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March 2004
2. "Divisions on Kurdistan and role of Islam delay agreement on interim constitution", Iraq's US-appointed governing council was locked in negotiations last night in an effort to overcome deep divisions over an interim constitution.
3. "Turkey's Military Warns Iraq Kurds Not To Form Army", Turkey's powerful military General Staff warned the Kurds of neighboring Iraq Friday against setting up their own separate military force.
4. "CPA’s fear of sparking political conflict leaves Kurdish refugees out in the cold", Displaced Kurds, almost constantly on the move since being expelled in 1988-1991, ask only for plot of land to build homes
5. "Hope for Cyprus", Under the UN plan, Cyprus would be reunified under a federal government. Turkish Cypriots, with less than a fourth of the island's population but currently in control of 37 percent of its land, would have to cede about a fifth of their territory to the Greek-Cypriot-governed area.
6. "Refugees denounce Cyprus plan", Thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees rallied Sunday to denounce an "accursed" U.N. plan for reunification of their island for denying them the right to return to homes they fled 30 years ago.
1. - Los Angeles Times - "The U.S. Is Brewing Up a Disaster for the Kurds":
Proposed constitution's strong centralized government ignores 13 years of autonomy.
IRBIL (Iraq) / February 29, 2004 / By Brendan O'Leary
The Bush administration wants to impose an extremely centralized interim constitution on Iraq. That's a recipe for disaster.
The plan of L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator, will not fly, except perhaps in Arab Iraq. The reason is that Iraq is not one nation but at least two. Some Arabs on the U.S.-appointed Governing Council are making a deal with the Coalition Provisional Authority. Nothing surprising about that, but the deal would be at the expense of the Kurds and of Iraq's other nation, the semiautonomous region of Kurdistan. It would sacrifice secular principles, women's rights and meaningful federalism, so Americans should pay close attention to what is being done in their name.
The proposed Iraqi transitional administrative law is the "Pachachi" draft. Quotation marks are needed because its authors — a nephew of Ahmed Chalabi, a Shiite Muslim, and an advisor to Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni and a member of the Governing Council — mostly transcribed, word for word, passages from Bremer's papers.
The draft is no home-grown interim constitution that can subsequently be blamed on the natives. It was composed via the White House — and betrays the promises made by President Bush to the Kurdish leaders who organized the sole indigenous military support for the liberation of Iraq.
The Pachachi draft would create a "federation" far more centralized than what we have in the United States, reflected in its persistent use of "central" to refer to the interim government. It would make federal law supreme in all matters the central government deems within its sphere. So much for states' rights. It would make Kurdistan a subordinate level of government — not a co-equal partner in a voluntary union. It would give the central government exclusive competence in security, military and defense matters (ignoring Kurdistan's determination to have its own national guard). The central government also would control natural resources and determine fiscal, monetary and wage policies. It would eliminate Kurdistan's judiciary and prevent separate judiciaries in the federation's units. Imagine California having no separate state judges.
These provisions would extinguish 13 years of Kurdistan autonomy, established after the U.S. failed to support the Kurds' uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991.
Is Kurdistan compensated for the proposed destruction of its autonomy? Not a bit. The draft envisages a weak presidential council of three — with no guarantee of one being from Kurdistan — and a prime minister with more powers than a U.S. president.
Powerful national minorities typically insist on two demands if they forgo independence: territorial autonomy and guaranteed power-sharing in the federal government. The Kurds are guaranteed neither, which is why they have rejected the draft.
Kurdistan wants five provisions incorporated in the interim constitution to defend its autonomy. First, the protection of its existing territory and powers, except those appropriately delegated to a federal government. These rights must include the ability to opt out of federal laws — for example, laws that don't uphold the rights of women. Second, the expansion of its territory to include contiguous Kurdish-majority areas, either through a census or fairly conducted referendums. Third, local control over security, including the right to veto the deployment of Iraqi armed forces and intelligence services. (Eighty years of oppression, torture, forcible expulsion and genocide by Arab-dominated armies and police dictate nothing less.) Fourth, local control over unexploited natural resources. Finally, full fiscal autonomy, but with cooperative arrangements with the rest of Iraq.
