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Kurdistan Moving Forward Toward the Kirkuk
Referendum
4.9.2007
By Martin Zehr |
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September 4, 2007
There is an authority designated in Article 140 of
the Iraqi Constitutional that provides a legal and
political justification for going ahead with the
Kirkuk Referendum. These are the grounds for moving
forward by the National Assembly of the Kurdish
Autonomous Region towards that end. The legal
actions of the Kurdish Regional Government do NOT
require any updated statutory law to implement this.
The KRG is already fully empowered to proceed. There
are many observations of the current status of
Kirkuk made in the book: THE FUTURE OF KURDISTAN IN
IRAQ, Edited by Brendan O’Leary, John McGarry and
Khaled Salih, University of Pennsylvania Press,
Philadelphia, 2005. Many of the agreements reached
have worked toward preserving the legal authority of
Kurdistan to move independently towards the
implementation of article 140. “In the 2005
parliamentary elections, 99% of them voted for
Kurdish nationalist parties, and in the January 2005
referendum, 98% voted for an independent Kurdistan”
in an article by Peter Galbraith entitled: THE WAY
TO GO IN IRAQ. This appears in the August 16th issue
of the New York Review of Books. This demonstrates
the Kurdish popular mandate for moving forward with
the Kirkuk referendum.
The inclusion of Article 140 is an affirmation of
the proposition that Arabization by Saddam Hussein
requires corrective action. One analyst Michael
Totten suggested: “The Peshmerga could take Kirkuk
militarily any time the order is given. But they’re
holding back. The Kurdistan Regional Government says
it wants to take the city peacefully and with honor….
South of the Peshmerga line, some towns with Sunni
Arab majorities are forcibly evicting Shia Arabs at
gunpoint, with rocket launchers, and without
compensation. The Kurdistan Regional Government, by
contrast, says it will financially compensate
everyone asked to leave. Even so, reversing one
population transfer with another isn’t right. The
Kurds seem to understand this, given that they’re
offering to pay damages to the evicted. They might
not even care about the city’s ethnic composition if
Kirkuk weren’t wracked with violence. But the city
is a dangerous place, and the aftershocks of
Saddam’s divide-and-rule strategy are still
explosive.”
Logistical and demographical issues are being raised
now as a substitute for the complete implementation
for Article 140.
“Sadettin Ergec, a member of the Iraqi parliament
and head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, has said that
while official statistics put the number of Kurds
who were forced to move out of Kirkuk at around
250,000, more than 650,000 Kurds have resettled
there since 2003.” There is no desire to circumvent
such matters, but one might fairly raise the issue
if the 650,000 are inclusive of solely non-Kirkuk
Kurds or if they are family members of former Kirkuk
Kurds. Beyond that lies the issue of the impact of
Saddam Hussein’s Arabization on others and the fact
that reparations are for the entire Kurdish nation
and not just those relocated or murdered. “A number
of alternatives have been introduced to hinder the
implementation of Article 140. The Kurdish Alliance
in the Iraqi parliament has rejected a demand by the
main Sunni bloc in the Iraqi parliament to delay the
implementation of Article 140 to after the deadline
that has been set for it. They have expressed their
proposal of making Kirkuk into a federal state in
Iraq.”
At the same time, actions have also been taken to
negate the impact of returning Kurds to Kirkuk and
to exclude them from the referendum process. “Many
victims of Saddam's ethnic cleansing campaign sought
to return to the region, only to be prevented by
U.S. authorities. Many remain in tent-city limbo.
Article 58 of the March 8, 2004 Transitional
Administrative Law sought to settle disputes in
Kirkuk by means of an Iraqi Property Claims
Commission and "other relevant bodies." In practice,
however, successive Iraqi governments have done
little, creating suspicion among many Iraqi Kurds as
to the central government's intentions. The
uncertainty over Kirkuk's status has impeded local
development and sidelined the issue of refugee
resettlement.” “Until the December 2007 referendum,
which the U.N. has the expertise to organize, it
will be impossible to know whether local residents
wish Kirkuk to be absorbed into the Kurdistan
Regional Government. Many Kurds do, but others are
afraid of being pushed aside by established
patronage networks and political machines imposed
from outside the city.” It is clear that no
resolution exists if established Constitutional
mechanisms are not respected by all parties involved
and the results of the referendum must be validated
and codified for the future. This goes beyond issues
of Kurdish dislocations and the intent of Article
140 is not simply to give people back their houses.
