Settlement of the Kurdish Problem in Iraq
KDP's PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNMENT
(Part III)
To cement the unity of the homeland, preserve the major national institutions, deepen the feelings of national unity, ensure the supremacy of law, facilitate the execution of the tasks of the central authority and to cooperate with the government in the discharge of its central national duties are some of the basic responsibilities of any political party participating in government.
As we have said earlier, the March Manifesto comprised two closely interlinked basic points, namely:
1. Safeguarding the legitimate national rights of the Kurds.
2. Consolidating the unity of Iraq, i.e., the unity to the people, of the homeland and of the constitutional system, within the framework of the supremacy of law and centralization of authority.
Since the announcement of the March Manifesto representatives of the KDP participated in political power and held various important posts in the state. In addition, members of the KDP occupied both the senior and junior administrative posts in the Sulaymaniah, Arbil and Dohuk govern orates and in the other districts and areas populated by a Kurdish, majority -thus becoming the administrative authority of the area.
Therefore, brothers in the KDP and the leadership of the Kurdish Movement are required to work, side by side with their Baath’s and other comrades, and in cooperation with the responsible authorities, to normalize conditions in the area in order to secure the objective conditions needed for transition to the exercising of self-rule and for providing the basic services and interests of the Kurdish masses related to national rights (such as schooling) and to economic, security, health and other similar requirements.
Aware of the fact that the northern area had suffered, throughout the long years of fighting, severe pains that bred many difficult problems, aware of the special conditions of the area and the clan, tribal and factional relations playing an important role therein. Aware of the long time and strenuous efforts required transforming the area into a stable and normal state. Realizing all this, we had hoped that the KDP, by virtue of its moral and political influence and force, would prove to be an element of stability, rather a vanguard force leading the region speedily towards stability and eventual normalcy and fighting against any quarter attempting to retain the extraordinary conditions for futile action and unlawful gains and benefits.
But, while appreciating some positive steps taken by leading elements of the KDP and the Kurdish Movement in that direction, the outcome of an experience of more than two and a half years pointed to a totally contrary direction.
Indeed, the conditions of the area deteriorated to a very grave state. Below are a number of aspects that bear witness:
1 - Right from the beginning, we sensed among our brothers in the KDP a wrong tendency, against which we repeatedly, earnestly and sincerely warned. This tendency was that every member of the KDP, who assumed any post in the government, instead of acting as a responsible official, behaved with the same mentality and in the same ways that governed his dispositions during the fighting.
As a matter of fact such a phenomenon might emerge in all political parties that shift from extremely passive resistance to the seat of government. But such parties, usually, exert intensified ideological efforts to remedy the situation by striking a balance between one's identification as a struggler and one's duties as a responsible government official. But past experience however, explicitly proved that brothers in the KDP made no effort whatsoever in this respect. On the contrary, The KDP's leadership encouraged this wrong behavior and very strongly protected those who committed it.
This dangerous state of affairs was escalated to the heights of defaming the Kurdish officials who exercise their duties in accordance with the laws and regulations and labeling them as "stooges of the government". Thus, the loyalty of Kurdish officials to the KDP has come to be measured by the extent to which these officials go in defying the government, breaking the law and committing offences.
2 - We have earlier touched upon the question of the 'frontier guards force"; and there might be no objection to coming back to it. In the meetings between the ABSP and the KDP that preceded the declaration of the March Manifesto, it was agreed to form, after declaring the Manifesto, "frontier guards" regiments manned by members of the Peshmerga. Sure enough 12 such regiments were formed and provided with the necessary equipment and supplies by the authorities concerned.
We cannot escape the fact that all of them were fighters in the ranks of the Kurdish Movement and that their loyalty remained to this Movement. Nor do we have any objection to this. But matters did not end there. These "frontier guards" continued to act, in all cases and occasions, as "Peshmergas" never subjecting in any way to the administrative authorities. Using their newly acquired status of an official armed force, they have been intervening, by the force of arms, in tribal disputes, imposing tributes and, sometimes, committing rape. What meaning, then, remains for agreements? Where is the commitment of the KDP and the Kurdish Movement to undertake the restoration of normal life to the area?
3 - The army is a national institution shouldering a sacred responsibility in the defense of the sovereignty and independence of the homeland. Had it been hurled in the past into a fight between brothers, it should not be held responsible for those hostilities. All the responsibility rests with the regime, whose policies the army was simply carrying out.
Although it is the right of the leadership of the KDP and the Kurdish Movement to "guard against" any "developments" (which are actually sheer illusions created by the poisonous propaganda of the imperialists and the reactionary who are hostile to the Kurdish people and to the entire people of Iraq), yet it is not right to assume, all along, a negative attitude towards this principal national institution. How could the Revolution enrich the inculcation of the principles of Arab-Kurdish brotherhood and of the peaceful and democratic settlement of the Kurdish question amongst the ranks of the people that include the army at a time when incessant atrocities are committed against the army and its establishments?
