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Last Updated: Jun 8, 2007 - 9:21:28 AM |
;As much of the rest of Iraq descends into violence
if not civil war, it is tempting for U.S. officials to point to the placidity
of northern Iraq as a rare success. In many ways, Iraqi Kurdistan's progress
since 1991 is remarkable. But while Kurdish officials and their growing coterie
of U.S. consultants praise the region's progress, an increasing culture of
corruption, nepotism, and abuse-of-power has both eroded democracy and,
increasingly, stability.
Iraqi Kurdistan: From Bust to Boom
The
backsliding is disappointing given once high hopes. After decades of struggle,
Iraqi Kurds won de facto autonomy in northern Iraq in 1991. As the Kurdish
uprising collapsed, Turkish, U.S., British, and French forces established a
safe haven around Zakho and Duhok protected by a no-fly zone; this later
expanded to include Erbil. In a failed bid to starve Iraqi Kurds into
submission, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered the Iraqi administration to
withdraw from the region. Kurdish parties filled the vacuum, establishing an
area of self-rule approximately the size of Denmark. On May 19, 1992, the
Kurdish parties held elections resulting in a coalition between the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party (PUK). Their
alliance broke down in 1994 because of disputes about property ownership and
revenue embezzlement at the lucrative Ibrahim Khalil-Habur customs post on the
Turkish border. The resulting civil war killed or displaced thousands and
caused a partition of territory between the PUK and KDP.
There was renewed hope in the wake of Saddam's fall that the bifurcated
Kurdistan Regional Government could fortify its democracy. Such hope was
dashed. On January 30, 2006, Kurdish authorities held new elections—the two
dominant parties ran on the same list so as not to compete—and divided power
equitably according to their leaderships' pre-election agreement. KDP leader
Masoud Barzani assumed the presidency of the Kurdistan region, and his nephew
Nechervan Barzani became prime minister, overseeing a unified, albeit inactive,
parliament. They preside over more than forty ministers, all of whom receive
hefty salaries, perks, and pensions.
Because Iraqi Kurdistan lacks a constitution, Barzani and other senior
political leaders can exercise unchecked, arbitrary power. The absence of
accountability and a free press has enabled corruption, abuse, and
mismanagement to increase.
Nepotism is widespread. Not only is the prime minister the nephew of the
president, but the president's son, Masrour Barzani, a scarcely-qualified
34-year-old, heads the local intelligence service. Another Barzani son is the
commander of the Special Forces. And Masoud Barzani installed his uncle,
Hoshyar Zebari, as Iraq's foreign minister when the political party heads were
distributing patronage. Other relatives hold key positions in ministries or
executive offices. PUK leader Jalal Talabani has only one wife and two children
and so has less patronage to distribute. Still, one son oversees PUK security
and the other is the Kurdistan Regional Government's representative to the
United States. When the major Iraqi political parties divided up the ministry
portfolios in Baghdad, Talabani awarded the PUK's slot to his brother-in-law.
Another brother-in-law is the Iraqi ambassador in Beijing.
Other Barzani and Talabani relatives have monopolized telecommunications,
construction, and trade. Those who have no relatives in power sit at the bottom
of every hierarchy. Merit is seldom a factor in promotion. While it is possible
for non-family members to become ministers, they must have a long record of submission
to the Barzani or Talabani families. Many Iraqi Kurds welcomed Iraq's
liberation, calculating that the presence of U.S. forces would also help
solidify democracy in the Kurdistan region. They now question whether more than
3,000 U.S. troops sacrificed their lives to enable oligarchy.
Political Parties
Is Iraqi
Kurdistan beyond reform? Not necessarily, but the entrenched parties have
created a system which immunizes them from accountability and competition. The
two major parties are modeled in both structure and role on Saddam's
organization of the Baath Party. A small coterie of decision-makers presides
over a large network of patronage and intimidation. The analogy is not loose:
Documents recovered after Saddam's fall and published recently by two independent
Sulaimanya-based Kurdish newspapers, Awene and Hawlati, show extensive ties
between leading figures in the Barzani family and the Iraqi dictator.[2] There
were relations, too, between the PUK commanders and Saddam's security services,
although more subdued.[3] While some contacts were understandable, for example,
in order to coordinate electricity distribution between areas of Baathist and
Iraqi Kurdish control,[4] documents surfaced after Iraq's fall which showed
extensive intelligence sharing and business relationships between Nechervan
Barzani, for example, and Saddam Hussein's sons.
