While the World Is Not Watching, Iraq Escalates Ethnic Cleansing

Kirkuk Oct.14
Kurdistan Newsline

With the international community concentrating on the campaign against terrorism, the Iraqi
regime is taking advantage of the situation by aggressively stepping up  its racist campaign
to forcibly changing the demographic composition of the areas of Kurdistan still under its
control. The regime is doing this even after receiving a blunt warning from the United States
of America not to exploit the current situation by committing aggression against neighboring
states or the Kurdistan region. ( See New York Times Oct.10) It seems the Iraqi regime is
not only hurling abuse at United States by calling Ambassador John Negroponte's warning
as “stupid” and praising Usama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, but it is determined to undermine the
security of the Kurdistan region while the world is busy with combating terrorism in
Afghanistan.
 
Changing Identity
 
The new Iraqi measures of Arabization and ethnic cleansing consist of:  banning
photographing the residential and market areas inside the city of Kirkuk; the regime has
decreed that all historic Kurdish, Turkuman and Assyrian names of places must changed to
Arabic names e.g. Tapai Malla Abdullah has been changed to Maysloon,  the Azadi into Al
Nakhwa, Shorja into Al Qudis, Shaterloo into Martyr Adnan Khairullh, Aaglarali into Al
Umara and Khanaqa into Al Faris.
 A new “Law” decreed by the Baathist Revolutionary Council will allow the change of
nationality registration into Arab throughout Iraq. ( Law No. 199 September 6, 2001). This
flagrantly racist law is in breach of all human rights conventions Iraq has entered into. It is
the type of draconian racist law South Africa’s former apartheid regime would have been
proud of.
 
Arab Settlements in Kirkuk
 
The Iraqis are building 500 houses in Kurdistan areas (250 houses in the village of
Gurgayee and 250 units in the village of Sheikhan, Altun Kopri), to be given free to the
Arab settlers. The plan is to bring two thousand Arab families from Mosul to be settled in
Kirkuk as part of the continuing Arabization plan. The Iraqi intelligence arrested Suhaila
Hassan Taha  and Rabi’a  Hama  Hassam, together with members of their families last week
, as a first step for deportation from their homes. They have confiscated two residential
dwellings from two families and turned them into offices of the Baath Party.
The Iraqi officials have begun distributing parcels of land on the outskirts of Kirkuk to Arab
settlers. They are constructing a new housing complex in Tozkhurmatu to accommodate 200
new Arab settler families. They have also distributed 250 parcels of land to Arab families in
the Zab district of Haweeja. The Iraqis have armed the new settlers in the Salayee area in
order to turn them to an auxiliary mercenary force for the Iraqi Army. The Arabs were given
a 15-day military training at the Siqizlee military camp.
 
Kurdish  Banned in Makhmoor

In a meeting in the city of Makhmoor last week, the Iraqi General Director of Education of
Nineveh (Mosul) informed the educational groups that henceforth all teaching in Kurdish
language shall be banned in the city’s schools. The Iraqis have already transferred 75
Kurdish teaches to other areas and replaced them with Arabs. This step to ban Kurdish is not
only contrary to the basic cultural rights of the Kurdish people but is a breach of
international obligations of the Iraqi state under which it was established as one independent
state by the British Government as the Mandatory power of the League Nations in 1932
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