Kurdistan seeks full recognition as a constituent co-nation of Iraq, which should be acknowledged in language laws. A fair share of political power is mandatory in the federal government — in the collective presidency, in the allocation of ministerial portfolios and in bureaucracies. Its judiciary must preside over its own bill of rights, a situation more progressive than any contemplated by elderly Muslim men in Baghdad, and have the capacity to block intrusions on Kurdistan's autonomy. Finally, Kurdistan must separately ratify the future federal constitution.
These are not unreasonable requirements for a people who prefer independence. The Baathist regime pursued Arabization, which included expelling Kurds from Kirkuk, moving Arab settlers from the south to the north and genocidal gassing. Kurds resisted, and don't want soft Arabization instead. They will accept federation only if it guarantees no repeat of their historical mistreatment and the substantive capacities associated with independence. Bremer is mistaken if he thinks Kurdistan's leaders can accept some version of Pachachi's draft. If they did, they would lose their jobs — and perhaps their lives.
If Bremer presses this draft interim constitution, Kurdistan will reject it. In return for a deal with some unrepresentative Arab politicians, he would alienate the one pro-American community in Iraq — and its armed peshmerga. Quite an achievement. But Bremer has no reputation as a diplomat. Visiting Kurdistan, he asked, "Who is that?" on seeing the portrait of Mustafa Barzani, the late Kurdish freedom fighter. This is analogous to a foreign diplomat asking, "Who is that?" on seeing the portrait of George Washington.
What guides Bremer's thinking? Oil management is part of the story. Despite widespread criticism of centralized rentier-oil regimes, he believes that a federal government with monopoly jurisdiction over oil production and its revenues is the best model available. Politically, Bremer feels driven to appease Iraqi Arabs and wider Arab public opinion. Instead of building on Kurdistan as the most democratic unit in Iraq, he has sided with those anxious for a quick exit and whose focus is on the U.S. presidential electoral clock. The administration's deference toward Turkey, Iraq's neighbor, also constrains him. But why it defers to a largely unreformed Turkey in the post-Soviet world, especially when Turkey didn't back the U.S.-Iraq war, defies understanding.
However, what may ultimately be driving Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority to recentralize Iraq is a bad idea: that binational federations don't — and can't — work.
The fact is, some do, provided they are voluntary pacts and they combine effective self-government for nations within their territories and power-sharing for all within the federal government.
The Canadian federation is binational and bilingual. It has a distinctive society in Quebec — both in its legal system and ethos — but divides up English Canada symmetrically. It permits differences in its provinces' policies. It leaves provinces in charge of natural resources but has formulas for revenue-sharing.
Canada has had no civil war and has been self-governing since the United States survived its Civil War.
Bremer rejects such analogies without argument, though his officials mutter, "What about Quebec?" Indeed. Quebec has not seceded from Canada, yet. And if it did, it would happen peacefully, and Canada would have had a remarkable 150 years of cooperation.
Bremer has deliberately sought to preclude the discussion of alternative models of federation.
Closed minds usually trap themselves.
Brendan O'Leary is Lauder professor of political science at the
University of Pennsylvania and is a constitutional advisor to the
Kurdistan National Assembly.
2. - The Guardian - "Divisions on Kurdistan and role of Islam delay agreement on interim constitution":
Michael Howard in Baghdad / March 1, 2004
Iraq's US-appointed governing council was locked in negotiations last night in an effort to overcome deep divisions over an interim constitution.
Having missed the Saturday deadline for finalising the transitional administrative law, which will underwrite the country's transition to full sovereignty, the 25-member body was still trying to find common ground on issues such as the role of Islam and the extent of Kurdish federalism.
An official of the Coalition Authority in Baghdad said: "The delay illustrates the diffi culties of satisfying Iraq's diverse factions, each of which - understandably, after all those years of Ba'athist rule - have their own agenda."
The official said the delay was no more than a glitch that would not affect the June 30 deadline for the transfer of sovereignty.
But according to council members who spoke to the Guardian yesterday, the sticking points go to the heart of the kind of Iraq that will emerge over coming months.
