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INSIGHT
A Look at Iraqi Kurds
Aired April 29, 2003 - 17:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR: The key Iraqis may be Kurds. They have democratic institutions, armed forces, and close ties to the United States, and the capacity to make or break any plans for the future.
Hello and welcome.
Iraq is at a crossroads between a past it doesn't want to repeat and a future it's only beginning to plan for. Can Iraqis now expect freedom? People tend to forget that millions of them already have it -- the three and a half million Kurds of northern Iraq make up about one-sixth of the country's entire population.
They have an elected parliament, a free press and a strong economy. For the last decade, they've built an essentially autonomous enclave under the protection of U.S. and British forces, but the fall of Saddam Hussein has ended their isolation and now the Kurds have to address issues together with the rest of Iraq.
On our program today, the Kurds in-country.
Jane Arraf begins our coverage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These are Kurdish students. A school for gifted children is exception in a country where even basic education was devastated by war and sanctions.
But it was held up on this visit by the U.S. general in charge of reconstruction as a model for the rest of Iraq.
Kurds, by necessity, have always seen their future as international. They threw off Iraqi government control after the 1991 Gulf War. After 12 years of virtual independence from the rest of Iraq, it will be a challenge politically and personally to reintegrate them.
SHARIQ GAZZAZ, HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS MINISTRY: We are constantly being told that we have to be Iraqis before we are Kurds. Well, I am not. I am Kurd first, second, third, and then I am Iraqi, if Iraq wants to be.
ARRAF: At school, the flag on this computer a Kurdish one. Kurds dream of their own country, but they're not pushing for it now.
"We can't deny we're Kurds, but we'd be happy to be in a fairly peaceful Iraq," says Sohan (ph), a university student.
For now, political leaders say they'll settle for federations, like the provinces that make up Canada or the cantons in Switzerland, retaining much of their power within a federal system.
KOSRAT RASSOUL ALI, PATRIOTIC UNION OF KURDISTAN: It's the Iraqi people who have made the decision about the time of rule in a future Iraq. And the Kurdish parliament decided that federalism will be the kind of rule that will let all of the Iraqi people, from Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrians live together.
ARRAF: But that decision made by what was then the Iraqi opposition might not stand.
U.S. officials lately refer only to a free, democratic Iraq, which Kurds see as a code word for majority rule, and the majority are Shia Arabs. Kurds are non-Arab. Most are Sunni Muslim.
GAZZAZ: We are a nation. By any standard, you can judge that. We are a nation. We have the right of the ultimate self-government, self- determination. We are not seeking that. That's a different story. That doesn't mean we haven't incurred that right.
Iraq has managed to give us something. Iraq has not given us something. We have gained that thing by the blood that has been shed, by the rights that we have asserted, by the political existence that we have had.
ARRAF: While Kurdish politicians focus on maintain their region's autonomy in a new political system, many ordinary Kurds are focusing on more immediate concerns.
The tea shops in the city of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) are packed with men thrown out of work when the war started and the U.N.-run Oil for Food Program ended.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) watches television most of the day. The news he's waiting to hear, though, is that there's work for him on a construction site.
"There's no government to spend money and find jobs for the people," he says.
(on camera): Kurds form a quarter of Iraq's population. For decades, they were dispersed by the Iraqi regime. Officials here are rejecting a census to find out the exact ethnic breakdown of the country until Kurds are allowed to return to their homes.
(voice-over): Returning home for hundreds of thousands of Kurds, and for some Arabs and Turkomans, is perhaps the most complicated and volatile issue in rebuilding Iraq.
As Kurds throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, one of the most important history lessons, repeated here to U.S. General Jay Garner, that the Iraqi regime expelled Kurds from Kirkuk and other cities.
Kirkuk is the heart of Iraq's northern oilfields, and in the hearts of all Kurds, they see it as their ancestral home and future capitol. Once majority Kurdish with a large percentage of Turkoman, over the years the Ba'ath Party expelled Kurds and encouraged Arabs to move in.
When Iraqi forces withdrew from Kirkuk three weeks ago, Kurdish soldiers and ordinary Kurds rushed in, some to try to reclaim their homes by force.
It's calmed down considerably since then. The U.S. Army is trying to deal with some of those claims, at least by listening to them. It's doing the paperwork, but doesn't have an answer.
