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Iraqi Kurds are preparing for a referendum
to decide their political future
26.7.2007 |
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July
26 2007
The town of Makhmour lies amid the dust devils,
wheat-fields and oil pipelines of the northern Iraqi
plains, just east of the Green Line which divides
the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government from
the rest of Iraq.
For decades, this predominantly Kurdish town
surrounded by what are now mostly Arab villages has
been on the front line of ethnic tensions. These
tensions have left their mark in the form of
sandbagged emplacements on the turn-off from the
town's main highway and shrapnel scars on buildings
caused by a
car bomb in May,
which killed 50 people.
By the end of this year, the town is scheduled to
vote in a referendum on whether to join the
Kurdistan region - a referendum some Iraqis say may
lead to a new era of security and prosperity for the
north, but others say could cause simmering tensions
to boil over.
The first stage of the "Article 140" process - named
after a section of Iraq's constitution - will take
place on July 31, when the committee in charge of
implementing it finalises the lists of eligible
voters. Officials overseeing the process say that
after the July 31 "census", they will organise a
referendum in which the "disputed territories" of
northern Iraq vote, district by district, on whether
to join the Kurdistan Regional Government.
The referendum is better known outside Iraq for its
association with Kirkuk, an oil-rich city that is
home to Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Assyrian Christians,
Turcomans and Shia Muslims. The city is part of a
disputed region that forms an arc running 450km from
Sinjar in the north-west corner of the country to
the province of Diyala in the east.
The region is rich in oil and Saddam Hussein tried
to cement his control over it by making sure its
Arab population was in the majority. In towns such
as Kirkuk, the regime altered the demographic
balance by expelling Kurds and bringing in Shia
settlers from the south.
In Makhmour, it took an administrative approach.
According to Kurdish officials, the town was
detached from the majority -Kurdish Erbil
governorate in 1996 and reassigned to predominantly
Arab Ninewah. "This region [Makhmour] is Kurdistan,"
says Mohammed Amin Roj, head of the Kurdistan
Democratic party, one of two main political
movements that dominate politics in the north. Even
the Arab villages, he says, have Kurdish names such
as Kherabaddan, (Round Stone) or Karamerdi (Dead
Donkey).
Ethnic tensions are running high, not least because
of the recent car and truck bombs. Makhmour
officials say the bomb in May turned out to have
been assembled in a nearby Arab village.
In Makhmour's marketplace, one young Sunni Arab,
asked if he wanted to be part of Kurdistan, replies:
"How would I know? I've never been to Kurdistan. If
I tried to drive to Erbil [the Kurdistan region's
capital], they'd see 'Arab' on my identification and
never let me in." His friend claims that after the
May bomb, Arab civil servants were attacked. "They
beat and insulted government employees in the
street."
Some outsiders have urged the Kurdistan and Iraqi
governments to hold off on implementing Article 140.
The Brussels-based International Crisis Group
suggests the process lacks legitimacy among Arabs,
Turcomans and others. But Kurdish officials say they
have had little luck trying to negotiate any
practical compromises with their main Sunni or
Turcoman opponents.
"We are talking about a constitution. It is not a
menu for a restaurant," says Mohammed Ihsan, the
Kurdish member of the multi-ethnic commission
overseeing Article 140. "The constitution is
something fixed and you have to implement it."
ftd de
**
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
over 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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