serurier
24-05-04, 04:07
Iraqi Kurds optimistic in face of uncertainty
IRBIL, Iraq - Compared to most U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Lt. Col. Gregory Politowicz and his 19 colleagues lead the good life.
Instead of sweltering tents or massively fortified bunkers, they stay in rented villas where they cook their own meals and relax without fear of mortars crashing through the roof. When they go to work, repainting schools or repairing wells, Iraqis are genuinely happy to see them. Politowicz has been invited into so many homes to drink chai - tea - that he has lost count.
"They don't hate anybody else, they focus on getting their kids an education and they stick by the rules," says Politowicz, a reservist from Pennsylvania.
If this doesn't sound like Iraq, it is because northern Iraq is virtually a country unto itself. It is here, in a land of green mountains and shimmering lakes, that Iraq's 5-million Kurds are building a peaceful, democratic, pro-U.S. society that is unique in the Middle East.
"We regard ourselves as friends of the American government and the American people, and we will take part in every situation you face in America," vows Tariq Rasheed, an official in the Kurdish ministry of the interior. "We feel like we know each other."
To visitors from other parts of Iraq, the contrast between north and south could not be more evident:
While anti-U.S. sentiment is on the rise elsewhere, people here dote on Americans for ridding them of Saddam Hussein. "We love President Bush," said one hairdresser, who refused to take payment from a customer after learning she was American.
While many liquor store owners have been killed in the increasingly conservative south, beer, wine and even hard spirits are readily available in the north. "We are free," says Azad Seddiq Muhammed, a prominent Kurdish journalist. "If you want to go into mosques, you will find a lot of mosques. If you want to go into bars, we have a lot of bars."
And while reconstruction has nearly come to a halt in Baghdad and other cities to the south, Irbil, the capital of the north, is abuzz with activity.
A huge Toyota dealership, as big as any in the United States, is about to open near a striking, 165-room hotel that could soon be part of the Sheraton chain. In the thriving city center, work is under way on four, 25-story towers that will house hundreds of stores and offices.
On the outskirts of town, Irbil's new international airport already draws private flights from Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East. Given the dangers in the rest of Iraq, it could be the first airport to get scheduled service by British Airways and other carriers eager to crack the long-closed Iraqi market.
And everywhere in Kurdish areas, children play in the streets without fear of violence as a distinctive flag snaps crisply in the breeze. Unlike Arab flags, with their blood red and ominous black, the Kurdish one has a big, cheerful sun on it.
"We don't have black because we are optimistic," says Khalil Ismail Muhammad, a geography professor at Irbil's Salahaddin University.
The Kurds' optimism, though, is tempered by knowledge that they are both a part of, and separate from, a country whose future remains a huge question mark as the United States prepares to hand over political power June 30.
For now, most Kurds seem willing to give the "new Iraq" a chance to succeed - as long as they have substantial autonomy.
But if violence and ethnic tensions continue to rise in other parts of Iraq, Kurds say they may have no choice but to pursue their long-held dream: an independent Kurdistan. It is an idea abhorrent to neighboring countries, with their own large Kurdish populations, and to the United States, which dreads the thought of Iraq splintering into pieces.
"Being a strong part of a strong Iraq would be much better," Muhammed says. "Still, there are a lot of concerns."
Like many Kurds, he acknowledges that he thinks of himself as Kurdish first and Iraqi second.
"But it is not my fault. This country was never able to enfold me, embrace me. On the contrary, it was always pushing me away."
"Torture him' They are the "orphans of God," the world's largest ethnic group with no nation of their own.
Thousands of years ago, the Kurds, a non-Arab people, began to migrate from Central Asia to the mountainous regions of what are now Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran. Originally fire worshipers or Christians, they converted to Islam as the new religion swept the Middle East.
But the Kurds - who now number about 25-million - clung to their own language, culture and dress. Even today, many Kurdish men still wear baggy pantaloons cinched at the waist with a broad sash. A gathering of Kurdish women, in their bright, shimmering skirts, resembles nothing so much as a human jewel box.
