly, the prospect of such a democratic resolution
is opposed by much of the diplomatic community and
the policy world. Parroting the flawed
recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, also known
as the Baker-Hamilton commission, their proposed
solution is a nonsolution: to postpone the Kirkuk
referendum because, as the Iraq Study Group argued,
not all the groups in the city agree on what the
future of Kirkuk should be and because a referendum
could prove "explosive" and lead to violence.
Such an approach is a moral and policy mistake. To
put off the referendum would insult Iraq's young
democracy.
Delay regarding Kirkuk would have the further
consequence of alienating Washington's best allies
in Iraq: the Kurds. In today's Iraq, the Kurds are
the only community united in their support of the
U.S. The best units of the Iraqi army are from Iraqi
Kurdistan, and two brigades have recently been
deployed to Baghdad as part of the "surge." Kurdish
politicians are keeping Prime Minister Nouri
Maliki's fractious government intact. Unlike the
Iraqi Arabs — Sunni and Shiite alike — who are
deeply ambivalent in their views of the U.S., the
Kurds are overwhelmingly pro-American. Not one U.S.
soldier has been killed in Iraqi Kurdistan.
By putting off a resolution of the Kirkuk issue, the
United States would be telling Kurds that it may
betray them again, as it did when it encouraged them
to fight the Baathists and then failed to support
them in 1975 and 1991. At a time when Americans are
already skeptical of the war in Iraq, a demonstrable
success is exactly what is required. Reversing
Hussein's crimes of ethnic cleansing and genocide in
Kirkuk through a democratic political process will
demonstrate the fundamental justice of this war and
solidify a vital base of American support.
latimes com
**
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein 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.
Based on Iraq's Constitution 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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