Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
Kurdsfear for
their rights as
troubles fester
in Kirkuk city
: Saddam's 'ethnic cleansing' created tensions
inthe oil-rich region. writes Gareth Smyth
In a' sh8rply worded letter to
George W. Bush, US pre si-
.dent, last week, Kurdish
p,olitical leaders Massoud
Barzaniand Jalal Talar"ni
listed, thl!Ïr frustràtions with
US policy in Iraq. Near the
top of the list was the US-led
administration's inaction
over the troubled, oil rich
city of Kirkuk,
The"problems of the north.
erI\ 'Iraqi city - where the
Ba'athist regime carried out
decades of what the Kurds
call ethnic cleansing - have
been left on the back burner
for the 'past year, allowing
hardline groups to drum up
support among Arabs.
Kirkuk is now one of the
biggest, and most explosive,
challenges facing the Iraqi
government taking office on
June 30, Kurdish-Arab ten.
sion in Iraq has been exacerbated
recently by clashes
and disagreements over the
new United Nations Security
Council resolution expected
last night, which Kurds fear
will not guarantee their
minority rights in a federal
'Iraq.
The proximity, of Iraq's
second-largest oil field has
for decades made Kirkuk
contested between Baghdad
and the Kurdish parties: ,The,
Kurds now',insist Kirkuk -
and its mixed population of
Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen
- should be part of an autonomous
Kurdish region
within a federal Iraq.
To achieve this, the Kurds
want a referendum, but only
after reversing demographic
changes begun by the Ba'ath
party regime from the 1970s.
T):lis means, as Jalal Talabani,
leader of the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, insisted
in a recent interview, that
any Arab who arrived as
part of ethnic cleansing
must leave, willingly or otherwise.
, ,After the fall of Saddam
Hltssein, the Kurdish leaders
told their refugees to be
patient and put their hopes
in the Property Claims Commission
established by the
US-led Coalition Provisional
Authority, but the body was
designed for individual disputes
and not to develop
overall solutions.
Progress has been pain.
fully slow.
Kurdish officials say
300,000 Kurds were displaced
from Kirkuk province. Maqy.
have spent long periods nl
shanty towns near the Kurdish
cities of Arbil and Sulei.
maniya, and more recent ref.
ugees are sun in tents.
But, according to Hassib
Rojbayani, Kirkuk's Kurdish
deputy major, only 6,000
Kurds have returned to the
city lmd 2,300 Arabs have
left since the fall of the
Ba'athist regime.
Demands for resources to
tackle the problem will now
be directed to the Iraqi government
taking office on
June 30.
"We must prepare some
money for the people
brought by Saddam Hussein.
some places [for them] to go
back home," said Mr Talabani.
Resources are needed also
to build houses for returning
Kurds. At Kirkuk football
stadium, about 500 families
have created makeshift,
homes by' knocking through
walls, rigging up electricity'
wires and planting gardens
on the edge of the pitch.
"I was born in Kirkuk and
l'mhappy to be back," said
Ahmed Ibrahim Da'wdi, who,
left after the 199'1 uprising
against Mr Hussein. "It's our
city. The Turkomen also
claim Kirkuk, but we were
tortured more."
But this is not just a ques- ,
tion of resources. Local Arab
politicians offer a different
interpretation of Kirkuk's
past, present and future -
and quote vastly different
figures.
"Most of the Kurds who
have come since the fall of
the [old] regime aren't indigenous,"
said Abdullah Sarni
al-Assi, a council member.'
"Some Kurds were expelled
under Saddam, but only
about 2,500 who resisted the
regime.
"Many people in the football
stadium. have other
houses and were brought by
the Kurdish parties. We see
Kirkuk as a city of brotherhood
between Arabs, Kurds
and Turkomen, and we don't
believe anyone should be
forced to leave."
Mr Assi said he opposed
any referendum, and preferred
a census of "those
whose ID cards prove they
were born here". The Kurds
in turn say many people
expelled from the city had
their ID cards confiscated by
Ba'athist security.
Mr Assi stressed the need
for peaceful solutiOns; But
hard1ine groups:. have
become more active among
Arabs as the problems have
festered.
In a spate of assassinations
of Kurdish and Turkomen
officials and politicians,
the Kurdish civil defence
chief was recently gunned
down with his family. Last
month a bomb in a Kurdish
quarter killed four.
"There are external
extremists making trouble,"
said a Sunni Arab shopkeeper.
"Teenagers are being paid
to put up anti-Kurdish slogans,
and other things."
Among residents of a
housing estate named after
Saddam Hussein - a set of
shabby, three-storey apartments
built for new Arab
residents in the 1980s - there'
are other views.
Bassam Behnan, a Chris-,
tian, said: "Iraq is all one,
and should not be divided."
"The Kurdish leaders
incite people by talking'
about 'those from the south',
as if we were just chess
pieces whom Saddam moved
and can now just be moved
back," said Abdul-Ghafar
Abed-Ali, a Shia Arab. "We
came because we wanted
somewhere to live, not out of
hostility to Kurds."
DIPLOMATIE
"Non à la France' en Turquie !"
:J
Cl
es pays d'Europe qui ne veulent pas de
Lla Turquiedans l'Union européenne n'ont
même pas besoin de l'avouer ouvertement:
la Frances'en charge très bien à leur place.
"Puisque Paris prend les devants, pourquoi
gâterions-nous nos relations avec la Turquie
?" se disent-ils. Et ils ont bien raison.
Bien qu'il s'agisse de l'UE, chacun pense
d'abord à ses propres intérêts. La droite française
croit aussi agir dans son propre intérêt,
mais son attitude a des relents de
racismeet se nourrit d'un sentiment de supériorité.
En résumé, cette droite ne veut pas
que son paysage national soit entaché par
les paysans anatoliens, qu'elle imagine déjà
déboulant dans les rues de Paris. Lorsque
vous les interrogez à ce sujet, les hommes
politiques français ont bien sûr des tas de
raisons, parfaitement valables à leurs yeux.
Mais aucun des Français anti-Turcs avec qui
j'ai pl:len parler ces derniers temps n'a été
capable de me donner un seul argument
sensé qui aille à l'encontre de l'adhésion de
la Turquie à l'UE. Pour un pays considéré
comme étant le summum de l'intelligence,
ces vues simplettes à propos des Turcs traduisent
une ignorance révoltante. Si on lit
avec attention les propos de Giscard d'Estaing
lorsqu'il proclame que "l'adhésion-de
la Turquie signifiera la fin de l'UE", voici ce
qu'il veut dire en réalité: si ce pays entre
dans l'Union, celle-ci sera transformée en
une entité socioculturelle différente; notre
style de viejudéo-chrétien en sera affecté et
nous seronsenvahispar les paysansd'Orient.
Philippe de Villiers, qui a couvert Paris d'affiches
arborant le slogan "Non à la Turquie
dans l'Europe", a au moins le mérite d'exprimer
son opinion avec plus de franchise.
Même si cela nous est désagréable, nous
devrions nous indigner davantage contre les
autres politiciens qui se cachent derrière de
Villiers et lui délèguent le sale boulot. Quant
à la Turquie, est-elle vraiment à ce point
démunie face à cette campagne humiliante?
Ne pouvons-nouspas dire, nous aussi: "Non
à la France en Turquie"? Les Français ont
des intérêts économiques et commerciaux
énormes chez nous. Allons-nous continuer à
agir comme si de rien n'était, malgré l'attitude
actuelle de Paris? Verra-t-on encore
l'ancien ministre des Affaires étrangères Mumtaz
Soysal, si pointilleux sur les questions
d'honneur national, entonner La Marseillaise,
27