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Reform in Kurdistan region between half-baked projects,
petrified power, absent Opposition (Part 3) |
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Reform in Kurdistan region between
half-baked projects, petrified power, absent
Opposition (Part 3)
13.2.2009
By Dr. Kamal Mirawdeli
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February 13, 2009
Part 3:
The difficult birth of Opposition. |
Part 1 |
Part 2
| Part 3
Unfortunately it seems that maintaining family
hegemony, power and privileges is the sole aim of
Barzani and Talabani and their servile parties
without being concerned about the devastating effect
this selfish conduct will have on the future of what
they call Kurdistan’s self-rule experience and its
image and legitimacy in the eyes of the world.
Otherwise if they had realized their
responsibilities and opportunities as leaders of a
nation, they would have set different sets of
national and democratic goals for themselves and
have by now created a sovereign democratic country
of constitutional rule, democratic institutions,
lawful structures and civil society organisations
recognised and respected by the whole world.
Instead, the two ruling families and their
apparatchiks have managed to destroy all aspects of
civil society and government in Kurdistan including
their own parties which have lost any basic
resemblance and definition of political parties and
have for all functions and purposes been transformed
into extended family businesses. |
Dr. Kamal Mirawdeli. His activities in his homeland
Kurdistan region (Iraq), among other things he was
the Chair of the Kurdish Writers Union, led to his
arrest on many occasions. Dr. Mirawdeli works
tirelessly for the Kurdish community in London, and
is very active as both an academic and a poet |
The sole aim of the so-called
strategic agreement between PUK and KDP, far from
serving any national strategy, has been to
consolidate and protect these illegal familial
businesses and their concomitant corrupt dynastic
political power and shield them against any outside
opposition and external threat. Having monopolized
land, property, economy, finances, businesses,
employment, government institutions, peshmarga and
militias, media and press, community organisations,
etc there is no space for free breath or activity
outside the control of the
extended-family-party-businesses. In this context,
reform is a meaningless word. The Kurdish society
has been pushed towards a deadlock which, in the
absence of democratic participation and Opposition,
has left people like the time of Saddam Husain
hoping for change through an outside intervention or
an opportunity for a new uprising. Therefore
although the ideas and projects of the reformists,
like Nawshirwan Mustafa and the grouping of the four
smaller parties, may represent the interest and
demands of the majority of people, it is a testimony
of their helplessness and impotence, as well as lack
of leadership and courage, that they are afraid even
to wrench themselves outside the shadows of the two
corrupt dominant parties and announce themselves
together with other independent civil society
organisations and personalities as an Opposition
alliance. These groups are prisoners of their own
past. They not only did accept the unconstitutional
and illegal control of the two parties over all
aspects of Kurdish society,www.ekurd.net
including illegal appropriation
of a big chunk of Kurdistan region’s budget, but
they have for the last 16 years also shared these
corruptive practices and accepted small handouts
from the larger parties instead of insisting on
transparent constitutional and legal procedures for
the funding of political parties and management of
the government. This has left all power and money
cards in the hands of the leadership of the two
dominant parties.
Dilemma of opposition and
change
In his article: “After all these criticisms what can
be done? “Nawshirwan Mustafa explains how the
reality of the hegemony of the two parties has made
most people hopeless about any possibility of
change. He writes: “The two powers: the two parties
[Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP)] have usurped all the
government bodies and institutions, wealth and
finances of the country, the salaries and wages of
hundreds of thousands of officials, employees, and
pensioners. They control the fuel, land, property
and food of the people. They can take them away and
leave a family homeless and hungry on the street.
The two powers have their own security force,
police, peshmarga and secret organisations. They
have control over the courts and prisons. Therefore
people are scared of them and whatever we do will be
useless. It will have no effect as they can suppress
any movement very easily."
This situation has, Nawshirwan Mustafa opines, made
some people give up believing that they cannot face
such an entrenched power. On the other hand, he
writes, “because Kurdish power has monopolized all
the powers for itself, and by so doing has alienated
the people, it is always sacred of elections and any
other democratic change. They try to keep power in
their hands at whatever cost and not to lose
control. To achieve this aim they frighten people
with external threat. They try to keep the people of
Kurdistan in constant fear and anxiety to make them
think that without them Iraq, Iran and Turkey will
eat them up.”
