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By: M. Jafar, Ph.D. [**]
Who Are
Fayli Kurds and where do they live?
Fayli (Faylee, Faili, or Feli) Kurds are, as their name tells, an
inseparable segment of the Kurdish population in Iraq and an
integral part of the Kurdish nation, which is divided among many
countries in the Middle East, mainly Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
Fayli Kurds have themselves shown, over the years, and still show
this fact and reality by words and deeds. They speak a dialect that
belongs to the southern Kurdish dialect called Luri which is spoken
in the southern areas of Kurdistan proper, particularly on both
sides of the border areas between Iraq and Iran. [1]
However, all Kurds speaking this dialect are not called Fayli
[2]. One can say that Kurds speaking this
dialect and living in and around Baghdad as well as some cities and
towns in eastern and southern Iraq are called Fayli. There are many
and diverse explanations for why these Kurds are called “Fayli”;
however there is no plausible, well documented and generally
convincing or accepted one.
Fayli Kurds in Iraq have lived mainly in Baghdad (largely in the
Kurdish Quarter (Agdelkrad, a Ghetto) and when they became better
off economically they moved to more affluent areas, such as Etefiya,
Jamila and Shari’ Falastin) and in lesser numbers in towns and
cities near the borders with Iran from as north as south of the
historically and demographically Kurdish city of Kirkuk to as far
south as north of the southern city of Basra. [3]
On the Iranian side of the borders, Fayli Kurds (though not referred
to by this name) live in the provinces of Kirmashan and Ilam and
southward though not called Fayli Kurds. Since the mass expulsions
from Iraq in the seventies and eighties there is a large number of
Fayli Kurds in Tehran as well. [4]
As many other things in the former police state of Baathist Iraq the
number of Fayli Kurds in the country has been a “state secret”.
However, estimates vary from several hundreds of thousands to a few
millions, but most people speak of one million Fayli Kurds living in
Baghdad before the mass deportations of the 1970s and 1980s.
[5]
Fayli Kurds in Iraq are Kurdish Iraqi citizens by birth and
naturalization. However, and due to repeated arbitrary deportations
on several occasions and by different regimes some of the
naturalized Fayli Kurds have kept dual nationalities in order to
protect themselves and their families in case “their turn may
comes”.
Fayli Kurds have lived in Baghdad in lesser numbers for hundreds of
years [6] and their numbers have increased
after the creation of the state of Iraq and the drawing of the more
strict national borders when their numbers increased more rapidly.
This increase was mostly due to a number of factors, among them,
social and spatial mobility, geographical proximity (ease of
movement), economic vitality (risk and initiative taking) and
demographic fertility (very high birth rate).
Fayli Kurds have been business, especially trade, oriented for the
above-mentioned factors and because they could not get employment
from the almost only employer, the state. [7]
They were engaged in economic activities within the private sector,
particularly in trade and commerce. [8] Only
since the nineteen fifties when Fayli Kurds’ economic situation
improved and they could send their sons and daughters to schools did
they emerge as technocrats, engineers, doctors, lawyers and
teachers.
Discrimination and Injustice
Fayli Kurds have suffered many an injustice and ill-treatment.
Arbitrary and illegal deportations on a large scale took place in
1969 and 1971-1973 and again, and by far the most far-reaching,
concerted and brutal, at the beginning of the nineteen eighties.
Thousands upon thousands were rounded up from their homes, schools,
work places and army units, taken to the security offices in Baghdad
and the other cities of Iraq, stripped and robbed by the state
(“state robbery”) of all official documents (birth certificates,
certificates of citizenship, passports, military books, school and
university degrees, property deeds, marriage contracts and last but
not least money), body searched and interrogated in the typical
Baathist manner. They were, with few exceptions, not allowed to take
with them neither food nor water, insulted in different ways and
then put into mostly military trucks or busses, driven to the
eastern border areas and told to march ahead and never look back
otherwise they would be shot [9].
Because of the dominant and strong economic, especially commercial,
position of Fayli Kurds, as mentioned above, the latest deportation
wave began deceitfully by calling the Fayli economic elite to a
meeting at the chamber of commerce in Baghdad supposedly to grant
them new and bigger import licenses. They were rounded up there and
then, stripped of all documents, taken to the security headquarters
for body searching and interrogation, and then taken to the borders
in trucks without informing their families or relations. Literally
everything they owned was confiscated; they were allowed to only
keep the clothes they were wearing then. Subsequently, many of them
suffered depression or died of heart attack or stroke after seeing
their lives’ hard won achievements being so arbitrarily taken from
them and their families by the state of Iraq and being reduced from
a life of prosperity and high social ranking to a life of destitute
and obscurity.
