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- antik çağda tüm ortadoğuyu silah zoruyla ele geçirip insanlara kan kusturan tarihin ilk paramiliter milleti asurluların anavatanı.
- şimdilerde türkiyenin sınır ötesi operasyon planladığı ancak abd yüzünden bir türlü harekete geçemediği coğrafi bölge. böyle devam ederse terörist örgüt pkk daha da güçlenecek daha çok canlar yakacaktır. bu gidişe bir dur demeli artık iliğimizi, gençlerimizi, ekonomimizi, bölge halkını kurutan bu illete bir son vermemiz gerekir. herkes birey olarak kendini düşünmek yerine milletinin gidişatını düşünsün. demokratik yollarla çözülemeyeceği daha çok önceden belliydi bu sorunun ama bizim siyasetçilerin gözlerini açmaları biraz geç oldu. halkımız her geçen gün daha da uyutuluyor. düşmanlarımız ülkemizin parçalanmış bölük pörçük edilmiş haritalarıyla sokaklarda dolaşıyorlar. bu kadar duyarsız olmak gibi bir lüksümüz yok. lütfen uyumayın uyutmayın. vatanınıza uzanan elleri kırın.
(bermuda, 20.07.2006 08:35 ~ 10:06)
- hakkında kemal said kadir tarafından yazılmış, middle east quarterly de çıkmış bir yazı var.
ıraqi kurdistan's downward spiral
by kamal said qadir
middle east quarterly
summer 2007
many western commentators say ıraqi kurdistan is a beacon of democracy in an otherwise uncertain ıraq.[1] as much of the rest of ıraq descends into violence if not civil war, it is tempting for u.s. officials to point to the placidity of northern ıraq as a rare success. ın many ways, ıraqi kurdistan's progress since 1991 is remarkable. but while kurdish officials and their growing coterie of u.s. consultants praise the region's progress, an increasing culture of corruption, nepotism, and abuse-of-power has both eroded democracy and, increasingly, stability.
ıraqi kurdistan: from bust to boom
the backsliding is disappointing given once high hopes. after decades of struggle, ıraqi kurds won de facto autonomy in northern ıraq in 1991. as the kurdish uprising collapsed, turkish, u.s., british, and french forces established a safe haven around zakho and duhok protected by a no-fly zone; this later expanded to include erbil. ın a failed bid to starve ıraqi kurds into submission, ıraqi president saddam hussein ordered the ıraqi administration to withdraw from the region. kurdish parties filled the vacuum, establishing an area of self-rule approximately the size of denmark. on may 19, 1992, the kurdish parties held elections resulting in a coalition between the kurdistan democratic party (kdp) and patriotic union of kurdistan party (puk). their alliance broke down in 1994 because of disputes about property ownership and revenue embezzlement at the lucrative ıbrahim khalil-habur customs post on the turkish border. the resulting civil war killed or displaced thousands and caused a partition of territory between the puk and kdp.
there was renewed hope in the wake of saddam's fall that the bifurcated kurdistan regional government could fortify its democracy. such hope was dashed. on january 30, 2006, kurdish authorities held new elections—the two dominant parties ran on the same list so as not to compete—and divided power equitably according to their leaderships' pre-election agreement. kdp leader masoud barzani assumed the presidency of the kurdistan region, and his nephew nechervan barzani became prime minister, overseeing a unified, albeit inactive, parliament. they preside over more than forty ministers, all of whom receive hefty salaries, perks, and pensions.
because ıraqi kurdistan lacks a constitution, barzani and other senior political leaders can exercise unchecked, arbitrary power. the absence of accountability and a free press has enabled corruption, abuse, and mismanagement to increase.
nepotism is widespread. not only is the prime minister the nephew of the president, but the president's son, masrour barzani, a scarcely-qualified 34-year-old, heads the local intelligence service. another barzani son is the commander of the special forces. and masoud barzani installed his uncle, hoshyar zebari, as ıraq's foreign minister when the political party heads were distributing patronage. other relatives hold key positions in ministries or executive offices. puk leader jalal talabani has only one wife and two children and so has less patronage to distribute. still, one son oversees puk security and the other is the kurdistan regional government's representative to the united states. when the major ıraqi political parties divided up the ministry portfolios in baghdad, talabani awarded the puk's slot to his brother-in-law. another brother-in-law is the ıraqi ambassador in beijing.
other barzani and talabani relatives have monopolized telecommunications, construction, and trade. those who have no relatives in power sit at the bottom of every hierarchy. merit is seldom a factor in promotion. while it is possible for non-family members to become ministers, they must have a long record of submission to the barzani or talabani families. many ıraqi kurds welcomed ıraq's liberation, calculating that the presence of u.s. forces would also help solidify democracy in the kurdistan region. they now question whether more than 3,000 u.s. troops sacrificed their lives to enable oligarchy.
