Vote Belies Ethnic Split in Iraqi City

KIRKUK, Iraq -- This ethnically diverse city seated atop one of the world’s major oil reserves delivered an effusive show of support for President Saddam Hussein during Tuesday’s referendum, with silk flowers, children in their best dress and cheers for the 23-year Iraqi regime.

But the display of unity by the city’s Kurd, Arab and Turkmen voters belied the serious ethnic fault lines in Kirkuk that could threaten regional stability and put the U.S. in conflict with an important ally in the event of an American invasion of Iraq.

Hussein has maintained control of Kirkuk with a strong military presence and forced “Arabization” of the city that many Kurds covet as the capital of an independent Kurdistan.

The prospect of a Kurdish state is a nightmare not only for Hussein, but for neighboring Turkey, a key U.S. ally in the region that has been struggling to control its own Kurdish population.

Hussein, who has long argued that he is the only one who can keep the Kurdish independence movement from spiraling out of control, received nothing but praise from the residents heading for the polls on the day their president asked them to reaffirm his leadership.

“Our life is good, we don’t face any difficulties,” Efran Ali, 27, said in Kurdish through a government-appointed translator. He said he preferred to speak in Kurdish because his Arabic is “broken.”

Ali was one of the more than 11.5 million Iraqis who went to the polls in what was a national day of leader worship.

Voting is probably the wrong word to describe what happened in Iraq, because citizens had no real choice -- literally or figuratively. Though the ballots were technically secret, people in many places proudly displayed their “yes” vote as they stuffed it into the ballot box. Results were expected to be released early today, but all that was in question was the size of Hussein’s victory. In the last referendum, held in 1995, he received 99.96% of the vote.

During Tuesday’s balloting here in Kirkuk, Ali and his friends stood up the block, a good distance away from the pro-Hussein party. But it is nearly impossible to talk to anyone in Iraq in private, as the government requires that all journalists travel with an appointed minder. So it is the government’s man translating the words of Ali and his Kurdish friends.

“This city is a mixture of everyone, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Christians,” said 17-year-old Mohammed Nazam. “There is no difference between us. We all live together.”

But behind such cheery sentiments lies a more complex reality, one that government officials, diplomats based here and analysts acknowledge could be one of the biggest problems facing America should it pursue its agenda to overthrow the government.

“Everyone has a claim to Kirkuk,” said Judith Yaphe, senior researcher at the National Defense University in Washington. “It’s a flash point.”

After the U.S.-led coalition vanquished Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, Kurds in the north rebelled against Baghdad, succeeding briefly in taking control of this crucial city. Hussein sent in his elite Republican Guard, which easily pushed the rebels back.

Though the United States did nothing militarily to aid the Kurds in the north, or the Shiite Muslims in the south, in their efforts to oust the regime, the U.S. at the time set up zones that kept Iraqi forces out of both regions.

To this day, U.S. and British warplanes patrol “no-fly” zones in the north and the south. For the Kurds, that has meant more than a decade of unprecedented autonomy from Baghdad. They have their own government and are considering a national constitution.

But they don’t have Kirkuk. Hussein does.

To keep his grip on the city, the Iraqi leader has a heavy military presence in the region. But he also pursued Arabization, a policy of forced migration. The goal is to tip the demographic balance in the city away from the Kurds. An estimated 250,000 Kurds reportedly have been forced out of Kirkuk since the end of the Persian Gulf War.

Last year Baghdad issued a presidential decree giving non-Arabs the chance to “correct” their nationality and embrace their “Arab roots.” If they refused, they could be forced to relocate to Iraqi Kurdistan.

In the north, home to about 3.6 million Kurds, there are two main political groups, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. They recently have moved toward uniting, and although they are very cautious not to call for an independent state, they have said they support an autonomous Kurdish region within a post-Hussein Iraq. And they want Kirkuk, center of a region that holds one-third of Iraq’s oil wealth, for their capital.

That angers Turkey, Iraq’s neighbor to the north and the site of a military base used by the U.S. Air Force in enforcing the northern “no-fly” zone.

Turkey’s Kurdish population, a minority in the south of the country, has been fighting for independence. The Turks do not want to see Iraqi Kurds on their border empowered and enriched, and they are prepared to take military action to prevent that from occurring. European diplomats based in Baghdad said this is one of the gravest concerns held by regional American allies concerning a potential U.S. strike against Hussein.

“Turkey may feel the urge to deploy a significant military presence in northern Iraq” before any U.S. strike, wrote Sedat Ergin, a columnist for the Turkish daily Hurriyet on Tuesday.

According to Ergin, the Turks are determined to head off a Kurdish takeover of Kirkuk. “This scenario means a direct Turkish-Kurdish war,” he wrote. “It also means Turkey becoming Baghdad’s ally.”

But none of this was in evidence Tuesday, as the government led a tour of Kirkuk polling places to demonstrate the city’s support for the president. The referendum, which is scheduled to be held every seven years, conveniently came at a time when the country is facing a possible military invasion. So it served as an opportunity for the government to highlight its citizens’ loyalty. And its citizens took advantage of that -- at least while the government officials were around.

“Everyone who wants to invade, please tell them to bring their coffins,” said Ehsan Taher Korshid, 54.