Disharmony In
Kurdistan
By Seb Walker
02 March, 2005
The
Nation
Talal
Talabani is a former peshmerga--the name means "those who face
death" and refers to the Kurdish guerrillas who spent decades in
the mountains of northern Iraq fending off the assembled might of Saddam
Hussein's army. Now 72 years old and a candidate for the Iraqi presidency,
Talabani looks out his study window at the snow-covered peaks before
choosing his words carefully to answer the question on every Kurd's
lips--for the first time in the country's history, will Iraq have a
Kurdish president?
"Without reaching
agreement, there is some kind of understanding, yes. The Shiites are
insisting on having the post of prime minister and they are supporting
Kurds to have the post of president," he says, puffing on a large
cigar.
Talabani made this
statement in an interview earlier this week, as the parties continued
negotiations in the wake of the elections. His comments reflect the
enormity of what has happened in Iraq in the past two years--the political
awakening of the Shiite majority, the rising strength of the Kurds--but
it also highlights some looming problems. Can these two communities
overcome ideological differences to draft a mutually acceptable constitution,
and what role will the Kurdish leaders seek for their independence-minded
people?
The most obvious
Shiite-Kurd clash could be over the role of Islam in Iraqi society.
Some senior figures in the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the winning
Shiite bloc that secured nearly 50 percent of the national vote on January
30, have insisted that Islam be inscribed as the only source of legislation
in the new Iraqi constitution. Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, reclusive Iranian
cleric and spiritual leader for Iraq's Shiites, who has endorsed the
UIA, is also reported to favor this demand.
The Shiites need
an alliance with the secular Kurdish parties in order to gain control
of parliament, hence the possible deal over the country's top two posts.
But having won more than a quarter of the votes, Kurds know they are
in a strong bargaining position--and Islamic law is not on their agenda.
"When you say
that Islam must be the only source of all laws, that means you're going
to found an Islamic state," says Talabani, who, like the overwhelming
majority of Kurds, is a Sunni Muslim. "The structure of Iraqi society
cannot accept such a kind of government."
Talabani is known
for speaking his mind, but the Kurds have every reason to be assertive.
Another Shiite bloc, led by incumbent prime minister Iyad Allawi, is
courting their affections, and Kurds can pick and choose whom to support
in return for pushing through "non-negotiable" demands of
their own.
Most important is
a continuation of the autonomous status their region has enjoyed since
Western powers declared the enclave a "no-fly zone" in 1991,
after the first Gulf War. Under a proposed federal system this might
be acceptable to Iraq's Shiite leaders, but a major obstacle is that
Kurds want the oil-rich city of Kirkuk included within their borders.
"All areas
which are part of Kurdistan historically and geographically and where
the majority are Kurds must be united in the regional government of
Kurdistan. Kirkuk is one of these cities," Talabani says.
Saddam Hussein deported
thousands of Kurds from Kirkuk in order to consolidate his hold over
the lucrative oilfields there, which account for 40 percent of Iraq's
oil wealth. In a policy known as Arabization, the Kurds were replaced
with Arabs--mainly Shiites brought from the south. The Kurds want this
process reversed.
Unsurprisingly,
Iraq's Shiite majority opposes surrendering control of the oil city,
let alone the uprooting of Shiite Arab families who have lived in Kirkuk
for decades and now consider the city their home. Talabani's line is
typical of Kurdish leaders and points to difficulties ahead.
"Saddam brought
[those Arabs] as part of an ethnic cleansing policy to change the demography
of Kirkuk," he says, adding that Arab families who were brought
in after 1968 should leave. "They must go back home, all of them."
KURDISH TENSION
While a Kurdish
partnership with the Shiites--who endured similar suffering and injustice
at the hands of Saddam Hussein--might not be as rosy as one would think,
there are signs that Kurdish unity is also less than solid. Even as
the Kurds celebrate their success in becoming powerbrokers of the new
Iraqi government, some old tensions are re-emerging.
The Kurdish zone
has been divided between rival administrations ever since a bloody fratricidal
war during the mid-1990s between the two main factions, Talabani's Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led
by Massoud Barzani. Talabani was originally a member of the KDP, founded
by Barzani's father Mullah Mustafa, but he left to form the PUK splinter
group.
The region's last
elections (held in 1992) produced an even PUK/KDP split, sparking a
power struggle that led to acrimonious conflict. More than 3,000 were
killed in fighting between the factions, and each side accused the other
of seeking external support. The PUK turned to Iran (so the charges
go) while the KDP was accused of enlisting the help of Turkey, and even
of Baghdad.
This time around,
Barzani and Talabani have agreed to paper over their differences and
present a united front in the interests of the Kurdish people, consolidating
their power by running on the same list in national and Kurdish parliamentary
elections.
But Kurdish political
commentators suspect the political infighting will again obstruct the
common Kurdish interest. "These two parties have a long history--forming
coalitions, quarreling, civil war. This hasn't finished because of some
statements. Both parties want authority; both are eager to win the exclusive
acceptance of the Kurdish people," said Chiman Salh, political
editor of Xabat newspaper, based in Erbil. She added that it wouldn't
be a surprise if the parties eventually ended up supporting different
Shiite blocs within the year in order to gain a political advantage
over the other.
After the region's
local elections--the only one where the parties ran separately--accusations
of vote-rigging are being traded. When the PUK did better than expected,
some officials began to question the wisdom of a deal that secured Talabani's
nomination as candidate for the largely ceremonial post of Iraqi president.
"I have no
comment on this," said Talabani, when asked if he had regrets over
the arrangement between the two parties, whereby he gets the post in
Baghdad and Barzani becomes de facto president of a united Kurdish zone,
with Barzani's nephew, Nechirvan, continuing on as prime minister of
the Kurdish regional government. The arrangement "is in the interests
of the Kurdish people," Talabani insists.
The differences
between the two men start from their demeanor--during interviews with
foreign journalists Barzani wears traditional Kurdish clothes and speaks
only in Kurdish; Talabani wears a suit and speaks in English--and extend
to their divergence of views on the Kurdish future in Iraq.
While Barzani has
responded to the Kurds' strong showing in the elections with warnings
that an independent Kurdistan is inevitable, acknowledging the groundswell
of Kurdish popular support for secession, Talabani takes a different
line. "I don't see any possibility for a Kurdish independent state,"
he says.
More than 1.9 million
Kurds voted to secede from Iraq in an informal poll conducted alongside
national elections on January 30, but while Barzani makes threats about
withdrawing from the political process if Kurdish rights are not respected,
Talabani urges national unity.
"A democratic,
federal, united, independent Iraq is the best thing for the Kurds nowadays,"
Talabani says, and he does not hesitate before answering a question
about where his first loyalties lie: "[with] Iraq, of course--because
Iraq includes Kurdish people."
Despite their differences,
the Kurdish leadership knows it must stay united, since division would
damage the Kurds' chances of getting what they want from Iraq. This
in turn could threaten the stability of a region that has been a haven
of peace in the face of Iraq's recent chaos.