Total Silence
The latest wave of deportation lasted for many months during which
thousands of young Fayli Kurds, both women and men, were detained
and kept as hostages. Their number varies from 5.000 to 10.000 and
up to 30.000. Only after the defeat of the Baath regime and the
availability of the security forces’ records did the horrible truth
about them emerge. None of them has been spared; all had been
executed or, according to some unconfirmed but probable accounts,
were forced to walk in mine fields to clear the way for Iraqi army
units during the war against Iran or were used in the regime’s
experimentations with chemical and biological weapons development
[10]. If this is confirmed, it means that
chemical weapons were tested on young Fayli Kurd detainees before
being dropped on Halabja in 1988.
The rather rigorously planned and ruthlessly executed mass
deportation of Fayli Kurds was only a prelude to, and part of a
larger strategy of the Baath regime against the Kurdish population.
The crux of the matter was to deprive the Kurds in Iraq of all
economic power and drive them from all geographically strategic
areas by demographical measures and forcible ethnic cleansing and
shifts and alterations. They began by crushing the Kurds’ economic
dominance [11] at the center of power Baghdad
through deportation and ethnic cleansing in, among other places,
Kirkuk and Khanaqin and as part of this overall strategy the regime
tried to alter the ethnic identity of some Kurds, such as the
Yezidis and the Shebaks claiming they were Arabs.
Despite this large-scale and brutal ethnic cleansing of Muslim Iraqi
citizens taking place openly and being a lead up to the still
enormously much larger, and by far much more ruthless, ethnic
cleansing in Iraqi Kurdistan, Arab and Muslim states or Islamic
organizations, media, politicians and governments in particular and
international media, organizations, politicians (with a very few
exceptions) and governments in general did indeed keep a deafening
silence on these tragic events and some of them did indeed support
these measures openly or tacitly.
Some people say what could they otherwise do since Saddam Hussein
and his regime was then the hero of the Arab nation (he was backed
politically, militarily, and financially and was hailed for
“defending and safeguarding its “Eastern Gate” from the “Persian
enemy” as was written and said then by Arab regimes, with the
exception of Syria, by Arab media and intellectuals) and who later
turned into an Arab bully in the eyes of some Arab regimes when he
invaded Kuwait in 1991; and he was also the darling of the West and
the milk-cow of the Soviet Union, USA and Western Europe. Everyone
was competing and rushing to appease the despot and gain some of his
favors and petrol-dollars, notwithstanding the suffering he and his
regime brought upon and the hardships he and his regime inflicted
upon the Iraqi people in general and the Kurds in particular.
Plausible Reasons
The question that begs itself is why the Baath regime treated the
Kurds so ruthlessly. The main reasons for this treatment are among
others and briefly:
1- The Baath party ideology is rooted in Nazism (the party
was founded during WW2 when Nazi Germany was at the peak of its
military might) [12] and inspired by Stalinism
which had great influence on the head of the dictatorial regime,
namely, Saddam Hussein. Nazism’s national superiority and
Stalinism’s ill-treatment of national and religious minorities are
well known. Another influence on Saddam Hussein was the strict and
rigid tribal and peasant norms and mentality. The ideological and
mental framework was already in place.
2- The ruthless treatment of the Kurds in general in Iraq is
well known and documented, varying from arbitrary arrests to the use
of chemical weapons against them. It is a reflection of the Nazi and
Stalinist ideology and Arab ultra-nationalism which is intolerant of
minorities. And because Fayli Kurds are part and parcel of the
Kurdish nation they have evidently suffered from the same treatment.
3- As mentioned earlier, Fayli Kurds achieved prominence in
the commercial field especially in Baghdad, the seat and center of
power. Because of the regime’s then hidden agenda against the Kurds
and its preparation for war against Iran, it aimed at destroying
this dominance by destroying Fayli Kurds and their economic power
base through mass deportation.
4- The Baath party carried out a bloody and cruel coup d’etat
on Feb 8, 1963. Among the few places putting up popular resistance
was the Kurdish quarter in Baghdad. The Baath party did not forget
this resistance nor forgive the Kurds for that.
5- The archaic Iraqi Citizenship Law inherited from the
Ottoman Empire era and incorporated in the newly created state of
Iraq by the British. This law clearly favored those who had
cooperated with the Ottoman and British authorities, namely, Arabs
from the Sunni triangle against both the Kurds and the Shiite Arabs.