In an interview with Hawalti, the Secretary of
Kurdistan Toilers’ Party (one of the four smaller
parties) says: “We are the victim of lack of law and
transparency. For two years now 57 members of
Kurdistan parliament [out of 111 members] including
KDP and PUK MPs have been demanding the regulation
of PUK and KDP budgets by law and to have the budget
allocated to political parties including KDP and
PUK’s declared to parliament in a transparent way.
Those who have not been prepared to do this are KDP
and PUK not other parties.” [Hawlati, 2 February,
2009]
This is a very sad statement of the state of
politics, political legitimacy, role of parliament
and the attitude of parties that are expected to act
as Opposition in Kurdistan region. For 17 years PUK
and KDP have continued their illegal usurpation of
people’s budget and life chances and for two years
the majority of a puppet group called Kurdistan
parliament supposed to represent people asks or begs
party leaders to act lawfully and declare their
stolen budgets, but they are ignored and there are
no judges to investigate them and no policemen to
arrest them. And for 17 years the smaller parties
that get only a beggar’s handout of this robbery
accept this situation and even their MPs, for fear
of losing their own personal interests and
privileges, are not prepared to cry out and resign
over this national scandal, which has made Kurdish
experience appear to the world as a robbery project
rather than a nation-building one.
Opportunities for
opposition after 2003
Yes, in a way the dilemma of Qadir Aziz and other
small parties is understandable. PUK and KDP leaders
did not hesitate in engaging in a criminal four year
fratricidal war over the small revenues of Ibrahim
Khalil (1994-1998), a war that involved ugly acts of
treason unprecedented in the history of any other
national movement in the world. Therefore the
smaller parties have a point when they say they have
been accepting this status quo to keep Kurdish unity
and prevent further fratricide. But if there was
such a justification until April 2003, there was no
such excuse after that. The last five years was the
golden time for the emergence of civil non-violent
democratic Opposition. It is the mentality of
self-interest, one-man leadership, enjoying the
fruits of corruption, fear of change and
indifference to people’s pains and hopes that is
shared by all Kurdish parties’ leaders that has
prevented the emergence and operation of any
democratic government or alternative. Otherwise,
while before 2003 KDP and PUK could have invited
Saddam’s, Turkish or Iranian armies to protect their
power, as they already had done before 2003, it was
impossible for them to do so with the presence of
American and multinational forces and the new
political process in Iraq. This made non-violent
political opposition not only possible but
imperative to prevent the repetition of the treasons
and crimes and tribal politics of the past as well
building a new democratic future for our nation.
Democratic changes in Iraq in five years
The process of the recreation of Iraq
constitutionally and as democratic institutions
should have given courage, motivation and example to
aspiring Kurdish politicians and parties to act
vigorously to take advantage of these opportunities
to ensure that Kurdistan (this great model of
democracy for the rest of Iraq!) would not get
behind again and lose legitimacy of self-rule. But
the failure of Qadir Aziz, other party leaders,
Nawshirwan Mustafa and Jawhar Namiq to even dare to
call themselves Opposition or to even to say that
they have intention to work as Opposition
demonstrates to the outside not only the degree of
oppressiveness and dictatorial intolerance that
marks KDP/PUK monopoly of power, but it also shows
that Kurdistan is bereft of men of credibility,
courage, character and conviction. Just look at the
epochal changes that have been happening in Iraq
just in five years, despite its ruin, terrorism and
sectarian strife, and compare it with the
retardation of Kurdish politics, society and culture
under selfish power-hungry anti-democratic warlords.
• In Iraq, different trends and directions and
realignments have happened within Sunni groups.
• Al-Dawa party and the Supreme Islamic Council
abandoned their consensual anti-democratic coalition
ad fought the councils elections as two separate
parties.
• Muqtada al-Sadr left leadership of his group to
other people and different trends have appeared
within his group.
• Al-Ja’fari split from al-Maliki and set up his own
political organisation and fought elections
independently.
• In addition, in the last five years there have
been two presidents (the former’s name has already
been forgotten by people) and three premiers, two
premiers have changed through elections and
parliamentary action.
• The Speaker of parliament was toppled by the
rebellion of MPs.
• Iraqi parliament has proved its effectiveness in
many areas and cases for example the amendments to
Iraq/US security agreement, the discussion, analysis
and approval of the budget, the setting up of
various parliamentary commissions, the setting up of
the High Electoral Commission and supervising
elections, etc.
