Human Rights Watch said that U.S. and
coalition forces have failed to bring law and order to Kirkuk and
ensure the security of civilians, and therefore contravene the
Geneva Convention provisions specifying the obligations of an
occupying power.
Widespread looting and destruction of property are affecting all
ethnic groups in the city, while the situation outside of Kirkuk
appears even more precarious, Human Rights Watch said. A Human
Rights Watch team documented the expulsion of Arabs living in
villages south of Kirkuk, on the basis of what one official said
were policy decisions by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
“Kirkuk right now is a tinderbox,” said Hania Mufti, London
director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human
Rights Watch. “U.S. troops must stop the violence. And PUK leaders
should take immediate steps to halt any expulsions of Iraqi Arabs
from their homes.”
Human Rights Watch said that the U.S. and interim Iraqi
authorities, including Kurdish representatives, should take steps to
establish as soon as possible a mechanism to settle claims over
disputed property and other assets.
Human Rights Watch researchers spent four days in Kirkuk
following the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from the city on April 10,
documenting civilian deaths, forced expulsions, and other abuses
committed by all ethnic groups. The researchers interviewed Arab
families forcibly expelled from their homes, eyewitnesses to
reprisal killings, and Kurdish and Turkoman officials. The
researchers also examined hospital and morgue records.
Killings of Civilians Since April 10, at least 40 civilians have
been killed in the city. Many of them appear to have died as a
result of clashes between armed civilians and Ba’ath Party
officials. According to forensic records, at least two died from
close range single gunshot wounds to the head, and a third, whose
hands were bound, bore lesions on the neck consistent with hanging.
Forced Expulsions On April 13, Human Rights Watch researchers
interviewed Arabs from the al-Shummar tribe who had fled four
villages south of Kirkuk soon after Kurdish forces had taken control
of the area. Some of the villagers said a local Kurdish official had
given them written notification to leave their homes within three
days.
Soon thereafter, nearly 2,000 residents from the villages of
al-Muntasir, Khalid, al-Wahda and Umar Ibn al-Khattab took refuge in
tents and homes of fellow tribal members in the village of Sa’ad bin
Abi Waqqas and its vicinity. Several of the displaced said they had
been forced from their homes at gunpoint, while their possessions,
including cars, tractors, and household goods, were taken away.
“They would have killed us if we hadn’t left,” an elderly woman
said.
Human Rights Watch investigators found the village of al-Muntasir
abandoned and ransacked. The doors of several homes in the village
had been spray-painted with the names of Kurds to whom the Kurdish
authorities had evidently given permission to eventually occupy the
homes. When Human Rights Watch questioned a PUK official in the
nearby town of Daqouq about the expulsions, he said they had been
carried out on the basis of a policy decision taken by the PUK’s
Political Bureau.
This policy, according to the official, stated that all persons
who had been resettled from their original homes to other parts to
the country by the Iraqi government in the past should return to
these homes. This policy, the PUK official said, “has been approved
by U.S. and coalition forces.” No independent confirmation or denial
of these forces’ approval was immediately available.
While senior PUK officials in Arbil told Human Rights Watch
researchers that they had given assurances to representatives of the
al-Shummar tribe that they need not vacate their homes, this does
not appear to have been implemented on the ground.
Human Rights Watch said that the United States, as the occupying
power, has a responsibility to act to prevent human rights abuses.
According to international law, an occupying power has a duty to
restore and ensure public order in the territory under its
authority. Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions (Fourth Geneva
Convention article 6), the duty attaches as soon as the occupying
force exercises control or authority over civilians of that
territory.
Military commanders must prevent and where necessary suppress
serious violations involving the local population under their
control or subject to their authority. The occupying force is
responsible for protecting the population from violence by third
parties, such as newly formed armed groups or forces of the former
regime. Ensuring local security includes protecting persons,
including minority groups and former government officials, from
reprisals and revenge attacks.
Background In 1973, as part of the Iraqi government’s policy to
permanently settle Arab nomadic tribes from central and southern
Iraq, families from the al-Shummar tribe were resettled in the
al-Iskan area, some 28 kms south of Kirkuk city. They were given
homes as well as agricultural land that belonged to forcibly
displaced Kurds. A small number of families had settled there
following the 1991 Gulf war. They had been living in Kuwait and were
part of that country’s bidun community, to whom the Kuwaiti
government had denied nationality. Some of these families fled to
Iraq prior to the war, and the Kuwaiti government later refused to
re-admit them after the cessation of hostilities.
In 1975, following the collapse of the Kurdish revolt led by
Mulla Mustafa Barzani, the Iraqi government embarked on an extensive
“Arabization” program of the northern Kurdish provinces, expelling
tens of thousands of Kurds, Turkomans and Assyrians from their homes
and replacing them with Arab families from southern Iraq. At least
120,000 people belonging to these ethnic minorities were expelled
since 1991, most of them Kurds. For a detailed report on the
expulsion of ethnic minorities from the Kirkuk region, please visit
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0303/