The Kurds failed to get a state when the British and their allies carved up the Ottoman Empire after World War I. And as Saddam Hussein rose to power in the new nation of Iraq, he pressed a policy of "Arabization" that threatened to eliminate the Kurdish people altogether.
Instruction in the Kurdish language was banned. Hundreds of Kurdish villages were razed and as many as 500,000 Kurds were killed or disappeared. In 1988, outraged that Iraqi Kurds were supporting Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, Hussein ordered the gassing of more than 5,000 men, women and children in the village of Halabja near the Iranian border.
Such is the hatred Kurds feel for Hussein that many think death would be too kind a fate.
"They should take out his fingernails and torture him" says Shukryia Rasuul Ibrahem, an expert in Kurdish culture, as she dramatically plucks at her own manicured hands. "They should cut off his body parts one by one until nothing is left of him."
Immediately after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, two groups Hussein had brutally oppressed - Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north - rose up against him. But when expected U.S. support failed to materialize, the rebellion failed and more than a million Kurds fled into the icy mountains along the Turkish border. Turkey's government refused to let them in, stranding thousands to die of cold and starvation.
In the face of world outrage, the United Nations decided to create a haven for the Kurds. American and British fighter jets began protecting an area north of the 36th parallel that included the major cities of Irbil and Dohuk.
Safe at last from Hussein, Kurds began rebuilding villages, schools and hospitals with the help of private aid organizations and millions of dollars from the oil-for-food program. The once-rival Kurdish political parties - the PUK and the KDP - each controlled half of the north, but they agreed to a single, democratically elected parliament in Irbil.
"In our region we are at least 12 years ahead of the rest of Iraq," says Muhammed, the journalist. "We still have problems, but we are far ahead of those who have just joined the game."
But in the areas that remained under Hussein's control, Kurds continued to suffer. In Kirkuk, outside the safe haven, they were barred from most jobs unless they declared themselves Arabs and joined the Baathist Party. Kamaran Salay says he was harassed for three years because he refused to do either.
"Our lives were very hard, there wasn't any freedom for us. They didn't accept Kurdish names for babies. If you bought a house you couldn't be listed as the owner."
In 1997, the government ordered Salay, his wife and sons to go to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Forced to leave behind most of their worldly goods, they moved into a tent city near Irbil with hundreds of other victims of "Arabization."
Now, seven years later, they have a more permanent home - two tiny rooms with a ceiling made of corrugated boxes and walls of flattened olive oil cans. There is no running water, and they have to go outside to use a concrete outhouse built by the United Nations.
But Salay gets $90 a month guarding a Japanese-run clinic. The family intends to stay put, unlike thousands of Kurds who have gone back to Kirkuk with the goal of reclaiming it for the Kurdish people.
Since the fall of Hussein's regime, Kirkuk has emerged as a major flash point in the new Iraq. Both Arabs and Kurds hope to control the city, which is near some of Iraq's richest oil fields. The Kurdish government in Irbil has sent weapons to local Kurds, and a property claims committee is trying to resolve ownership disputes.
"Kirkuk is a very complicated problem," Muhammed says. "After years of Arabization and deportations, it's very difficult to find out whose claim is right and whose is wrong. Also, with the problem of Kirkuk - like many other problems - you'll see external hands playing."
Like the United States, Kurds think foreign terrorists are undermining Iraq's stability. The Kurdish north already has experienced a new and frightening form of violence - in the past year, scores of people, including high-ranking officials, have been killed in suicide bombings, the first ever in the region.
More than 1,000 Kurds have joined Iraq's new national army, but Kurds also are beefing up their own security forces in case the country spins into chaos.
A Civil Defense Corps mans hundreds of checkpoints and guards hotels, government offices and other likely targets in the north. Meanwhile, peshmerga forces - literally, "those who face death" - patrol the borders with Iran, Syria and Turkey.
"Now we have 54,000, but if war started against our enemy, every man and woman would be peshmerga in an emergency," says Gen. Hamid Fendi.
The U.S. military, which has only 20 soldiers in all of the Kurdish north, is helping train and equip the security forces. Col. Politowicz has been impressed by the Kurds' professionalism.
"The Kurdish people are very easy to train, they want to learn," he says. "Plus, they can look at you and know if you belong here or not - they know everybody."
Although they rarely come right out and say so, many Kurds clearly dislike and distrust Arabs, at whose hands they suffered so much while Hussein was in power. The tension between Iraq's two main ethnic groups does not bode well for the future.
Shiite Arabs, who make up 60 percent of Iraq's population, are angry that the Kurds, who constitute 20 percent, will have sweeping powers under a U.S.-approved "interim constitution" that is supposed to guide Iraq's transition to a permanent government.
Among other things, the document recognizes Kurdish self-rule in the north, similar to the status Quebec has in Canada. It also gives Kurds and other minorities veto power over political acts by the Arab majority.
Already, some Shiites have threatened to scrap the constitution when the United States hands over sovereignty in June. That would be a grave mistake, one Kurdish leader warns.
"We are willing to be part of a federal, democratic Iraq," Dr. Barham Salih told Reuters. "But should you, my Arab compatriot, contemplate turning Iraq into a fundamentalist state or an Arab nationalistic dictatorship, again, I am sorry but we are not willing to be part of such a country."
For now, the Kurds are trying to build up their own government institutions in hopes they will serve as models for the rest of the country. But wherever Kurds and Arabs mix, the friction is obvious.
On a recent morning, dozens of men lined up at the recruiting center for the New Iraqi Army in Irbil. Of the five such centers in Iraq, Kurds are proud that theirs is the only one the U.S.-led coalition has totally turned over to Iraqi control.
Gen. Bob Kennedy, who anglicized his Kurdish name when he moved to Canada during Hussein's era, first steered a reporter and photographer to Kurds who were filling out applications. Without exception, all said they were there "to help our country."
Next, the journalists were introduced to Arab applicants. Without exception, all said they wanted to join the army because of the pay - $250 a month.
"You see the difference between Arabs and Kurds?" Kennedy exclaimed triumphantly. "The Kurds are very serious, the Arabs are just coming because they have no other jobs."
From (http://sptimes.com/2004/05/23/Worldandnation/Iraqi_Kurds_optimisti.shtml)
IRBIL, Iraq - Compared to most U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Lt. Col. Gregory Politowicz and his 19 colleagues lead the good life.
Instead of sweltering tents or massively fortified bunkers, they stay in rented villas where they cook their own meals and relax without fear of mortars crashing through the roof. When they go to work, repainting schools or repairing wells, Iraqis are genuinely happy to see them. Politowicz has been invited into so many homes to drink chai - tea - that he has lost count.
"They don't hate anybody else, they focus on getting their kids an education and they stick by the rules," says Politowicz, a reservist from Pennsylvania.
If this doesn't sound like Iraq, it is because northern Iraq is virtually a country unto itself. It is here, in a land of green mountains and shimmering lakes, that Iraq's 5-million Kurds are building a peaceful, democratic, pro-U.S. society that is unique in the Middle East.
"We regard ourselves as friends of the American government and the American people, and we will take part in every situation you face in America," vows Tariq Rasheed, an official in the Kurdish ministry of the interior. "We feel like we know each other."
To visitors from other parts of Iraq, the contrast between north and south could not be more evident:
While anti-U.S. sentiment is on the rise elsewhere, people here dote on Americans for ridding them of Saddam Hussein. "We love President Bush," said one hairdresser, who refused to take payment from a customer after learning she was American.
While many liquor store owners have been killed in the increasingly conservative south, beer, wine and even hard spirits are readily available in the north. "We are free," says Azad Seddiq Muhammed, a prominent Kurdish journalist. "If you want to go into mosques, you will find a lot of mosques. If you want to go into bars, we have a lot of bars."
And while reconstruction has nearly come to a halt in Baghdad and other cities to the south, Irbil, the capital of the north, is abuzz with activity.
A huge Toyota dealership, as big as any in the United States, is about to open near a striking, 165-room hotel that could soon be part of the Sheraton chain. In the thriving city center, work is under way on four, 25-story towers that will house hundreds of stores and offices.
