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We have to stop the Arabization of Kurdish villages NOW

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We have to stop the Arabization of Kurdish villages NOW

PostAuthor: Anthea » Thu Dec 28, 2017 12:54 pm

Officials sound alarm over Arabization: Kurds given 72-hrs to leave

DUBIZ, Kurdistan Region – A number of Kurdish villagers in Kirkuk have been given a 72-hour ultimatum to leave their homes, instead allowing other people from an Arab tribe to take their places, witnesses, officials and official letters that go back as early as November 5 reveal.

Locals and officials describe the move as a continuation of the infamous process of Arabization that lasted for at least three decades under the Baathist regime, but was stopped when the new Iraq was founded in 2003.

Iraqi Deputy Parliament Speaker Aram Mohammed, a Kurd, stated that they have notified Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi about the “dangerous precedent.”

At least 500 Arab people accompanied by military vehicles of the Federal Police showed up at Palkana village in Dibis or Dubiz district, west of Kirkuk on Wednesday morning at about 10 a.m., witnesses who fled the village told Rudaw.

Fakhir Ismael, from Palakana of the Sargaran sub-district, said that the Arabs were cheerful and celebrating when they entered the village.

He told Rudaw when they enquired about the presence of the large number of Arab people in their village, one of them replied to him that “we will drive you out, you dogs!” Ismael said, explaining the villagers and the newcomers began to quarrel, only to be separated by the police force.

The police told the villagers that they should have a meeting at a later time in the day to “reach an understanding,” a demand first refused by the villagers as they believed they are the rightful owners.

He said that the Arabs had orders signed by the acting Kirkuk Governor, and military commanders instructing the authorities to evict the Kurdish population from Palkana and at least three other villages.

“They had an order from Kirkuk provincial government, and the commander of the deployment of Federal Police [in Kirkuk]. It was not from Baghdad, it was signed only by these two. They had this order so that they can force us out once again,” he told Rudaw while accompanied by at least a dozen people who were forcibly displaced from their homes.

“Take this, you have now 72 hours to leave,” Fakhir said of the order they received from the Federal police.

Aram Mohammed, the deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament, said in a statement that they had confirmed the villagers were given 72 hours to evict, which was also reported by Sargaran’s top officer Luqman Husen.

The affected villages are part of the disputed or Kurdistani areas claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad. The fate of these areas is to be determined by the implementation of Article 140 that includes a series of steps such as a reverse to the process of Arabization that was conducted by the Baathist government until the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The article should have been implemented by 2007 per the Iraqi constitution.

“At a time we are busy to return back the Kurds displaced from Tuz Khurmatu and normalize the situation there...this dangerous precedence does not help returning stability and co-existence in the disputed areas,” Mohammed said in his statement.

Khurmatu, located south of Kirkuk, came under the control of the Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi forces on October 16, the same day as the fall of Kirkuk, after driving out Kurdish Peshmerga.

Tens of thousands of Kurds fled their homes as they were ethnically-targeted in Khurmatu. Rights organizations such Amnesty International, as well as a UN probe found hundreds of cases of burning, bombing and looting of houses and business of mainly Kurdish residents in the diverse city. The Kurdish parliament labeled such acts alongside revenge killings “genocide,” while the Iraqi Vice President Nouri al-Maliki described it as “ethnic cleansing.”

Mohammed added that Kurds have a “bitter” experience with the process of Arabization, something that must not happen in a “democratic Iraq.”

Ismael, Palakana resident whose house has been occupied by an Arab family now, said that the Arab tribe had been to the village many times, “but this time in a bigger number...accompanied by the police force.”

“We had been forced from our homes once,” he said, about the Arabization process under the former Iraqi regime that forcibly removed the Kurds from their home villages and towns.

“I appeal to not let this happen again. What is our sin? Is it just because we are Kurds?” he posited.

Another man, who gave only his first name, Dashti, had his house confiscated by an Arab family, said that they were told the order is in two stages.

“They said this is the first stage,” he said referring to the confiscation of homes, “the second stage is to take the [agriculture] land.”