Under the current draft, Islam is listed as the state religion, but there are also guarantees of freedom of worship for non-Muslim communities. However, the council is unable to agree whether Islam will be the main source for legislation.
As it stands the interim constitution represents one of the most liberal and progressive documents of its kind to have been produced in the Middle East, said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish member of the governing council.
On the issue of federalism, he said Kurds had won the right to a federal region called Kurdistan, but were unhappy about its geographical boundaries.
But one Sunni Arab council member balked at the "special privileges" that he said had been accorded to the Kurds already.
There is also fierce debate over a quota for women's participation
in a new transitional assembly, which Iraqi women's groups want set
at 40%.
3.
- Reuters - "Turkey's Military Warns Iraq Kurds Not To Form
Army":
ANKARA / Febrewery 28, 2004
Turkey's powerful military General Staff warned the Kurds of neighboring
Iraq Friday against setting up their own separate military force.
The Iraqi Kurds have published a plan for greater autonomy which includes
turning their militias into a Kurdistan national guard that would
be deployed in their northern region instead of the central government's
army.
Ankara strongly opposes any moves to strengthen Kurdish autonomy in
northern Iraq, fearing this could reignite separatism among its own
Kurdish population in southeast Turkey. Iraq's other neighbors Iran
and Syria share Turkey's concerns.
"In Iraq it is important that the army being formed corresponds
to the realities of Iraq and the expectations of the (Iraqi) people,"
the secretary-general of Turkey's General Staff, Major General Sabri
Demirezen, told a news briefing.
Iraq's Arab majority, both Shi'ites and Sunnis, fear the Kurdish drive
for greater autonomy will split the country.
Demirezen reaffirmed Turkey's broader opposition to an ethnic-based
federation in Iraq.
"In the new Iraq, a constitution and structural change based
on ethnic or religious origin will cause serious problems among the
Iraqi people," Demirezen said. Under their autonomy plan, Kurds
would also retain the parliament and governing bodies they set up
in the zone prised from Baghdad's grip after the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraqi Kurds see autonomy as an insurance against a repeat of the kind
of military campaign waged against them in the 1980s by Saddam Hussein,
who unleashed chemical weapons and killed over 100,000 people in his
attempts to quash Kurdish separatism.
But NATO member Turkey, which keeps a small military force in northern
Iraq, fears such autonomy could trigger renewed violence among its
own Kurds.
More than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, died during fighting between
Turkish security forces and Turkish Kurdish separatist fighters in
the 1980s and 1990s. The violence has largely subsided since the 1999
capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The General Staff repeated its appeal to U.S. occupying forces in
Iraq to crack down swiftly on Turkish Kurdish fighters holed up in
the mountains of northern Iraq.
4. - The Daily Star (Lebanon) - "CPA’s fear of sparking political conflict leaves Kurdish refugees out in the cold":
Families dependent on oil for food rations passed out by authorities
Displaced Kurds, almost constantly on the move since being expelled in 1988-1991, ask only for plot of land to build homes
KIRKUK (Iraq)/ by Nicholas Birch / 1 March 2004
Though the snow that fell last week on and around Soran Sabir’s
tent has now melted into the thick mud, water continues to trickle
from the roof onto the plastic floor. All that is left to show for
the high winds that swept northern Iraq over the weekend is a gaping
rent opposite the door, and the flame of the tent’s single gas
stove flickering in the cold draught.
“Several tents in the camp partially collapsed last night, and
we were frightened the children would be crushed as they slept,”
says Sabir
There are some 800 families in these three adjacent tent villages
on the outskirts of Kirkuk. All of them are Kurds expelled between
1988 and 1991, during Saddam Hussein’s Arabization of the city
and surrounding region. Many have been almost constantly on the move
since, buffeted by the bloody conflicts that have pitted Kurdish groups
against each other over the past decade.
“This is my fifth home in 10 years,” says Meliha Abdulrahman.
“It’s far worse than what I had before, but at least I’m
back where I grew up.”
