The Hindu : Kurds await date with democracy

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Friday, Jul 04, 2003

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Kurds await date with democracy

By Sabrina Tavernise

A look at the Kurds' faltering experiment with democracy, where patronage and tribal allegiances crowd out the rule of law, shows how difficult it will be to establish a pluralistic political system in Iraq.

SHORTLY AFTER the end of the first Gulf War, the newly semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq held a rare democratic election. The region-wide election, however, provoked a civil war. There has not been another since. The war broke the region, which calls itself Kurdistan, into two zones, each dominated by a single political party. Neither party tolerates political pluralism. Both have used torture, killings and kidnappings to achieve their political goals, many people in Sulaimaniya say.

As the United States authorities consider how to build a democracy in Iraq, they have repeatedly held up this region as a model. In a message to the Kurdish parliament, L. Paul Bremer, the American in charge of administration in Iraq, said, "I am confident that the example you set, with free elections, will be an inspiration for the rest of the country". There is little doubt that the Kurdish political system has been less repressive than Saddam Hussein's. But a look at the Kurds' faltering experiment with democracy, where patronage and tribal allegiances crowd out the rule of law, shows how difficult it will be to establish a pluralistic political system in Iraq.

"Compared to the rest of Iraq, Kurdistan is fantastic," said David McDowall, author of "A Modern History of Kurds" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). "But it's a long way short of democracy as we know it in the Western world. It's incredibly important that Americans understand that democracy is in no way coming tomorrow."

Conditions in the Kurdish region were hardly ripe for building a democracy. It was under constant military pressure from Saddam Hussein, whose Government killed an estimated 1,80,000 Kurds during the 1980s. The Iraqi Kurds are surrounded on the other sides by Iran, Turkey and Syria — countries intent on dividing and weakening the Kurds to keep their own Kurdish population from making a move for independence. The parties are not new. The revered Kurdish leader, Mustafa Barzani, formed the Kurdish Democratic Party in 1946. Thirty years later, a headstrong young Kurd, Jalal Talabani, quit the party and formed his own — the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. After a bitter war for power in the 1990s, the two parties agreed to an American-brokered peace in 1998 and recently began looking for ways to share power.

The region's main economic activity is trade, much of it only partly legal because of the unclear status of the region. It could not forge formal relations with other countries and was too unstable to attract foreign investors. The Kurdish parties have cemented their power through a near-monopoly on the economy. The lack of clear laws for the region left much room for financial manoeuvring. Political leaders, however, bristle at questions about corruption. A party leader, Talabani, when interviewed, said angrily that "only enemies and propagandists" would raise questions about conflicts of interest in his party.

The ultimate instrument of party control over people's lives is a vast system of political patronage. Party control extends down to the lowest-level government jobs. A 33-year-old nurse in a Sulaimaniya hospital, who would identify himself only by his first name, Salih, was one of very few health workers who refused to join the union sponsored by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the dominant party in this part of the Kurdish region, as a result of which his wages were cut by one-third.

Party supporters acknowledge that the Patriotic Union wields significant control because it is so popular. Heavy-handedness, they say, is simply a function of the fact that the area is new at democracy.

"We started as a resistance movement," Barham Salih, the prime minister of the part of this region controlled by this party, said in an interview. "We have developed more and more democratically, but there is still a lot more to do."

Some party officials privately acknowledge the parties' excesses, though. "Saddam Hussein was the defining factor for all parties in Iraq, including for Kurds," one senior official said. "But the victim has acquired the characteristics of the tyrant."

Kurds, who have come into conflict with one of the two governing parties, describe often violent tactics. In Erbil, the capital of the zone run by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, three journalists were arrested last August after writing articles that explored the lack of opportunities for local youth and raised questions about party finances. They were later released, but one of them, Nuradin Waisi, said he had received a death threat from a senior party official. Goran Salih, 31, another of the three, said party officials made their position clear. "They said I will see much trouble in my life if I keep writing in that direction," he said in an interview. Both sides seized hundreds of prisoners during the civil war. People who were jailed described being tortured.

Things have changed since the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Kurdistan's revenues collapsed after coalition forces banned the parties from levying their own duties. Facing an uncertain future, politicians in both parties have been trying to redefine their role. They have even made plans for a merger, which would have been unthinkable a year ago.

Ordinary Kurds, who still live in fear of offending the political parties, have gradually begun to talk about them. The real test, however, will be whether the parties are ready to concede defeat in a political race. Mr. McDowall contends that it will not happen until Iraq has an independent middle class. "Across Iraq, people who have bits of power are now working like crazy to create their own networks," he said. "It's happening invisibly. They will not surrender that power willingly. No one ever does."

— New York Times

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