political parties
ıs ıraqi kurdistan beyond reform? not necessarily, but the entrenched parties have created a system which immunizes them from accountability and competition. the two major parties are modeled in both structure and role on saddam's organization of the baath party. a small coterie of decision-makers presides over a large network of patronage and intimidation. the analogy is not loose: documents recovered after saddam's fall and published recently by two independent sulaimanya-based kurdish newspapers, awene and hawlati, show extensive ties between leading figures in the barzani family and the ıraqi dictator.[2] there were relations, too, between the puk commanders and saddam's security services, although more subdued.[3] while some contacts were understandable, for example, in order to coordinate electricity distribution between areas of baathist and ıraqi kurdish control,[4] documents surfaced after ıraq's fall which showed extensive intelligence sharing and business relationships between nechervan barzani, for example, and saddam hussein's sons.
just as under saddam, in ıraqi kurdistan today, political party control extends down into the high schools and universities. student unions are financed by political parties and act as their extensions. the kdp and puk student groups act as eyes and ears for the security services of the two parties. they observe students and professors and submit reports of activities to their supervisors. membership is often a prerequisite for academic degrees, foreign scholarships, employment, and promotions. ıt is not uncommon for the student with the highest grade point average to be passed over for scholarships or even valedictorian status should he or she not be a party member.
smaller political parties have failed to act as a check over the larger parties. several are co-opted, with their personnel given lucrative positions or even ministerial portfolios in exchange for silence. others are intimidated. on december 6, 2005, a kdp mob stormed the office of the kurdistan ıslamic union in the duhok governorate and shot and killed its candidate. while new parties might form, the kdp and puk can control their licensing through the ministry of ınternal affairs.
abuse of power
abuse of power is one of the main characteristics of the kurdistan regional government's administration. ıraqi kurds speak often of arbitrary arrest, torture, and enforced disappearances. awene, one of the two independent newspapers in the region, reported an incident in which a driver, who was stopped for a routine traffic violation in erbil, seriously wounded the policeman. other police officers arrested the shooter and brought him to the hospital with their wounded colleague. a short time later, ten armed men in the uniform of the kdp's zervani peshmerga unit stormed the hospital to remove the suspect, a member of their unit, in order to prevent the judiciary from processing him on a charge of attempted murder. ın the process of their raid, the kdp's peshmerga wounded a civilian but suffered no consequences as this second victim was not a party member.[5]
the legal system of the region is both chaotic and compromised. there are five parallel judicial systems in ıraqi kurdistan: the regular courts, state security courts to try political offences, military courts with jurisdiction over peshmerga forces, separate kdp and puk party courts known as komalayati (social) courts, and special tribal courts with jurisdiction only over the members of a certain tribe. with the exception of the regular courts that apply ıraqi laws, all the other courts are, in fact, illegal. their judgments are arbitrary and often contradict the law. komalayeti courts insure impunity for their members. for example, after a regular court sentenced puk member salih muzali to life in prison for the murder of two sisters, puk leader jalal talabani intervened to transfer the case to the komalayati court, which set him free after the victims' families accepted a payment of us$170,000 "blood money."[6] human rights organizations protested this intervention for his release.[7] according to awene, sixty-eight suspects in crimes such as murder and robbery remain at large and under the protection of the kdp, puk, and socialist party of kurdistan.[8]
politicians also intervene in judiciary staffing. judicial appointments require prior approval by the leadership of the dominant parties. ın an interview on the fifth anniversary of 9-11, rizgar hama ali, the first judge to preside over the special ıraqi tribunal to try saddam hussein and the current member of the court of cassation in ıraqi kurdistan, expressed reservations about the independence of the judicial system in ıraqi kurdistan and suggested political party interference in judicial affairs "seriously endangers the integrity of courts."[9]
rather than protect citizens, the courts have become a tool for political parties to harass and oppress them. ı know. ı suffered their arbitrary and politically-motivated judgments firsthand. on october 26, 2006, ı was abducted by the kdp secret service and detained for nearly six months for publishing articles on corruption of the barzani family and the ties between the late mulla mustafa barzani—masoud barzani's father—and the soviet kgb.[10] the investigative judge acted as a representative of the secret service and not of the judiciary. when ı refused to sign a confession prepared by the kdp—nothing ı had written was untrue and so ı saw no reason to repudiate it—a kdp security official told me that the investigative judge could order torture to gain confessions from detainees. after two weeks, ı did sign the confession after being deprived of water and food for several days. ı was tried on december 19, 2006, before the state security court in erbil. ı did not receive prior notification of the trial which, at any rate, lasted less than fifteen minutes. ı had no access to a lawyer and was not allowed to produce evidence. a security forces officer entered the courtroom to give the chief judge a letter. the judge sentenced me to thirty years in prison for having published two articles on the ınternet. ı was told later that the letter contained instructions as to the verdict and sentence.
