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

Revue de Presse-Pre.ss Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
gram. They kicked out the Kurds. It
.wasn't their land to begin with."
Mr. Belaf, the Kurdish mayor, said
that before the war, the area around
Makhmur was 80 percent Arab. A
year later, he said, it is 80 percent
Kurdish, as it used to be.
As hard as life is for Arabs in
refugee camps, it seems to behardly
better for the Kurds displacirig them.
Adnan Karim, 34, said. his home
was burned by the Iraqi Army in
1987.He tieg~~J!f,e.,o!l the run after
that, fighting Mr. Hussein as a pesh
merga, marrying, having children
and .moving from one place to another.
Last year he returned to.an old
military camp near Kirkuk, Qara
Hanjir, hoping the new government
would set aside some land for returnees
like him. Nearly a year later, he
is still waiting in a camp.
Mr. Karimsaid he was trying to
provide for his wife and three children
with a $40-a-month pesh merga
pensi~n and money ..from odd jo~s.
~ut much of his money is spent buymg
water from a truck .
Watching his children play in the
dirt around him, Mr. Karim, a bedraggled
man, gave in to despair.
"I have spent my whole life this
way," he said, "just as you see me."
"
The EconomistJune 19th 2004
Iraq
A fresh start?
-J
BAGHDAD
Iraq'snew government: hope amid
thebombs
ITISearly days for Iraq's new government
and certainly too soon to claim any reduction
in violence. No sooner had ministers
attended one official's funeral this
week than it was time for another. When
five foreigners working for General Electric,
an American firm, were killed by a carbomb,
the new prime minister, Ayad AIlawi
(pictured above>, displayed his determination
to fight the insurgents by parading
his five top security officials before
the press. An early worry is that, to keep
themselves alive, officials of the new regime
will become as distant from the people
as their American predecessors were.
It is also plainly premature to see signs,
of the economy starting to improve. Electricity
cuts in the searing heat remain frequent.
Oil exports this week dropped by
80% after saboteurs hit pumping stations,
with technicians saying it would take ten
days to put right. The third senior official to
be assassinated this week was the head of
the Northern Oil Company's security in
ethnically-troubled Kirkuk; he was a relative
of one of the Kurds' two main leaders.
YetIraqis, on the whole, sound unusually
hopeful. Mr Allawi and his president,
Ghazi al-Yawar, are enjoying a honeymoon.
Newspapers that used to hail the insurgents
as "the national resistance" now
sing the new government's praises and
forecast national reconciliation. "The resistance
is losing its value," says a former
mouthpiece for the insurgents. "People
need a break." .
Popular enthusiasm for the government
is all the more surprising givenits
composition. Mr Allawi spent 30 years
outside Iraq and is widely seen as a CIA
and MI6 man. All but four of his ministers
are secular-minded: his government has a
narrower base than the previous Governing
CounCil, which had eight Islamists
among its 25 members. Officials of Saddam
Hussein's regime won more posts in
the new cabinet than the religious parties.
The new ministers are already playing
to the nationalist gallery-and scrapping
with the Americans. The president has
told them to hand over Saddam Hussein's
Republican Palace, which has been the
Ameritan-Ied coalition's headquarters.
The question of who controls the detainees
is particularly sensitive. Mr Allawi
has also asked America to hand. over Mr
Hussein for trial before Iraqis. He says his
government will take care of Mr Hussein
and the thousands of other detainees now
held by the Americans immediately after
the formal handover ofpower at the end
of the month. Mr Allawi said this week
that Mr Hussein and other former Iraqi
leaders would be transferred to the Iraqi
authorities in the next two weeks. But the
Americans are circumspect about exactly
when the transfer will take place.
They still have some 6,000 locked up in
Iraq, down from 9,ooo-odd in February;
the British have just 65. Virtually all those
suspected of ordinary crimes, such as looting,
have already been handed over to the
Iraqis for trial in normal courts. Most of the
rest, known as "security internees"; are civilians
deemed to threaten security. There
are also 93 "high-value detainees", including
more than 40 of the 55most-wanted of
Mr Hussein's former henchmen in America's
"deck of cards".
Ishe yours or ours?
Under the Geneva conventions, prisonersof-war
may be held without trial or charge
until the end of an occupation or the cessation
of hostilities, and must then be freed
or charged with ilcriminal offence.,But the
Americans' spokesman in Baghdad said
this week that the outgoing authority was
not obliged to hand Mr Hussein over "until
the cessation of active hostilities", which
were "unfortunately" continuing. It was
the Americans' "goal" to get Mr Hussein
into Iraqi hands "at an appropriate time"
after June 30th, once the Iraqis' special
war-crimes tribunal was "ready to receive
him". Mr Bush has declined to be pinned
down on a date for Mr Hussein's transfer.
The cases of the other detainees are under
review. More than 500 were freed from
Abu Ghraib jail this week. The Americans
expect some 4,000-5,000 to remain at least
in their physical custody after June 30th.
But who will have legal responsibility for ~~
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