The consistency of approach by the KRG illuminates
intentions, motivations and aspirations for the
future for all peoples in the region. To protect the
integrity of the referendum 6000 troops have been
sent to Kirkuk by the Kurdistan Region Guard.
The Kurdish Regional Government has worked within
the institutional framework of the Iraqi
Constitutional process from the beginning. It has
neither provoked any particular sect or political
organization of Iraq nor has it attempted to
undermine the sovereignty of the existing
government. The promise of the Kurdish Regional
Government is stated unequivocally:
“Relations with Federal Iraq
The KRG will make every effort to put in place a
democratic federal system in Iraq, based on
agreement and respect for all nationalities and
religions. It therefore supports democratic
consensus in the political process.
- Recover Kirkuk and other areas peacefully through
the democratic process and rule of law
- Support the establishment of other federal regions
in Iraq
- Implement constitutional articles that make
Kurdish the second official language in Iraq
- Implement provisions within the constitution
regarding the Iraqi budget
- Organize KRG offices abroad within the framework
of the Iraqi constitution
- Fight terrorism and violence in any form
- Work shoulder-to-shoulder to bring peace and
stability
- Work to rebuild and develop Iraq”
It does so for the benefit of the Kurdish nation in
an effort to peacefully resolve conflicts and to
present itself as a responsible party in the region.
It is fully within its rights to establish fair and
just parameters in regards to the rights and
authority of the KRG and to be empowered as all
governments in the world with duly delegated
authority. President Barzani of the Kurdish
Autonomous Region has not ruled out other options if
the right of referendum is denied to the people of
Kirkuk to determine its disposition..
It is clear that some governments in the region,
Turkey among them, are actively engaging in an
effort to sabotage the implementation of Article
140. It goes without saying that such governments,
like Turkey, have NO authority to represent Turkmen
in Kirkuk and have no legal entitlement to intervene
in the affairs of southern Kurdistan. Likewise, the
Islamic Republic of Iran is not a party that is
represented under the existing body of law under the
Transitional Authority of Iraq.
At issue is whether the Kurdish nation is truly
recognized by the international community of
nations, and whether it is truly empowered to act as
designated in the Iraqi Constitution. If
Constitutional law is not a valid criterion for a
process to determine the legal integration of Kirkuk,
one has to wonder what the status of ANY issue
affecting and/or falling under the jurisdiction of
the Kurdish Regional Government and its National
Assembly is to be. This also includes matters
affecting the territorial integrity of the Kurdish
Autonomous Region, the Kurdistan Region Guard and
the legal rights and Constitutional authority of any
governmental entity representing Kurds. If the goal
is to deprive the Kurdish nation of political power
to establish its own government and negate any
authority it may be designated to have under the
Iraqi Constitution, this is surely the way to go
about it. If that is the case, then, it is surely
the prerogative of the Kurdish nation to separate
itself in such a manner as to establish and defend
its own national sovereignty and territorial
integrity. No occupying army or interim Constitution
can authorize others to negate the right to
representation or the right to establish a
government that is fully empowered to act in behalf
of the people.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 15.
(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his
nationality nor denied the right to change his
nationality.
Article 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the
government of his country, directly or through
freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public
service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the
authority of government; this will shall be
expressed in periodic and
genuine elections which shall be by universal and
equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or
by equivalent free
voting procedures.
theconservativevoice 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
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.
** Since 1991, the Kurds of Iraq achieved self-rule
in part of the country. In the new Iraqi
Constitution, it is referred to as Kurdistan region.
Kurdistan region has all the trappings of an
independent state -- its own constitution, its own
parliament, its own flag, its own army, its own
border patrol, its own national anthem, its own
education system, even its own stamp inked into the
passports of visitors.
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