To many Kurds who were forced to leave the city, Sunday's elections are about righting past wrongs. If the Kurds emerge as Kirkuk's dominant power, they contend, that's because it's their right.
Falih Bakhtiyar Omar, 51, a Kirkuk native who was forced to leave 15 years ago, came back two days ago. He is now living in a camp near city hall, which was a security directorate under Hussein's rule.
Zaka Omar, left, sells gasoline on the black market in Kirkuk. Saddam Hussein's government had pressured him to change his ethnic status from Kurdish to Arab. He said he will vote "with spirit and a Kurdish spirit."
(Jackie Spinner -- The Washington Post)
|
|
"Kirkuk should be attached to Kurdistan because the history proves that it was a Kurdistan city," Omar said. "The Arabs and Turkmens can also live in it when they will be convinced of the rights of the Kurds there. That is why the only solution to solve the Kirkuk problems is by carrying out the elections."
Arabs and Turkmens, however, make similar claims, and the city's turbulent past brings little clarity to the never-ending debate over whose city this is.
Kirkuk's last census was conducted nearly 50 years ago -- in 1957 -- when Iraq was still a monarchy. It determined that Kirkuk was 40 percent Turkmen and 35 percent Kurdish, with the remainder divided among Arabs, Jews, Assyrians and Armenians. But the displacement of Kurds, the influx of Arabs under Hussein and the absence of accurate population data leave Kirkuk's present makeup in dispute.
Wala Hussein Sadi, an Arab from Baghdad who moved here 25 years ago to marry a Turkmen, said that while he was eager to participate in Iraq's first democratic elections in nearly half a century, "this election will not be fair, and it will only make things worse."
"We want real elections," said Sadi, a surgeon at Azadi Hospital who earns $3 a day, "not the fake elections."
Rafiq, the Turkmen medical student, said he was nervous about the potential for post-election violence. "Nobody knows what will happen after the elections," he said.
Down the street, Zaka Omar, 51, sold gasoline on the black market.
Four years ago the government gave Omar, an ethnic Kurd, a choice: change his legal ethnic status to Arab or leave Kirkuk and his family home behind. "I had no money," he said. "I didn't want to leave, so I changed to Arab."
But on this election day, Omar will embrace his true identity, he said. "I will participate in the election honorably and with a spirit and a Kurdish spirit," he said.
"We are very thirsty for these elections, just like someone is thirsty for water."
Special correspondents Marwan Anie and Sarok Abdulla Ahmed contributed to this report.