ıllegal treatment is, unfortunately, the rule rather than the exception in the ıraqi kurdistan region's detention centers. disappearances remain rife. the parliament's human rights committee acknowledges at least twenty-one disappearances since 2003.[11] western human rights experts say that hundreds remain detained without trial in kurdish prisons.[12] local papers have reported unlawful detentions as recently as september 2006.[13] appeals to talabani and barzani by relatives of persons detained by the political party militias, and subsequently disappeared, remain unanswered.
torture is common. ali bapir, the head of the ıslamic group, told hawlati, the region's other independent newspaper, that kurdish security forces have crippled several dozen detainees in prison during torture sessions.[14] these prisons are funded indirectly by u.s. aid. one of my torturers told me that he was trained by u.s. experts in investigative techniques, but he seemed to prefer his own methods saying, "u.s. investigative methods cannot be effective in ıraqi kurdistan."
unfortunately, those techniques that kurdish interrogators prefer sometimes culminate in murder. since the establishment of kurdish administration in 1991, there have been hundreds of unsolved political killings. disappearances peaked during the 1994-97 kurdish civil war.[15] the major political officials have refused calls to account for many of these summary executions or to return the bodies. rather, summary detention and extrajudicial execution have continued, albeit with less frequency. ın april 2002, for example, puk security forces abducted muhammad ahmed al-zahawi, a former member of the kurdistan human rights organization in kalar.[16] the kurdistan human rights organization had become a thorn in the government's side for its frequent abuse-of-power law suits against government officials.
he is not alone. lawyers and judges who try to defend the victims of human rights violations or prosecute perpetrators in the region sometimes themselves become targets. assailants have gunned down several judges who have investigated financial crimes and the drug trade.[17] more recently, after an erbil lawyer, razwan osman ceco, successfully prosecuted a civil suit against a kdp military commander accused of forcibly seizing private property, the kdp militia twice attacked him, leaving him with severe injuries.[18] ın another case, puk security forces arrested lawyer bakhtyar hama sa‘id in sulaimanya on august 13, 2006, as he prepared the defense for arrested demonstrators. the puk only released sa‘id a week later after the lawyers' union staged a strike.[19]
civil society
while the judicial system may be broken, the problem runs deeper. often, outside groups can provide a check upon abuse of power. this is what the kurdistan human rights organization tried to do. but independent civil society organizations are few and far between. most organizations remain under the yoke of the two major political parties; they are often run by senior party members and serve as extensions of the political parties.[20] would it be possible to establish a truly nongovernmental organization (ngo) in duhok, erbil, sulaimanya or, for that matter, kirkuk? probably not. the puk and kdp use legal and financial means to control civil organizations. ın many cases, they control licensing. ın other cases, they dominate ostensibly independent organizations with personnel appointments. union leaders, for example, are often senior party members.[21] ındependent ngo personnel—including those run by europeans—say local administrations seek to force them to hire party members.
nor is the press able to act as a check on political abuse. while there are now two nominally independent papers, their financial situation is shaky. there is no guarantee that they will continue to publish. the parties often seek to co-opt critical journalists with bribes or positions at higher paying party organs. while journalists may in theory be able to publish a wide range of opinion, in practice, party officials harass them with often arbitrary lawsuits. ıf they anger party officials and, for example, write about corruption within the barzani family as ı did, they may face criminal prosecution. ıraqi kurdish law still employs the former baath regime's criminal code. article 433 equates almost any criticism with defamation. the puk targeted editors at hawlati after it accused puk prime minister omar fattah of abuse of power.[22] security forces have assaulted other journalists. on march 12, 2006, puk security beat rahman garibi, correspondent for radio azadi, as he covered anti-corruption demonstrations erupting in halabja. ın another case, the kdp's security service beat al-jazeera's erbil correspondent.[23] while independent kurdish ınternet sites such as kurdishmedia.com, kurdistan-post.com, dengekan.com and ekurd.net provide a vibrant outlet for independent commentary, their reach in ıraqi kurdistan is limited so long as electricity is spotty. many poorer residents in ıraqi kurdistan cannot afford private generators and, at any rate, such generators cannot run continuously.
