linked - Institut kurde de Paris

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