Just as under Saddam, in Iraqi Kurdistan today, political party control extends
down into the high schools and universities. Student unions are financed by
political parties and act as their extensions. The KDP and PUK student groups
act as eyes and ears for the security services of the two parties. They observe
students and professors and submit reports of activities to their supervisors.
Membership is often a prerequisite for academic degrees, foreign scholarships,
employment, and promotions. It is not uncommon for the student with the highest
grade point average to be passed over for scholarships or even valedictorian
status should he or she not be a party member.
Smaller political parties have failed to act as a check over the larger
parties. Several are co-opted, with their personnel given lucrative positions
or even ministerial portfolios in exchange for silence. Others are intimidated.
On December 6, 2005, a KDP mob stormed the office of the Kurdistan Islamic
Union in the Duhok governorate and shot and killed its candidate. While new
parties might form, the KDP and PUK can control their licensing through the
Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Abuse of Power
Abuse of
power is one of the main characteristics of the Kurdistan Regional Government's
administration. Iraqi Kurds speak often of arbitrary arrest, torture, and
enforced disappearances. Awene, one of the two independent newspapers in the
region, reported an incident in which a driver, who was stopped for a routine
traffic violation in Erbil, seriously wounded the policeman. Other police
officers arrested the shooter and brought him to the hospital with their
wounded colleague. A short time later, ten armed men in the uniform of the
KDP's Zervani peshmerga unit stormed the hospital to remove the suspect, a
member of their unit, in order to prevent the judiciary from processing him on
a charge of attempted murder. In the process of their raid, the KDP's peshmerga
wounded a civilian but suffered no consequences as this second victim was not a
party member.[5]
The legal system of the region is both chaotic and compromised. There are five
parallel judicial systems in Iraqi Kurdistan: the regular courts, state security
courts to try political offences, military courts with jurisdiction over
peshmerga forces, separate KDP and PUK party courts known as Komalayati
(social) courts, and special tribal courts with jurisdiction only over the
members of a certain tribe. With the exception of the regular courts that apply
Iraqi laws, all the other courts are, in fact, illegal. Their judgments are
arbitrary and often contradict the law. Komalayeti courts insure impunity for
their members. For example, after a regular court sentenced PUK member Salih
Muzali to life in prison for the murder of two sisters, PUK leader Jalal
Talabani intervened to transfer the case to the Komalayati court, which set him
free after the victims' families accepted a payment of US$170,000 "blood
money."[6] Human rights organizations protested this intervention for his
release.[7] According to Awene, sixty-eight suspects in crimes such as murder
and robbery remain at large and under the protection of the KDP, PUK, and
Socialist Party of Kurdistan.[8]
Politicians also intervene in judiciary staffing. Judicial appointments require
prior approval by the leadership of the dominant parties. In an interview on
the fifth anniversary of 9-11, Rizgar Hama Ali, the first judge to preside over
the special Iraqi tribunal to try Saddam Hussein and the current member of the
court of cassation in Iraqi Kurdistan, expressed reservations about the
independence of the judicial system in Iraqi Kurdistan and suggested political
party interference in judicial affairs "seriously endangers the integrity
of courts."[9]
Rather than protect citizens, the courts have become a tool for political
parties to harass and oppress them. I know. I suffered their arbitrary and
politically-motivated judgments firsthand. On October 26, 2006, I was abducted
by the KDP secret service and detained for nearly six months for publishing
articles on corruption of the Barzani family and the ties between the late
Mulla Mustafa Barzani—Masoud Barzani's father—and the Soviet KGB.[10] The
investigative judge acted as a representative of the secret service and not of
the judiciary. When I refused to sign a confession prepared by the KDP—nothing
I had written was untrue and so I saw no reason to repudiate it—a KDP security
official told me that the investigative judge could order torture to gain
confessions from detainees. After two weeks, I did sign the confession after
being deprived of water and food for several days. I was tried on December 19,
2006, before the state security court in Erbil. I did not receive prior
notification of the trial which, at any rate, lasted less than fifteen minutes.
I had no access to a lawyer and was not allowed to produce evidence. A security
forces officer entered the courtroom to give the chief judge a letter. The
judge sentenced me to thirty years in prison for having published two articles
on the Internet. I was told later that the letter contained instructions as to
the verdict and sentence.