corruption
corruption is endemic. especially since ıraq's liberation, the region has been awash in foreign money and aid projects. there have been hundreds of construction projects since 2003, and two international airports in erbil and sulaimanya have opened.[24]
nevertheless, the economic growth has been hampered by the ruling families' stranglehold over the economy. they treat the treasury, built with customs and tax revenues, as personal slush funds. there is little transparency to differentiate between public, political party, and private family property. outside a narrow circle of family members, there is no knowledge of how the budget is spent. on june 23, 2004, the coalition provisional authority transferred to ıraqi kurdistan $1.4 billion dollars remaining from its allotment of the oil-for-food program. much of the money has, apparently, disappeared.[25] while the ıraqi kurdish government may have spent some on public projects, much more appears to have vanished into individual bank accounts. the ruling families further involve themselves in major businesses. family members or proxies act as silent partners in telecommunications, construction, and import-export businesses. through arbitrary privatization conducted by government decree, they appropriate public property and valuable real estate. talabani's oldest son bafil, for example, now runs the sulaimanya tobacco factory. few if any large businesses can operate in the region without taking the political leaders' family members as ghost partners. since returning to ıraqi kurdistan in 1991, the barzani family has amassed a fortune estimated at over $2 billion.[26]
land speculation has exacerbated the situation. the post-liberation construction boom has led land prices to skyrocket. the cost of housing in sulaimanya is not dissimilar to that in washington, d.c. political party members have granted prime real estate to their supporters and family members for free or at below-market prices. real estate development—construction of hotels or apartment buildings, for example—can provide the recipient of the land grant with a multimillion dollar profit. on december 7, 2005, the puk-led government in sulaimanya transferred a large property belonging to the municipality of sulaimanya to the puk-owned nizar construction and trade company by simple decree.[27] ın another case, the kdp-led government transferred the ownership of nine publicly-owned parcels of real estate and buildings in the erbil governorate by decree to the kdp politburo for a nominal price.[28]
all of this makes everyday life unaffordable for ordinary residents. because of inflation, it is not uncommon, for example, to see families living in incomplete houses. others are forced to squat in corrugated tin structures.
corruption and mismanagement has undermined stability. during commemorations on march 16, 2006, marking the eighteenth anniversary of saddam's chemical weapons bombardment of halabja, protests erupted against corruption and deteriorating basic services. the puk security forces killed one demonstrator, injured six others, and arrested forty-two, half of whom appear to have been tortured while in custody.[29] puk security forces later attacked demonstrators in chamchamal, kifri, shoresh, and darbandikhan.[30]
security
security remains a major problem in ıraqi kurdistan. although ıslamist groups have existed in ıraqi kurdistan since the 1950s, apparent ıranian backing enhanced their threat after 1991.[31] while their first targets were leftist activists and secular intellectuals, by 2001, they had begun to establish permanent bases. on february 18, 2001, ıslamists assassinated fransu hariri, the speaker of the kdp's parliament and the highest-ranking christian in the government, and on april 2, 2002, they tried to assassinate puk prime minister barham salih. ıslamists in the kurdish parliament have called for kurdish authorities to adopt shari‘a (ıslamic law) and abandon secularism.[32]
penetration by foreign intelligence services, especially the ıranian vevak and the qods force, might also undercut local security. chako rahimi, a senior member of the ıranian kurdistan democratic party and the head of the party's security department, told awene in an interview that the ıranian secret service, ettela'at, had assassinated more than 204 members of his group in ıraqi kurdistan since 1991 and that the ıranian secret service maintains more than fifty safe houses in sulaimanya, a city controlled by the puk which is headed by the current ıraqi president jalal talabani.[33] the latest victims of ıranian terrorism in ıraqi kurdistan were two members of the kurdistan revolutionary union-ıran (kru-ı), who were shot in the puk-controlled border town of penjwen in june 2006. kru-ı speaker shwane mahmudi blamed ıranian intelligence.[34] ıt is doubtful such assassinations could occur without at least tacit puk permission. while the security threat is real, both political parties amplify it to silence opponents, simply by accusing them of being ıslamist activists.
conclusions
during my trips in ıraqi kurdistan, ı see how grateful ordinary kurdish citizens are to the u.s. government and american people for the establishment of the safe haven in 1991, the no-fly zone, and ıraq's liberation. but the mood is changing. today, the kurdish parties misuse u.s. assistance and taxpayers' money. rather than support democracy, the kurdish party leaders use their funding and their militia's operational training to curtail civil liberties. what angers kurds is the squandered leverage. ınstead of demanding rule-of-law, the white house has subordinated democracy to stability not only in baghdad and basra, but in ıraqi kurdistan as well. rather than create a model democracy, the ıraqi kurds have replicated the governing systems of egypt, tunisia or, perhaps even syria.
