Now It’s a Census That Could Rip Iraq Apart

By ROD NORDLAND

BAGHDAD — When Iraqis were drafting their Constitution in 2005, the parties could not agree on who would control Kirkuk, the prized oil capital of the north. They couldn’t even agree on who lived in Kirkuk, which is claimed by the region’s Kurds, but also by its Turkmen minority and Sunni Arabs. For that matter, they couldn’t even agree on where Kirkuk was — in Tamim, Erbil, or Sulaimaniya Province.

So the Iraqis punted, inserting Article 140, a clause that called for a national census, followed by a referendum on the status of Kirkuk, all to be held by the end of 2007. What followed were a succession of delays, against a backdrop of sectarian violence and warnings that Kirkuk could blow apart the Shiite-Kurdish alliance that has governed Iraq since the Americans invaded.

Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, warned two years ago that if “Article 140 is not implemented, then there will be a real civil war.” He’s still waiting.

But so is the threat of civil war, which lurked quietly in the polling places this weekend as residents of Iraq’s Kurdish-dominated areas voted for their regional president and Parliament. Until the status of Kirkuk is clear, nobody really knows how much power those regional officials can wield within the national government, or even whether the Kurds will want to remain part of Iraq.

The problem with settling that is the Kirkuk referendum. There can’t be a referendum until Iraqis figure out who is eligible to vote in Kirkuk, which they can’t do until there’s a census. And any attempt to hold a census in this country may well end up, all by itself, provoking a civil war.

Even now, Sunnis don’t agree that they’re a minority of the nation, and that the Shiites are the majority, though it’s patently obvious. And in Kirkuk, everyone is in denial, one way or another.

Ethnically mixed and awash in oil, Kirkuk has always been something of a numbers game. There are 10 billion barrels of proven oil reserves — 6 percent of the world’s total and 40 percent of Iraq’s — all within commuting distance of downtown Kirkuk. Its fields, though half destroyed, still produce a million barrels of oil a day.

Both Turkmen and Kurds claim to be in the majority; the last reliable estimates, from a 1957 census, gave Turkmen a plurality in the city and Kurds a plurality in the surrounding district, with Arabs second in the countryside and third in the city. In the Saddam Hussein years, the Kurds declared Kirkuk part of their autonomous region of Kurdistan, but the dictator sent the army after the Kurdish guerrillas, known as pesh merga, and held onto the prize. He then set about Arabizing it, forcibly relocating families from the south while evicting Kurds and Turkmen alike.

After 2003, pesh merga troops quickly took control of Kirkuk as the Iraqi Army collapsed. Some local Arabs revolted, nurturing an insurgency that still festers. Others simply remained. Meanwhile, Turkmen appealed to powerful patrons in Turkey that they were undercounted and ignored by everyone, and Turkey came to their aid to make sure the Kurds didn’t get Kirkuk, which supplies much of Turkey’s oil. Only the presence of American troops has kept a lid on things; a brigade is still kept in Kirkuk.

And still there is no census. “The Iraqi government for the last three years, every year they say it will come this year,” says Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of Parliament.

A date for a census is on the calendar — Oct. 24. But it is subject to ratification by Iraq’s cabinet, the Turkmen have announced that they will boycott it and Arabs in Kirkuk may well do the same.

One proposal for getting past this problem would be to hold a census everywhere but in Kirkuk. If that happened Kirkuk could end up, in effect, a disenfranchised province when the next general national elections are held in January.

Another suggestion is to hold a referendum on Kirkuk without a census, but that would invite a dispute about the validity of the results.

And then there’s the Lebanese solution, the one that so far seems likeliest: just do nothing. The last census in that sectarian hodge-podge of a country was in 1932; no one would dare hold one now, since the groups who would almost certainly lose representation — Maronite Catholics, Druze and Sunni Muslims — would simply go back to war rather than get counted out.

Already, the Kurdish regional government has been defying Baghdad and issuing contracts to develop its oil fields, including some in Kirkuk. The Iraqi government showed its displeasure by moving its 12th Division, some 9,500 troops, up to Kirkuk; there they have been provocatively patrolling into pesh merga-held areas and setting off a series of minor incidents recently.

