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Leaving Kurdistan, like leaving a country
One of the best ways to understand the political dynamics at play in Northern Iraq is to hop into a taxi and travel north towards the Turkish border. Once you reach the multi-ethnic oil-rich city Kirkuk, every checkpoint is manned by peshmerga guerilla fighters loyal to one of the two Kurdish political parties. And they are on the lookout for one thing: Arabs. I knew this, of course, even before departing Iraq Tuesday. Traveling from Ranya near the Iranian border towards the provincial capital Arbil a few days earlier I had been forced to disembark my bus a half dozen times for grilling by local peshmerga. They were concerned my American travel documents were false -- because I have vaguely Semitic features, speak some Arabic and do not speak Kurdish. But this was nothing compared to the grilling that a middle-aged businessman from Baghdad was given. As we approached each checkpoint in our communal taxi, the peshmerga would politely ask if there were any Arabs in the car. "No we're all Kurds," the driver would answer to quicken our trip. But the more persistent among the peshmerga were never satisfied. They would stick their head inside the driver's side window and peer around the car. When they saw the man from Baghdad in the back -- with a full beard and skin slightly darker than that of his neighbours in the north -- they would ask the driver to pull over to a side, and demand that everyone get out. At that point, a full search of the man's bags and a long grilling were in order. Posted by: phil_b 2005-02-18 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=56764 |