How could it do so after the situation deteriorated to the extent of machination to blow up certain military bases, to prevent the armed forces from training and stationing in certain areas of the homeland and to forbid the passage of troops through other areas? The Revolution did not retaliate by force due solely to a deep concern for the high interest of the homeland and for peace.
Another very important point is connected with "serving the flag". "Al-Taakhi" complains that the ABSP monopolizes for itself political work within the ranks of the army and demands that the KDP be accorded similar opportunities. But "Al-Taakhi" ignores the atrocities committed against the principles and basic rules upon which this national institution rests. We had previously posed this issue for discussion, and it might be useful and relevant to deal with it again.
In the talks that preceded the promulgation of the March Manifesto, brothers in the KDP requested that Peshmerga members be absolved from doing military service. They said the Peshmergas numbered 21,000. Despite being positively sure that this figure was very much exaggerated (a fact which was frankly stated to the KDP), we gave our consent as a sign of goodwill and genuine desire to surmount all obstacles coming in the way of the peaceful and democratic settlement of the Kurdish question.
But, more than two and a half years after the declaration of the Manifesto, the number of persons furnished by the KDP with certificates testifying that they were Peshmergas (for the purpose of exemption from military service) rose to more than 121, 000, including large numbers of Arab citizens. Repeatedly, we complained of this to brothers in the KDP and drew their attention to the fact that matters had gone beyond the scope of helping Peshmergas to another state jeopardizing the very principle of serving the flag. But our complaints have always gone with the wind.
One more very important point is related to deserting the army. It has become customary to instigate a number of Kurdish soldiers to desert their units to go to the areas controlled by the KDP -one time under the pretext of "strained conditions" and another time under the allegation of "the arrest of Kurdish soldiers". This state of affairs endangers the standards of military discipline and obedience, especially so when certain KDP's elements resorted to inciting non-Kurdish soldiers to desert the army.
The military authorities cannot possibly allow such acts to go unpunished. But brothers in the KDP considered these acts as a political issue and insisted either upon absolving the soldiers concerned from the punishment they deserved or retaining them in KDP's areas.
It is known that a dialogue was commenced between representatives of the ABSP and the KDP on 23rd September 1972. Ever since, desertion from the army continued. We have drawn the attention of brothers in the KDP to the seriousness of these acts, but to no avail. *
4 - During the years of fighting, the Kurdish area lived under very hard conditions. Numerous Arab and Kurdish circles -in the government, in the Kurdish Movement and in the area as a whole -have exploited those hardships to secure unlawful benefits.
Though they agreed to champion the national rights of the Kurdish people, the Kurdish Armed Movement and the KDP also contained undercurrents and factions, which are widely divergent rather contradicting in their political inclinations and class interests.
Combined together, these circumstances led to an abnormally turbulent state in the conditions of security in the area. Consequently, the Kurdish masses suffered the severest pains; the economy deteriorated; many development projects came to a standstill; and highly complex and complicated conditions ensued.
In addition to assuring the legitimate national rights of the Kurdish people, the March Manifesto came to serve the realization of stability and national concord in the area and to herald a new era where people could live in peace and tranquility.
Nobody ever doubted that the realization of this dear objective, which is surrounded by difficulties and obstacles, needed much time and energy but, we were confident that the sincere cooperation between the ABSP and the KDP would help surmount all these difficulties and obstacles and shift the area, progressively, to the cherished state of stability, the sovereignty of law and national accord. Yet in spite of the wide and bright optimism we felt upon the declaration of the March Manifesto and despite the sincere efforts made towards solving certain problems, we began to sense, gradually but increasingly, certain dangerous aspects (exceeding the limits of mistaking) in the conduct of leading and prominent members of the KDP.
All these aspects, whatever different shapes they had taken, centered on one constant obsession for the preservation of the abnormal conditions and the state of lawlessness. Under this obsession, it was only natural that various crimes could be committed, willfully or unintentionally. At times, this lust was cloaked with exaggerated, rather suspect, concern for the Kurd's national rights. At others, the KDP and the Kurdish Movement shielded it under the pretext of the need for the retention of strong sureties. At all times this obsession justified its deeds by errors on the part of the organs of the authority or by alleged faults and excesses committed by these organs.
In order to understand the whole truth and to place matters in their real perspective, we must analyze these aspects and discuss all the ideas and possibilities revolving around them.