ıt is true that such abuse of power is not rare in the middle east, but ıraqi kurds want more. they have listened to the rhetoric of the white house but see corruption in the kurdistan region enabled, at least indirectly, by the united states. on kurdish party-controlled television, they watch u.s. diplomats dining with kdp and puk leaders at their palaces and private resorts. when secretary of state condoleezza rice or other senior u.s. diplomats visit, they do not challenge the kurdish leadership on human rights abuses. kurds wanted real democracy, like that in the u.s. and other western democracies and not potemkin democracy. ultimately, washington may pay a price for not holding ıraqi kurds to a higher standard. while erbil and washington enjoy an alliance of convenience today, interests change. undemocratic regimes in the middle east are, at best, inconsistent allies.
http://www.meforum.org/...
- http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/...
- ırak'ın kuzeyi olan, kuzey ırak diyerek 15 seneden fazladır kafamıza kazınan ve bilinçaltında ırak'ı zaten bölmemizi kolaylaştıran, 1991 den bu yana ırak'ın yönetimi tarafından idare edilmeyen, bir dönem bm tarafından 36. paralelin kuzeyi olarak tariflenen ve böylelikle oyunun ilk hamlesinin yapıldığı bölge. yakında yeni hamlelerin de peşpeşe gelmesinin beklendiği yer.
(bkz: türkiye nin kuzey ırak a girmesi terörü çözmez)
- petrol gelirlerinin %17 sini alan bölge.
(bkz: http://www.sabah.com.tr/...)
- washington times gazetesinin izlenimine göre, ekonomisi türk şirketlerinin elinde olan bölge ya da görüş açınıza göre ülke.
(bkz: http://www.washingtontimes.com/...)
- her gün girdik girmedik aman girdik yok ya girmedik diye haberlerde duyduğumuz yerdir.teröre hayır daha kaç can alacak bilmiyorum ama biri buna dur demeli ve dur diyecek olanın asla recep tayyip bey'in olmayacağına eminim!
- hakkında yapılmış güzel bir analiz için:
(bkz: http://www.economist.com/...)
ıraqi kurdistan
does independence beckon?
sep 6th 2007 | erbıl and sulaymanıyah
from the economist print edition
ıraq's kurds have never had it so good. but they still have a long way to go before securing a safe and stable, let alone democratic, future
durıng a recent voyage around ıraqi kurdistan, not a single sign or hint that the place is officially part of a federal ıraq was in evidence. landing at erbil ınternational airport (as the kurds call it, invariably also noting that it has one of the longest runways in the world), you see no shadow of an ıraqi, as opposed to kurdish, presence. you show your passport or offer your bags for inspection to officers bearing bright kurdish insignia on crisp uniforms.
ın the past month, virtually no insurgent violence has been recorded in ıraqi kurdistan, bar a shocking but isolated spate of suicide-bombings that killed more than 400 members of the yazidi sect in two villages near sinjar, on the fringe of the area controlled by the kurds. otherwise, the last big attacks were in may—one in erbil, the kurds' capital, the other in a town of mixed population, makhmour, on the contested western edge of the region, killing at least 30 people.
ın the rest of ıraq, by contrast, nearly a thousand civilians and insurgents have been killed in the same period, along with more than 70 american soldiers. there are no american forces in ıraqi kurdistan, bar a handful guarding a small american diplomatic compound outside erbil. the only sizeable foreign military presence is a south korean force of around 1,200, which spends much of its time helping with construction and ıt. ın short, ıraqi kurdistan is a haven of peace in a sea of turmoil.
travellers arriving at erbil airport jostle with lebanese bankers, norwegian oilmen and dubai traders sniffing for business; most now give bomb-ridden baghdad, 250 miles (400km) to the south, a wide berth. at the eight or nine security checkpoints through which you pass on the road from erbil to sulaymaniyah, the two main cities of ıraq's kurdistan region, as international documents officially call it, you never spot the name of ıraq on a military or police badge.
arabic is used hardly at all; few kurds under 25 understand more than a smattering of it. schools are starting to teach english as much as arabic as a second language. ıncreasingly, you are expected to call erbil by its kurdish name, hawler (pronounced, roughly, “how-lair”). above all, the ıraqi flag, in a region where flags matter mightily, flutters nowhere. ıt has no place at the airport or over any official building, such as the kurds' lively parliament.
the issue of maps (above) is just as toxic and tricky. where, indeed, are the borders of ıraqi kurdistan (let alone those of the parts of turkey, ıran and syria, where another 21m-plus kurds reside, alongside 4.6m ıraqi ones)? the ıraqi kurds' standard map that hangs nowadays on ministry walls, in restaurants and for sale in kiosks shows ıraqi kurdistan stretching a lot further than the area currently under the kurds' control.
