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| Mass Migration Redraws Northern Iraq Map |
| 2004-02-17 |
| In a quiet mass migration, Arabs are fleeing their villages in northern Iraq and Kurds are moving back in, reversing Saddam Hussein’s campaigns of ethnic cleansing and effectively redrawing the demographic map. At the same time, politicians in Baghdad are trying to negotiate a formula for the future of Iraq, ahead of the July 1 planned transfer of power to Iraqis and the end to the U.S.-led occupation. The United States and some Iraqi leaders are pushing for a federal system they hope will maintain the country’s unity while satisfying Kurds, who want to preserve the autonomy they have held for years in the north. That would mean eventually defining the frontiers of a Kurdish federation. And with more Kurds moving back into their ancestral lands, Kurdish leaders’ claim over a larger area in a future federal division is strengthened - raising tensions with Arabs. Amid the bitterness and suspicion, even the concept of federalism is poorly understood in a country accustomed to centralized rule from Baghdad. Many Arabs see it as code for Kurdish aspirations to split from Iraq. And the Kurds aren’t exactly dissuading them of that view. Saddam’s military destroyed more than 4,000 villages in a 1987-1988 campaign to crush Kurdish rebels. Since then, the regime moved Arabs into Kurdish villages. Now, as Arabs pull out, Kurds are moving back to the towns and hamlets they fled over the past decades, bringing the ethnic makeup closer to what it was before Saddam’s campaigns. No overt violence but lots of threats. Kurds are insisting on retaining - or expanding - the system of self-rule they enjoyed under U.S. protection after Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. Kurdish militiamen, known as peshmerga, fought alongside U.S. soldiers last year and now expect a political payoff for that support. Creating a federal system in Iraq will be messy. Some officials have spoken of using the 18 existing provinces as the basis for federal regions. Those political boundaries don’t match up with the ethnic lines, however - particularly in the complicated case of the Kirkuk region. Kurds consider oil-rich Kirkuk the heartland of a Kurdistan but it also has Arab and Turkoman populations and is not in the Kurdish autonomous region. And the claim causes the Turks up north to suck the gas pipe. In his attempt to keep Kirkuk province firmly in Arab hands, Saddam detached four largely Kurdish districts - out of an original seven - and attached them to the neighboring Sunni Arab provinces of Salaheddin and Diyala. Drawing the federal borders along current provincial lines would keep them out of the Kurdish-run areas. But the more Kurdish returnees come back to those districts, the stronger Kurdish leaders’ claim to them will be. Kurds regard the Hamreen Mountains as the natural borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. The range runs across the country from the Mosul area in the northwest to meet the Iranian border nearly as far south as Baghdad. Kurdish version of Manifest Destiny? The mood is even less compromising in the Kurdish cities, where for many activists, federalism means the first step to full independence. "Now is not the right time to call for independence," said Ferhad Pirbal, a writer and university professor in Irbil. But "federalism is the means to reaching that goal." Scenario: Sistani pulls a fast one to get the Shi’a in charge of the "federal" government. He quietly invites the Kurds to pull out and rules everything south of the Hamreen from Najaf. Sunnis end up big losers. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #8 They're simply maneuvering to miss their next opportunity... Praise allah, someone understands... it's not as easy as it looks. |
| Posted by: YesSir ImaFat 2004-2-17 6:50:01 PM |
| #7 Do you think(maybe)the Sunnis have that cause/effect thing ass-backwards. Not possible -- they're all degreed graduates of the Palestinian College of Political Science. They're simply maneuvering to miss their next opportunity... |
| Posted by: snellenr 2004-2-17 12:22:15 PM |
| #6 Kurds are insisting on retaining - or expanding - the system of self-rule they enjoyed under U.S. protection after Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. Kurdish militiamen, known as peshmerga, fought alongside U.S. soldiers last year and now expect a political payoff for that support. Which is being overlooked in the Arab world, since it is probably the best success story in the middle east, right after Israel. NOT that there was much competition, mind you. Kurds regard the Hamreen Mountains as the natural borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. Natural barriers as a natural border. All of Gaza and half of the West Bank should remain Israeli for the same practical reason. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2004-2-17 12:00:16 PM |
| #5 Arabs are fleeing their villages in northern Iraq and Kurds are moving back in, Both of these migrations will snowball. The recent bombings of Kurds by Al Qaeda were really, really bad news for the now shrinking group of Arab colonists in Kurdistan. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-2-17 8:13:33 AM |
| #4 Fredom loving Kurds to the North. Cleric led Shia's to the South. You would think the Sunnis would be trying to keep a low profile. Do you think(maybe)the Sunnis have that cause/effect thing ass-backwards. |
| Posted by: Raptor 2004-2-17 7:23:18 AM |
| #3 Any scenario that ends with the words sunnis and big losers in the same sentence is fine by me. |
| Posted by: Evert Visser 2004-2-17 4:03:37 AM |
| #2 Judging from the daily events in Fullujah, Tikrit and Samarra the Sunnis have a strange way of seeking an alliance. Maybe they're destined to be losers. Then of course there's always the cleansing effect of a messy civil war. |
| Posted by: GK 2004-2-17 1:02:27 AM |
| #1 The only scenario I can come up with which doesn't make the Sunnis *BIG* losers is a close alliance with the US. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-17 12:29:16 AM |