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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Ozeti Behrooz Shojai Globe Poli tical Desk ;;: ~) ;
Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Ozeti ft o~"";',., ~'\'i ~_ ]lhe Kurdish Globe December 19,2006 The Kurdish case for Kirkuk By Dr. Nouri Talabany The Globe While Kirkuk's demography has been in flux in recent decades, largely a result of ethnie c1eansing campaigns implemented by Ba'athist regime of Sadam Hussein, but wh en free from that regime, many Kurdish refugees have returned to their homes in the city and its immediate environs. Many diplomats and ana- Iysts may be tempt ding to delay decisions about the final status of Kirkuk, whether it should remain as if is, or joins Iraq's Kurdistan Region, any delay could be counterproductive to the goals of peace and stability. A Mixed City Historically, the majority of the clty's population was Kurdlsh and Turcoman. The Turcomans traced their famIlles back to the Ottoman era. Later, Arabs began to settle in the region. Writmg of the ethnic compositIon of the city, the Ottoman encyclopaedist Shamsaddin Sami, author of the Qamus al-A'lam, pubhshed in Istanbul m 1897 found that, "Three quarters of the inhabItants of Kirkuk are Kurds and the rest are Turcomans, Arabs, and others. Seven hundred and sixty Jews and 460 Chaldeans also reside in the city." The Kurds predate other resldent groups; the northem and eastem districts of the clties have been traditionally Kurdish. Turcomans later migrated to the region. According to the Encylopedla of Islam, the local Kurdish population m Kirkuk was Joined by a Turcoman minonty as far as the ninth century C.E., when caliphs installed Turcoman garrisons in the region. ln his history of the vanous Iraqi provinces, Iraql hlstorian Abdul Majid Fahml Hassan placed the Turcoman migration in the 52 mld-seventeenth century when Ottoman Sultan Murad IV wrested the region from Iranian control. As Murad returned to Istanbul, he left army units III position to control the strategic route Imking Baghdad and Anatolia; the Iraqi Turcomans descended from these troops. Promment Turcoman famlhes in Kirkuk, such as the Neftçiler and Awçi, trace their ancestry to Murad's troops; moreover, the prominent ethmc Arab Tikriti family also traces their presence in the region to Murad's soldiers, and the Sultan's gift of land in and around Kirkuk as a reward for their military service against the Iranians. ln the late Ottoman period, Kirkuk was the administrative center of the wilayet (province) of Sharazur. ln 1879, it became a sanjak (district) within the vilayet of Mosul. Further changes occurred in the reglon ln 1918 when the British army occupied the Mosul wilayet and created a new Arbil govemorate. ln 1921, the British estimated the population of the Kirkuk region to be 75,000 Kurds; 35,000 Turcomans; 10,000 Arabs; 1,400 Jews; and 600 Chaldeans. A League of NatIons Committee that visited the Mosul wilayet in 1925 estimated that the Kurds comprised 63 percent of Kirkuk's population, the Turcomans, 19 percent, and the Arabs, 18 percent. Many Kurds grew crops and raised livestock near the streams and wells in the northem and eastem parts of the Kirkuk region while, in the city of Kirkuk, Arab, Assyrian, and Armenian migration to the city accelerated after the 1927 discovery of oil. From 1935, Arab families migrated to the nearby Hawlja plain, southwest of Kirkuk, after the Iraqi govemment launched a large-scale irrigation project to open the drier southwestern portion of the region to agricul- ture. Other Arabs settled in Kirkuk as civil servants or serving as officers and soldiers in the Second Division of the Iraqi army, most of whlch was stationed in Kirkuk. Because there was no census taken in Iraq until ]947, however, such figures are estimates, and the ]947 census itself is of little help because its glves no precise details of the ethnie composition of the population. However, the ]957 -widely acknowledged as the most valid because it was the least politicizedbroke down population by rnother tongue, finding Kirkuk was 48.3 percent Kurd, 28.2 percent Arab, 21A percent Turcoman, and the rest Chaldean, Assyrian, or other. While demography might shift with time, Klrkuk's various communities have a long history of coexistence. PolitIcally, Kurds have a long tradition of leadership in Kirkuk. On a natIOnal level, most Kirkuk representatives in the lraql parliament were Kurds and a smaller number of Turcomans. Local Arab representatives entered the parliament after settlement of the Hawija region. ln the late Ottoman era, the sultan's governors mostly nommated Turcomans as mayor although, on certain occasions, Kurds also held People demonstratlng agalnst Kirkuk Arabization process and demand nonnalizatlon ofthe city. monarchy, that many Turcomans became mayors. The first Arab mayor took office m ]969, when the Baatlllst reglme appointed Muzhlr al-TikntI. Vnttl ]955, the Kirkuk had just one high school and the majonty of the students had Kurdish and Turcoman backgrounds, with smaller numbers of Arabs, Assynans, Chaldeans, and Armenians. Most Arab students were the children of civil servants, military personnel, or employees of the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC). By long-standing tradition, the Kurds, Turcomans, Chaldeans, and Jews have had their own cemeteries. The Arabs, being a minority, buried their dead in the Turcoman cemeteries. However, in ]99], Saddam Hussein 's government created special ce:meteries for Arab settlers and banned Arab Shi'ites from taking their dead back to Najaf for bunal in order to bolster the Arab claim to the city. The Baathist regime subsequently began to rewrite Kurdish tombstone inscriptions wlth Arabic in order to retroactively alter the demography. Ethnie Cleansing The Ba'athists sough to implement their Arab nationalism by force. ln Later, during June 1963, the short-lived Ba'athist regime of Ali Saleh al-Sa'adi destroyed thirteen Kurdish villages around Kirkuk and expe1\ed the populatIOn of another thirty-four Kurdish vi1\ages in the Dubz dls- the position. the monarchy, Kirkuk's mayors were mostlY Kurds from the Talabany family. It was only during the late Ottoman era and the Iraqi trict near Kirkuk, replacing them with Arabs from centrai and southern Iraq. After the Baath party consolidated power in ]963, the National Guard (al- Haras al-Qawmi), recruited Arab Ba'athists and Turcomans who systematically attacked ethnic Kurds. Between ]963 and 1988, the Ba'athist regime destroyed 779 Kurdish villages in the Kirkuk region-razing 493 pnmary schools, 598 mosques, and 40 medical chmcs. ln order to prevent the return ofthe Kurds, they burned farms and orchards, confiscated cattle, blew up wells, and obliterated cemeteries. ln ail, this ethmc c\eansmg campalgn forced 37,726 Kurdish families out of their VIllages. Given the average rural Kurdish family slze of between five and seven people, this policy forced over 200,000 Kurds to flee the region. The Kurds were not the regime's only victims. During the Iran-Iraq war, the centrai govemment destroyed about ten Shi'ite Turcoman villages south of Kirkuk. The Iraqi government also compelled urban Kurds to leave Kirkuk. It transferred 0!1. company employees, CIVil servants, and teachers to southern and central Iraq. The Ba'athist government renamed streets and schools in Arabic and forced businesses to adopt Arab names. Kurds could only se1\ real estate to Arabs; non-Arabs could not purchase property in the city. The government allocated thousands of new residential units for Arabs
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