TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/050691/0506000.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.6 KB | 178 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 28

REFUGEES

A Kiss Before Dying?


Saddam and the Kurds go through the motions of peace, but the
Iraqi leader still has to prove that he can be trusted

By LISA BEYER -- Reported by Michael Duffy/Washington, William
Mader/London and Lara Marlowe/Zakhu


    Who would ever have imagined that kiss? There on Iraqi TV
was Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, whose people have been
betrayed, gassed, shot and forced into exile by Saddam Hussein,
reaching out to the tormentor himself. There was Saddam, who
once said he would run a sword through the rebellious Talabani
before permitting him to return to Iraq, pressing his lips
against the cheek of the Kurdish representative. It was enough
to make even the most cynical Middle East watcher blink hard and
move closer to the set.

    That widely publicized embrace in Baghdad last week
symbolized the improbable news that after battling each other
for the past two months, the Kurdish leadership and the Iraqi
authorities were trying to make peace. After five days of talks,
the two sides tentatively agreed that in exchange for the Kurds'
ending their uprising, Baghdad would give the minority community
some form of autonomy in northern Iraq, where the Kurds
predominate. But details of the arrangement remained to be
settled, and the deal could very well fall apart. Even if an
armistice does hold for a time, no seasoned analyst expects it
to bring lasting peace to the Kurds. "Saddam is buying time,"
says a high-ranking Turkish diplomat. "He will take his revenge
when he can afford to."

    Such was the skepticism surrounding the wispy accord that
the U.S. and its allies did not so much as pause in their
efforts to establish a safe haven for the Kurds in northern
Iraq. Said a U.S. official about the agreement: "We can't
welcome it. We can't pooh-pooh it. So we're extremely neutral."
However, if the detente reached in Baghdad sticks, it may yet
serve the allies' interests. If a final pact prompts the
displaced Kurds to return to their homes, it would relieve the
allies of the enormous difficulties they face in trying to aid
the refugees without becoming entangled with Baghdad.

    The possible pitfalls of the allied relief operation were
underscored last week when hundreds of armed Iraqis appeared in
the town of Zakhu, near the tent cities the allies are building
for the Kurds. The gunmen were defying U.S. military orders that
all Iraqi security forces withdraw to a line 25 miles to the
south. Though they wore police uniforms, the men, plainly
soldiers, made a joke of their disguise, shouting to reporters,
"Police, police!" and laughing.

    Saddam, said a senior British diplomat, was "trying to
twitch a muscle," and it made the allies nervous. "Just one shot
by an Iraqi soldier could trigger a battle," worried another
London official. At the same time, the presence of the armed men
was dissuading the fearful Kurds from moving into the new
sanctuaries. "Our problem is not tents," said Rajab, a Kurdish
guerrilla commander. "Our problem is security."

    A few days later, Washington and London gave Iraq what a
Bush Administration source called a "Schwarzkopfian" message --
"gentle but firm." The implication was that the U.S. and Britain
were prepared to use force, if necessary, to remove the gunmen
from Zakhu. Baghdad relented. Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Abdul Amir
al-Anbari told reporters that 50 "policemen" would remain
behind. That was fine by Washington, provided that the 50 were
natives of Zakhu -- not outsiders bused in -- and that they
registered with the Americans. The Iraqi about-face, in turn,
prompted the first small trickle of Kurdish refugees to come
down from the mountains and move into an allied tent city.

    Thus in addition to the indignities of his war loss and
having his southern flank still largely under U.S. control,
Saddam now finds northern Iraq occupied by foreign forces who
freely order his troops around. Hopes of putting an end to such
humiliations surely contributed to his decision to offer the
Kurds an olive branch. Saddam was also motivated by a desire to
bring calm to the country so as to encourage the lifting of U.N.
economic sanctions against Iraq. "The embargo is killing him.
He can't begin reconstruction," says a senior Western diplomat
in Ankara. "He has to have money if he's going to have any
future."

    For their part, the Kurdish delegates, who represented the
four major Kurdish organizations, figured they were negotiating
from strength. Not only has Saddam been weakened by his defeat
in the gulf war, but, explains a European spokesman for the
Kurdish Front in Paris, "this is the very first time that the
plight of the Kurds has been internationalized." The minority
leaders are also desperate to bring their people home, down from
their squalid border shelters where they are perishing by the
hundreds every day. If a shaky truce is the price, so be it. The
Kurdish chieftains feel especially responsible for ending the
misery of the exodus since they helped cause it by urging their
people to rise up against Saddam in March.

    What's more, the Kurds, like Saddam, are in the market for
time, a breathing space in which to rebuild their guerrilla
forces so that when the next fight with Baghdad comes, they will
be ready. Concerns that the delegation was hopelessly naive
were somewhat mitigated by the participation of Nashirwan
Barzani, who represented his uncle Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish
guerrilla chief whose Democratic Party of Kurdistan is more
militant than Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

    Just what terms the Kurds might exact from Baghdad were
unclear last week. Such is the cultist world Saddam has created
that the talks were suspended until this week so that he could
publicly celebrate his 54th birthday. According to British
diplomats, though, the deal includes more Cabinet seats for
Kurds in a reorganized government, safe passage for returning
refugees, the adoption of democracy in Iraq and autonomy for the
Kurds within their native area. Whether the major oil-producing
center of Kirkuk should be included in the autonomous zone is
a divisive issue, as it has been in past negotiations. Saddam's
offer of democracy sent eyes rolling in allied capitals. In
times of adversity, Saddam has repeatedly promised his people
free elections, but he has never delivered.

    No matter what deal Talabani and his associates may
finally end up with, many of their constituents will remain
deeply skeptical of Saddam's intentions and will resist
returning to their homes. They have seen Baghdad renege before
-- on agreements made in 1966, 1970 and 1984 -- leading in each
case to renewed fighting. Many Kurds insist that they will not
accept any accord unless its enforcement is guaranteed by the
U.N. That might be unacceptable to Saddam, who initiated this
process to regain control of his country, not to cede it.

    Over time, though, returning home or at least relocating
to one of the tent cities may begin to look more appealing to
the Kurds than continuing to squat in their miserable mountain
asylums along the border. Turkish forces patrolling their side
of the frontier may speed up that reassessment. "When the
weather gets better," says a U.N. worker, "the Turkish military
will get the journalists out, then give the refugees a survival
kit and push them out, at gunpoint if necessary." Other relief
specialists add that within a month, the streams in the
mountains will dry up, forcing the Kurds to leave.

    The rapprochement in Baghdad may enable the allies who are
assisting the Kurds to extricate themselves more quickly from
Iraq. Two days after the tentative accord was announced, the
U.N. agreed to take over the administration of the tent cities,
a role the allies had been pressing on the organization. For
now, allied forces will remain to provide protection for the
camps; the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops would require
a Security Council resolution, which the Soviet Union and China
would probably block for fear of setting a precedent for U.N.
intervention in their own rebellious outlands. But if Saddam
abides by his promise to keep his hands off the Kurds,
garrisoning the refugee centers may prove unnecessary.

    None of which suggests that a new compact with Baghdad
promises any great salvation for the Kurds. At most, it offers
a return to normality. For the Kurds, that has long meant
waiting, and preparing, for the battle to come.