Relocation plan for Kirkuk Arabs endorsed
STEVEN R. HURST, AP Worldstream
Published: Mar 31, 2007

BAGHDAD _ Tackling one of the most complex and controversial issues
facing the country, the government has endorsed plans to relocate
thousands of Arabs who were moved to oil-rich Kirkuk as part of Saddam
Hussein’s Arabization campaign to displace ethnic Kurds, a Cabinet
minister said on Saturday.

At least 30 people were killed in series of bombings and attacks,
around the country, including nine construction workers who died when
gunmen opened fire on their bus south of Kirkuk. The violence capped a
week in which more than 500 people have died in sectarian violence.

Opposition politicians blasted the Kirkuk plan and Turkey already had
warned that the city and its sizable Turkish minority must never
become part of the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Iraq, a likely
next step.

Iraq’s constitution sets an end-of-the year deadline for a referendum
on Kirkuk’s status. Since Saddam’s fall four years ago, thousands of
Kurds who once lived in the city have resettled there. It is now
believed Kurds are a majority of the population and that a referendum
on attaching Kirkuk to the Kurdish autonomous zone would pass by a
wide margin.

Kirkuk, an ancient city that once was part of the Ottoman Empire, has
a large minority of ethnic Turks as well as Christians, Shiite and
Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. The city is just south of the
Kurdish autonomous zone stretching across three provinces of
northeastern Iraq.

There were fears that scheduling a referendum that was likely to put
Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, under Kurdish
control could open a new front in the violence that has ravaged Iraq
since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion four years ago. On March 19,
several bombs struck targets in Kirkuk and killed at least 26 people.

Justice Minister Hashim al-Shebli said the Cabinet agreed on Thursday
to a study group’s recommendation that Arabs who had moved to Kirkuk
from other parts of Iraq after July 14, 1968, should be returned to
their original towns and paid for their trouble.

Al-Shebli, who had overseen the committee on Kirkuk’s status, said
relocation would be voluntary. Those who choose to leave will be paid
20 million Iraqi dinars (about US$15,000) and given land in their
former hometowns.

"There will be no coercion and the decision will not be implemented by
force," al-Shebli told The Associated Press.

In discussing the Kirkuk issue, al-Shebli, a Sunni Arab, also
confirmed he had offered his resignation on the same day that the
Cabinet signed off on the plan. He cited differences with the
government and his own political group, the secular Iraqi List, which
joined Sunni Arab lawmakers Saturday in opposing the Kirkuk decision.

He said he would continue in office until the Cabinet approved his
resignation.

"I have differences with the government on one side and with the my
parliamentary bloc on another," al-Shebli said, without elaborating.

The Iraqi List is led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular
Shiite. The group holds 25 seats in the 275-seat parliament.

Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said
al-Shebli quit before he could be fired in a coming government
reshuffle. Neither al-Dabbagh nor al-Shebli would say if the minister
had resigned over the Kirkuk issue.

In late February Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told
Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi that Baghdad should delay the
Kirkuk referendum because the Kirkuk was not secure.

Turkey fears Iraq’s Kurds want Kirkuk’s oil revenues to fund an
eventual bid for independence that could encourage separatist Kurdish
guerrillas in Turkey, who have been fighting for autonomy since
1984. That conflict has claimed the lives of 37,000 people.

Al-Shebli said local authorities in Kirkuk, would begin distributing
forms soon to Arab families to determine who would participate in the
relocation program. He said he could not predict how long the process
would take.

Planning Minister Ali Baban said the Cabinet decision in favor of the
relocation recommendations was adopted over the opposition of Sunni
Arab members of the Shiite-led government, members of the Iraqi List
and at least one Cabinet minister loyal to radical Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr.

"We demanded that the question of Kirkuk be resolved through dialogue
between the political blocs and not through the committee," he told
the AP earlier this week. "They say the repatriation is voluntary, but
we have our doubts."

He said the Sunni opposition was based on the fact that the
constitution is under review, with the clause relevant to Kirkuk
likely to be debated in that review, and no action should be taken
while the issue remains disputed.

The Shiites and Kurds had agreed to consider amendments when the
constitution was put to a referendum in 2005 in hopes of winning
support from Sunni politicians. The Sunnis now heatedly complain that
the constitutional review has never taken place, even though it was to
have occurred within four months of being adopted.

"We will continue to oppose the recommendations and try to persuade
other parties to see our point of view," Baban said. "We feel that
this poses a danger to the unity of Iraq and could have consequences."

Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni lawmaker with the Iraqi List, also denounced
the decision, saying it fails to address many key issues, including
how to deal with property claims.

"There are more than 13,000 unsolved cases before the commission in
charge of this point and it just solved no more than 250 of them," he
said of the property claims. "The other thing is the huge demographic
change in Kirkuk as more than 650,000 Kurds have been brought in
illegally over the past four years. We contest these resolutions and
we will raise to the parliament to be discussed."

Tens of thousands of Kurds and non-Arabs fled Kirkuk in the 1980s and
1990s when Saddam’s government implemented its "Arabization"
policy. Kurds and non-Arabs were replaced with pro-government Arabs
from the mainly Shiite impoverished south.

After the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Kirkuk was widely
seen as a tinderbox as Kurds and other non-Arabs streamed back with
their house, keys in hand, only to find their homes were either sold
or given to Arabs.

The returning Kurds became displaced in their own hometown as they
found nowhere to live except in parks and abandoned government
buildings. At the same time, many Arabs were forced to leave the city,
despite Sunni and Shiite Arab leaders pleading with them not to.

Adil Abdul-Hussein Alami, a 62-year-old Shiite who moved to the city
23 years ago in return for US$1,000 and a free piece of land, said he
would find it hard to leave.

"Kirkuk is an Iraqi city and I’m Iraqi," said the father of nine. "We
came here as one family and now we are four. Our blood is mixed with
Kurds and Turkmen."

But Ahmed Salih Zowbaa, a 52-year old Shiite father of six who moved
to the city from Kufa in 1987, agreed with the government’s
decision. "We gave our votes to this government and constitution and
as long as the government will compensate us, then there is no
injustice at all," he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress