[This is the recounting of a second meeting I had on a Tuesday, June 5.]
After our grueling morning meeting (see yesterday's blog) a Kurdish man, whose name I cannot disclose to protect him, came to Mohammed's house. He walked in and seemed extremely nervous. He shook my hand while not even looking at me. He looked at the video camera and audio recorder and became even more nervous.
Apparently he is terrified because he is forming a Kurdish Party that competes with the two existing Kurdish Parties. He fears that his family, who still lives in Mosul and Kurdistan, will be attacked. (Note: Erbil, Dohuk, and Suleymaniye comprise Iraqi Kurdistan.)
Kirkuk, although a northern city known for its rich oil production, is not part of Kurdistan, and neither is Mosul, another oil-producing northern city. There is constant talk that the Kurds want Kirkuk and Mosul to become part of Kurdistan. Whether the Kurds will get Kirkuk is what drives every discussion regarding whether Iraq will be partitioned or survive as a single state.
After a long conversation between the Kurdish fellow, Asma (an Iraqi living in exile here in Amman who handles all the translating), and Mohammed, the visitor agreed to allow us to record the conversation. They explained to him that we didn't want to have to take notes and that recording would guarantee that what he said would be reported exactly as he said it.
"Will There Be a War Over Kirkuk?"
After one gets over the hurdle of believing that the Shia and Sunnis can live together peacefully after the American's leave, one is always confronted by the issue of the Kurds and Kurdistan. Until the occupation, the Kurdish people had a degree of independence from the rest of Iraq; Kurdistan even had its own army -- the Peshmerga Militia.
If Iraq is partitioned, will there be a war over Kirkuk?
Yesterday, the Sheik suggested that if there were going to be any civil war in Iraq, it would be over Kirkuk. And if Iraq were partitioned, Former Congressman Tom Downey, who recently met with Barzani in Erbil and with whom I spoke before my trip, thought it would even need a batallion or two of American soldiers to protect it from Turkey.
If Iraq is not partitioned, will Kirkuk and Mosul fold into the Kurdistan region?
Most Iraqis get heated when this question comes up. They see it as overreaching by Massoud Barzani, the President of Kurdistan, who is being accused of illegally bringing in thousands of Iranian Kurds with fake Iraqi passports that establish their birthplace as Kirkuk or Mosul -- the two places where he would want to stack the population for a census that will determine the sharing of oil revenues.
Iraqi Unity
Our Kurd told us that he and his associates believe in the unity of Iraq. He said that Kurds had lived for thousands of years with the Arabs.
"We are intermarried," he said. "Ten percent of my tribe are Christians. We have always lived together. We share one history with the Arabs."
This man believes in democracy and is against any partitioning of Iraq, against regionalization (or federalization). He is also against the Iranian influence in Iraq and said, "We are now occupied by two occupiers: America and Iran."
He believes that a coalition needs to be formed to force out the Maliki government. He does not recognize the political process as legal, but does believe the process can be corrected and that the Constitution needs to be corrected to include all the entities -- ethnic and religious -- opening a path for a nationalist, secular unity government.
Thus, he is working to form a new Kurdish political party to confront the Barzani and Jalai Talabani groups, both of whom want Iraq partitioned into areas including an independent Kurdistan.
I understand that this is what makes him a nervous man.
He is not a member of Parliament, but his party will run candidates in the next election. Millions of dollars are at stake and in a place where you can be killed just because you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, imagine what might happen if you were in the way of someone's greed.
The Reality in Kurdistan
Our Kurd told us that the majority of Kurds live in fear of being persecuted by the Barzani and Talabani groups. He explained that there is no freedom of press and no democracy for the Kurds He said anyone who speaks or writes against these two groups is imprisoned. For instance, a Kurdish journalist who lived in Austria came to Kurdistan and criticized the situation and was imprisoned for 36 years. (Note: Because of public outcry, the prison sentence was reduced to six years.) He said that Talabani and Barzani are millionaires as a result of siphoning off Iraqi money immediately after the invasion. According to Mohammed, they even stole 150 automobiles from the government warehouses.
In Tom Hayden's new book Ending The War In Iraq (a must read), he writes:
Talabani brags that the Kurdish town of Sulemaniya (the town Talabani used to run) now has twenty billionaires and 2,000 millionaires, that he spends an estimated half-million dollars for a week's hotel stay in Paris, and that he receives up to $1 million per month in discretionary funds. " (See footnote.)
Our courageous Kurd went on to say that there was a time when Talabani and Barzani were enemies. Barzani ran Erbil and Dohuk and Talabani ran Suleymaniye. Now, they are friends and each has profited nicely. Talabani is President of Iraq and Barzani, President of Kurdistan. Barzani's son-in-law -- who is also his nephew -- Nejivan Barzani, is the Prime Minister of the region. Nejivan was also the partner of Saddam Hussein's son, Uday Hussein, in Asia, a government oil marketing company.
The visiting Kurd invited me to Kurdistan to talk to many people. Then, I asked him if he knew Dr. Ali Sindi, my friend and classmate from the JFK School of Government at Harvard. Ali is a Senior Advisor to Massoud Barzani and has invited me to Erbil. Our Kurd told me that if I met with Barzani, I would be prohibited by him from meeting anyone else. If I wanted to meet with anyone else, I would have to go to Erbil, Mosul, and Kirkuk as a tourist.
Bottom Line
There will be a two-hour transcript of this meeting, only some of which I have recounted here. The bottom line is that Kirkuk and Mosul are issues that are not yet resolved.
I remember last August, during the CodePink/Global Exchange Peace delegation meeting Dr. Imad Khadduri who is an associate professor at the University of Mosul. Dr. Khadduri told me that it was "only the leaders" who wanted to break away from Iraq. (Watch that short video clip.)--------------------------------------- Iraqi Events on Tuesday June 6, 2007
Everyone in the house here is glued to the TV set watching for Iraqi news. Mohammed is constantly getting phone calls on one of his three cell phones. Here are the news flashes that came in on Tuesday:
- Today in Baghdad, 85 members of Parliament -- out of a total of 144 members present -- voted that Maliki has to get approval from Parliament in the future if he wishes to extend the stay of the coalition (lead by the American Forces). The Kurdish Parties and the Iranian line of the Shia coalition voted against this. The Sadrists, Fadheela, the Independence within the Shia Coalition, Accord, al-Hiwar as well as al-Iraqia voted for it. This is a binding vote. No Prime Minister can now unilaterally invite the American Forces to stay. They must get approval from the Parliament.
- Parliament asked Hussein al-Shahrestani, the Minister of Oil, to be present at Parliament for questioning and he refused, sending his two deputies instead. Parliament members proceeded to question the deputies, in particular about the corruption in his Ministry. One of the most important questions concerned the counting gauges in the southern fields (Basra), which are functioning. In other words, the oil continues to be smuggled out of the country. Parliamentarians think that al-Shahrestani, intends to present his resignation because he is responsible for a lot of corruption taking place in his department.
- The government announced yesterday that it is going to reveal huge incidences of oil theft that are taking place in Iraq which involve parties who are members of the government in partnership with one of Iraq's neighbors.
Footnote: Tom Hayden cites Jon Lee Anderson, "Mr. Big," New Yorker, February 5, 2007