On the outskirts of town, Irbil's new international airport already draws private flights from Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East. Given the dangers in the rest of Iraq, it could be the first airport to get scheduled service by British Airways and other carriers eager to crack the long-closed Iraqi market.
And everywhere in Kurdish areas, children play in the streets without fear of violence as a distinctive flag snaps crisply in the breeze. Unlike Arab flags, with their blood red and ominous black, the Kurdish one has a big, cheerful sun on it.
"We don't have black because we are optimistic," says Khalil Ismail Muhammad, a geography professor at Irbil's Salahaddin University.
The Kurds' optimism, though, is tempered by knowledge that they are both a part of, and separate from, a country whose future remains a huge question mark as the United States prepares to hand over political power June 30.
For now, most Kurds seem willing to give the "new Iraq" a chance to succeed - as long as they have substantial autonomy.
But if violence and ethnic tensions continue to rise in other parts of Iraq, Kurds say they may have no choice but to pursue their long-held dream: an independent Kurdistan. It is an idea abhorrent to neighboring countries, with their own large Kurdish populations, and to the United States, which dreads the thought of Iraq splintering into pieces.
"Being a strong part of a strong Iraq would be much better," Muhammed says. "Still, there are a lot of concerns."
Like many Kurds, he acknowledges that he thinks of himself as Kurdish first and Iraqi second.
"But it is not my fault. This country was never able to enfold me, embrace me. On the contrary, it was always pushing me away."
"Torture him' They are the "orphans of God," the world's largest ethnic group with no nation of their own.
Thousands of years ago, the Kurds, a non-Arab people, began to migrate from Central Asia to the mountainous regions of what are now Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran. Originally fire worshipers or Christians, they converted to Islam as the new religion swept the Middle East.
But the Kurds - who now number about 25-million - clung to their own language, culture and dress. Even today, many Kurdish men still wear baggy pantaloons cinched at the waist with a broad sash. A gathering of Kurdish women, in their bright, shimmering skirts, resembles nothing so much as a human jewel box.
The Kurds failed to get a state when the British and their allies carved up the Ottoman Empire after World War I. And as Saddam Hussein rose to power in the new nation of Iraq, he pressed a policy of "Arabization" that threatened to eliminate the Kurdish people altogether.
Instruction in the Kurdish language was banned. Hundreds of Kurdish villages were razed and as many as 500,000 Kurds were killed or disappeared. In 1988, outraged that Iraqi Kurds were supporting Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, Hussein ordered the gassing of more than 5,000 men, women and children in the village of Halabja near the Iranian border.
Such is the hatred Kurds feel for Hussein that many think death would be too kind a fate.
"They should take out his fingernails and torture him" says Shukryia Rasuul Ibrahem, an expert in Kurdish culture, as she dramatically plucks at her own manicured hands. "They should cut off his body parts one by one until nothing is left of him."
Immediately after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, two groups Hussein had brutally oppressed - Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north - rose up against him. But when expected U.S. support failed to materialize, the rebellion failed and more than a million Kurds fled into the icy mountains along the Turkish border. Turkey's government refused to let them in, stranding thousands to die of cold and starvation.
In the face of world outrage, the United Nations decided to create a haven for the Kurds. American and British fighter jets began protecting an area north of the 36th parallel that included the major cities of Irbil and Dohuk.
Safe at last from Hussein, Kurds began rebuilding villages, schools and hospitals with the help of private aid organizations and millions of dollars from the oil-for-food program. The once-rival Kurdish political parties - the PUK and the KDP - each controlled half of the north, but they agreed to a single, democratically elected parliament in Irbil.
"In our region we are at least 12 years ahead of the rest of Iraq," says Muhammed, the journalist. "We still have problems, but we are far ahead of those who have just joined the game."
But in the areas that remained under Hussein's control, Kurds continued to suffer. In Kirkuk, outside the safe haven, they were barred from most jobs unless they declared themselves Arabs and joined the Baathist Party. Kamaran Salay says he was harassed for three years because he refused to do either.
"Our lives were very hard, there wasn't any freedom for us. They didn't accept Kurdish names for babies. If you bought a house you couldn't be listed as the owner."