“It’s very worrisome that these incidents continue to happen,” said Joost Hilterman, of the International Crisis Group. “Perhaps they will be contained, but the stakes are huge.”

For the moment, there are still plenty of American troops around to do the containing, but all American combat troops are due to pull out by next summer. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to broker an agreement, especially when no one is likely to really want it.

Abeer Mohammed contributed reporting.

Kurdish Leaders Warn Of Strains With Maliki

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 17, 2009

IRBIL, Iraq, July 16 -- Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and the Iraqi government are closer to war than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the Kurdish prime minister said Thursday, in a bleak measure of the tension that has risen along what U.S. officials consider the country's most combustible fault line.

In separate interviews, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and the region's president, Massoud Barzani, described a stalemate in attempts to resolve long-standing disputes with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's emboldened government. Had it not been for the presence of the U.S. military in northern Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani said, fighting might have started in the most volatile regions.

The conflict is one of many that still beset Iraq, even as violence subsides and the U.S. military begins a year-long withdrawal of most combat troops from the country. There remains an active sectarian conflict, exacerbated by insurgent groups that seem bent on reigniting Sunni-Shiite carnage. There is also a contest underway in Baghdad to determine the political coalition that will rule the country after next year's elections. But for months, U.S. officials have warned that the ethnic conflict pitting Kurds against Arabs, or more precisely the Kurdish regional government against Maliki's federal government in Baghdad, poses the greatest threat to Iraq's stability and could persist for years.

In an incident June 28 that underscored the trouble, Kurdish residents and militiamen loyal to the Kurdish regional government faced off with an Arab-led Iraqi army unit approaching Makhmur, a predominantly Kurdish town between the troubled northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. Kurds believed the unit was trying to enter the town, and for 24 hours, Kurdish leaders, Iraqi officials in Baghdad and the U.S. military negotiated until the Arab-led Iraqi unit was diverted, the Kurdish prime minister said.

The Kurdish militiamen, who are nominally under the authority of the Iraqi army but give their loyalty to the Kurdish regional government, retained control.

"They sent huge forces to be stationed there to control a disputed area, and our message was clear: We will not allow you to do so," the Kurdish prime minister said.

"Our instructions are clear," Massoud Barzani said in a separate interview. Neither the Iraqi army nor the Kurdish militia has "the unilateral right to move into these areas."

U.S. military officials confirmed the incident but offered differing accounts. Asked if the incident was essentially the Kurdish Iraqi army facing down the Arab Iraqi army, Maj. James Rawlinson, a military spokesman in Kirkuk, replied, "Basically."

A spokesman in the Iraqi Defense Ministry blamed the incident on a misunderstanding. He said the army movement was nothing more than a troop rotation. When residents and others saw the Iraqi army unit's arrival, he said, they feared that the government in Baghdad was sending reinforcements. "They turned it into a big issue when it was a simple operation," he said.

The conflict between the government and the Kurdish region is so explosive because it intersects with the most critical disputes that still endanger the country's stability. They include debate over a hydrocarbon law to share revenue and manage Iraq's enormous oil reserves, some of which are located in areas claimed by the Kurdish government; talks to delineate the border between the Kurdish and Arab regions; and efforts to resolve the fate of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city shared by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens.

Complicating the landscape is the bad blood between two of the key players -- Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish president, and Maliki, whose stature has grown dramatically amid the restoration of a semblance of calm and his Dawa party's success in provincial elections in January. Although two delegations from Maliki's party have visited Irbil, the Kurdish capital, since the spring, the two men have not spoken in a year, Barzani said.

"Everything is frozen," said Prime Minister Barzani, a nephew of the president. "Nothing is moving." He warned that the deadlock was untenable. "If the problems are not solved and we're not sitting down together, then the risk of military confrontation will emerge," he said.

Both have blamed the other side for provocations, often with justification. Kurdish officials see in Maliki's actions a recurrence of what they believe is arrogance from Baghdad stretching back generations. Maliki's allies accuse Kurdish leaders of overreaching in their territorial ambitions and stubbornness in talks.

"If things remain the way they are between the two parties, without solutions and without abiding by the constitution, then unfortunately everything is possible," said Ezzedine Dawla, a Sunni Arab lawmaker from Mosul, Iraq's most restive city.