In the northern city of Mosul (UNINTELLIGIBLE) doesn't even find anyone to complain to.
He's Arab. He and about 800 families were expelled by Kurdish soldiers from (UNINTELLIGIBLE) after they retook control of the town. He says he knew the land was Kurdish, but he bought his house from the Iraqi government. Now his family is living on the street, he says.
Kurdish officials say they've not encouraging people to go back right now to reclaim their homes, but the two Kurdish factions in charge of northern Iraq aren't preventing it either.
Nor are they preventing the stockpiling of abandoned Iraqi army weapons by Peshmerga, Kurdish fighters who fought with U.S. soldiers. Despite calls for all factions in Iraq to disarm, Kurdish officials say for now they won't ask their people to give up their guns, just as they say they won't give up their ambition and insistence on retaining the power they fought so hard to win.
Jane Arraf, CNN, in northern Iraq.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: A short while ago, we got back in touch with Jane Arraf, who's now in Sulamanita (ph), Northern Iraq, to talk about the Kurdish areas in recent days.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARRAF: Well, in most of the north, the part of the north that was actually taken by the Kurds in 1991 and has been under Kurdish control, has been sort of an amazing quiet. It's as if the war never really reached here.
But in those pieces around the edges, in Mosul and Kirkuk, there are definitely things happening, changes being made, with all the volatility that that implies.
Now, Kirkuk, of course, is that essential city that's essential to the Kurds, to ever other ethnic group in Iraq, because of the oil and also to the Turks. We cannot forget the Turks. But it seems to have stabilized. We're not hearing as many reports of Arabs being forcibly kicked out by Kurds, although that may indeed be happening, but certainly not the way that we saw when the Iraqi forces withdrew and the Kurdish forces and the American forces first went into Kirkuk. So it does seem to be stabilizing.
In Mosul as well, it's a bit more stable. The U.S. Army is going through the streets. You see them with Iraqi police forces that are being reintegrated, and things do seem to have calmed down quite a bit. Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of danger ahead. These are still very volatile cities and politically it's still a very open question, what's going to happen to Mosul and Kirkuk in that very complicated ethnic mix -- Jonathan.
MANN: Well, let me ask you about that. What are people there saying about the meetings with Jay Garner, about the discussions with others inside Iraq about the country's future?
ARRAF: It kind of seems to me that it splits into what the officials are saying and what the people on the ground are saying. What the officials are concerned with very much, because they're dealing with it on a day to day basis, is are they going to be able to retain this power that they have, this power that they've had since 1991.
Now, again, these are not the Kurds of before the Gulf War, the 1991 Gulf War. These are people who have been in control of essentially what has been their own administrative region for the past 12 years, and they want to keep that -- not just keep it, but enhance it. So they're really concerned that they will be able to come up with some sort of concept where they maintain those powers, where they don't get absorbed into some greater Iraq, where they're just a quarter of the population, without the autonomy that they've become used to.
On the ground, people are much more concerned about getting paid, about getting jobs, about getting the economy moving again, and in their hearts they still do have that dream. It's amazing to me how many people to me say that they are Kurdish first and Iraqis second.
Amazing only because it's not what they used to say when they were under Iraqi control. Now it seems that they're much more free to say that, but that is again a deferred dream.
Right now, they're not focusing on statehood. They are focusing on just improving their everyday lives. Their leaders, though, are focusing on that big picture, of fitting into a new Iraq and still keeping that power that they've had -- Jonathan.
MANN: Jane Arraf, thanks very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: We take a break, and then the Kurds make their case.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: Mosul is run by the U.S. Army right now, but next week it's planning an election. Mosul is a city of Arabs, Kurds, Turkoman and Assyrian Christians as well. According to a complex agreement concluded Tuesday with the help of U.S. forces there, delegates from rival groups in and around Mosul will elect members of a new city council on Monday. The councilors would then pick a new mayor.
Welcome back.
Iraqi Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds have a much bigger and more complex job ahead when it comes to sharing power nationwide, and the Kurds have more to lose than they do in Mosul.
Joining us now to talk about what's ahead is Sabbast Hussain, London spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two major Kurdish parties.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Let me ask you, first of all, about whether the Kurds of northern Iraq are more interested in building a new Iraq or simply holding onto and protecting the old established Iraqi Kurdistan that they now have.