• The work of Iraqi parliament has been transparent
and parliamentary sessions have been real and shown
to people on TV screens
• The political diversity and democratic tolerance
reached a level that even terrorists who had
participated in criminal terrorist acts have been
allowed to set up their own groups and participate
in elections.
• The latest successful provincial elections were
another landmark of Iraq’s recognised democratic
process.
• Al-Maliki has proved his credential as a powerful
leader with vision, character and determination.
• There is maximum freedom of organization and
freedom of expression in every way possible and to
every one as graphically demonstrated by the
Ba’thist journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi’s throwing
his shoes at the ex-President of the US George W.
Bush in December 2008.
But in Kurdistan the old guards Masu’d Barzani and
Jalal Talabani are leaders for life and their
political bureaus are never-dying dinosaurs and
their parties are their personal companies and the
government is a party business and everything even
air, as a young journalist wrote, is monopolized by
them with no space for justice, equality, democracy,
opposition, diversity and difference. Yet people
like Kurdistan Socialist Party and Kurdistan Toilers
Party leaders and people like Nawshirwan Mustafa
that have participated in Kurdish national movement
in the mountains and they have personally more proud
records that shameful ones, still until this very
moment are too timid and feeble to even suggest that
they would act or want to act as democratic
Opposition!
Lack of leadership
The Toilers’ Party leader Qadir Aziz explains the
reason for this, in his interview with Hawlati, as
follows: “If the [smaller] parties have not become
Opposition, it is not because they do not want to
become Opposition. But because the grounds for
Opposition from the viewpoint of these two [dominant
KDP and PUK] parties and from the viewpoint of the
smaller parties themselves and the society have not
been matured. There is still no persuasion and that
level of democracy by these two parties that they
would see the existence of Opposition as the
complimentary and benefit of their party and as a
yardstick to show the health of their power. There
is still no law for the protection of the rights of
the Opposition. Still the parties outside power
cannot protect themselves from the threat of these
two parties if they choose to become Opposition. In
addition, the society and the consciousness of
people have not developed enough to realise the need
for Opposition and support it. It is true that
people generally have discontent but this discontent
has not become a conscious position yet. People vote
less for programmes [than for parties] and PUK and
KDP have managed to tie people to themselves through
the salaries they give them.” (Hawlati, 2 February
2009) It is really tragic to read these feeble
excuses. It does not only speak of lack of courage
and will but also of lack of basic understanding of
democratic politics and law. Political parties
exist: as ideas, organisations and leadership, to
educate people, work with people and lead people not
to follow people and wait for people to understand
and support them. In fact, Kurdish street has been
an angry oppositional street for many years. It is
the failure of parties and leaders to inspire,
instigate and organize them that have hindered the
development of people’s anger and frustration to
organised opposition and even uprising. Kurdistan
Toilers’ leader says “PUK and KDP have managed to
tie people to themselves through the salaries they
give them.” This is absolutely true. But who is
responsible for allowing PUK and PUK control
Kurdistan’s 17 per cent Iraqi budget, Kurdistan’s
other revenues and resources and use this money to
pay an army of party members and party militias and
thus turn them into servants in a medieval-style
serfdom system called ‘model of democracy in the
Middle East’? For years I read Mr Aziz complaining
about KDP/PUK‘s secret budget but this complaint
remained feeble,www.ekurd.net
hesitant and fearful. Or the
other hand, have the smaller parties managed to
offer people a new example of leadership and party
organisation? Have they managed to create, support
and develop a generation of new leaders and
established the collective, democratic, legal style
of leadership and team work? Have they refused to
imitate KDP and PUJK’s corruption and obsession with
money, property and personal privileges? Have they
involved people and consulted them to inform their
policies and programmes? Sadly, the answer to all
these questions is no. Mr Aziz suggests that they
must be invited and allowed by KDP and PUK and then
they can play the role of Opposition. They want a
law to protect them. But he contradicts himself
later by saying that there is already a political
parties’ law but KDP and PUK ignore it like any
other law they do not find useful to them.
Example of real leadership
Courage, conviction, consistency, character and
commitment to people’s cause are the necessary
qualities of real leaders. You cannot be a leader
and avoid taking any risks. Real leader are prepared
to face any challenges as far as possible and
reasonable and make sacrifices. Nelson Mandela is a
leader because he is Nelson Mandela: a man of
integrity, courage, conviction, consistency and
commitment and a history of struggle and sacrifice
to prove these qualities to the whole world. That is
why he succeeded and became an eternal example of
courageous and committed democratic leadership.
