Washington Kurdish Institute
By: Rebin Fatah, October 16, 2018
The disputes between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi central government over Kirkuk are not new, and indeed began long before the elimination of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial regime in 2003. Indeed, issues concerning Kirkuk have a history as long as that of Iraq itself and, at various stages of the Kurdish liberation struggle in Iraq, Kirkuk was central to conflicts between the Kurds and the central authorities. Kirkuk is not only rich in history and culture – the diverse city and surrounding province also contains a large portion of Iraq’s oil reserves, and is thus coveted by many. Indeed, Baghdad’s efforts to alter the demographics of Kirkuk, aimed at wresting control of the region from its indigenous inhabitants, predate the rise of Saddam Hussein. One method of effecting demographic changes in Kirkuk was the transferal of ownership of farmlands to Arab tribes, a campaign which reached its peak during the reign of the Ba’athist regime (the Ba’ath Party being the party of Saddam Hussein). From 1968 to 2003, more than 1.2 million acres of farmlands in Kirkuk, of a total of approximately 2.1 million acres, were given to Iraqi Arabs. More 1.0 million acres of farmlands were originally owned by Kurds, and an additional 100,000 were owned by Turkmens, Kirkuk’s other major non-Arab ethnic group.
Termination of Kurdish and Christian employees in Kirkuk’s oil industry
Concurrent with forced demographic changes in in Kirkuk, the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein launched a wave of Arabization which was especially focused on Kurdish areas near the oil fields of the province. This Arabization was implemented in two stages: the first stage involved removing the Kurdish families and tribes from the oil rich districts and labeling their lands as a “restricted area of residence”, and the second stage included relocating Arab tribes from outside of Kirkuk and placing them in the Kurdish lands. This process was officially called “Arabization” in official government memoranda. At the same time, the Iraqi regime terminated all Kurdish and Christian employees of Kirkuk’s North Oil Company (NOC) and North Gas Company (NGC). According to documents and data gathered by Kirkuk provincial council Oil and Gas committee in 1958, the Kurds and the Christians accounted for 81% of total employees of both NOC and NGC. By 2015, the percentage of Kurdish and Christian employees at NOC was just 9.8%, while the percentage of Arab employees changed from 1.85% to 63%. The non-Arabs employees who wanted to remain working for NOC and NGC had to legally change their identity legally and register as Arabs. Meanwhile, the Iraqi regime hired a large amount of ethnic Turkmens to work in various departments in Kirkuk city in a move designed to create sensitivity and issues between them and the Kurds and the Christians.
A table shows the number of NOC employees according to their ethnicity from 1958 to 2015
The above table includes data for employees of the NOC, the biggest company in the region. The same trends can be observed among the employees of the NGC, Drilling Company, North Refinery Company, and many other companies in the energy sector, as a consequence of the same campaign that radically affected the NOC. Discrimination against the Kurds within the NOC and other companies is a policy which was central to Iraq. Since 1972 and until today, the NOC had 7 executive directors, 6 of whom were Arabs and one of whom was a Turkmen – no Kurds. Among the 12 departments within the NOC, only two Kurds and one Christian serve as department heads, which the rest are divided between Arabs and Turkmens. At the division level, of the NOC’s 50 total divisions, only 7 are headed by Kurds and 3 are headed by Christians.
Preventing the establishment an oil refinery in Kirkuk
Following Iraqi general elections in December 2005, Iraq’s first permanent post-Saddam government was formed in 2006, this government decided to build several oil refineries in the country, including the oil rich province of Kirkuk. Despite its vast oil reserves, Saddam’s regime never built a refinery in Kirkuk, and rather constructed one in Baiji, in the neighboring province of Salahuddin. Building a refinery in Baiji district did not make any scientific or technical sense and was a solely political decision – indeed this refinery was entirely dependent on oil sourced from Kirkuk, and the government spent a lot of money transferring the oil tens of miles from its original production site. Additionally, any technical failures required greater time to resolve due to the length of pipelines. Saddam’s regime clearly decided that these extra costs were bearable so long as the province of Kirkuk would remain devoid of any industrial infrastructure. This move established a long-term industry for a Sunni Arab majority province of Salahaddin. According to a recent report by Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, nearly 12,000 Arab employees are working for the NOC, the majority of whom are Sunnis.