6- As part of its preparations for the war on Iran, the Iraqi
regime aimed at creating social instability in that country by
deporting hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens to the country
and, in addition, creating further economic difficulties for the
unprepared and weakened Iranian economy after the 1979 Islamic take
over. Similar tactics were used by the Baath regime in 1974 against
the Kurdish movement in Iraq before launching its military onslaught
on the Kurds.
7- A contributing factor that some people mention in this
context is that Fayli Kurds are Shia Muslims. Because the Iraq
regime and state was sectarian-oriented both in ideology and
practice and was from the overwhelmingly Sunni triangle of Iraq.
Fayli Kurds Role in the Iraqi Kurdish National Movement:
1. World War 2-1975
Fayli Kurds have been involved in the Kurdish movement in Iraq and
with the emerging Kurdish political party, the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) since it was founding in 1946, both as members and
active supporters.
Some of them assumed higher positions and gained fame among Fayli
Kurds, such as Dr. Jafar (Jafar Muhammad Karim)
[13] Among the rank and file were, for
example Shaban Nour Ali and others. There were special party cells
and organizations for the Fayli Kurds living in Baghdad and
elsewhere. These organizations were clandestine because the party
was considered illegal from the start.
Involvement of Fayli Kurds with the KDP increased especially after
the return of the renowned Kurdish national leader the late Mustafa
Barzani from exile and the subsequent start of the Kurdish armed
resistance against the central government in 1961.
In the middle of the nineteen sixties the KDP suffered a split, the
late Mustafa Barzani leading the bigger faction and Jalal Talabani
the other faction. Fayli Kurds, although joining both factions, were
very disturbed and disappointed by this split and the subsequent
infighting between the two factions.
Ordinary Fayli Kurds also supported the movement by making financial
contributions and supplying safe houses in Baghdad and other Iraqi
towns and cities for KDP members and high ranking figures. Fayli
Kurdish merchants in Baghdad and elsewhere aided the armed Kurdish
movement with supplies and agricultural products and sold
agricultural and animal produce from the Kurdish region proper. Many
of these merchants were arrested more than once, tortured and
imprisoned. [14]
After the signing of the March 11, 1970 agreement between the
re-united Kurdish movement, headed by the late General Barzani and
the central government, Fayli Kurds joined the KDP on a large scale.
It was mostly after that agreement that Fayli Kurds assumed
prominent positions within Kurdish organizations.
Among Fayli Kurds who assumed very high positions within the Kurdish
movement were Zakia Ismail Haqqi, the first women judge in Iraq, who
became the President of the Kurdistan Women Association, Adel Murad
who became President of the Kurdistan Student Union, Yadollah Karim
who had a leading post of Kurdistan Youth Association and Habib
Muhammad Karim, who became acting secretary-general of the KDP, in
the middle of nineteen seventies [15]. It must
sadly be added that the first woman in Iraq to be executed for
political reasons was a Fayli Kurd, Leila Qasim, from Khanaqin; she
was hanged by the Baath regime in May 1974 along with 4 more young
Kurds [16].
When the central government went back on the March 11, 1970
agreement, the armed struggle began again when the Kurdish region
was attacked by government troops in March 1974. Many Fayli Kurds
joined and took active part in that armed struggle; they included
ordinary people, technocrats, students and others. Some became
Peshmerga guerillas.
It can be said that so far the period between March 1970 and March
1974 was probably the “golden age” of Fayli Kurds’ participation in
the Iraqi Kurdish movement when that movement was united under the
leadership of the late Mustafa Barzani. The promotion of Fayli Kurds
to these high positions was an expression of both his confidence in
them and his recognition of their role in the movement as a whole.
Some observers say this may have also been his response to the Iraqi
regime’s deportation of Fayli Kurds at the beginning of the nineteen
seventies on the pretext that they were not Iraqis but of Iranian
origin and the of lack of, or weak, response from the Kurdish
movement. At the time of the deportation of Fayli Kurds many of the
leading figures in the Kurdish movement preferred inaction and
acquiescence on the issue “in order not to upset relations with the
Baath regime”. It must, however, be added that the late Mustafa
Barzani again confirmed his position vis-à-vis Fayli Kurds by
nominating Habib Muhammad Karim, a Fayli Kurd, to the post of Iraqi
Vice President, a post given to the Kurds in accordance with the
March 11, 1970 agreement between the Kurdish Movement and the
central government [17].
