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Iraq

Kurds hammer away for freedom

A lucky tree bears the deeply driven hope of Iraq's Kurds to secure a bloc in the National Assembly.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published January 25, 2005

Times photo: John Pendygraft Nahida Azoz asks on Sunday for peace from a tree fabled to grant wishes to those who drive nails in it.

Times photo: John Pendygraft Hadi Aziz Dawood glues campaign posters Sunday in Irbil, Iraq. In northern Iraq, more than 90 percent of eligible voters are likely to vote.

IRBIL, Iraq - It's the lucky Nail Tree, and people come from all over northern Iraq to pound nails into its ancient trunk in hopes their wishes will be granted.

On this cold, leaden day, one woman is seeking relief for her son's nagging toothache. Another is here to help her barren sister.

"And this is for a federated Kurdistan," says Ali Mahmad, hammering away with a big rock. "Tell George Bush."

Asking a tree to intervene in politics might seem strange, but so is Iraq's first national election, to be held Sunday. Some areas are so dangerous many candidates won't reveal their names, let alone campaign in public. Most of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who ran the country during Saddam Hussein's regime, are expected to boycott the voting.

But here in northern Iraq, home to millions of pro-American Kurds, more than 90 percent of eligible voters are likely to go to the polls. For them, one issue is at stake: winning enough seats in Iraq's new National Assembly to assure Kurds retain the freedom and security they have enjoyed for the past 14 years.

"We are voting for destiny of the Kurds," says Arsalan Bapeer, who visited the Nail Tree over the weekend. An employee of Kurdistan's regional government, he has volunteered to be a poll watcher on Sunday.

Despite the enthusiasm, campaigning is off to a late start.

It was only Saturday, just eight days before the election, that volunteers began putting up the first campaign posters in Irbil, capital of the Kurdish north. Few picture individual candidates; most simply exhort Kurds to hit the polls.

During a break in a miserable spell of weather, Massoud Barzani, head of one of the major Kurdish parties, finally ventured out to shake hands with voters. Volunteers will be going door to door with election information, and Kurds with mobile phones will get text message reminders to vote.

Northern Iraq has generally escaped the mayhem in Baghdad, Fallujah and other areas. But there have been some recent, troubling incidents in Irbil, a city of 2-million: A bomb apparently intended for the chief of the police academy killed a bystander, and a rocket aimed at the Kurdish parliament missed its target.

As a result, Kurdistan - as Kurds call their region - will have the same tight election security as the rest of Iraq. International border crossings will be closed for three days, and only authorized vehicles will be allowed on the roads Saturday and Sunday.

"We are afraid that sneaky Arabs will come in," says Mustafa Aziz, a recent university graduate.

Although they, too, are Muslims, Kurds are a non-Arab group with their own dress, language and customs. More than 5-million live in northern Iraq, where they were viciously oppressed during Hussein's "Arabization" campaign of the 1980s. An estimated 500,000 Kurds died or disappeared, and countless others were forced from their homes as Arabs moved in.

After the 1991 Gulf War, American and British jets provided cover for much of northern Iraq, and the protected Kurds built a peaceful, quasidemocratic society.

Since Hussein's regime was deposed in 2003, Kurds have flourished, comparatively speaking, even as other parts of Iraq have slid into chaos. Irbil's new international airport hopes to start service to Istanbul, Turkey, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, later this winter. Suleymaniyah, a scenic city in the mountains near the Iranian border, is bustling with new construction.

Along with Shiites, who make up 60 percent of Iraq's population, Kurds are eager to proceed with the election for a new National Assembly. Its 275 members will write a permanent constitution that Kurds hope will create a Kurdish federation that is part of Iraq, but largely autonomous.

"We have to have a pluralistic system, a democratic system, a federated system, otherwise nothing will work," says Falah Mustafa, a minister in the Kurdish regional government.

To ensure Kurds win a hefty bloc of seats, the two main Kurdish parties have set aside their often-violent differences to draft a single slate of candidates.

"What they've done is good politics," says Noel Guckian, the British consul in northern Iraq. "They produced a list that brings in all ethnic groups and religions: Islamists, socialists, Yezidis, communists and the occasional Arab. In other words, it is looking to maximize" Kurdish influence in the new assembly.

In public at least, Kurds downplay fears that an election marred by violence and slack Sunni participation could lack credibility, or even lead to civil war.

If Sunnis don't turn out for the balloting, "it's because they are afraid of being killed or attacked," says Karim Choermay, a supervisor in Suleymaniyah's public schools. "Even in America the majority doesn't vote - it's not necessary for everyone to vote."

Still, few rule out the possibility that Iraq could degenerate into civil war or break up altogether unless it resolves its problems. Some of the political parties vying for seats in the Kurdish parliament (elections for that also will be held Sunday) call for total independence from the rest of Iraq.

Already, 1.7-million Kurds have signed a petition for a referendum on the issue. Referendum backers will also set up tents near Kurdish polling places so others can sign.

The thought of a Kurdish independence movement in Iraq is abhorrent to neighboring Turkey, which fears its own 15-million restive Kurds might want to join. Turkey has made it clear it would go to war rather than give up any of its territory.

Still, after so many decades of oppression by other nationalities, the dream lives on.

"Deep in the heart," says Mustafa, the minister, "every Kurd wants an independent Kurdistan."

-- Susan Taylor Martin can be reached at susan@sptimes.com

[Last modified January 25, 2005, 09:51:56]