“Saddam is the only one to blame for his own personal conduct. “That’s why a number of families were obliged to leave Kirkuk and go back to Baghdad and other southern provinces,” he said. Mohammed said that several Arab families at a group of apartment buildings that residents still called “Saddam’s Complex” had been threatened by Kurdish residents. “We have been here for the last 17 years,” said Shakir Mohammed, 28, an Arab merchant who lives with his family in one of several apartment complexes that were built for Arab settlers. But after as many as 30 years in the northern city, many Arab families have no place to go. Some beneficiaries of Hussein’s Arabization plan say Kurdish settlers are pressuring them to leave Kirkuk. “There is also the charge that there is some squatting on government lands.” David Gray, commander of the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, which operates in the Kirkuk area. “Some of the folks are coming back on their own, and some are being given some money by the Kurdish political parties to help them rebuild their homes,” said U.S. Ali says he competes with more than 500 real estate offices in Kirkuk. He says he has sold two-thirds of the 1,850 land parcels he started out with and is looking for more land to develop - but real estate inside the city has become increasingly scarce. Kurds have suffered enough, and they are still suffering.”Īli opened his real estate office three years ago and says he has been doing brisk business. We’ve been living like this for three years. “We returned to Kirkuk after the regime fell and have lived here since then. “My family was driven out of Kirkuk during the former regime because we are Kurds,” said Ahmed Nori, 29, a refugee who said he was born in Kirkuk. During the winter, families forage for scrap wood and other refuse, which serve as cooking and heating fuel. The garbage-strewn stadium lacks running water and electricity and has occasionally been targeted by insurgents’ rockets. Hundreds of others huddled in broken-down storage and changing rooms. During a recent visit, two families could be seen holding a slapdash wedding ceremony in the parking lot. Thousands of Kurds have moved to Kirkuk to await adjudication of their claims, settling in bombed-out military facilities, squalid government office buildings and squatter camps throughout the city.Ībout half a mile from Ali’s real estate office is Kirkuk’s soccer stadium, home to one of the city’s largest displaced communities. Of those, about 2,500 claims have been settled, but there is still no effective legal mechanism to execute eviction orders on Arab occupants.

One-third of 131,937 land claims filed since 2003 nationwide were filed in Kirkuk, according to commission figures. Kurdish families have filed thousands of claims with the Iraq Property Claims Commission, created to redress unjust land grabs by Hussein’s regime. The resettlement programs would take place before a citywide census and 2007 referendum that will decide whether the oil-rich province should be annexed to the semiautonomous Kurdish region in Iraq’s north. Under the plan, Arabs who relinquish Kurdish properties would also receive relocation funds. Iraq’s constitution outlines a process by which those who were illegally displaced by the Hussein regime would be compensated for confiscated property or resettled in their old homes. But it is the majority Kurds who have taken the strongest action to claim the city as their own. Last week, Turkmen leaders held discussions with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s most influential Shiite leader, to push for greater representation in Kirkuk’s government.

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