Illegal treatment is, unfortunately, the rule rather than the exception in the
Iraqi Kurdistan region's detention centers. Disappearances remain rife. The
parliament's human rights committee acknowledges at least twenty-one
disappearances since 2003.[11] Western human rights experts say that hundreds
remain detained without trial in Kurdish prisons.[12] Local papers have
reported unlawful detentions as recently as September 2006.[13] Appeals to
Talabani and Barzani by relatives of persons detained by the political party
militias, and subsequently disappeared, remain unanswered.
Torture is common. Ali Bapir, the head of the Islamic Group, told Hawlati, the
region's other independent newspaper, that Kurdish security forces have
crippled several dozen detainees in prison during torture sessions.[14] These
prisons are funded indirectly by U.S. aid. One of my torturers told me that he
was trained by U.S. experts in investigative techniques, but he seemed to
prefer his own methods saying, "U.S. investigative methods cannot be
effective in Iraqi Kurdistan."
Unfortunately, those techniques that Kurdish interrogators prefer sometimes
culminate in murder. Since the establishment of Kurdish administration in 1991,
there have been hundreds of unsolved political killings. Disappearances peaked
during the 1994-97 Kurdish civil war.[15] The major political officials have
refused calls to account for many of these summary executions or to return the
bodies. Rather, summary detention and extrajudicial execution have continued,
albeit with less frequency. In April 2002, for example, PUK security forces
abducted Muhammad Ahmed al-Zahawi, a former member of the Kurdistan Human
Rights Organization in Kalar.[16] The Kurdistan Human Rights Organization had
become a thorn in the government's side for its frequent abuse-of-power law
suits against government officials.
He is not alone. Lawyers and judges who try to defend the victims of human
rights violations or prosecute perpetrators in the region sometimes themselves
become targets. Assailants have gunned down several judges who have
investigated financial crimes and the drug trade.[17] More recently, after an
Erbil lawyer, Razwan Osman Ceco, successfully prosecuted a civil suit against a
KDP military commander accused of forcibly seizing private property, the KDP
militia twice attacked him, leaving him with severe injuries.[18] In another
case, PUK security forces arrested lawyer Bakhtyar Hama Sa‘id in Sulaimanya on
August 13, 2006, as he prepared the defense for arrested demonstrators. The PUK
only released Sa‘id a week later after the lawyers' union staged a strike.[19]
Civil Society
While the
judicial system may be broken, the problem runs deeper. Often, outside groups
can provide a check upon abuse of power. This is what the Kurdistan Human
Rights Organization tried to do. But independent civil society organizations
are few and far between. Most organizations remain under the yoke of the two
major political parties; they are often run by senior party members and serve
as extensions of the political parties.[20] Would it be possible to establish a
truly nongovernmental organization (NGO) in Duhok, Erbil, Sulaimanya or, for
that matter, Kirkuk? Probably not. The PUK and KDP use legal and financial
means to control civil organizations. In many cases, they control licensing. In
other cases, they dominate ostensibly independent organizations with personnel
appointments. Union leaders, for example, are often senior party members.[21]
Independent NGO personnel—including those run by Europeans—say local
administrations seek to force them to hire party members.
Nor is the press able to act as a check on political abuse. While there are now
two nominally independent papers, their financial situation is shaky. There is
no guarantee that they will continue to publish. The parties often seek to
co-opt critical journalists with bribes or positions at higher paying party
organs. While journalists may in theory be able to publish a wide range of
opinion, in practice, party officials harass them with often arbitrary
lawsuits. If they anger party officials and, for example, write about
corruption within the Barzani family as I did, they may face criminal
prosecution. Iraqi Kurdish law still employs the former Baath regime's criminal
code. Article 433 equates almost any criticism with defamation. The PUK
targeted editors at Hawlati after it accused PUK prime minister Omar Fattah of
abuse of power.[22] Security forces have assaulted other journalists. On March
12, 2006, PUK security beat Rahman Garibi, correspondent for Radio Azadi, as he
covered anti-corruption demonstrations erupting in Halabja. In another case,
the KDP's security service beat Al-Jazeera's Erbil correspondent.[23] While
independent Kurdish Internet sites such as Kurdishmedia.com,
Kurdistan-Post.com, Dengekan.com and eKurd.net provide a vibrant outlet for
independent commentary, their reach in Iraqi Kurdistan is limited so long as
electricity is spotty. Many poorer residents in Iraqi Kurdistan cannot afford
private generators and, at any rate, such generators cannot run continuously.
