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

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka
Çap€-Rivista Stampa-Dentro dé la Prensa-Basm Ozeti
8. THE PRESENT DANGER
A paradox of life in northern Iraq is that, while hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children suffer from the effects of chemical attacks,
the child-mortality rate in the Kurdish zone has improved over the past ten years. Prime Minister Salih credits this to, of all things,
sanctions placed on the Iraqi regime by the United Nations aJtêrthe Gulf Wär~because of Iraq's -refusal to dismantle~ itS
nonconventional-weapons program. He credits in particular, the program begun in 1997, known as oil-for-food, which was meant to
mitigate the effects of sanctions on civilians by allowing the profits from Iraqi oil sales to buy food and medicine. Calling this program
a "fantastic concept," Salih said, "For the, first time in our history, Iraqi citizens-all citizens-are insured a portion of the country's oil
wealth. The north is a testament to the succe~s of the program. Oil is sold and food is bought."
I asked Salih to respond to the criticism, widely aired in the West, that the sanctions have led to the death of thousands of children.
"Sanctions don't kill1raqi children," he said. "The regiIne kills children."
This puzzled me. If it was true, then why were the victims of the gas attacks stili suffering from a lack of health care? Across
Kurdistan, in every hospital I visited, the co~plaints were thé same: no CT scans, no MRIs, no pediatric surgery, no advanced
diagnostic equipment, not even surgical gloves. I asked Salih why the money designated by the U.N. for the Kurds wasn't being used
for advanced medical treatment. The oil-far-food program has one enormous flaw, he replied. When the program was introduced,
the Kurds were promised thirteen per cent of the country's oil revenue, but because of the terms of the agreement between Baghdad
and the. U.N.-a "defect," Salih said-the government controls the flow of food, medicine, and medical equipment to the very people
it slaughtered. Food does arrive, he conceded, and basic medicines as well, but at saddam's pace.
On this question of the work of the United Nations and its agencies, the rival Kurdish parties agree. "We've been asking for a
four-hundred-bed hospital for Sulaimaniya for three years," said Nerchivan Barzani, the Prime Minister of the' region controlled by
the Kurdish Qemocratic Party, and salih's counterpart. Sulaimaniya is in Salih's territory, but in this case geography doesn't matter.
"It's our money," Barzani said. "But we need the approval of the Iraqis. They get to decide. The World Health Organization is taking
its orders from the Iraqis. ~t's crazy."
Barzani and Salih accused the World Health Organization, in particular, of rewarding with lucrative contracts only companies favored
by Saddam."Every time I interactwith the U.N.," Salih said, "I think, My God, Jesse Helms is right. If the U.N. can't help us, this poor,
dispossessed Muslim nation, then who is it for?"
Many Kurds believe that Iraq's friends in the U.N. system, particularly members of the Arab bloc, have worked to keep the Kurds'
cause from being addressed. The Kurds face an institutional disadvantage at the U.N., where, unlike the Palestinians, they have not
even been granted official observer status. Salih grew acerbic: "Compare us to other liberation movements around the world. We are
very mature. We don't engage in terror. We don't condone extremist nationalist notions that can only burden our people. Please
compare what we have achieved in the Kurdistan national-authority areas to the Palestinian national authority of Mr. Arafat. We
have spent the last ten years building a secular, democratic society, a civil society. What has he built?"
Last week, in New York, I met with Benon Sevan, the United Nations undersecretary-general who oversees the oil-for-food
program. He quickly let me know that he was unmoved by the demands of the Kurds. "If they had a theme song, it would be 'Give
Me, Give Me, Give Me,' " Sevan said. "I'm getting fed up with their complaints. You can tell them that." He said that under the
oil~for-food program the "three northern governorates"-U.N. officials avoid the word "Kurdistan"-have been allocated billions of
dollars in goods and services. "I don't know if they've ever had it so good," he said. ,
I mentioned the Kurds' complaint that they have been denied access to advanced medical equipment, and he said, "Nobody prevents
them from asking. They should go ask the World Health Organization"-which reports to Sevan on matters related to Iraq. When I
told Sevan that the Kurds have repeatedly asked the W.H.O., he said, 'Tm not going to pass judgment on the W.H.O." As the
interview ended, I asked Sevan about the morality of allowing the Iraqi regime to control the flow of food and medicine into
Kurdistan. "Nobody's innocent," he said. "Please don't talk about morals with me."
When I went to Kurdistan in January to report on the 1988 genocide of the Kurds, I did not expect to be sidetracked by a debate
over U.N. sanctions. And I certainly didn't expect to be sidetracked by crimes that Saddam is committing against the Kurds now-in
particular "nationality cOI:rection,"the.law that Saddam's security services are using to impl~ment a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Large-scale operations against the Kurds in Kirkuk, a city southeast of Erbil, and in other parts of Iraqi Kurdistan under Saddam's
control, have received scant press attention in the West; there have been few news accounts and no Security Council condemnations
drafted in righteous anger.
Saddain's security services have been demanding that Kurds "correct" their nationality by signing papers to indicate that their birth
records are false-that they are in fact Arab. Those who don't sign have their property seized. Many have been evicted, often to
Kurdish-controlled regions, to make room for Arab families. According to both the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, more than a hundred thousand Kurds have been expelled from the Kirkuk area over the past two years. '
Natio~ality correction is one technique, that the Baghdad regime is using in an over-aIl "Arabization" campaign, whose aim is to replace
the inhabitants of Kurdish cities, especiaIly the oil-richKirkuk, with Arabs from central and southern Iraq, and even, according to
persistent reports, with Palestinians. Arabization is not new, Peter Galbraith, a professor at the National Defense University and a
former senior adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says. Galbraith has monitored Saddam's anti-Kurdish activities since
before the Gulf War. "It's been going on for twenty years," he told me. "Maybe it's,picked up speed, but it is certainl,' nothing new.
To my mind, it's part of a larger process that has been under way for many years, and is aimed at reducing the territory occupied by
the Kurds and at destroyingrural Kurdistan." . .'
"This is the apotheosis of cultural genocide," said Saedi Barzinji, the president of Sal~addin Universit~, in ~rbil, who ISa human-nghts
lawyer and Massoud Barzani's legal adviser. Barzinji and other Kurdish leaders beheve that.Sadd.am is tl}'~g to set up a buffer zone
between Arab Iraq and Kurdistan, just in case the Kurds win their independence. To ~~~pWith th~, Ba~ZInJltold m~ last n:ont~,.
Saddam is trying to rewrite Kirkuk's history, to give it an "Arab" past. If K~rds, BarzIn)l wenton~ don t cha.nge their ethmc ongIn,
they are given no food rations, no positions in government, no right to register th~ names of thel~ new bah"les. In the last thre~ to.
four weeks, hospitals have been ordered, the maternity wards ordered, not to register any KurdISh nam~; New p~rent~ are obhged
to choose an Arab name." Barzinji said that the nationality-correction campaign extends even to the dead. Sadd am is razing the ,
.)
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