The central point at issue in the whole affair is not action and reaction. In other words, the basic point is not to find out who started the abuse. This leads into a closed road. Indeed, the experience of more than two and a half years did prove that this was a closed road along which many valuable efforts and countless sincere endeavors were wasted together with scores, even hundreds, of attempted investigations and fact-finding that went astray in its labyrinth.
If we hang on the rational of action and reaction, the situation would remain as it was for long years. There shall always be an ignorant, foolish, isolationist, self-seeking or even an agent government official who will commit atrocities or abuses detrimental to the rights of the Kurdish people or of elements of the KDP. Such a person might or might not be detected in a year or in many years. Likewise, there shall always be an ignorant, foolish, isolationist, self-seeking even an agent member of the KDP. He will commit atrocities and abuses against the Iraqi people, the government or the ABSP and he may, or may not, be discovered in a year or in many years. And so on actions and reactions will continue to rotate forever.
The main point, therefore, is how the political leadership views the matter and its basic attitudes towards it. Only the political leadership, by virtue of its influence and role, can either put an end to abnormal conditions and lead the area into stability or perpetuate these abnormal conditions.
As far as the ABSP and the revolutionary authority are concerned, the concept of the political leadership of the situation can be explained in the following basic points:
The attitude of the ABSP and the authority of the Revolution towards the legitimate national rights of the Kurdish people and towards the peaceful and democratic settlement of the Kurdish question does not stem from temporary or tactical considerations. It is prompted by a principled and strategic policy, distinctly expressed by the party's principles and the documents of the party's regional and national conferences.
Simultaneously, their attitude towards the KDP and the Kurdish Movement does not emanate from transitory considerations. It is based on a realistic appreciation of the role of this leadership. Any authority, alive to its national responsibilities, takes effective care of the supremacy of stability and normal conditions throughout the country. Any deviation from this line is a dual offence perpetrated against both the authority and the quarters directly harmed. The basic stand of the authority cannot, in any way, be for disturbing the peace and the spreading of turbulence.
The Major domestic and national responsibilities shouldered by the ABSP and the authority of the Revolution demand, first and foremost, solid national unity, a complete state of stability and popular mobilization throughout the homeland.
These are the basic motives of the attitudes of the ABSP and the revolutionary authority. But, how do brothers in the KDP and the Kurdish Movement look upon the matter under review?
As a result of the nature of the composition of the KDP and Kurdish Movement and because of their inherent undercurrents and contradictions, their view of these acts is marked with confusion and fluctuation. Nevertheless out of this discordance, the following obvious tendencies can be diagnosed:
* Certain leading and executive members of the KDP and the Kurdish Armed Movement consider the supremacy of law and stability and the prevalence of normal conditions in the area as a manifestation of "the supremacy of the central authority". Therefore, they take up a bargaining position, deliberately refusing to change their minds before the implementation of all the clauses of the March Manifesto.
* Other influential elements go beyond this logic to the extent of believing that the maintenance of the supremacy of law, stability and normal conditions in the area weakens the influence of the KDP and the Kurdish Liberation Movement, which depended for a long time upon the state of crisis and tension.
*A third group of influential executives goes farther more and holds that the maintenance of the rule of law, stability and normal conditions in the area would lead to a "relaxation" in the ranks of the Kurdish Movement and, consequently, to the loss of the state of alert needed for encountering "emergencies".
* The influence of clan, tribal, class and family relations in major parts of the Kurdish Movement and the reliance of leading personalities of the Movement on these relations for consolidating their own political. Social and military positions (together with other factors including the theory of agglomeration that characterized the KDP's policy since the declaration of the March Manifesto) all combined to make numerous quarters in the KDP and the Kurdish Movement align themselves, justly or unjustly, by the side of their followers who commit offences, regardless of how grave the offences might be.
This is in addition to the evil elements connected with foreign quarters that will not hesitate to commit any crime. These evil elements are well known to us and to brothers in the KDP as well; but the latter screen their offences and save them for the state of "emergency"!!
If we were to summarize all these tendencies, we shall find out that their common denominator, despite variation in motives, intentions and appraisals, is the preservation of abnormal conditions in the area.
The question which every Kurd and every member of the KDP and the Kurdish Movement must put to himself, and to the leadership of the KDP and the Kurdish Movement, is this: Who suffers from the continuation of this unhappy state of affairs? Who suffers from the crimes of murder, kidnapping and usurpation committed everyday? Should anyone entertain the narrow and unpatriotic view that "the authority" alone suffers from these offences, he would be committing a serious error. The organs of "the authority" suffer but comparatively limited harm from these offences; and the authority, in the meantime, has adequate ways and means for protecting itself and for compensating the injured party.