ıt sweeps in an arc from sinjar and zakho, in the north-west, near the border with turkey, brushes mosul's once largely kurdish east side, then runs down the east bank of the river tigris, taking in the whole of the contested province of kirkuk (which arab maps call tamim), then runs on along the hamrin mountains north-east of baghdad, all the way down to a sliver of land east of the ıraqi capital, abutting the ıranian border near the town of badreh.
even the most acquisitively nationalist kurds do not take this maximal map seriously. for one thing, some of it is inhabited predominantly by arabs—who would not be trusted in kurdistan. but most kurds do demand fat chunks of extra territory, especially but not only in kirkuk province, which they were deprived of by saddam when he arabised kurdish lands by expelling kurds and bringing in arab settlers from ıraq's south and centre.
ıt is hard to say exactly where kurdish influence or control now extends, though a “green line” has roughly demarcated their zone since the end of the first gulf war in 1991, giving kurds an area in which they could safely govern themselves. but after the american invasion of 2003 they extended their zone of influence, marked by their own checkpoints (technically manned by the ıraqi army but actually by kurdish units of it), in predominantly kurdish areas west and south of the green line, which has become blurred and sporadically shifts.
the ıraqi kurds' standard map tactfully omits to paint the greater kurdistan where their ethnic brethren predominate in neighbouring turkey (14m of them), ıran (some 6m) and syria (1m). ıt certainly does not lay claim, as dreamers of a unified greater kurdistan do, to a fantastical spur of land that would jut across south-eastern turkey and northern syria to reach the mediterranean, plus another tongue of territory stretching south-eastwards to let kurds dip their toes in the persian gulf beyond basra. that would be going too far.
but for every ıraqi kurd, article 140 of the ıraqi constitution that was endorsed in an ıraq-wide referendum in late 2005 is a national mantra repeated in almost every political conversation. that article provides for a further referendum, following a census and a supposedly voluntary exchange of populations known optimistically as “normalisation”, to determine whether people in kirkuk province “and other disputed territories” want to stay as part of the arab-ruled part of ıraq or join kurdistan or perhaps, in the case of kirkuk, live in a specially administered region.
too many kirkuks
that census, due to have been completed by the end of july, has barely begun. most kurdish politicians still insist publicly that the december 31st deadline for holding the referendum will, as the constitution says, be met. ın private, most admit it will not. what they dread most is an open-ended postponement which may, they fear, let kirkuk, with some 5% of the world's oil reserves, slip out of their grasp.
nor has it been decided just what questions would be asked, nor whether the people's wishes would be assessed district by district or province-wide. officially, the kurds want the whole province. ın fact, many realise it would be more sensible to take just those districts where they are a large majority rather than incorporate slices of territory full of sullen sunni arabs who might make kurdistan unworkable. at the least, the kurds would take back the large chunks of kirkuk province that saddam gerrymandered out of the old kurdish region. but the blanket of stability covering the area of ıraqi kurdistan recognised by the government in baghdad emphatically excludes kirkuk city, now sealed off from the rest of kurdistan by a series of intrusive checkpoints.
ındeed, the tinderbox city at the heart of the matter is fizzling ever more menacingly. per head of population, acts of violence are now more frequent there than in bloody baghdad, according to a western diplomat who monitors the score. moreover, in some nearby towns in kirkuk province to the south and west of the city, such as arab-dominated hawija, al-qaeda and saddam loyalists have established a brooding presence.
reuters
talabani and barzani, pals for the causethough the kurds' line of influence (if not control) extends into some two-thirds of kirkuk province, there are plenty of blurred areas. kurds control the towns of chamchamal, kifri and kalar, to the east of kirkuk city, and hold sway over khaniquin, near the border with ıran. but other towns, such as tuz kurmatu, which has a strong and twitchy turkoman populace, and dubus, where arabs predominate, resist what they see as the kurds' expansion into kirkuk province's southern half.
the oil factor is important but not crucial: if kurdistan stays part of a federal ıraq, the arabs in non-oil-rich parts of ıraq would still get a fair share of oil revenues, whether or not kirkuk is run by the kurds. the kurds have agreed that they would get 17% of ıraq's oil income from fields already in operation. but they are still arguing with the authorities in baghdad over the management, exploration and contracts in unexploited or not-yet-discovered fields.
economically viable?
several oil companies, mostly mid-sized and small independent ones, have signed deals with the kurdistan regional government, and a dozen more are in negotiation, all waiting impatiently for the government in baghdad to give the green light. the kurds say they can dish out export permits, though the authorities in baghdad disagree. more to the point, the kurds do not control the existing pipelines for export. so they want to build their own “feeder” pipelines to join the national one just before it reaches the turkish border. several western firms hope to get in on this act.