Like the estimated 50,000 displaced people who have returned here
from Kurdish-controlled areas since last summer, she is the victim
of a dispute older than Iraq itself. Kurdish leaders have always insisted
that the region should be part of the federation they are demanding,
and pre-Arabization censuses back them up. But members of the present
Governing Council are no more willing than their forebears to risk
seeing central government control over Kirkuk’s vast oil wealth
reduced.
Caught in the crossfire, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)
has dithered. The commission it has set up to investigate demands
by former Kurdish and Turkmen inhabitants of Kirkuk to get their confiscated
property back could take years to complete its task. In the meantime,
coalition forces are doing all they can to persuade people displaced
from Kirkuk to stay in the Kurdish-controlled north.
Those who do move are caught in an administrative vacuum. Neither
the Kurdish authorities, nor the international NGOs which have worked
with them since 1991, have so far been permitted by coalition forces
to provide aid.
“The CPA is terrified of sparking off political conflict in Kirkuk,
as Kurds and Turkmen return to arabized areas”, says Buran Rashid,
humanitarian aid coordinator at the Department of Health in Dohuk.
“As a result, it sits on its hands and does nothing to help.
But you can’t just leave these people in tents.”
Elected representative of one of the communities cohabiting in the
tent settlement, Dara Hama feels no less betrayed by his own people.
“The Kurdish authorities had allowed us to build temporary houses
on public land in Baziyan, but when Iraq was liberated they told us
we would have to go back to where we came from,” he says.
“They even promised to give 1000 old Iraqi dinars ($100) to every
family going back,” says Ezedin Abdullah. “Nobody here has
received anything.” Except old UN tents, that is, which most
people here say they picked up at Chamchamal on their way southwest
to Kirkuk.
With the men lucky to find one day of work a week as laborers in Kirkuk,
the families are wholly dependent on oil-for-food rations now distributed
by the local authorities for survival.
“We’re not asking the local authorities or the US to build
houses for us,” says Hama. “All we’re asking for is
a patch of land and a chance to get on with construction work ourselves.”
Esteban Sacco knows from experience that they should be taken at their
word. Doing a survey of the tent villages for a Swedish NGO based
in Erbil, a Kurdish city 40 kilometers to the north, he met many of
them a few years back while working on a UN-sponsored shelter scheme.
“These people are wizards. All they got from the UN was a double
layer of bricks the same size as a tent, and a hole for a door,”
he says. “Within a week, they had built mud-brick houses lined
with perfectly-edged white gypsum. The UN only permitted lighting
in the streets outside, so they hoisted up wires and connected their
houses to the main.”
Even this wilderness outside Kirkuk shows the beginnings of civilization.
Most families have constructed stone kitchens next to their tents,
complete with sink and stove. Others have built rudimentary outdoor
showers, floored with large pebbles.
Sacco thinks more could be done. “A lot of these families have
been living for months over five to a tent, in conditions worse than
international humanitarian standards for emergencies,” he says.
“What is stopping Kirkuk local authorities doing like (Kurdish-administrated)
Erbil and Suleimaniyeh and handing out plots for them to build on?
These will not be permanent settlements, but transit camps.”
“Sooner or later, there’s going to have to be a change of
attitude on the part of the CPA,” says Rashid. “There are
only around 25,000 returnees in Kirkuk city now. As soon as the weather
improves, that trickle will turn into a flood.”
5. - The International Herald Tribune - "Hope for Cyprus":
March 1, 2004
For three long decades, the people of Cyprus have been held hostage
to a diplomatic impasse that sliced their island in two, separated
families from their homes, poisoned relations between Greece and Turkey
and thwarted Turkey's desire to strengthen its links to the West by
joining the European Union. Now that impasse has abruptly yielded
to hope. There is a very good chance that a compromise could be reached
in time for the European Union to admit a reunified Cyprus in May
and to authorize negotiations on Turkish membership in December.
Many people contributed to this breakthrough, but the two who deserve the most credit are Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations. Erdogan ended years of obstructionism on the part of the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, and his powerful backers in the Turkish military, by making clear that Turkey's paramount national interests require a Cyprus settlement.