The party that is directly harmed and that suffers agonies from the perpetuation of the sad situation is the broad masses of the Kurdish people, who sustained long years of pain, bitterness and homelessness and who crave for a life of peace and stability under the shade of a regime that guarantees their dignity, freedom and national rights. It, therefore, behooves those who come forward to achieve the interests and rights of the Kurdish people to care, before anybody else, for sparing the Kurdish masses any agony or calamity.
Despite all this, and notwithstanding the revolutionary authority's national accomplishments and other achievements pertaining to the March Manifesto, the northern region still remains the scene of the most dangerous incidents and turbulence that arouse alarming anxiety among the Kurds and the entire people of Iraq. Below are just a few examples:
* The organizations of the KDP and the Kurdish Armed Movement, in the areas under their control, prevent government officials (such as the staff of the ministries of finance and agrarian reform) from performing their official duties. This is true even to public health officials.
* The murder, kidnapping and arrest of citizens who disagree with the leadership of the KDP and the Kurdish Movement. As We have mentioned earlier, this leadership has its own prisons and concentration camps, which include: the Khalan and Rayat prisons in the Governorate of Arbil and the Tawila, Mawot and Chwarta prisons in the Governorate of Sulaymaniah.
They also have detention posts of which we cite the following:
1. Butwata, the District of Rania, the Governorate of Sulaymaniah.
2. Barzanja, the District of Chwarta, the Governorate of Sulaymaniah.
3. Belola, Bembo Sector, the District of Khanaqin, the Governorate of Diyala, Sartak
Bemo Sector, the District of the Governorate of Diyala, Halshar, the District of Bashdar, Sulaymaniah Hereo, the District of Bashdar, Sulaymaniah, Jafaran, Oarada, Sulaymaniah, Salusikain, Oaradar, Sulaymaniah, Sangow, Kirkuk, Bamerni, the headquarters of Asad Khoshoi, Amadia, Dohuk, Hiran, Arbil, Nazarbin, Arbil, Khanaqin
The number of inmates of these prisons and concentration camps has recently exceeded 200 detainees.
* The widespread crimes of rape committed against Kurdish victims by Peshmergas and Aghas who support the KDP and the Kurdish Movement.
* The burning down and artillery shelling of Kurdish villages whose inhabitants do not line up with the leadership of the KDP and the Kurdish Movement.
* The expulsion of Kurdish citizens who do not support the KDP from the areas where they live and forbidding the tribes who migrated from their areas during the fighting from returning to their former homes. Of such poor souls, nearly 34,000 citizens live in the Governorate of Nineveh. Some of them are roofless. All of them suffer the most miserable wretchedness. And scores of innocent children have died of want.
(1) Ath-Thawra published a list of names of the stationing of Peshmergas (who were supposed to have been demobilized and to whom the state pays subsidies) in Kurdish villages and their parasitic living there at the expense of villagers.
* The engagement in contraband and other illicit activity, together with assaulting (sometimes killing) customs officials.
* The exertion of various sorts of pressure against members of national minorities in the northern area, coercing them to side with the KDP, preventing them from exercising their national rights that were guaranteed by the laws enacted by the Revolution, (except within frameworks and formulas specified by the leadership of the KDP) and impeding the implementation of the resolution ensuring Syriac-speaking citizens their administrative and cultural rights.
Below are official statistics of the crimes committed in the period between the date of issuance of the March Manifesto and the date of the commencement of talks between representatives of the ABSP and the KDP on 23.9.1972:
379 murders
219 Kidnapping (these involved 566 victims of whom 499 were civilians, 47 military men and government officials and 20 Iranian patriots)
157 Rapes
419 assaults
29 robberies.
Over and above these, II acts of sabotage were performed against railways and trains, 6 against electricity installations, 3 against roads, bridges and dams and 25 against miscellaneous public property.
When the dialogue began on 23rd September, 1972, between representatives of the ABSP and KDP, brothers of the KDP said there was need to take joint measures to improve the atmosphere and pave the way that leads the dialogue to the desired positive results. Representatives of our party confirmed that definite orders were given to the responsible authorities in the area to observe strict self-control and non-reaction, warning that severe punishment would be inflicted upon anyone who infringed those orders.
They also confirmed that those orders had been complied with and requested the KDP to state any violation thereof. Yet, in addition to what we had previously mentioned regarding the desertion of a large number of service men from their units after the dialogue, more than 10 murder, 30 kidnapping and 18 raping and assault crimes were committed in the area against Kurdish, Arab and other Iraqi citizens military and civilian alike. (1)
We wonder what the value of commitments is? To whose interest are these deeds committed? Who suffers from them? Why! Why!
* Ath- Thawra published a list of the names of 195 military men, who deserted the army between September 30 and October 5, 1972.
(1) Details of these crimes were published in "ath-Thawra".