Yesterday another African leader achieved success
after a long history of relentless struggle and
incredible courage and sacrifices. He is Zimbabwe's
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. He, as the
London Times puts it, made his ‘journey from poverty
to power” through his courage, steadfastness and
strong will and leadership qualities. That is how
the Times (on 12 January 2008) describes him:
“Mr Tsvangirai, 56, has proved beyond doubt his
courage, tenacity and personal integrity. He is
Zimbabwe's most popular and charismatic politician.”
“Mr Tsvangirai was the eldest of nine children born
to a poor bricklayer. He excelled at school but had
to leave at 16 to support his siblings. While peers
became freedom fighters, and as Mr Mugabe amassed
degrees while imprisoned by the Rhodesian
authorities, Mr Tsvangirai began work as a sweeper
in a textile factory, moved to a nickel mine as a
plant operator, and became an increasingly active
trade unionist.
He rose through the ranks until in 1988 he became
secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions, a position that brought him into conflict
with the regime. In 1999 he helped to found the MDC
to resist Zimbabwe's slide towards dictatorship, and
in 2000 the grassroots party handed Mr Mugabe his
first electoral defeat when voters rejected
constitutional changes to expand the President's
powers.
In 1997 an eight-man assassination squad burst into
Morgan Tsvangirai's tenth-floor office in Harare and
tried to force him through the window. He was saved
by his secretary's screams, but was left lying in a
pool of blood.
In 2002 grainy film emerged of Mr Tsvangirai
purportedly plotting with a former Israeli
intelligence agent to assassinate President Mugabe.
He was charged with treason and for two years a
death sentence hung over his head until a judge
decided that he had been framed.
In 2007 he was arrested, beaten and tortured for
attending a banned opposition meeting. His skull was
cracked and pictures of his bruised and bloodied
face shocked the world.
Over the past decade Mr Tsvangirai has survived at
least three assassination attempts, numerous death
threats and repeated assaults, beatings and
imprisonments. Hundreds of his fellow activists have
been abducted, tortured and killed. He is denounced
regularly as a Western stooge and his wife and the
youngest of his six children live in Johannesburg
for their safety. But yesterday he became Zimbabwe's
Prime Minister and from now on he must work in
tandem with the man ultimately responsible for all
that violence. “ (Times, 12 January 2009)
That is how leaders are made and make their destiny
and triumph whether in power or in martyrdom. The
tragedy of Kurds is that we do not have such
leaders. People like Qadir Aziz and Nawshirwan
Mustafa expect success to come to them on a silver
plate instead of going for it. People like Talabani
and Barzani believe they are not mortal and want to
take care of their family fiefdoms as long as they
can at the expense of their nation and the
opportunities of present and coming generation for a
free and dignified life.
Nawshirwan Mustafa’s
alternative road maps for change
Nawshirwan Mustafa in his above-mentioned article
does not identify a solution for going out of the
impasse he has talked about. He only mentions
various possibilities:
(1) Reform led by the leaders of the two parties:
“They should prohibit their political bureaus and
their offices, their party centres and branches,
from daily interfering in all the institutions of
legislative, executive and judiciary powers as well
as in the market, universities, police and security.
Mechanism of punishment should be established for
all those who contravene this decision, whatever
ranks they may have.”
(2) Reform of the current institutions: judiciary,
parliament and the cabinet: “This is something that
is not achievable. These powers are not the real
powers of the country. Behind them there is another
power that manages these powers and rules the
country and this is ‘the ghost power’, which is the
political party and its apparatchik within its
leadership. Therefore we must not build any hope on
this way to change.”
(3) Reform within the political parties. History of
the parties and experience has shown that this is
near impossible. “The same dominant faction in the
party will use every means, including even the use
of the gun, to protect its survival, positions,
powers and privileges. It will silence different
discourses and dialogues, and suppresses different
ideas and opinions and the reform and change
wings.Political party, since the uprising [of 1991],
has lost its ability for a true change and renewal
because of the monopoly of its powers, achievements,
finances and privileges by a dominant strata. It is
not capable of renewal. Therefore, any attempt for
change through this road will lead to a dead-end.”
(4) Changing staff and persons, unlike other
democratic countries, cannot change anything as the
system itself is faulty and problematic. According
to Mustafa :“The [present] system of the management
of the country is based on some pillars including:
• The confusion between the party and the
institutions of legislative, executive and judiciary
powers
• Total control over finances, security, police and
peshmarga
• Darkening (hiding information about] the budget
and financial, economic and commercial affairs.