2. Between 1976 and 2003
The armed movement collapsed in 1975 for internal and external
factors, which will not be mentioned at this occasion. After the
collapse, the Kurdish movement suffered internal divisions and
bitter and sometime bloody conflict.
New political organizations emerged and old ones changed. Fayli
Kurds joined these two main parties in increasing numbers. Here
again Fayli Kurds played a prominent and sometimes a central part in
the establishment of these organizations. The patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) was established in 1976; among its founding members
were Jalal Talabani along with two Fayli Kurds, Adel Murad and Abd
al-Razzaq Aziz Mirza (usually known as Razzaq Fayli) and others. The
KDP started a new organization, which was partly a revival of the
old KDP, called the Provisional Leadership with a Fayli Kurd in
charge of its foreign relations office in London.
After the 1991 popular uprising in Kurdistan Iraq Fayli Kurds began
to come to the liberated areas in increasing though limited numbers
and within the ranks of most Kurdish and Iraqi opposition parties.
Some even worked within the new Kurdish administration in the
liberated areas in various capacities. Among them can be mentioned
Habib Muhammad Karim, Yadollah Karim, Jalil Fayli, Adel Murad,
Razzaq Fayli and others [18].
3. At the Present
Fayli Kurds have joined the two main Kurdish political parties, the
KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party), headed by the Kurdish leader
Masoud Barzani and the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) headed by
the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani. Fayli Kurds have also joined
other secular and religious Iraqi political parties and
organizations, within which some of them have sensitive posts.
A number Fayli Kurds have been or are currently ministers or deputy
ministers in the regional government in Arbil (such as Yadollah
Karim, KDP, and Haider Sheikh Ali, Communist Party) and the
government in Suleimania (such as Abdul Razzaq Myrza and Sadoun
Fayli, PUK). Others are commanders of Peshmerga (Kurdish guerrilla)
units. And still others work in other capacities.
[19]
Due to the economic, social, security and political unfavorable
conditions prevailing in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988)
and the many restrictions imposed on them and on their movement in
Iran (because they were officially considered Iraq citizens and
commonly called Arabs (Arabaha, in Persian) by the population, tens
of thousands of deportee Fayli Kurds chose to leave Iran by every
and any possible way and method, however risky and dangerous. Many
of them became victims of unscrupulous smugglers and corrupt
officials. [20]
Fayli Kurds are at present spread over many parts of the world. Many
of them still live in Iraq, especially in Baghdad and some in Iran
after the latest mass deportation at the beginning of the nineteen
eighties; others have chosen a life in exile, in Europe (Sweden,
Denmark, Germany, England, Holland and France) North America and
Australia.
Since Fayli Kurds see themselves as part of the Kurdish people in
Iraq and the Kurdish nation at large, they have not had and do not
have any intention or desire to establish political organizations
for Fayli Kurds as such, preferring instead to join existing Kurdish
and other Iraqi political parties. However, they have established
non-political-party organizations, such as, for example, cultural,
sports and academic associations and societies in order to keep the
ties among themselves and take up their common problems and
aspirations. [21]
Some Fayli Kurds feel that Kurdish parties can and should do more to
address their specific grievances and problems and take up, in the
appropriate forums, the apparent and obvious injustices committed
against them by the Iraqi state for decades. They feel they are
forgotten most of the time, especially when it counts. Some leaders
of these parties counter this complaint by saying that the best way
to do this is for the Fayli Kurds themselves to take up their case,
their grievances and their demands and pursue their aspirations
because no one else can or will do that as good as themselves
[22].
It must be added that, on the one hand and regrettably, there are
still among some leading figures in these parties and among some
members of the Kurdish intelligentsia there is still limited and
sometimes confused knowledge about the identity of Fayli Kurds
and/or of their specific problems and the injustices committed
against them. This has in turn led to some sort of indifference and
lack of attention on their part towards these Kurds and their
problems. This may be blamed in part on the Fayli Kurds themselves,
though they have tried to bring or attract attention to their case.
Nevertheless, this would not justify that attitude. On the other
hand, a number of Iraqi Arab writers and religious-cum-political
leaders have publicized the plight of Fayli Kurds and strongly and
relentlessly defended their rights.
