Ethnic tensions in Kirkuk dangerously high

[seemslikeadream]

Posted on Wed, Apr. 06, 2005

By TOM LASSETER


KIRKUK, Iraq - (KRT) - U.S. military officials are concerned that ethnic tensions could turn into widespread violence and, perhaps, civil war in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, setting a dangerous pattern for rest of the country.

Kirkuk oil fields hold at least 6 percent of the world's oil reserves and Kurdish talk of secession is at a fever pitch.

A bloc of Kurdish-led politicians received the majority of seats on the provincial council after January elections and is now threatening to fill most key positions with Kurds. Arab and Turkmen (also known as Turkomen) politicians protested with a series of walkouts and now refuse to show up at council meetings, where Kurdish leaders insist on speaking in their mother language.

The Kurds are also accelerating efforts to bring back families pushed out of Kirkuk and the surrounding province by former dictator Saddam Hussein during his massive resettlement campaigns aimed at weakening Kurdish opposition. The Kurds hope the influx will help make Kirkuk a part of the Iraqi region of Kurdistan and possibly provide an economic engine for an independent Kurdish nation. Breaking away from Iraq, though, would be difficult for the Kurds because of pressure from neighboring countries such as Iran and Turkey, which oppose an independent Kurdistan.

"We're worried about the domino effect of the Kurds getting the senior leadership positions and the Arabs and Turkomen going back to their constituencies and saying the Kurds have taken over, and the Turkomen and, to a greater extent, the Arabs rise up," said Lt. Col. Anthony Wickham, the U.S. Army's liaison to the Kirkuk council.

more
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/11327240.htm

[TexasLawyer]

1. Opponents of the Iraq war

could see this coming from miles away. But since the anti-war crowd was just a "focus group" we were ignored. This is how WWIII will start.

[paineinthearse]

2. Damn the British Empire for creating modern day Iraq from several ethnic

geographies.

It should be at least 3 states.

[Hardrada]

5. The Brits also wanted one big oil rich country

and they tried to control it but got kicked out. Not auspicious for the rest of their imperial control.

[Igel]

6. Damn the Ottoman Empire and the waves of ethnic migration

before it.

Kurds have been in the area for >2k years (coming in under the Medes/Persians), Turks for 1k years (part of the great Mongol invasion), and Arabs probably a tad longer (from the Arab conquest of the Middle East). I'd say the Assyrians come closest to being "First Peoples", but since the Arab admixture was slight, most of the "Arabs" are as "Assyrian" as the Assyrians.

No way the Brits could have divvied that little area up in a fair way (I'd have opted for a tad o' ethnic cleansing in the 1920s: ethnic cleansing before, oh, 1947 seems to be perfectly acceptable). Hussein made matters even worse than they would have been.

It's the Yugoslavia effect, writ small. You get a bunch of ethnicities together that don't like each other, and the only way to make them live in peace is by making sure the same jackboot is on all, or at least most of, their necks.

[paineinthearse]

3. If memory serves me well

I came across the Beacon Journal during the days after the November election. It is part of the Gannett chain, so this story is chain-wide, not local.

[thebigidea]

4. uh oh - we might need to invade to keep the peace!

oh wait...