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Corruption in Iraqi Kurdistan
11.1.2008
By Kate Clark, BBC
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January 11, 2008
Flying into the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Erbil
and its glitteringly new international airport, it
is difficult to believe you are entering Iraq.
"Welcome to Kurdistan," the signs say. There are no
Iraqi flags, only Kurdish flags, flying throughout
this self-governing region.
The safety and apparent prosperity also makes
Kurdistan feel a long way from the rest of Iraq.
Erbil looks like a boom town. Cranes and new
multi-storey buildings litter the skyline.
There are shopping malls, luxurious gated
communities, conference centres and grandiose
headquarters for the factions who once fought Saddam
and now rule Kurdistan - the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
The Regional Government is selling Kurdistan as
flourishing, progressive and democratic.
"Bite of the pie"
But beneath the façade, ordinary Kurds are
struggling to survive, while state money gets
siphoned off into private pockets.
The state also punishes those who stand out of line.
An unpublished report by the United Nations, which
we were given access to, said thousands of people
are detained each month in Kurdistan, mostly for
political crimes.
Most are held without trial or access to lawyers.
Businessmen were generally too frightened to speak
openly about the corruption they encountered. But
Saman Jaff,www.ekurd.net
a former peshmerga - a
guerrilla who fought the Saddam regime from the
mountains - did agree to an interview.
"If you are a relative of one of the political
leaders," he said, "you may be given a government
job with a budget or a contract worth, for example
$2m or $3m to rebuild a road."
He said it was immaterial whether the relative could
actually build a road. The contract would be sold
on, repeatedly, until it reached a real construction
company. By that time, there might only be half of
the money left.
"Corruption is like a virus," he said. "It is
killing Kurdistan."
A whistleblower within the Ministry of Planning
confirmed that public works were not tendered in a
transparent, bidding process.
"Ministers or officials try to give contracts to
their own company or their friends' companies," said
a senior civil servant, "to gain a bite of the pie."
Beneath the façade
Meanwhile, ordinary Kurds are struggling to get by.
People described rampant inflation, high
unemployment and erratic water and electricity
supplies.
In Sulaimaniya, Iraqi Kurdistan's second city,
people said they got running water for four hours
every three days and electricity for three-to-four
hours a day.
Contaminated water supplies have led to cholera
outbreaks.
"Too many times, we have asked the government to
help us,"said one woman who had lost her
father-in-law and a baby to cholera said. "But it is
in vain. They promise and do nothing."
She described the fear of living through an outbreak
last September, knowing her water supply was
contaminated, but not having the electricity to boil
the water.
"When I think of the budget and the millions and see
my situation," she said, "I feel like I am dead."
Kurdistan's budget is large - more than $6bn last
year - the region's share of Iraq's oil revenues.
But there is a growing gap between ordinary Kurds
and the political elite.
"I see some of the officials who, 20 years ago, were
with us in the mountains," said Ari Harsin, another
former peshmerga, who is now the Erbil bureau editor
of the independent Awene newspaper.
"They used to be purists, partisans. Now they are
driving land cruisers with dark windows and a lot of
body guards. They see how ordinary people are
living. They have no shame."
One of the up-and-coming Kurdish politicians,www.ekurd.net
Qubad Talabani, accepts
there are problems with corruption and that reform
is needed. But he believes Iraqi Kurdistan is still,
"a glimmer of hope in a very radical Middle East".
He said Kurdish politics were generally secular and
the economy was moving towards a free market, "We
are not a democracy, but we are democratising."
Nepotism
But Qubad also seems to represent some of the
problems in Kurdistan.
He is certainly smart and speaks eloquently, but he
is only 30 years old and has been the Kurdish
representative in Washington since he was 22.
His father is the President of Iraq and the leader
of one of the two main Kurdish parties, the PUK. His
brother is the head of one of the security services.
The other major family, the Barzanis, leaders of the
KDP faction, fill the posts of Kurdish president,
prime minister and head of the other main security
service.
"Obviously I can see how it could be perceived as
nepotism," said Qubad.
But he said both families had sacrificed much during
the struggle.
"I do not think we should be inhibited because we
are related to a leader, but it is important for
there to be an inclusive environment."
All the interviewees stressed that it was impossible
to compare problems in today's Kurdistan with the
Saddam era, when villages were razed and tens of
thousands of people were gassed and massacred.
Even so, for many, there is a fear that the dream of
a free and democratic Kurdistan is slipping away.
Sometimes, says the journalist, Ari Harsin,
Kurdistan seems like a mafia state.
"There is no transparency. They are dividing the
budget of the Kurdish Regional Government between
the PUK and the KDP, 52% for the KDP. 48% for the
PUK. It is a very strange model of democracy."
BBC
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