SABBAST HUSSAIN, PATRIOTIC UNION OF KURDISTAN: We would like to integrate what we have achieve in the past decade into the democratic Iraq that is in the process of coming about.
As your reporter was saying, from Sulamanita (ph), the Kurds have a decade long experience of democracy and freedom of speech and enterprise in Kurdistan, and our way of life seems to be working, so we would like to share this experience with the rest of Iraq.
We would like to keep what we have, not only to care it, to share it with the rest of Iraq, and to improve.
MANN: Well, let me ask you, in practical terms, what that means and, really, what the priorities are. Is it keeping Kurdish control over the north of Iraq? Is it extending Kurdish control? Is it extending the rights of Kurds to return back to homes that they were pushed out of? Is it getting control, for example, of Kirkuk, or control of some oil?
HUSSAIN: The Kurdish leadership in the past few years, after extensive research and discussion and debate, have come to a conclusion that we would rather to live in a federal Iraq.
For that, it means the Kurds will have a free and democratic way of life.
The answer to your question, whether we want to go back to expand Kurdistan, we don't call it expansion. As long as we are Iraqis, it doesn't matter how -- where we live in.
But at the same time, we have to acknowledge that Saddam Hussein has been launching a policy of Arabitization (ph) and ethnic cleansing in many border areas in Kurdistan, namely Kirkuk, Mosul and the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) area. A lot of Kurds have been deported forcefully from these areas over the years of Saddam's regime. It will be only just and fair if we help those people repatriate and go back to their places.
But at the same time, we do not encourage revenge killings and destroying other people's lives as well. This repatriation has to be done in an orderly, civilized manner where the Arabs have to be found alternative accommodation and be sent back in places where they can live a normal life as well and...
MANN: Fair enough. Let me jump in and ask you a question about one thing that you've touched on, because you've covered a lot of ground, and that's the idea of a federal state. Even federal states, some of them, have strong central governments. All federal states have central governments of some kind, and it would seem, just looking at the numbers, that the next government of Iraq is going to be very representative of the majority, which is Shiite.
Would the Kurds, do you think, would your party welcome a federal state, as you say, but one that was run by democracy -- by majority rule, rather, and that turned essentially into an Islamic republic, which is what many Shiite organizations are talking about right now?
HUSSAIN: We would like to see an Iraq that is representative of the population. A majority Shia does not mean that they will have to rule the country. All it means that they will have a share in the government that represents their population.
At the same time, I think for Iraq, a country like Iraq, which consists of two main Islamic sects, Shia and Sunnis, and also Christians and other religions and also some ethnic minorities and ethnic origins, I think the one single regime that is whether Islamic or non-Islamic, will not be very practical as long as it takes into consideration all the aspects and diversity of the Iraqi people.
MANN: OK. On that note -- forgive me -- I'm going to jump in again.
The Kurds are more homogeneous than Iraqis as a whole, and yet even in the Kurdish areas, for about four years, there was essentially civil war. What are the chances that, given the much bigger and more diverse population of Iraq as a whole, there could be some kind of fighting before this is all settled as well?
HUSSAIN: I'm afraid this fear does exist and it is real. We have to acknowledge and to work by it and to take necessary measures to stop it, yes.
But Saddam has always in the past used the ethnic origins one against the other, used favoritism of Sunnis against Shia, of Arabs against Kurds and other minorities. And it has given an impression as if the Iraqis cannot live together.
Yes, there is a chance and a possibility of civil war and internal fighting, unfortunately. There has been in Kurdistan, as you mentioned.
But at the same time, there's also a chance, a bigger chance, of these diverse influences to live together. I think for the first time, the Iraqis now are experiencing freedom of speech.
We saw two weeks ago in Nasiriya where 80 delegates from the Iraqi people took part. Now yesterday's conference in Baghdad, the number rose to 250 members. I think these will be two of many conferences Iraqi needs in many other major cities in order for the Iraqi people to find a common ground, to talk about our differences, to find a common ground for the future rule of Iraq.
And I think the diversity in Iraq only enriches the country. It will only make Iraq better.
MANN: On that note, Sabbast Hussain, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, thank you so much for talking with us.
HUSSAIN: Thank you.