There are Fayli Kurds who argue that they are still being ignored
because they have no voice in either the Iraqi Governing Council or
the government. However, others firmly believe that they must be
represented and their representation should, if any, be within the
Kurdish group in the Council and/or the government not as
representative of Fayli Kurds per se but as part of the
representatives of the Kurdish inhabitants of Iraq and as an
affirmation and recognition that they are Kurds and Iraqis, as the
late Barzani did in the seventies when Fayli Kurds reached high
positions in the party and the other organizations of the movement
not as representatives of Fayli Kurds as such but as an expression
of his insistence both within the ranks of the Kurdish movement
itself and as a stand vis-à-vis the central government that these
people are both an integral part of Kurdish people as well as
Iraqis.
Conclusion:
Fayli Kurds are ethnically and nationally an integral part of the
Kurdish people in Iraq and politically an inseparable section the
Iraqi Kurdish movement. This is a fact that no one can factually or
reasonably question or deny. Developments and various events during
the last half a century have proven that. However, Fayli Kurds do
have specific problems due to the denial of their Iraqiness and
forcible expulsion from Iraq in the same way as Kurds from the area
of Kirkuk have their own specific problems caused by forcible
internal displacement or the Yezidis and Shebaks whose very Kurdish
identity was questioned and/or denied.
Fayli Kurds’ specific problems are complex and difficult especially
the issue of citizenship, residence and property that has changed
hands several times over the past 25 years and has new owners now.
Among the most acute of these problems are the following:
1- The issue of citizenship: they have been arbitrarily
looked upon by the Iraq nationalist regimes as being of Iranian
origin [23]. When they were deported to Iran
the Iranian authorities regard them as Iraqi subjects (and the
Iranian public at large called them Arabs (“Arabaha”)) with very
limited and restricted rights.
2- The question of the return of confiscated and sold
businesses and properties to their rightful and legal owners,
including homes and houses currently occupied by other people, while
their legal and rightful owners cannot move back into them or claim
them back. Should the deportee Fayli Kurds choose to return home
they have no where to go to. This problem is similar to the plight
of Kurds in and around Kirkuk who have been internally displaced.
3- The question of compensation for the non-movable property
illegally and wrongfully taken from them by the Iraqi Baath
authorities.
4- The question of the thousands of young detainees or
disappeared and their whereabouts, their fate and their graves.
Thousands of families are still looking for clues about their loved
ones.
5- The question of the return of deportees to Iraq in a
legal, organized, orderly and viable manner. [24]
6- These problems and others relating to the plight of Fayli
Kurds must be more thoroughly investigated and addressed by the new
order in Iraq with the aim of reaching practical solutions
acceptable to all sides involved without too much sacrificing
justice and historical facts at the altar of expediency and/or
pragmatism [25].
Fayli Kurds believe that their rights can only be restored by
political will and action in the form of constitutional, legal,
administrative and procedural measures as well as political
assurances, safeguards, checks and controls. Mere statements and
expressions of goodwill do not give sufficient and binding
guarantees to these Kurds who are more exposed and more vulnerable
due to the fact that they are (or, more correctly, have been) living
at the center of power and therefore have no way to defend
themselves (as recent history has clearly shown) when subjected to
arbitrary and extra judicial measures by the state. They are also of
the opinion that these measures and safeguards must be binding and
workable and can only be put to work with the direct and active
engagement by Kurdish political forces, with the backing of Iraqi
political forces and the direct involvement of the Civilian
Administration during this transitional phase. They add that so far
they have merely heard sympathetic views and sweet words from these
quarters but, unfortunately, have seen neither tangible steps nor
practical administrative and procedural measures to deal with their
problems. Fayli Kurds say that they can only present their case in
different forums and arenas adding that they have no power tools or
means to do more than that.
The Iraqi Kurdish Movement, especially the KDP and PUK and their
leaders, have not only the national and political duty but also the
moral obligation to deal with these issues and come up with
proposals that return the basic legitimate rights to these Kurds.
They can do this, not for the Fayli Kurds only but also for the
Kurds of Kirkuk, Khanaqin, Mandali, Garmiyan, Sinjar and other areas
affected by the ethnic cleansing of Kurds in Kurdistan and Iraq, and
they can do this more vigorously and with much heavier weight when
the Kurdish movement becomes, hopefully soon, united and speaks with
one forceful voice. Kurds everywhere have made advances and progress
when united and suffered many setbacks when in discord or in
disarray [26].
Many Fayli Kurds abroad, both the first and second generations, have
gained skills and experience and become highly educated with high
degrees of expertise in various fields and who want to return home.