Last month's standoff was at least the third that involved the Kurdish militia, known as the pesh merga, reaching into land that had been administered by Baghdad until the U.S.-led invasion. With U.S. approval after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government, Kurdish leaders dispatched pesh merga past the frontier. In predominantly Kurdish regions, they sent administrative staff and their personnel, as well. Since last year, Maliki has pushed back, sending the Iraqi army to confront pesh merga in the border town of Khanaqin, which has a Kurdish majority, and deploying thousands more troops in Kirkuk. Fearing tension, the U.S. military has bolstered its presence in Kirkuk.

The Kurdish prime minister said the two sides narrowly avoided bloodshed in Makhmur.

He said the Iraqi army headed toward Makhmur, set in a wind-swept region of rolling wheat fields, with the intention of staying in the town. The troops were stopped by about 2,000 pesh merga in a standoff that lasted through the night. A flurry of phone calls continued into the next morning. The Kurdish prime minister said he stayed awake until 4 a.m. as the talks unfolded. "What does that tell you about the seriousness of the situation?" he asked.

American officials offered two accounts of what happened. Rawlinson, the spokesman in Kirkuk, said a battalion from Iraq's 7th Division was headed to station itself in Makhmur. At the nearby town of Debaga, it was stopped by soldiers of the 2nd Division, which is composed of pesh merga units. The U.S. military was alerted at 2:30 a.m., he said. "It was the middle of the night, and people got tense," Rawlinson said.

Maj. Derrick Cheng, a spokesman in Tikrit, said Iraq's 7th Division was headed to Nineveh province for an upcoming operation. "The movement fed fears and rumors," he said, and at least 30 vehicles and 100 people blocked the road. Calls were made, and the Iraqi army troops stopped on the road, then took another route, "bypassing Makhmur completely to avoid any potential conflict that might have resulted," he said. Rawlinson later said he would defer to Cheng's version.

Prime Minister Barzani saw the incident as more provocation than misunderstanding. He insisted that Iraqi army commanders were still imbued with a "military-style mentality of being the Big Brother to impose their will." He warned that the Iraqi army was biding its time until it became stronger, perhaps with tanks from the United States.

"Then what do you expect from us?" he asked. "We just sit down and wait to see it?" Asked whether the pesh merga had tanks, too, he replied, "Oh, yes. Yes, we do."

Correspondent Nada Bakri in Baghdad contributed to this report.

U.S. Has Sent 40 Tons of Munitions to Aid Somali Government

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 27, 2009

The U.S. government has provided about 40 tons of weapons and ammunition to shore up the besieged government of Somalia in the past six weeks and has sent funding to train Somali soldiers, a senior State Department official said yesterday, in the most complete accounting to date of the new American efforts in the strife-torn country.

The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the military aid was worth less than $10 million and had been approved by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the National Security Council.

"We do not want to see Somalia become a safe haven for foreign terrorists," the official said.

Hard-line Islamist rebels allegedly linked to al-Qaeda have launched an offensive to topple Somalia's relatively moderate government, which has appealed to the United States and other African countries for help. The fighting has killed 250 civilians and forced more than 160,000 people out of their homes in the past month, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

In an indication of the rebels' growing power, they held a ceremony Thursday in the capital, Mogadishu, in which they chopped off a hand and foot from each of four men convicted of stealing cellphones and other items, according to news reports from the region. The punishment was in line with the rebels' harsh version of Islam. The United States considers the rebel group, al-Shabab, a terrorist organization.

Somalia has been racked by violence since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. U.S. officials say the bloodshed and lawlessness in the country have caused a massive outflow of refugees and contributed to an upsurge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden. The country has also become a haven for al-Qaeda operatives alleged to have carried out attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, U.S. officials say.

The African Union has sent troops from Uganda and Burundi to help Somalia's fragile government keep order.

The U.S. aid does not involve the deployment of any troops to Somalia, where 18 American soldiers were killed in the 1993 raid depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

In order to strengthen Somalia's military, the U.S. government is providing cash to its government to buy weapons, and has asked Ugandan military forces there to give Somali soldiers small arms and ammunition, the official said. The U.S. government is then resupplying the Ugandans, he said.

