WASHINGTON - Amid all the violence and crime
that have stricken much of central and southern Iraq in
recent months, the northern region of Kurdistan has
remained relatively quiet.
But beneath that
calm, according to a new report released on Tuesday
by Human Rights Watch (HRW), lie simmering tensions
over conflicting land claims by Kurds, Turkomans and
Arabs living in the region that could burst into armed
conflict at any time due to the failure thus far for the
authorities - either the former US-led Coalition
Provisional Authority or the new government headed by
interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - to begin resolving
those disputes.
Patience on all sides is running
out, according to the 78-page report, "Claims in
Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq",
as tens of thousands of Kurds, as well as Turkomans and
Assyrians, who were forced out of their homes during the
three decades that preceded last year's US-led invasion,
remain camped out, often in dire conditions, waiting to
reclaim the homes they lost in the Ba'athist regime's
"Arabization" program.
At the same time,
thousands of Arabs who were forced to leave their homes
as Kurdish militias, or peshmarga, advanced into
southern Kurdistan and into the oil center of Kirkuk,
which Iraqi Kurds regard as their spiritual capital,
during the first months of the US occupation, are also
living out in temporary camps, waiting for their fates
to be resolved and with nowhere else to go.
"If these property disputes are not addressed as a matter
of urgency, rising tensions between returning Kurds
and Arab settlers could soon explode into open
violence," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of
HRW's Middle East and North Africa division. "Justice must
be done for the victims of what was effectively an
ethnic-cleansing campaign to permanently alter the ethnic
makeup of northern Iraq," she added. Iraq experts have
warned that the failure to settle the claims,
particularly in Kirkuk, could be one of the flash points
for conflict that could tear the country apart.
Beginning in the mid-1970s, "Arabization" on
a massive scale began in earnest after the creation by
the Ba'athist government of an autonomous zone in parts
of Iraqi Kurdistan. Efforts were made by the central
government in Baghdad to move Arabs, centered primarily
in the middle and southern parts of the country,
northward into regions dominated by Kurds, Turkomans
and Assyrians. During that period, some 250,000 Kurds
and other non-Arabs were expelled from a huge swath of
northern Iraq, ranging from Khanaqin along the Iranian
border to Sinjar on the Syrian-Turkish border. Land
titles held by non-Arabs were invalidated, and landless
Arabs and their families from the nearby al-Jaseera
desert were brought in to occupy and lease what was
declared government land.
In 1988, the Iraqi
government launched the infamous Anfal campaign against
the Kurds, killing some 100,000, destroying many of
their villages, and leaving hundreds of thousands more
Kurds homeless. Most were not allowed to return home,
and their property rights were invalidated, while Arabs
from the south were brought in to settle their lands.
Through the 1990s and until the eve of the 2003 US-led
invasion of Iraq, Kurds and other non-Arabs in Kirkuk
faced constant harassment and were sometimes forced to
choose between being expelled or joining the Ba'ath
Party, changing their ethnic identity to Arab, and
joining paramilitary forces in support of the regime.
Approximately 120,000 people were expelled from Kirkuk
and other areas during this time, while Arabs were
encouraged to settle in their place through financial
incentives. Overall, the United Nations counted
a total of more than 800,000 displaced people,
virtually all of whom had come from "Arabized" areas living
in that part of northern Iraq that was protected by the
US- and British-enforced no-fly zone on the eve of
the US-led invasion, which drastically altered the
situation, according to HRW. A large number of Arab settlers
and their families left their homes in advance of
the arrival of Kurdish and US forces, leaving
entire Arabized villages empty. While many displaced Kurds
hope to return to them, they have not yet done so,
in large part because they are simply too poor to
rebuild their homes and because the mechanism for
determining claims to properties has not yet begun
operating.
On the other hand, Kurds have tried
to return to homes in Kirkuk and Mosul where Arabs have
been reluctant to leave, steadily adding to tensions -
both between Kurds and Arabs and Kurds and Turkomans -
in those two urban areas. In some cases, Kurds and
peshmarga have tried to expel Arabs through threats and
intimidation, provoking inter-communal clashes,
particularly in Kirkuk. "Kurds are flocking back to
Kirkuk, but the city has little capacity to absorb
them," said Whitson. "They are living in abandoned
buildings and tent camps without running water or
electricity supplies, and they face precarious security
conditions."
At the same time, little effort has
gone into finding solutions for the "Arabization Arabs"
who themselves have no place to go, particularly with
the national economy in such difficult straits. Many of
the Arabs who have left or been forced to leave their
homes have lived in the region for as much as three
decades but now find themselves living in makeshift
shelters without basic services waiting for property
claims to be resolved or for new programs for their
resettlement. The report notes that the US-led Coalition
Provisional Authority in essence failed to address any
of these issues or to implement a strategy to resolve
claims.
Although legislation to establish an
Iraq Property Claims Commission was passed last January,
orders for its operation were only finalized just before
the handover to the interim government. Worse, the
legislation failed to provide mechanisms to help Arabs
who had lost or will lose their claims to property in
the north, leaving them in a particularly uncertain
state.
"The process of seeking redress for the
displaced Kurds and others must not lead to new
injustices against Arab settlers," said Whitson.
Similarly, the Kurdish leadership has failed to put into
place a coordinated and unified policy for dealing with
the ongoing and anticipated influx of displaced Kurds
and other non-Arabs and their families into Kirkuk and
other areas or to provide for their humanitarian needs.
HRW said many of the Arab settlers
interviewed for the report last year indicated that they
recognized Kurdish claims to their properties and were
willing to give up their homes in return for aid and
help in finding new homes and livelihoods. But, with the
passage of time, it appeared that all sides were
becoming increasingly impatient with the lack of
progress in both resettlement and the provision of aid,
contributing to a steady rise in tensions throughout the
region.