However, they are afraid of the current generally unfavorable
circumstances, of uncertainties, of the high risks involved, of
being seen as “foreigners” again, and of “not belonging” should the
above-mentioned issues not be addressed and solved on all the legal,
political and practical levels. Otherwise Kurdistan and Iraq will
loose a significant and vigorous segment of its human resources,
sources of investment and know-how, at a time when they are most
urgently needed. The defunct Baath regime has left a very heavy and
complicated burden and a complex legacy, which need be dealt with
sooner than later.
The Kurds in Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq as well as elsewhere
have, as recent history has proven, no other viable alternative than
to close ranks, be united and work together if they want to be
accounted for and achieve their goals. Progress and development in
all sectors and fields can only be accomplished through unity,
harmony, peace and stability, whereas disunity, schism and internal
fighting have always been, and still are, a formula for disaster for
the Kurdish people and a recipe for setbacks for their aspirations.
Fayli Kurds, given the opportunity, are a positive and constructive
segment in the Kurdish and Iraqi societies with a great potential;
they are a big reservoir for both the Kurdish movement and for Iraq.
Sources:
Below is only a sample of articles and papers on Fayli Kurds in Iraq
written by Kurds including Fayli Kurds, Arabs and others. Among them
are: Dr. Kahdim Habib, Dr. Qasim al-Mandelawi, Dr. Ismail Kamandar,
Dr. Kamal Ketuly, judge Zuhair Kadhim Abbod, Karzan Khanaqini, Ali
al-Erkowazi, Dr. Mu’aiyad Abd al-Sattar, Dr. Abd al-Rahim al-Rifa’i
and many others. A comprehensive list of articles, papers and other
sources on Fayli Kurds is found at www.9neesan.com site.
1- Najm S. Mehdi, al-Fayli, Stockholm 2001.
2- Dr. Ali Thuwaini, Fayli Kurds between migration and
deportation, al-Zaman Arabic newspaper, Feb. 2, 2002.
3- Middle East Watch, The Forgotten mass deportations in
Iraq, Middle East International, Nov. 20, 1992.
4- Judge Zekia I. Hakki, The Iraqi Fayli Kurds and their
catastrophic case, National Press Club, Washington DC, Oct 4, 2002.
5- Dr. Kadhum Habib, The plight of Fayli Kurds in Iraq, June
15, 2003.
6- Dr. Munther al-Fadhel, Fayli Kurds and their rights in the
future of Iraq.
7- Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, Kurdistan and the Kurds, London,
1965.
8- M Jafar, 1976, Under-underdevelopment, A Regional Case
Study of the Kurdish Area in Turkey, in English (Helsinki), Turkish
(Istanbul) and Arabic (Beirut).
9- Muhammad A Zeki, History of the Kurds and Kurdistan,
Baghdad, 1961 (Arabic).
10- Dr. Mundhir al-Fadhl, Fayli Kurds and their role in
future Iraq.
11- The late Dr. Ali Babakhan, The Fayli issue in Iraq:
origins and solutions, London, Dec. 2002.
12- Wittfogel, K.A., Oriental Despotism, A Comparative Study
in Total Power, New Haven, 1967.
13- The internet, the following
among many other sites:
www.fkgc.com
www.9neesan.com
http://biphome.spray.se/faili.kurd
www.sotaliraq.com/feli.html
[*]
A research paper presented at the Academic Conference -Issues
Concerning the Kurds and Kurdistan- at Adam Mickiewicz University.
Poznan, Poland, 20-22 October 2003.
[**] Politices Doctor in Economics and Regional Planning,
University of Helsinki, Finland, 1976. Post Doctoral Research Fee
Student, the London School of Economics and Political Science
1977-80 “Under-underdevelopment, A Regional Case Study of the
Kurdish Area in Turkey”, Helsinki, 1976, was the title of his doctor
dissertation (which has been a text book taught at the universities
of Helsinki, Finland, and Uppsala, Sweden) and has been translated
into Turkish and Arabic. He was a member of the High Commission of
Elections supervising the first democratic elections outside Baath
control in the Kurdistan Region in 1992. The writer has also been
politically active within the Kurdish movement since 1970, as
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) representative to Finland
(1970-1976), in charge of the KDP-Provisional Leadership’s Foreign
Relations Office in London (1977-1980), member of the Central
Committee and later of the Political Bureau of the Kurdistan Popular
Democratic Party (KPDP) and subsequently after the unification of
three political parties, of the Kurdistan Unity Party (KUP), and
representative of the Kurdistan Front in the Nordic Countries, until
1993, when he left party politics. The writer was a member of the
Swedish Writers Association (Svenska Författarföbundet) for many
years.
