Kurds in northern Iraq pursue an elusive goal: unity

During a 20-minute discussion of his confidence in America's support, Majid wavers only once. He mentions 1988, when the Iraqi regime used chemical weapons to attack at least 60 Kurdish villages and towns. Majid wants to know: "Why was America silent?"

The US declined to stop Hussein's forces from crushing the Kurds' 1991 uprising, but it responded to the ensuing torrent of Kurdish refugees into Turkey and Iran, providing humanitarian assistance and declaring a "no-fly zone" over northern Iraq. Hussein soon pulled his administrators out of the country's three northern provinces. The UN and private agencies stepped in to help.

The greatest boon of the past 12 years, says Sirwan Sdiq, a goatee-sporting entrepreneur in Sulaymaniyah, is "the freedom for us to do what we want."

The residents of Iraqi Kurdistan - mainly Kurds, but also Turkmens, Arabs, and members of Iraq's other ethnic and religious groups - no longer have to serve in Iraq's army or pretend to admire Hussein. Dozens of political parties now vie for people's support, as do scores of publications and radio and television stations.

But both politically and economically, Iraqi Kurdistan is a work in progress. "There is a margin of freedom; it is not a democracy," says Safwat Sidqi, a lawyer in Sulaymaniyah who heads the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization.

Although Kurdish officials praise democracy, in many ways they preside in an authoritarian style over their fiefdoms. "If I am for the PUK I can't say so," says a college graduate in Arbil, the center of the region run by the KDP. "Jobs are restricted to [KDP] party members and students who were in the party student union," he grumbles, insisting that his name not be used. "It's just like under Saddam."

Some Kurds say that progress depends on change. Integration in a democratic Iraq would likely improve the region's economy.

"We have run our course," says the KDP's Hoshyar Zebari, referring to the administrations maintained by his party and the PUK. "I think it's the endgame for us - that's why you see us really involved in [Iraqi] opposition politics."

"The division of the Kurdish community into two is the greatest failing" of the period of autonomy, says Baban, the doctor and activist. It is also, he adds, "the greatest risk to this community and to its future."

The civil war of 1994-1997, fought in part over the distribution of smuggling revenues, is an embarrassment to Kurdish officials. "It's a sad, black period of our life and we will never go back to it," vows Nasreen Sideek, minister of reconstruction and development for the KDP.

Despite talk of reconciliation, there is little immediate prospect of achieving administrative unity or selecting a single leader. Shalaw Askari, a minister in the PUK administration, says the two parties are 40 percent of the way toward coalescence. One half-step toward unity: In recent months the two party leaders, Masoud Barzani of the KDP and Jalal Talabani of the PUK, have begun traveling together to foreign capitals.

Internal dissension has been a constant of Kurdish history. During the civil war, Mr. Talabani relied on Iranian help until Mr. Barzani invited in Hussein's forces and sought assistance from Turkey. The war percolated until the US worked out a peace agreement in 1998.

Of the two challenges they face - the need to rely on outsiders and the imperative of unity - Kurds say the former is easier. "When you are thrown into the river and somebody is there and he puts his hand out to help you," says Mr. Askari, the PUK minister, "you must trust."

"The chance is here and I think we should take it," he adds. The American hand doesn't offer independence, which Askari says all Kurds want in their hearts, but it is perhaps the only way forward.

Regarding unity, Askari is less sanguine. His father, Ali, was ambushed and executed by the KDP in 1978. His picture is one of the four portraits at on the roundabout at the PUK military compound outside Sulaymaniyah.

Shalaw Askari pauses when he is asked how can Kurds can overcome this legacy of internecine strife. It's a sensitive subject, he says. "If you say you forget, it's not true."

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