The U.S. government will also help pay for the Kenyan, Burundi and Ugandan militaries to train Somali soldiers, and is providing logistical support for the African Union troops, the official said.

Clinton called Somalia's president, Sharif Ahmed, in recent weeks to consult on the crisis, according to another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.

He said the U.S. aid would likely encourage other African countries to do more to help Somalia's government.

U.S. officials accuse Eritrea of supporting the Somali rebels as part of a proxy war with its rival, Ethiopia. But efforts by State Department officials to meet with the Eritrean government have been fruitless so far, the official said.

Somalia Fighting Forces More to Flee Capital

A Somali woman and her child sit in front of a makeshift home after they fled fighting in Mogadishu, 09 Jun 2009

VOA, Nairobi, Derek Kilner, June 26 - The United Nations refugee agency says nearly 170,000 people have now been displaced from their homes in Somalia's capital since Islamist insurgents launched a renewed offensive in early May.

According to the U.N. refugee agency hospital records indicate that more than 250 people have been killed since May 7, and nearly 169,000 displaced. The UNHCR says the bulk of those fleeing their homes have headed to settlements for internally displaced people in Afgooye, south of Mogadishu, or have moved to safer areas of the capital and its outskirts. According to the agency, 33,000 people have been displaced in the last week alone.

In early May, the al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam militias launched a new offensive in Mogadishu in an effort to topple the internationally-backed transitional government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The insurgents reject the government's brand of Islamism as too moderate and want African Union peacekeepers to leave the country.

About 4,300 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers are deployed in the capital. Their presence has prevented key landmarks, including the president's residence, the port, and the airport, from falling under insurgent control, but they have had little success in stemming the overall fighting.

In a letter to the African Union ahead of a summit meeting in Libya early next month, the organization Human Rights Watch called on the AU to ensure that its peacekeepers respect human rights. While noting the extensive challenges faced by the mission, the group raised concern with reports that AU peacekeepers have fired indiscriminately at civilians, including an incident in February in which peacekeepers allegedly killed 13 civilians after their convoy came under attack.

The AU has appealed to the U.N. to take over responsibility for peacekeeping, but the Security Council has said the security situation remains too precarious.

Al-Shabab militiamen fire on Somali government troops in the streets of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, 22 May 2009

Human Rights Watch is also urging African leaders to press the United Nations to establish a commission of experts to investigate rights abuses in the Somali conflict, saying it would be the first step towards providing accountability. The Africa director at Human Rights Watch, Georgette Gagnon, says much of the relevant information is already available through existing reports.

"There really isn't a lack of information per se about what's going on," said Gagnon. "The information is getting out. The real issue is what's being done about it which is very little, both at the Security Council in New York and to some extent by the African Union."

Meanwhile, the United States government has acknowledged sending arms to the Somali government. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the transitional government represents Somalia's best chance in 18 years to return to peace and stability.

"At the request of that government, the State Department has helped to provide weapons and ammunition on an urgent basis," said Kelly. "This is to support the Transitional Federal Government's efforts to repel the onslaught of extremist forces which are intent on destroying the Djibouti peace process and spoiling efforts to bring peace and stability to Somalia through political reconciliation."

Human Rights Watch's Georgette Gagnon says it has not yet received any information about the arms transfers. The group has been highly critical of Somalia policy under the Bush administration, including its support for Ethiopian forces who occupied the country from late 2006 to early this year, and its policy of launching air strikes against suspected terrorists. Gagnon.

"We've also been very concerned about U.S. policy in Somalia which frankly has not been good and has in our view to some extent increased the bad human rights situation there. So we've been calling on the new Obama administration to change its policy in Somalia," said Gagnon.

The United States has also said it believes that Eritrea is providing support to al-Shabab, which is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, suspected of links to al-Qaida.

Karen Rebel Army Forced to Retreat

Mizzima, Mae Sot, Larry Jagan, June 18 - Burma’s largest active ethnic rebel group has been forced to abandon its stronghold on the Burmese border with Thailand after weeks of fierce fighting with government troops and rival Karen guerrillas.