[1] Fayli Kurds are Muslims and the vast majority of them are
of the Shiite faith.
[2] A distinction must be made between Fayli Kurds from
Khanaqin, Mandali and surrounding areas that are within or in
proximity of the southern end of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq and
Fayli Kurds living in Baghdad and other cities and towns in central
and southern Iraq inhabited by an Arab majority. The former have
suffered from forcible internal displacement whereas the latter have
been subjected to forcible deportation to a neighboring country,
namely, Iran.
[3] They live in the cities and towns of Khanaqin, Mendeli
(Manali in Kurdish), Saadiya, Shahraban, Kut, Amara, Bedra,
Zurbatiya, Jassan, Kumet, Sheikh Saad, Nu’mania, Hei, Rifa’i, Ali
al-Sharji and Ali al-Gharbi and other towns in the central and
southern parts of Iraq.
[4] Some Fayli Kurds living in close proximity to Arabs in
Iraq dress themselves like Arabs but speak Kurdish and see
themselves as Kurds. Among them are the Rewari and Kurdeli. The same
phenomenon is observed in Kurdistan Iraq too, especially among
Yezidi and Shebak Kurds and Kurds from Sinjar. [5] According to
American estimates there are at present 700.000-750.000 Fayli Kurds
living in Baghdad (source: personal communication after a recent
visit to Baghdad). According to Ayatollah Seyid Hadi Muderrisi there
are 3 million Fayli Kurds in Iraq (written statement on the still
continuing injustices against Fayli Kurds, Sept 24, 2003).
[6] According to Prof. Izzedin M. Rasol, the Sharaf Nameh, a
Kurdish work written more than four centuries ago refers to Fayli
Kurds settlement in Baghdad. And according to Jirjis Fathulla, the
first reference to Fayli Kurds (or Lurs) in English texts he has
found is in James Frazer, The History of Nadir Shah, London, 1744.
He adds that Fayli Kurds, under the leadership of Tholfiqar Ahmad
Sultan, ruled Baghdad and other Iraqi cities from north of Samara to
Basra for six years from 1523 to 1529. (Pages from the History of
Fayli Kurds, Roj, No. 8 citing Ilam, Gothenburg, Sweden). This means
that Fayli Kurds have settled and been present in these cities for
more than 4.5 centuries.
[7] For example, Fayli Kurd contractors had contracts with
the British authorities in Iraq in the nineteen thirties and forties
to build roads in areas south of Baghdad.
[8] They began to emerge as a dominant trade and commerce
force in Baghdad from the beginning of the nineteen fifties after
the migration of almost the entire Iraqi Jewish community to Israel
beginning 1948. Many of the emigrating Jews sold their properties
and businesses to Fayli Kurds.
[9] Most of these operations took place at night. A number of
babies, children and elderly men and women did not make it and some
of them could not continue walking to the other side of the borders
and collapsed. Shots were fired over their heads to scare them into
keeping walking and some were shot at directly.
[10] No body really knows what has happened to these
detainees although some documents have been found on a number of
them stating that they have been “executed”. Have they actually been
executed? Were they then buried? And in that case where are their
graves? The questions are many but the answers are no where to be
found. One of the writer’s brothers is among these “executed” Kurds.
[11] This political objective was later (in 1991-1992) confirmed by
Saddam’s deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz when he told a Kurdish
delegation visiting Baghdad after the 1991 popular uprising in
Kurdistan and southern Iraq that, “we will never allow the emergence
of an economic base in the Kurdish areas”; private communication
from a member of that delegation.
[12] It was during this time that a pro-Axis and pro-Nazi
Germany coup d’état took place in Baghdad; it was brought to an end
by British troops entering Iraq from Jordan. This coup has been
considered and celebrated by Baath ideologists as a land-mark in the
modern history of Iraq.
[13] Because of his political activities within the ranks of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) he was imprisoned, ill-treated
and expelled from Iraq more than once.
[14] Among these merchants are, just to mention a few names,
Hajji Ali Jan, Jasim Neriman and two of his sons and Haider Tawfiq,
on charges that they supplied the Kurdish rebels with supplies and
funds.
[15] According to reliable sources a KDP member, Abdul
Hussein Fayli, contacted the office of the Grand Ayatollah Abdul
Muhsin al-Hakim and convinced them to receive a Kurdish delegation.