• Darkening (hiding information about) the political
relations between the region and abroad.”
(5) Having convinced that any change within the
current political power is not possible, Mustafa
considers changes outside the political power, or
through people’s action. These are the possibilities
he identifies generally:
"Answers:
• By using violence: coup, revolt, urban mass
uprising
• By civil opposition: strikes, demonstrations,
boycotting elections, fighting back against the
officials
• By democratic competition: elections at all levels
Second question: By what means can change be
achieved?
• By setting up a new political party
• By forming a broad coalition (front) of organized
opposition
• By creating a syndicate alternative
• By forming different and competing lists in the
elections
Third question: What needs to be changed?
• The system of the country’s administration
• establishing the rule of law
• Separation of state powers
Mustafa concludes: "The
questions are difficult but the answers are even
harder!"
Agenda for change without
instrument
While Nawshirwan Mustafa's writings provide a lot of
ideas for an 'agenda for change', they also
demonstrate the difficult task of articulating
Opposition or alternatives in Kurdistan. His answers
are confusing. It is not clear in the way he has
classifies the answers whether he sees them as
excusive or interdependent. For example: forming a
broad coalition, setting up a new party, creating
alternative lists for competing in elections do not
need to be mutually exclusive. They in fact can be
all necessary interdependent measures. However,
Nawshirwan Mustafa and others thinking of change are
too late in offering these ideas and also they seem
to be offering too little. But the optimistic
position is " It is better to be late than never".
The examples of changes in Iraq mentioned above show
how the pace of change can take its own momentum
once the principles, procedures and path of
democratic alternative are established. The question
and challenge for 'reformists' in Kurdistan is how
to ensure that sound democratic process and free and
fair elections are put in place.
The way forward
This is a difficult task in the face of the huge
power of the two parties mentioned by Mustafa and
Qadir Aziz. Narrow-minded isolationist approaches
and efforts will be futile. If democratic change is
desirable and vital because people want them and
because the future of our nation depends on it, then
all people, all the groups that are suffering from
injustice, must be part of the process of change and
contribute to it. If the separation of party power
from government and civil institutions is the common
ground, then party mentalities and party political
culture must also be changed by everyone. The best
way forward among they answers suggested by
Nawshirwan Mustafa is "forming a broad coalition
(front) of organized [democratic] opposition". All
ideological and historical differences must be put
aside for the sake of enabling such a broad
coalition. Kurdistan Socialist Party and Kurdistan
Toilers Party have taken a bold and important
historical step by allying with two other Islamic
parties on a programme,www.ekurd.net
as outlined in their report,
which is completely secular, constitutional,
democratic and legitimate. This step should not be
ad hoc and an opportunistic one. The two parties
should continue and develop this alliance as an
election pact. Also Nawshirwan Mustafa's group and
other should be prepared to work with them. Without
a broad alliance the democratic process I mentioned
above will not succeed. The two parties will be able
to use money and influence and their army of paid
party workers to control people and fudge the
elections. It is vital that urgent co-ordinated
action is taken by any group and individual
concerned about ending the corrupt politico-economic
system that is threatening the future of Kurdistan
region. This broad coalition can include:
1. The four parties
2. Nawshirwan Mustafa's group and supporters
3. Organisations of civil society like CHAK and
other groups in Kurdistan and abroad
4. Women's and young people's groups
5. Independent and privately-owned newspapers and
publications
6. Independent political activists, politicians ,
writers , and intellectuals
7. Impendent Kurdish website
8. Support of Kurdish citizens abroad
9. Support of international organisations and
democratic governments
10. Support of the UN bodies
What all these groups have always called for and are
prepared to agree on as the bottom line is the three
'changes' mentioned by Mustafa:
• The system of the country’s administration
• establishing the rule of law
• Separation of state powers
If this is the common aim, then why should
co-ordination and common action be such a difficult
task?
References:
1."Interview with Kurdistan Toilers' Party
Secretary", Hawlati, 2 February 2009.
2. Nawshirwan Mustfa: "After all these criticisms,
what can be done", Rozhnama , translated by Dr Kamal
Mirawdeli
3. The Times, 12 January 2009.
Copyright, respective
author or news agency,
californiachronicle com
The contents of this article reflect the author's
personal opinions
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