The decision of the new Iraqi government in 2006 to build a refinery in Kirkuk was perhaps intended to compensate the people of Kirkuk for past injustices, though this decision was never implemented, though other expensive refineries have since been built in areas such as Karbala, Maysan, and Dhi Qar. Indeed, all refineries built in Iraq after 2003 have appeared in Shi’ite Arab majority dominated provinces. Under both Sunni Arab and Shi’ite Arab dominated governments in Iraq, the status of Kirkuk’s industrial infrastructure remains the same.
Preventing the establishment of the Kirkuk oil company
One of the decisions of Iraq’s oil minister was to establish oil companies in any province that produces 100 thousand barrels per day or more of crude oil. In Iraq, there are more than 20 national (i.e., state-owned) oil, gas, and petroleum product companies. With the permission of Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, relatively new oil companies such as the Central Oil Company, the Maysan Oil Company, and the Basra Oil Company have been established. In 2014, the Kirkuk Provincial Council voted in favor of establishing a Kirkuk oil company to replace the NOC. While the decisions of a provincial council are binding by law in their respective provinces and should be implemented by the federal authorities, the Iraqi federal government continues to oppose the establishment of a Kirkuk oil company, another demonstration of the government’s policies toward Kirkuk and the Kurds. Indeed, the establishment of a Kirkuk oil company would not be a difficult process. While the Maysan Oil Company had to be formed from scratch, the NOC already exists in Kirkuk and little more than a name change would be required. The NOC used to cover the entire north of Iraq, including not only Kirkuk but also Mosul, Salahuddin, Sulaymaniyah, Erbil, and Dohuk. Following the 1991 uprising, the Kurdistan region of Iraq gained a measure of self-rule, and the reach of the NOC was decreased significantly. At present, there is no law standing in the way of changing the name of the Kirkuk branch of the NOC. However, despite the fact that the name of the South Oil Company (SOC) was recently changed to the Basra Oil Company, the federal government is unwilling to take a similar step for Kirkuk.
Oil or people?
The policies of the Iraqi government post-2003 towards Kirkuk are not so dissimilar to those of previous governments. The post-Saddam governments have not only failed to compensate Kirkuk for targeted policies of discrimination and persecution, but have also allowed some of the policies of the previous regime to remain unchanged.
15 years after the fall of the totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein, it still appears that the Iraqi federal government is most interested in fighting for the oil of Kirkuk, and not its people. The Iraqi government takes one approach for the south of Iraq and other oil producing areas, and entirely different one for Kirkuk. For the Kurds, the current situation in Kirkuk is not acceptable. The Iraqi Government will even accept a change in the name of the North Oil Company, a gesture that would be rich in meaning but simple in terms of execution. The name of this oil company, a name to which the Iraqi government clings to this day, is a reminder of the policies of denial of previous Iraqi governments who refused to acknowledge the existence of Kurdistan, and took pains to use the term “North” reiterate the central government’s refusal to accept the existence of the Kurdish identity.
Continued policies of subjugation along with those of procrastination with respect to Kirkuk will only increase the suffering of the region’s peoples and raise tensions within the region and the country. Unfortunately, the “New Iraq,” for the Kurds, is in some ways not so different from the Iraq of days past in which the treatment of the Kurdish people by the federal authorities did not allow them to feel any sense of belonging within the country.
It is clear and after one century of oil production in Kirkuk, the Iraqi government continues to choose the oil over the people of Kirkuk. The unfortunate truth is that, since the establishment of Iraq, every regime/government, to some degree, chosen a policy of aggression against the Kurds, especially in Kirkuk.
Rebin Fatah is an investigative journalist based in Iraqi Kurdistan focusing on oil and gas issues in the Kurdistan region and Iraq. He has producted several publications: Oil and People on the Outskirts of Oil and Politics and Oil Work force in Kurdistan and Iraq. Rebin has conducted a extensive fields research concerning oil and gas in Kurdistan while working with international oil companies in the region, and has been awarded several certificates from institutes and universities in the Kurdistan region for his work in the energy field.
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