The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), will now resort to guerrilla tactics to fight the Burmese Army rather than waste lives trying to defend territorial bases in eastern Burma, KNLA Commander Jonny told reporters on Thursday.

"The withdrawal from our 7th Division base does not mean we are defeated. It is a tactical redeployment. We also do not want to kill our fellow Karens in this battle," he said.

But many analysts believe this may be the beginning of the end for the KNLA, which has been fighting for self-determination from the Burmese government for sixty years.

Nonetheless, KNU and KNLA leaders insist that the struggle is far from over. “We will fight to the bitter end,” David Thackerbaw, a KNU spokesperson, told Mizzima. “We have no option but to continue fighting. We must hold onto every strip of land."

“We know what is at stake. The Burmese Army will continue to commit human rights abuses, seize our land and control our natural resources if we don’t resist them,” he added.

In the past few weeks thousands of ethnic Karen villagers have been forced to flee across the border into Thailand as the Burmese Army stepped up its assault on the Karen rebels.

Fierce fighting and constant mortar fire close to the Thai border by the Burmese Army has thus far forced more than four thousand ethnic Karen villagers to flee for their safety, according to aid workers in the area.

More than two weeks ago the Burmese Army and a pro-government militia – the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) – launched a major attack along part of the border with Thailand in a last ditch effort to finally destroy the KNLA.

In the past few days the Burmese Army has increased its offensive against the KNU’s armed wing, targeting the KNLA's strongest outfit, the 7th Brigade.

For several weeks the 7th Brigade was able to hold their own against the all-out joint assault, though the strategic relationship appears now to have altered. “If we cannot stand our ground, we will move away,” Thackerbaw emphasized. “We will not let our troops die unnecessarily.”

More than 300 fresh DKBA were brought up from Pa’an, capital of Karen State, over the weekend, reinforcing the already 600-strong force fighting alongside the Burmese Army, according to Karen sources in Burma.

“They intend to use a pincer maneuver to dislodge the KNLA,” a Thai military intelligence officer told Mizzima on condition of anonymity. “There are six Burmese Army battalions involved, with the two thousand Burmese troops split equally at the northern and southern ends of the 7th Brigade’s territory.”

“But it’s the 900-strong DKBA that will bear the brunt of the fighting as they lead the attack, with logistical support from the Burmese Army on either side,” he added.

The 7th Brigade is the KNLA's largest and best trained force. More critically it controls a long and strategically important stretch of land between the KNLA’s northern and southern forces.

Now that they are retreating the other two Karen strongholds are isolated and susceptible to being easily surrounded, according to military analysts in the region.

The KNU has been fighting for independence in the hills of eastern Burma and the world's longest running insurgency. They are one of a handful of rebel militias not to have signed a ceasefire agreement with the junta.

“There is no doubt that the junta, with the help of the DKBA, are going all-out to wrest control of the area along the border from the KNU,” Burmese academic and military specialist Win Min told Mizzima.

The renewed military campaign against the KNLA has been prompted by the regime’s planned elections next year and the proposed creation of a national border police force – comprised of disarmed ethnic rebel armies having reached ceasefire agreements with the regime.

However, thus far most ethnic groups have rejected the junta’s plans, though the DKBA has agreed in principle to become a border police force.

In the area along the Thai border where the KNLA is active, the Burmese Army has closed some 30 of its 100 military camps in the last few months, in anticipation of the DKBA taking control of the area, according to the Free Burma Rangers, who operate inside the country.

“They want to eliminate the KNU now because we have called on all Karen to boycott the elections,” speculated Thackerbaw. “The last thing they want is for other ethnic groups to follow our lead.”

Meanwhile, across the border in Burma many villagers are bracing themselves for further fighting and shelling, with the next few days likely to see the Burmese military substantially step up their operations, said a senior Thai military officer.

As the fighting continues more Karen refugees are certain to seek safety across the border in Thailand. So far refugees have fled from seven villages in the war zone, but there are more than 40 villages affected by the current fighting.

“If the fighting continues, at least 8,000 more villagers will have to escape across the border or die at the hands of the soldiers,” Zipporah Sein, General Secretary of the KNU, told Mizzima.