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Kurds saddled with Saddam's
men
By Aaron Glantz
KIRKUK - Iraq's two main Kurdish political
parties have put aside their differences for the
January 30 election. Like the Shi'ites in the
south, they have organized a single, sectarian
ticket for which they hope all Kurds will vote.
Surprisingly, that list includes some
prominent members of the Ba'ath Party of Saddam
Hussein's regime. Ask any Kurds in northern Iraq
whom they plan to vote for and they will give you
the same answer as peshmerga (Kurdish
paramilitary) Ali Karem Mohammed, who lives in a
refugee shantytown on the edge of Kirkuk in the
Kurdish north of Iraq.
Like
so many refugees around
Kirkuk, Ali is a victim of Saddam's brutal
campaign of ethnic cleansing against the
Kurds. "I am Kurdish," he told Inter Press Service, as
he cocked the pistol in his left hand. "Till I die
I'm Kurdish and I vote for Kurds."
As
with all election lists in Iraq, the identity of the
Kurdish candidates remains officially a secret for
security reasons. Unlike other election lists,
however, the contents of the Kurdish one became
known when it was obtained by the independent
Kurdish weekly Hawalti. The list revealed that
about a dozen Kurdish candidates were former
Ba'athists.
"These are people who helped
Saddam in his campaign against the Kurds," said
Zirak Abdullah, managing editor of the newspaper's
office in Arbil in northern Iraq. "Remember that
182,000 people were killed in the campaign, which
was carried out by Saddam in the 1980s, including
what happened in Hallabja," where 5,000 Kurdish
civilians were gassed with chemical weapons, he
said. "These people - they have the blood of the
Kurdish people on their hands."
Among the
former Ba'athists on the Kurdish election slate
are people who were once known as "Rafiq Hizbi" or
the "Comrades". These were high-ranking members of
the Ba'ath Party. Mustashars, the heads of
Saddam's Kurdish paramilitary and mercenary
groups, are also on the Kurdish election slate,
according to Hawalti.
The newspaper
published the names of some of them along with the
positions they held in the former Ba'ath Party. On
the list of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), which controls the area north and east of
Kirkuk along the Iranian frontier, are Faiysal
Karim Khan Mahmum, a former Mustashar; Abdul-Bari
Mohammed Faris from Mosul, also a former
Mustashar; and Faris Younis Krido from Duhok, a
former Ba'athist.
The list of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), which controls
the cities Arbil, Zakho and Dohuk, and the areas
along the Syrian and Turkish border, include Namiq
Raqib Mohammed Surchi, who was the head of the
committee responsible for banning the Kurdish
language in the Kurdish city Mosul; Jawhar Muhedin
Jihangir from Mosul, who was head of Saddam's
mercenaries, and Omer Khizir Hamad from Arbil, a
Mustashar.
Many Kurds are taken aback by
the inclusion of these names, since they will be
voting for the Kurdish list to put Saddam's
dictatorship behind them.
"You know Kurds
are living in squalor," said refugee Zorab
Hussein. He was forced to leave Kirkuk in 1974,
when the first Kurdish revolt against the Ba'ath
Party collapsed. Now he lives on the outskirts of
Kirkuk in a squatter camp with no toilet
facilities. His eight-year-old son plays amid
human excrement.
"I don't have a door," he
said. "I just have a curtain to act like a door,
so how can you allow a Ba'athist to be on our list
at election time? If you were in my situation
would you allow a Ba'athist to be on my election
list?"
Zirak Abdullah of Hawalti says he
is not surprised that Ba'athists have made it to
the Kurdish slate. In the 1990s, the two leading
Kurdish factions - the PDK and the PUK - fought a
civil war against one another. Both sides,
desperate to rule the entire Kurdish region,
called on former Ba'athists for help. The PUK
called on Saddam's local supporters, while the PDK
invited the Iraqi army to Arbil to break the
stalemate.
"The PDK and PUK are the most
powerful parties in Kurdistan," Abdullah said. "In
the past there was a conflict between them. And
each one went to the devil to deal with the other.
So those former Ba'athist people, they have killed
thousands of people, but because the two parties
wanted to have more followers they tried to work
with their enemy so their enemy wouldn't join the
other side. Now it's payback time."
On
election day, Kurds will have little choice but to
vote for these Ba'athists. All the Kurdish
candidates are running on the same list, the
Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan.
(Inter Press Service) |
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