Abadi appointed Rakan al-Jabouri, a Sunni Arab, as the acting governor following the fall of Kirkuk in October. He became the first Arab governor there since 2003.

An official letter obtained by Rudaw titled “returning the abandoned villages” dated November 5 was sent by acting governor al-Jabouri that instructs the mayor office in Dubiz to “do whatever needed” to help an Arab Sheikh named Ali Hawas al-Hathmi from the Shammar tribe to help his tribesmen to reside in the villages requested by the tribe’s leader. It requested the local government to cooperate with the security forces to implement the instruction from the governor office.

A second letter also obtained by Rudaw, dated November 4, which was signed by the acting governor reads that they have attached a request from the same man, identified as head of the Shammar tribe, to reside “in their villages.” It added that these people from the Shammar tribe do not have the right to use farms in the identified areas without first getting a “response from the directorate of Kirkuk culture.”

In late November, Mahdi Mubarak, the director of Kirkuk’s Agriculture Department who fled to Erbil after the events of October 16, used oversee compensation for Arab families and the return of land they had occupied to their rightful owners.

“The Arabs whose contracts we had cancelled for seizing peoples’ land have taken these lands back from their rightful owners and cultivated them again, especially in Dubiz, Daquq and Yaychi,” Mubarak said then of the fertile areas.

“These contracts were cancelled in accordance with Section No. 4 of Article 140 in 2007, and the lands were given back to their owners. They (the Arabs) are now asking the agriculture departments for these places not to recognize these decisions, even putting pressure on them in some places,” he claimed.

The committees formed to implement Article 140 worked in Kirkuk for six years. They gave 10 of millions of dollars in compensation to the Arabs brought to the area during the former regime’s Arabization campaign from 1975 to 2003.

According to figures provided by Kirkuk’s Agriculture Department, more than 1.2 million acres of agricultural land were returned to their owners who were mostly Kurds, along with some Turkmen.

“Arabization is on the rise in Dubiz,” Majid Mahmud, Kirkuk provincial council member, also said then. “Many Arabs have returned there, and we are monitoring the situation. They have benefitted from current conditions. The ministry of agriculture in Baghdad makes many decisions that favor settled Arabs.”

Mahmud estimated that at least 300,000 acres of land has fallen back into the hands of the Arabs.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/281220171
Last edited by Anthea on Tue Jan 09, 2018 11:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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We have to stop the Arabization of Kurdish villages NOW

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Re: Arabization of Kurdish villages happening NOW December 2

PostAuthor: Anthea » Tue Jan 09, 2018 10:52 pm

How to stop the Arabization of Kirkuk

The process to arabize “the others” is deeply rooted in Arab culture. The phenomenon stems from an ancient and tribal culture that does not tolerate coexistence with different communities. This is especially the case with authorities. As they gain control of the homelands of people from different ethnic backgrounds, they meld the others into the Arab culture.

The Arabization of the others became rifer after the emergence of Islam, when some Arabs sought to not only convert other nations into Islam, but arabize them too. That is why the Arabs have always had problems with their surroundings throughout history.

Efforts to arabize the Kurds have been a long-standing problem because of their geographic location and ability to defend their distinct identity. Through the centuries, we can see that this identity rivalry after the emergence of Islam and during the rule of the caliphs up until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire has been a persistent practice carried out in different ways.

The Kurds in Syria and Iraq were subjected to Arabization at a state level after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and this was due to the geographic and ethnic divisions in the region. Iraq and Syria have been systematically working to control the Kurdish homeland and make it a part of the Arab homeland, with the end goal to arabize the Kurds.


The history of the last century of these two states testifies to the many different ways ethnic-cleansing was committed against the Kurds and to the Arabization of Kurdish areas, and to the defense the Kurds have put up through peace, war, the pursuit of legal and constitutional procedures and resorting to the international community. This problem continues today and will continue unless the mentality of the Arab society changes, which is nearly impossible.