The Grand Ayatollah agreed and Abdul Hussein Fayli secretly took
Jalal Talabani and Shakhawan Shewan to the Grand Ayatollah. After
the meeting he issued a Fatwa (religious decree) banning the killing
of Kurds.
[16] Mentioning these and other names is only a statement of
historical facts as they are known now and does not by any means
imply a stand on their political convictions and/or acts during the
various phases of the development of the Kurdish movement in Iraq or
of the situation of Fayli Kurds in Iraq.
[17] The Baath regime never accepted the nomination and the
late Barzani never changed his decision refusing to give in to
demands from some leading figures with the Kurdish movement or to
the regime to nominate another Kurd. He refused to compromise on
this issue preferring to leave the post vacant than yielding to
Baathist discrimination. The regime chose Taha Muhiddin Ma’aroof,
its ambassador to Rome and a Kurd to the post, which remained
ceremonial and used mostly for propagandistic purposes. [18] Some
names figure out repeatedly because they have been in the Kurdish
movement for many decades and at various phases of development and
cross-roads.
[19] To what extend these persons take up issues relating to
Fayli Kurds within their respective parties or in other forums is a
question the writer cannot answer. However, a hasty watch of the
KDP’s and PUK’s satellite TV stations gives the impression that the
latter allocates more time to these issues than the former.
[20] As late as 2001, 271 asylum seekers, many of them Fayli
Kurdish, died and became fodder for sharks when a not see-worthy
boat on its way to Australia carrying 400 children, women and men
capsized outside Indonesia; those who survived are living a life of
misery and pain. Two persons responsible for this crime are
currently being tried, an 37 year’s old Egyptian citizen and an
Iraqi citizen, Khalid Sharif, who has been handed over by the Sweden
to Australia for trial.
[21] In the light of what has been said above, what Fayli
Kurds need is the formation of lobbies and pressure groups both in
Iraq and abroad in order to make their voice heard, their grievances
addressed and their problems solved. These lobbies and pressure
groups need not be formed of Fayli Kurds only but also of others too
and again both in Iraq and abroad where they live.
[22] It is in fact in the self-interest of the Kurdish
parties to address Fayli Kurds specific problems since in a year or
two elections will be held in Iraq, as promised. The votes of these
Kurds will be substantial, especially in Baghdad. This means that
the winning of the confidence of Fayli Kurds means winning their
votes and winning seats in the future Iraqi parliament.
[23] It must be pointed out that the same regime granted
Iraqi citizenship to any and every Baathist and Arab, regardless of
country of origin, after a few years and some immediately whether
they came from Mauritania, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria or any
other Arab or non-Arab country.
[24] Ambassador L. Paul Bremar III, issued a decision in July
2003 restoring Iraqi citizenship to all Fayli Kurds expelled by the
former Iraqi regime (Iraq al-Ghad, July 6, 2003). Moreover, the
UNHCR has decided to send a legal team to study the problem of
refugees in Iraq (al-Zaman, July 20, 2003) and later decided on
voluntary return of Iraqi refugees –estimated to be 220.000 in Iran
and 200.000-300.000- in Europe (al-Hayat, Baghdad, August 8, 2003).
An Iraqi Ministry of the exiled and the expelled has recently been
established and began its work at the beginning of September
(al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 11, 2003). According to a source
within the Governing Council, Kurdish representatives, namely, of
the two main political parties and the independent members, are of
the opinion that the vacant seat at the Council after the murder of
Aqila al-Hashimi, should go to the Shiite Fayli Kurds who constitute
a substantial section of the Iraqi population. They concentrate on
two names, Azhar Abd al-Karim and Hedia Askar. (al-Sharq al-Awsat,
Arabic daily, October 10, 2003).
[25] Fayli Kurds at home and abroad were and still are very
enthusiastically, wholeheartedly and openly supportive of the
liberation of Iraq by the Coalition and hopeful that this will
eventually lead to the restoration of their rights and the return of
their Iraqi citizenship and properties.
[26] The solution of the Kurdish national issue in Iraq is a
necessary pre-condition for solving the Fayli Kurds specific
problems but it is not a sufficient one. Fayli Kurds problems can
only be solved when the Kurdish movement in Kurdistan Iraq takes a
firm stand by insisting on solving these specific problems, not a
half-hearted one as it did at the beginning of the nineteen
seventies when Fayli Kurds were deported en mass and the Kurdish
movement adopted silence on these violations and chose good
relations with the Baath regime to the interest of these Kurds and
its own self-interests.
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