MANN: We have to take a break. When we come back, what could go wrong? A closer look at the crucial city of Kirkuk.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: The oil rich city of Kirkuk might be one of the spoils of this war. Several ethnic groups could lay claim to it now that Saddam Hussein is gone. Also now a part of history, the Iraqi leader's policy of Arabization (ph).
Welcome back.
Under that controversial policy, tens of thousands of Kurds and other minorities were forced from their homes in strategic areas and replaced with Arabs. For decades, the Ba'ath Party actively tried to Arabize (ph) much of the country.
Now that Saddam is no longer in charge, some of the displaced are turning up to reclaim their homes. Is it a sign of things to come?
Joining us now from London is Patrick Cockburn, of the British newspaper "The Independent."
Thanks so much for being with us.
We have heard about some of this trouble, particularly in Kirkuk. What's it look there?
PATRICK COCKBURN, "THE INDEPENDENT": Well, it's a very dangerous situation. More in the countryside, I think, than in Kirkuk city, because when you travel around the country you see empty villages that were filled with Arabs. Many of them fled, taking little of their belongings.
You have other villages that are contested, where Arabs remain and are very frightened of Kurds taking their houses or looters coming in, and will shoot at any vehicle coming down the road, particularly if it has the number plates of a Kurdish province.
MANN: Is this just violence about property, or is there political violence as well now?
COCKBURN: They go very closely together. I mean, this is a major change in population in which you have tens of thousands of people moving out, other people moving in. There are some 300,000 Kurds living in the north who want to go back to their homes.
So politics and quarrels over property go together. And it's extremely tense and very violent.
MANN: Now, just to make this more complex, for people who don't follow Iraqi events closely, there are the Kurds, there are the Arabs, and then within some of these areas at least, there are the Turkoman. How do they fit into this dynamic?
COCKBURN: Yes, it is very complicated. The Turkoman have always been a minority there. Nobody quite knows what their numbers are. People say 350,000 to 500,000. We're not quite sure.
They always were numerous in Kirkuk city and in other places. They have been adopted by Turkey and are seen by the other Kurds as very much of a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) of Turkey. And the Turks have said they've got to protect the Turkoman there.
But there are fraught relations and many of the Turkoman are very worried about what's going to happen to them.
MANN: In fact, there was a report, at least in this country, that Turkish special forces were trying to move weapons to the Turkoman, presumably for future use or to provoke something. It was never very clear.
COCKBURN: Yes, they did try to bring in some guns. The -- but they'd need an awful lot of guns. They're not really in a militarily defensible mode.
The amount of weapons being brought in was quite small and, frankly, anywhere in Kurdistan, anywhere in Iraq, weapons are one item that if you have a little money are not difficult to obtain.
MANN: I mention this only because there are some people who hope that the good experience in Iraqi Kurdistan can be repeated elsewhere in the country. That it's, in some sense, a model for the country. What about that way of thinking to your mind?
COCKBURN: Well, I think it's a little over-optimistic.
Yes, you could say that over the last decade or more things have been a little bit better in Kurdistan than in the rest of the country, but as you mentioned yourself, there's also been a rather blood civil war there.
I don't think it's something that will be easy to repeat in the rest of Iraq. You have a certain homogeneity about the Kurds. I think in the rest of Iraq, you have many more divisions. So I don't see what happened in Kurdistan as being easily repeatable in the rest of Iraq.
MANN: There are places around the world where people of different ethnic groups just don't like each other. Let's leave it that simple. Is that the case in Iraq? Are the Kurds and the Arabs of Iraq inevitably going to rub each other the wrong way for the foreseeable future?
COCKBURN: It's a very good question, and one I don't think we can quite answer yet.
Historically, most of the violence has come from the state. It hasn't been between the communities. But certainly driving around the north of Iraq in the last few weeks with these population movements, it is very violent.
According to my translator -- wandered into -- a Kurd wandered into the wrong village, an Arab village, and got picked up. They thought he was trying to take a house or was a looter or something. They dragged him behind a car, and then he got shot. I mean -- and that sort of thing is being repeated all over.
MANN: It's an uncivil time.
Patrick Cockburn, of "The Independent," thanks so much for talking with us.
COCKBURN: Thank you.
MANN: And that's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.
END
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