Corruption
Corruption is
endemic. Especially since Iraq's liberation, the region has been awash in
foreign money and aid projects. There have been hundreds of construction
projects since 2003, and two international airports in Erbil and Sulaimanya
have opened.[24]
Nevertheless, the economic growth has been hampered by the ruling families'
stranglehold over the economy. They treat the treasury, built with customs and
tax revenues, as personal slush funds. There is little transparency to
differentiate between public, political party, and private family property.
Outside a narrow circle of family members, there is no knowledge of how the
budget is spent. On June 23, 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority
transferred to Iraqi Kurdistan $1.4 billion dollars remaining from its
allotment of the oil-for-food program. Much of the money has, apparently,
disappeared.[25] While the Iraqi Kurdish government may have spent some on
public projects, much more appears to have vanished into individual bank
accounts. The ruling families further involve themselves in major businesses.
Family members or proxies act as silent partners in telecommunications,
construction, and import-export businesses. Through arbitrary privatization
conducted by government decree, they appropriate public property and valuable
real estate. Talabani's oldest son Bafil, for example, now runs the Sulaimanya
tobacco factory. Few if any large businesses can operate in the region without
taking the political leaders' family members as ghost partners. Since returning
to Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991, the Barzani family has amassed a fortune estimated
at over $2 billion.[26]
Land speculation has exacerbated the situation. The post-liberation
construction boom has led land prices to skyrocket. The cost of housing in
Sulaimanya is not dissimilar to that in Washington, D.C. Political party
members have granted prime real estate to their supporters and family members
for free or at below-market prices. Real estate development—construction of
hotels or apartment buildings, for example—can provide the recipient of the
land grant with a multimillion dollar profit. On December 7, 2005, the PUK-led
government in Sulaimanya transferred a large property belonging to the
municipality of Sulaimanya to the PUK-owned Nizar construction and trade
company by simple decree.[27] In another case, the KDP-led government
transferred the ownership of nine publicly-owned parcels of real estate and
buildings in the Erbil governorate by decree to the KDP politburo for a nominal
price.[28]
All of this makes everyday life unaffordable for ordinary residents. Because of
inflation, it is not uncommon, for example, to see families living in
incomplete houses. Others are forced to squat in corrugated tin structures.
Corruption and mismanagement has undermined stability. During commemorations on
March 16, 2006, marking the eighteenth anniversary of Saddam's chemical weapons
bombardment of Halabja, protests erupted against corruption and deteriorating
basic services. The PUK security forces killed one demonstrator, injured six
others, and arrested forty-two, half of whom appear to have been tortured while
in custody.[29] PUK security forces later attacked demonstrators in Chamchamal,
Kifri, Shoresh, and Darbandikhan.[30]
Security
Security
remains a major problem in Iraqi Kurdistan. Although Islamist groups have
existed in Iraqi Kurdistan since the 1950s, apparent Iranian backing enhanced
their threat after 1991.[31] While their first targets were leftist activists
and secular intellectuals, by 2001, they had begun to establish permanent
bases. On February 18, 2001, Islamists assassinated Fransu Hariri, the speaker
of the KDP's parliament and the highest-ranking Christian in the government,
and on April 2, 2002, they tried to assassinate PUK prime minister Barham
Salih. Islamists in the Kurdish parliament have called for Kurdish authorities
to adopt Shari‘a (Islamic law) and abandon secularism.[32]
Penetration by foreign intelligence services, especially the Iranian VEVAK and
the Qods Force, might also undercut local security. Chako Rahimi, a senior
member of the Iranian Kurdistan Democratic Party and the head of the party's
security department, told Awene in an interview that the Iranian secret
service, Ettela'at, had assassinated more than 204 members of his group in
Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991 and that the Iranian secret service maintains more
than fifty safe houses in Sulaimanya, a city controlled by the PUK which is
headed by the current Iraqi president Jalal Talabani.[33] The latest victims of
Iranian terrorism in Iraqi Kurdistan were two members of the Kurdistan
Revolutionary Union-Iran (KRU-I), who were shot in the PUK-controlled border
town of Penjwen in June 2006. KRU-I speaker Shwane Mahmudi blamed Iranian
intelligence.[34] It is doubtful such assassinations could occur without at
least tacit PUK permission. While the security threat is real, both political
parties amplify it to silence opponents, simply by accusing them of being
Islamist activists.
Conclusions
During my
trips in Iraqi Kurdistan, I see how grateful ordinary Kurdish citizens are to
the U.S. government and American people for the establishment of the safe haven
in 1991, the no-fly zone, and Iraq's liberation. But the mood is changing.
