Rights report criticizes Iraqi Kurds for mistreating minorities
Minorities in northern Iraq are at great risk of violence, abuse and manipulation thanks to the ongoing power struggle between Arbil and Baghdad, warns a human rights group. A Turkmen living in Turkey says the issue is often misconstrued in the media
The ongoing dispute between Iraq’s central government and the Regional Kurdish Administration in northern Iraq is once again threatening to become a “human rights catastrophe” for minority communities, according to a report by a leading rights watchdog.
Meanwhile, experts on the region said it was nothing new that minorities in the region were being squeezed between the two power centers.
The report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch said the small groups in the area – such as Christians, Shabaks, Yazidis and Turkmens – are being targeted by insurgents and are stuck in the middle between the regional Kurdish authority in northern Iraq and the government in Baghdad. “Iraqi Christians, Yazidis, and Shabaks have suffered extensively since 2003,” the Associated Press quoted Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW, as saying. “Iraqi authorities, both Arab and Kurdish, need to rein in security forces, extremists and vigilante groups to send a message that minorities cannot be attacked with impunity.”
However, Mehmet Yegin, an expert on the region from the International Strategic Research Institution, or USAK, said minorities in the region have long been suffering between these two power sources. “It was in the 1970s when Saddam [Hussein], even before he ruled the country, was trying to settle the [Ba'ath Party’s] legitimacy over Kurds and Arabs, saying they are the two main elements for the state, even though,” Yegin said. When the groups could not determine their own future, they could be used as a card by ruling powers in accordance to their benefits, he said.
The 51-page report, released in the city of Arbil, criticizes the central government for failing to protect the minority groups, but also levels a long list of criticism against Kurdish authorities. It accused them of intimidating those who resists Kurdish “expansionist plans,” carrying out arbitrary arrests and detentions. The report cited attempts by Kurdish authorities to win favor with some minority groups by, for example, paying for new places of worship.
The report said the long-standing territorial dispute between northern Iraq’s Kurds and the Arab-dominated government threatens to erupt again. “It risks creating another full-blown human rights catastrophe for the small minority communities who have lived there throughout the ages,” the report said. Under former dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, hundreds of thousands of Kurds and other minorities were expelled from their homes and ethnic Arabs moved in, changing the area’s demographics and ethnic balance. Since Saddam’s overthrow, Kurds have argued much of this territory belongs to them.
The oil-rich city of Kirkuk has long been one of the key flashpoints in this debate. Kurds claim it as theirs, while many Arabs argue the Kurds are trying to flood the city with new Kurdish residents to tip the balance in their favor. The Kurdish-Arab debate over voting rights in the city threatened to derail a key election law needed to carry out Iraq’s nationwide balloting in January, but lawmakers struck a compromise on Sunday.
Turkmens are one of the minority groups living in Iraq and they have long been one of the main actors in the disputes. Sancar Akkoyunlu, the deputy head of the Iraqi Turks Culture and Solidarity Association based in Istanbul refused to talk in depth via phone with the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on this issue. “There is lot to tell and it would not be appropriate to talk on the phone to prevent this issue to be passed off as it is usually done in the media,” he said.
“The issue about Turkmens there is that they mainly stay in between Turkey and the central Iraqi government. When Turkey intervened in the issue, they probably could not even get the rights that they might otherwise get. Because of this, they refused Turkey’s intervention, but then they remained without someone to protect them,” Yegin said.
HRW also focused on the issue of the Ninevah province, with its large mix of minority groups and where Kurds have been trying to extend their influence. Kurdish gains have alienated many Sunni Arabs there and have helped turn the province’s capital of Mosul into one of the last hotbeds in the insurgency, the report details. The minorities have often been targeted by devastating insurgent attacks, HRW said. It cited the late 2008 insurgent campaign that left 40 Chaldo-Assyrians dead and drove thousands more from their homes in Mosul. In 2007, more than 500 members of the Yazidi minority were killed by suicide truck bombs in the small village of Qahataniya.
After July and August bombings of minorities in Ninevah, the American military commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, proposed joint patrols made up of U.S., Kurdish and Iraqi military troops, but those plans have not materialized. In a statement on its Web site Tuesday, the regional Kurdish authority in northern Iraq denied the HRW report’s charges and said it demonstrates a “systematic misperception of the circumstances in Ninevah and a worrying ignorance of Iraqi history.”
The statement said the Kurdish authority in northern Iraq insists on tolerance throughout Iraq and blamed insurgents for attacks on minorities. “The main thrust of this report could be grossly misleading,” the statement said, adding that the Kurdish authority in northern Iraq “has done more for the protection of minorities than any other entity in Iraq, and continues to insist on tolerance and peaceful coexistence.”
But Yahya Ghazi, in charge of the human rights bureau of Iraqi Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, said his office has contacts with minorities in Mosul and the surrounding areas. He said the government knows the weight of the problems they are facing and is trying to assist them.
Source: Hurriyet
URL: www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=rights-report-criticizes-kurds-over-minorities-2009-11-11