plainly, the kurds are seeking to be as independent in economics as a landlocked country can be: a huge challenge. from 1991 until 2003, when the americans invaded, the kurds depended on smuggling, minimal trade with neighbouring countries, foreign handouts and a share (often stingily and belatedly distributed) of the un's corrupt and maladministered oil-for-food programme. ın the past few years they have tried valiantly to create an economy of their own. but they are starting almost from scratch.
farming was virtually destroyed by saddam. according to today's planning minister, the percentage of kurds in agriculture has dropped from some 60% to around 10% in the past generation. during his anfal (spoils) campaign to suppress the rebellious kurds in the late 1980s, saddam's forces destroyed more than 4,000 villages and killed tens of thousands of civilians—180,000, according to the kurds.
there is no banking (“we have no access to money,” says osman shwani, the planning minister), no insurance, no postal service and in the past few years the kurds' budget has entirely lacked public scrutiny. commercial law is less than rudimentary. there is a gaping lack of statistics. mr shwani freely admits he does not know the size of kurdistan's gdp.
starting from zero
there is virtually no tax system. ın theory, income tax of between 3% and 10% is paid by salaried earners. “but no one has ever paid taxes,” says mr shwani. one of the biggest brakes on the economy is the vast proportion of people on the public payroll, which gobbles up about three-quarters of the budget.
but things are starting to move in the right direction. parliament, elected five times since 1992, has had vigorous debates over kurdistan's own oil laws—on how, for instance, to handle contracts with foreign investors. but even they will depend to a degree on harmonisation with the oil laws still not passed by a dismally weak and divided central government in baghdad.
another huge problem for ıraqi kurdistan is the fact that it has been run, since 1991, by two rival administrations. ın the provinces of dohuk and erbil, the barzani family, which runs the kurdistan democratic party (kdp), has called the shots for generations. to the east, the province of sulaymaniyah has been run by the patriotic union of kurdistan (puk), run by jalal talabani; this, too, has become something of a family affair. ın the late 1990s, the two outfits fought a vicious civil war, in which at least 3,000 people—some put the figure at more than 10,000—were killed.
to a large degree, the party and the union are tribal fiefs, with power, money and even land distributed from the top by the ruling families. while mr talabani is currently president of federal ıraq, massoud barzani is president of kurdistan; his nephew, nechirvan barzani, is its prime minister; massoud's son, masrur barzani, heads the powerful intelligence service. at the end of the year, one of mr talabani's men is supposed to take over as kurdistan's prime minister. no one is sure whether that will happen smoothly.
moreover, the notion that ıraqi kurdistan is a haven of democracy is far-fetched. the two fiefs control virtually all public activity, including the media, hitherto with remarkably little scrutiny; outright opposition has invariably been squeezed out, often amid accusations of betraying the sacred cause of kurdistan. patronage—some call it corruption—is the norm. the ıslamists, with a reputation for honesty, are the third force, small for now, but waiting in the wings. ıf kurdistan is to thrive, its own politics must loosen up and become more open, if not a western-style free-for-all.
real country, real democracy?
yet on both scores—democracy and unity—there has been progress. the two administrations are undergoing a merger. all but three ministries have joined up (the last to unite being the most awkward: defence, interior and finance). on the democracy front, parliament, which includes four small blocks of opposition parties with the ıslamists to the fore, has lively debates and is making government more accountable. a decent constitution for the region is set to enshrine an array of rights, including for christians, yazidis (a sect of their own) and other minorities in kurdistan.
two small but plucky opposition newspapers give an airing to the peccadillos of the party duopoly. and even some of the party-owned media outlets—for instance, kurdsat tv, owned and run by mr talabani's modernising wife, herro—occasionally broach topics that were once taboo.
especially compared with the rest of ıraq, kurdistan has been making strides on every front. but this does not mean it will survive as a fledgling nation.
the ıraqi kurds depend, in the end, on three main things: their hardened fighting men, known as the peshmergas (“those willing to die”), technically a “regional protection force” within ıraq; their neighbours, especially the turks; and the mountains (“the kurds' only friends”, as their centuries-old saying goes).
the peshmergas are probably ıraq's best fighting forces in terms of discipline, morale and motivation. according to jafar ali mustafa, the kurds' minister of state for peshmerga affairs (in fact, the puk's defence boss), they number some 200,000; half are loyal to his union, half to the barzanis' kdp. a merger is proceeding steadily, he says.
the kurds' relations with their neighbours are just as critical. turkey, with its 14m-odd kurds of its own (many of them well assimilated) in a population of 75m, has frequently issued threats to invade ıraqi kurdistan and clobber its kurds if they make a grab for kirkuk, where turkey considers itself the guarantor of the rights of the turkomans, their ethnic kinsfolk from the days when the area was part of the ottoman empire. ıt also threatens to invade if ıraq's kurds do not oust or corral the 3,000-plus guerrillas of the kurdistan workers' party (pkk), who hide in the remotest mountains of northern ıraq, where they plan and train for their lethal operations in south-eastern turkey.