Today, the Kurdish parties misuse U.S. assistance and taxpayers' money. Rather
than support democracy, the Kurdish party leaders use their funding and their
militia's operational training to curtail civil liberties. What angers Kurds is
the squandered leverage. Instead of demanding rule-of-law, the White House has
subordinated democracy to stability not only in Baghdad and Basra, but in Iraqi
Kurdistan as well. Rather than create a model democracy, the Iraqi Kurds have
replicated the governing systems of Egypt, Tunisia or, perhaps even Syria.
It is true that such abuse of power is not rare in the Middle East, but Iraqi
Kurds want more. They have listened to the rhetoric of the White House but see
corruption in the Kurdistan region enabled, at least indirectly, by the United
States. On Kurdish party-controlled television, they watch U.S. diplomats
dining with KDP and PUK leaders at their palaces and private resorts. When
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or other senior U.S. diplomats visit, they
do not challenge the Kurdish leadership on human rights abuses. Kurds wanted
real democracy, like that in the U.S. and other Western democracies and not
Potemkin democracy. Ultimately, Washington may pay a price for not holding
Iraqi Kurds to a higher standard. While Erbil and Washington enjoy an alliance
of convenience today, interests change. Undemocratic regimes in the Middle East
are, at best, inconsistent allies.
[1] For example, see Sverker Oredsson and Olle Schmidt, "Kurdistan—A
Democratic Beacon in the Middle East," Kurdistan Development Corporation,
Dec. 2004.
[2] Hawlati (Sulaimanya), Oct. 11, 2006.
[3] Awene (Sulaimanya), Sept. 12, 2006.
[4] "Jalal Talabani: ‘No Grounds for a Relationship with Baghdad,'"
Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2002, pp. 19-23.
[5] Awene, June 27, 2006.
[6] Salih Muzali interview, Awene, July 25, 2006.
[7] Rebwar Fatah, "Kurdish Women's Blood for Cash Affair: Mahabad's
Ordeal," KurdishMedia, July 10, 2006.
[8] Awene, June 20, 2006.
[9] Rizgar Hama Ali interview, iraqikurdistan.blogspot, Sept. 11, 2006.
[10] "Walamek bo barez Masoud Barzani," The Kurdistan Post, Oct. 2,
2005; Kamal Berzenji, "Our Last Stake: The Post U.S.-Controlled Iraq and
the Kurds," KurdishMedia, Apr. 21, 2003; Kamal Said Qadir, "The
Barzani Chameleon," Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2007, pp. 87-8.
[11] Awene, Oct. 31, 2006.
[12] The New York Times, Dec. 26, 2006.
[13] Hawlati, Sept. 13, 2006.
[14] Hawlati, June 14, 2006.
[15] "Iraq, Regional Country Index, Middle East and North Africa,"
Amnesty International Annual Report, 1998, accessed Feb. 14, 2007.
[16] "Iraq," Amnesty International Annual Report, 2003, accessed Feb.
14, 2007.
[17] "Iraq: Human Rights Abuses in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991,"
Amnesty International Special Report, AI Index: MDE 14/01/95, pp. 91-4.
[18] Hawlati, June 21, 2006.
[19] Hawlati, Aug. 23, 2006.
[20] Kamal Mirawdali, "Civil Society and the State: The Case of British
Voluntary Sector," KurdishMedia, May 28, 2006.
[21] Kyle Madigan, "Iraq: Corruption Restricts Development in Iraqi
Kurdistan," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Apr. 29, 2005.
[22] "Iraq: Journalists from Kurdish Weekly Face Arrest, Trial," news
alert, Committee to Protect Journalists, May 2, 2006.
[23] Awene, Mar. 21, May 30, 2006.
[24] The Kurdish Globe (Erbil), Aug. 8, 2006.
[25] Los Angeles Times, Nov. 22, 2005.
[26] The Daily Star (Beirut), Nov. 18, 2005.
[27] Awene, Nov. 21, 2006.
[28] Hawlati, Sept. 6, 2006.
[29] Awene, Mar. 21, 28, 2006.
[30] Awene, Aug. 8, 2006.
[31] Awene, Oct. 25, 2006.
[32] Awene, Nov. 14, 2006.
[33] Chako Rahimi interview, Awene, Oct. 17, 2006.
[34] Awene, July 11, 2006.
Source:Ocnus.net 2007
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