In 1997, the government ordered Salay, his wife and sons to go to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Forced to leave behind most of their worldly goods, they moved into a tent city near Irbil with hundreds of other victims of "Arabization."
Now, seven years later, they have a more permanent home - two tiny rooms with a ceiling made of corrugated boxes and walls of flattened olive oil cans. There is no running water, and they have to go outside to use a concrete outhouse built by the United Nations.
But Salay gets $90 a month guarding a Japanese-run clinic. The family intends to stay put, unlike thousands of Kurds who have gone back to Kirkuk with the goal of reclaiming it for the Kurdish people.
Since the fall of Hussein's regime, Kirkuk has emerged as a major flash point in the new Iraq. Both Arabs and Kurds hope to control the city, which is near some of Iraq's richest oil fields. The Kurdish government in Irbil has sent weapons to local Kurds, and a property claims committee is trying to resolve ownership disputes.
"Kirkuk is a very complicated problem," Muhammed says. "After years of Arabization and deportations, it's very difficult to find out whose claim is right and whose is wrong. Also, with the problem of Kirkuk - like many other problems - you'll see external hands playing."
Like the United States, Kurds think foreign terrorists are undermining Iraq's stability. The Kurdish north already has experienced a new and frightening form of violence - in the past year, scores of people, including high-ranking officials, have been killed in suicide bombings, the first ever in the region.
More than 1,000 Kurds have joined Iraq's new national army, but Kurds also are beefing up their own security forces in case the country spins into chaos.
A Civil Defense Corps mans hundreds of checkpoints and guards hotels, government offices and other likely targets in the north. Meanwhile, peshmerga forces - literally, "those who face death" - patrol the borders with Iran, Syria and Turkey.
"Now we have 54,000, but if war started against our enemy, every man and woman would be peshmerga in an emergency," says Gen. Hamid Fendi.
The U.S. military, which has only 20 soldiers in all of the Kurdish north, is helping train and equip the security forces. Col. Politowicz has been impressed by the Kurds' professionalism.
"The Kurdish people are very easy to train, they want to learn," he says. "Plus, they can look at you and know if you belong here or not - they know everybody."
Although they rarely come right out and say so, many Kurds clearly dislike and distrust Arabs, at whose hands they suffered so much while Hussein was in power. The tension between Iraq's two main ethnic groups does not bode well for the future.
Shiite Arabs, who make up 60 percent of Iraq's population, are angry that the Kurds, who constitute 20 percent, will have sweeping powers under a U.S.-approved "interim constitution" that is supposed to guide Iraq's transition to a permanent government.
Among other things, the document recognizes Kurdish self-rule in the north, similar to the status Quebec has in Canada. It also gives Kurds and other minorities veto power over political acts by the Arab majority.
Already, some Shiites have threatened to scrap the constitution when the United States hands over sovereignty in June. That would be a grave mistake, one Kurdish leader warns.
"We are willing to be part of a federal, democratic Iraq," Dr. Barham Salih told Reuters. "But should you, my Arab compatriot, contemplate turning Iraq into a fundamentalist state or an Arab nationalistic dictatorship, again, I am sorry but we are not willing to be part of such a country."
For now, the Kurds are trying to build up their own government institutions in hopes they will serve as models for the rest of the country. But wherever Kurds and Arabs mix, the friction is obvious.
On a recent morning, dozens of men lined up at the recruiting center for the New Iraqi Army in Irbil. Of the five such centers in Iraq, Kurds are proud that theirs is the only one the U.S.-led coalition has totally turned over to Iraqi control.
Gen. Bob Kennedy, who anglicized his Kurdish name when he moved to Canada during Hussein's era, first steered a reporter and photographer to Kurds who were filling out applications. Without exception, all said they were there "to help our country."
Next, the journalists were introduced to Arab applicants. Without exception, all said they wanted to join the army because of the pay - $250 a month.
"You see the difference between Arabs and Kurds?" Kennedy exclaimed triumphantly. "The Kurds are very serious, the Arabs are just coming because they have no other jobs."
From (http://sptimes.com/2004/05/23/Worldandnation/Iraqi_Kurds_optimisti.shtml)