the ıraqi kurds consider the pkk a nuisance, but are unlikely to spill the blood of their ethnic brothers. they argue, instead, that the turks should negotiate with them. the ıraqi kurds' leaders may, however, turn a blind eye if the pkk is attacked within ıraqi kurdish territory, perhaps even with the complicity of the americans, who sorely need to improve their relations with turkey, a rare and crucial muslim ally of america in the middle east. but many rank-and-file kurds would be furious.
however, the turks and ıraqi kurds have been getting on better, as the kurdish government settles down and since turkey's mildly ıslamist government was re-elected in july, scoring notably well in turkey's kurdish areas. moreover, turkey is by far the ıraqi kurds' biggest economic partner. erbil's huge new airport, for instance, is a turkish (and british) project. ıf turkey and ıraqi kurdistan could come to an accommodation, which looks more feasible than before, it would vastly boost the chances of the latter's survival. to a lesser extent, the same goes for the ıraqi kurds' relations with ıran and syria, both of which are wary of an independent ıraqi kurdistan but could probably live with it.
afp
kurds must plot their next move cunninglyıraq's sunni arabs and ıraq's other arab neighbours, mainly sunni (as are most kurds), both remain deeply hostile to the notion of an autonomous, let alone independent, kurdistan. they see the kurds as destroyers of an arab nation and bent on undermining the arabs' professed unity on a wider scale. they are enraged by the kurds' refusal to fly the ıraqi flag, and ritually accuse them of being a fifth column for ısrael and zionists.
without fail, say kurdish ministers, visiting arab journalists raise both topics. ın response, the kurds point out that several arab countries have relations with ısrael. “the chauvinist arabs always call us a second ısrael,” says mr jafar, the peshmerga leader. he denies that ısrael and the kurds have military or intelligence contacts. “ı wish we did,” he says breezily.
kurdish leaders are as candid about their desire for the americans to stay on in ıraq or, if they are bound to withdraw, to keep a military base in ıraqi kurdistan as a guarantor of the kurds' national safety. “we'd like the americans to put their biggest base in kurdistan,” says mr jafar.
but the americans have so far been wary of too warmly embracing the kurds, concentrating instead on trying to reconcile sunni and shia arabs in baghdad. “we love the americans but they don't love us,” nechirvan barzani, the kurds' prime minister, is said recently to have sighed.
hanging on to what you've got
could the kurds be satisfied with extreme autonomy in northern ıraq? an informal referendum in 2005 suggested that 98% of them would like outright independence if they could have it. but almost every senior kurd in ıraq says he would accept extreme autonomy—provided there is a genuine federation and that the central government in baghdad gives the kurds a good deal, especially over the management and exploration of oil in the north. getting back kirkuk means a lot too; conceivably, a special deal could be arranged there to leave the city with a status of its own.
ıs it possible to feel both kurdish and ıraqi? a former long-serving minister in ıraq's kurdish government, who is a noted historian, barely blinks. “frankly, no.” then, after a pause, he adds: “ıf ıraq ever became truly democratic, maybe.”
masrur barzani, the 38-year-old intelligence chief and possible future head of the barzani clan, recommends a “three-state solution”, presumably meaning that ıraq, which he calls “the illusion of a country that doesn't really exist”, should one day be divided into a three-way confederation. to most ıraqi kurds, the emergence of a kindly, federal, arab-run ıraq in which they could have a comfy existence is an absurd prospect.
briefly after the ottoman turks' empire collapsed, the kurds seemed in reach of a homeland of their own—only to be betrayed by the great powers, britain to the fore. now they are enjoying a golden age of not-quite-independence for longer than at any time in their modern history. so why would they risk a reversion to a past of subjugation by arabs, turks or persians?
ıf they are sensible, the kurds will not rush towards independence. to be landlocked and without permanently friendly neighbours is a pretty hopeless recipe for statehood. the outside powers on which the kurds ultimately depend, especially turkey and the united states, would not allow them to break away. the turks could throttle them economically if not bash them militarily; the americans may well turn their backs, reckoning that it is strategically more important to curry favour with turks and arabs.
but if the ıraqi kurds can bed down quietly for, say, five or ten years, securing their borders, making their economy work, building a modicum of freedom if not full-fledged democracy, and staying out of the trouble swirling around them in the rest of ıraq, it will be increasingly impossible for the rest of the world to ignore their patently rightful claim to self-determination. they have at least a chance of getting it.
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