Annan supplied the outlines of an acceptable compromise. More important, he won agreements from all sides that if Greek and Turkish Cypriot negotiators could not agree on the details of a full agreement, even with help from Athens and Ankara, he could step in and fashion a completed plan that would be submitted to voters on both sides of the island.
Under the UN plan, Cyprus would be reunified under a federal government. Turkish Cypriots, with less than a fourth of the island's population but currently in control of 37 percent of its land, would have to cede about a fifth of their territory to the Greek-Cypriot-governed area.
It would be best if the two groups of Cypriot negotiators worked out the remaining final details between themselves. That would maximize the chances of a yes vote on both sides of the island. But even if Athens and Ankara, or, as a last resort, Annan, must provide some of the final language, prospects for voter approval are still good. That is especially so on the Turkish side, where people do not want to find themselves stranded in an isolated and impoverished ministate just beyond the European Union frontier. Greek Cypriot voters should understand that a yes vote this spring is their last chance to end the division of Cyprus and to recover most of their lost homes. Whatever the final outcome, the bold and constructive leadership shown by the Erdogan government on this issue should clinch Turkey's long-stalled case for European Union membership. Some of those who still hesitate have questioned the depth of Turkey's democratic institutions, expressing doubts over whether the elected civilian government can bring the military into line.
That is just what Erdogan has now done over Cyprus, one of the most
sensitive issues in Turkish politics. His achievement ought to silence
the European Union doubters for good.
6. - The Associated Press - "Refugees denounce Cyprus plan":
NICOSIA (Cyprus) / 29 February 2004
Thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees rallied Sunday to denounce an "accursed" U.N. plan for reunification of their island for denying them the right to return to homes they fled 30 years ago.
Bishop Paul led the group of 3,500 in prayers asking God's intercession so the refugees could return to their homes in Kyrenia, a city in the Turkish-occupied north of the island. He followed this with a fiery speech denouncing the U.N. plan as "Satanic, accursed and an abomination that will not work."
"We cannot remain silent against injustice and the gross violation of our basic human rights," he said.
The Kyrenia demonstrators and other Greek Cypriots demand that they be allowed to return to homes they fled in 1974, when Turkey invaded the north of the island following an abortive coup by supporters of union with Greece. The northern Turkish Cypriot state is only recognized by Turkey.
The plan by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan envisages the reunification of the island as a single state with one Greek and one Turkish Cypriot federal region linked through a weak central government. It allows for the return of only half of the 200,000 Greek Cypriots who fled to the south, and allows only half of the estimated 100,000 Turkish settlers to remain.
Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash dispute those points and have made no progress in talks on the plan that began Feb. 19.
"I was pregnant with my first child at 16 when my husband and I built our home in Kyrenia stone by stone with our bare hands and then raised six more children there," Eleni Vlahou, a 70-year-old grandmother, said at the rally. "What gives Mr. Annan the right to violate our human rights and tell us we cannot go back?"
Displaced Kyrenia Mayor Dinos Rologas said the Greek Cypriots were ready to compromise so the island could be reunified. "But there can be no compromise on fundamental human rights such as our right to return to our homes and to regain our property," he said.
A resolution adopted by the rally said reunification "must be based on international law principles, respect for human rights and United Nations resolutions."
The two sides are under heavy international pressure to reach agreement and have the plan approved through separate referenda before May 1 so that a unified Cyprus may join the European Union on that day.
If there is no agreement, Cyprus will join the EU on that date but EU laws and benefits will only apply to the area controlled by the internationally recognized Papadopoulos government.
Two separate polls last week found that the majority of Greek Cypriots would reject the Annan plan in the planned referenda unless it is modified to ensure the refugees' rights to return.
The lack of progress in talks prompted Annan to send Sir Kieran Prendergast, the U.N. deputy secretary-general, to join the talks when they resume Monday.
Thomas Weston, the U.S. State Department official dealing with Cyprus, also flew in Sunday at the start of a tour including Greece and Turkey to push for a settlement.
Speaking to reporters on arrival, he warned that those voting no
in the referenda "will put an incredibly heavy negative burden
in terms of their decisions for the future of Cyprus." He did
not elaborate.