The Kurds should realize that Arabization policy would be a priority for Arabs whenever they are the dominant force on Kurdish territory. From the time the state of Iraq was created until the fall of Saddam Hussein, every consecutive regime in Iraq has worked on arabizing Kurdistan.

Following the collapse of the Baathists and the subsequent rise in power by the Shiites of Iraq, the claimed absence of an Arabization policy in Iraq has not been due to the lack of such a policy in the Shiites’ mindset. Rather, the Arabization policy was halted because the Kurds were “officially” a part the Government of Iraq, the constitutional recognition the Kurdistan Region, and the instability that emerged in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003.

They truly initiated Arabization soon after the events of October 16, the position of Kurdistan weakened and the Kurdish pride was broken. The ongoing situation in Tuz Khurmatu, Daquq, Kirkuk, Dubiz, Gwer and Kandenawa is a testament to this. It shows that the Arabs will resume ethnic cleansing against the Kurds whenever the time is ripe for them.

The process of driving people out of their villages, reconfiscating Kurdish lands, and bringing Arab nationals from the central and southern parts of Iraq is being done systematically. The expulsion of thousands of Kurdish families from Tuz Khurmatu, the burning and razing of their houses, certify that this round of Arabization policy is more intense.

This is only the beginning of their plots, which will finally lead to the demolition of tens of Kurdish neighborhoods in Kirkuk and other towns in this area. Nowadays, the Arabization process is also conducted by arming invading settlers in an attempt to equip them with the tools that enable them to stay.

The silence of the Kurds and lack of stance on this matter on levels ranging from individual, media, political parties and Kurdish officials in Baghdad, is as dangerous as the process itself. There is an article in the current Iraqi constitution that prohibits this process, which was previously carried out by previous Iraqi governments through tens of “legal” rulings.

The Kurds can prevent this process of Arabization only by committing to Article 140 of the constitution. But the problem lies with the Kurds, who have themselves created conditions for the reinvasion of the Kurdistani areas. Moreover, the lack of a stance by Kurdish representatives in Baghdad and their weakness in the face of Arab politicians, has given way to Arabs to mount a genocide process against the Kurds under the name of constitutional legitimacy.

In addition, there is another internal problem among the Kurds, which is a lack of agreement between political parties on refilling Kurdish shares of administrative positions in Kirkuk. This problem has paved the way for the re-Arabization of Kirkuk. The Kurds currently are entitled to have the position of Kirkuk governor, who is the head of administrative units and security committee.

Yet, a chauvinistic Arab who supervises the plan to arabize Kirkuk has now taken on the position of governor. The provincial council consists mainly of Kurdish Brotherhood members associated with Kurdish parties in Kirkuk. The council is now paralyzed due to internal conditions, which is why these council members are not returning to work.

The continuation of these circumstances in Kirkuk is in the interests of the Arabization process. It makes the job for the Kurds more difficult to regain their rights in Iraq. The chauvinistic mentality of the ruling nation in Baghdad will not end by returning to Kirkuk. However, the Kurds can end the conditions that have led to this intense Arabization by returning to Kirkuk and retaking their positions in coordination with Kurdish representatives in Baghdad.

In order to do this, the Kurds need to think of another formula to run Kirkuk. Their first step can be a redistribution of Kurdish shares in Kirkuk positions over the three Kurdish parties that make up the majority of the provincial council. But all parties should approve candidates appointed to these positions so that these three parties can help Kirkuk’s administration pass this phase of reinvading Kurdistan. The majority of provincial council members are Kurdish. The positions of the governor, police and many other service institutions are supposed to be run by Kurds, yet currently remain either vacant or run by Kurdish foes.

The Kurds should return to Kirkuk and defend their rights from there. They should benefit from their administrative, security and military positions to protect their identity. They cannot protect Kirkuk distantly from Erbil and Sulaimani if they do not return. The reinvasion of Kirkuk will pave the way to the reinvasion of other parts of Kurdistan that have not yet fallen to Arabs.

http://www.rudaw.net/english/opinion/09012018
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