Human Rights Watch: Land Disputes Fuel Unrest in Iraqi Kurdistan

Press release from Human Rights Watch
Dateline New York, Tuesday August 3

Iraq: In Kurdistan, Land Disputes Fuel Unrest
Kurds Who Were Forcibly Displaced Await Justice, Arab Settlers also at Risk

In northern Iraq, the authorities’ failure to resolve property disputes between returning Kurds and Arab settlers threatens to undermine security in the region, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. Iraq’s interim government urgently needs to implement the judicial means to resolve these disputes, which stem from decades of Arabization policies that uprooted hundreds of thousands of Kurds and other non-Arabs.
The 78-page report, “Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq,” documents the increasing frustration of thousands of displaced Kurds, as well as Turkomans and Assyrians, who are living in desperate conditions as they await a resolution of their property claims. Human Rights Watch details how the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority failed to act even as the situation grew more volatile.
As well as implementing the judicial means to resolve these claims, the Iraqi interim government must take urgent measures to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of thousands of internally displaced Kurds and other non-Arabs living in dire conditions in and around the northern city of Kirkuk. It should also find durable solutions for Arab families who were in turn forced from their homes after the fall of the former Iraqi government in April 2003.

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From Human Rights Watch
Dated Tuesday August 3

Claims in Conflict:
Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq

A crisis of serious proportions is brewing in northern Iraq, and may soon explode into open violence. Since 1975, the former Iraqi government forcibly displaced hundreds of thousands of Kurds, Turkomans, and Assyrians from their homes, and brought in Arab settlers to replace them, under a policy known as “Arabization.” With the overthrow of that government in April 2003, the Kurds and other non-Arabs began returning to their former homes and farms. Ethnic tensions between returning Kurds and others and the Arab settlers escalated rapidly and have continued to do so, along with tensions between the different returning communities—particularly between Kurds and Turkomans—over control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. In the absence of a speedy implementation of plans to address the conflicting land and property claims and the needs of the different communities, ownership disputes may soon be settled through force.
In the context of negotiations over the political future of Iraq and the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Government (IIG) by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) on June 28, 2004, the Kurdish leadership pressed for a number of demands that would consolidate the gains they have made in areas under their control since 1991 as well as realize some of their other long-standing political aspirations. Some of these demands have direct bearing on the future of the hundreds of thousands of victims of Arabization, and are in line with what the Kurdish leadership sees as a historic opportunity to reverse the consequences of what was, in effect, an ethnic cleansing campaign conducted by successive Iraqi governments over several decades. They include a determination of the future status of the city of Kirkuk, which is linked to a return to pre-Arabization administrative boundaries in the relevant governorates; the right of all internally displaced persons to reclaim, and return to, their original homes; and the removal of all Arabs brought from other parts of the country for the purpose of altering the demographic makeup of the northern region. Some of these demands are shared by other ethnic communities that also suffered Arabization - the Turkomans and to a lesser extent the Assyrians – but are at variance on crucial points.
What does unite all the parties concerned is the wish to see past injustices redressed, particularly through a fair mechanism for the settlement of property disputes which lie at the heart of the problem. Resolving these disputes in a timely, fair, and effective manner involves a highly complex operation, which may take years to complete, but on which hinges the ability to diffuse ethnic tensions which are close to a breaking point. The Iraq Property Claims Commission, which was established by law in January 2004, more than eight months after the cessation of major hostilities, has yet to become operational. Moreover, the law fails to address the burning issue of what is to become of the so-called Arabization Arabs, in particular whether they will have the right to choose their place of residence following the resolution of property disputes. They, in a real sense, have become the latest victims of internal displacement.
Since at least the 1930s, successive Iraqi administrations have attempted to change the ethnic make-up of northern Iraq by expelling Kurds, Turkomans, and Assyrians from their homes and repopulating the areas with Arabs moved from central and southern Iraq. Arabization first occurred on a massive scale in the second half of the 1970s, following the creation by the Iraqi government of an autonomous zone in parts of Iraqi Kurdistan. During that period, some 250,000 Kurds and other non-Arabs were expelled from a huge swath of northern Iraq, ranging from Khanaqin on the Iranian border all the way to Sinjar on the Syrian-Turkish border were forcibly displaced. These comprised entire families, including women and children. Simultaneously, the Iraqi government brought in landless Arabs and their families from the nearby al-Jazeera desert to farm the former Kurdish lands. The land titles of the Kurds and other non-Arabs were invalidated. The land was declared government land, but was leased on annual contracts only to the new Arab farmers. However, they did not receive freehold title to the lands.

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