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Arab homes on Kurdish lands fuel ethnic rivalries in northern Iraq
Jordan Times, Tuesday, September 30, 2003
HIFA, Iraq (AFP) — On the walls of the mosque, an avenging hand has scrawled: "We will be back to claim our rights." In the northern village of Hifa, Kurds own the land, Arabs own the houses, and both sides feel cheated.
The inhabitants of Hifa, 30 kilometres north of Kirkuk, are anxiously waiting for the interim authorities in Baghdad to resolve the explosive issue of historic Kurdish lands taken over by Arabs.
The Arabs arrived and settled in Hifa in 1975 in what were then empty fields.
"We are in all our rights," says Ali Riad, a 30 year-old farmer.
"We have contracts bearing our names. Kurds received compensation... We have built homes, cultivated the fields for 30 years. Now they come back to reclaim their lands and half the crop without having made any effort."
Iraq's former Baathist regime drove out tens of thousands of Kurds from the Kirkuk region by buying their lands and homes for small sums of money and installing in their place Arabs from the centre and south of the country in an effort to change the ethnic makeup of the area in favour of Arabs.
Many Kurdish homes were destroyed in the process.
After the fall of Kirkuk on April 10, thousands of Kurds came back in search of their old property, in many cases taking over homes left empty by fleeing Arabs during the US-led war to oust Saddam Hussein's regime, and in other cases using force or threats to kick out Arab inhabitants.
"We asked them (Kurds) not to come back," while no decision has been reached regarding Kurdish rights to old property, says Lieutenant Colonel Randy George, deputy commander of the 173rd Airborne Division. He said the actual number of Kurds returning to the Kirkuk region was "significantly" less than initial expectations.
But Kurds and Arabs are getting impatient.
"All refugees are coming back. If they find Arabs in their homes, they expel them, it's comprehensive," said Jalal Jawar, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan representative in Kirkuk.
There was an exchange of fire in Hifa last week when 50 or so Kurds occupied an Arab field claiming it was their old land. Coalition authorities, members of the municipal council and tribes tried to calm the situation. But Arab families feel defenceless.
"We are afraid that the village will be attacked, afraid to work in the fields. A solution must be found fast. We are either declared landowners, or given compensation. In this case we will take our money, our furniture and return to our homes," said Majid Abdel Hussein, a 53-year-old Hifa resident.
On the other side, about 250 Kurdish families, whose homes were destroyed under the previous regime, have been camping for the last five months at Kirkuk's sports stadium.
"We were expelled to Suleimaniyah. We came back in May, our house was destroyed, now we live like dogs," said Abdel Khalek Ahmed Sherif, 46, who lives with a family of 13 in the stadium's bleachers as they wait for authorities to provide them with housing.
Police last week arrested 15 Kurds who built homes on public land after returning to Kirkuk, from which they were displaced by the ousted regime.
The Kurdish mayor of Kirkuk Abdel Rahman Mustafa called Friday on the interim Governing Council to take a decision very fast to allow the return of Kurds to Kirkuk "in a fair manner that would not undermine the unity" of the multiethnic city.
Tensions have been on the rise in the multiethnic province of 800,000 to 850,000 inhabitants, who include Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Assyrian Christians, since the fall of Saddam's regime in April.
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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