Kurdistan: Day 14, Akre

"Back in 1991, during the Kurdish revolution, over 100 helicopters from Israel came and took away about 2000 Jews from this town." Nawzar continued. "Some of the Jews thought they were being taken to Europe, and some of them weren't happy when they found themselves in Israel." It was quite an amazing story. As the story goes, back in 1975 Nawzar's parents had fled to Iran after his father had participated in a failed Kurdish uprising the year before. The Kurds continued to be persecuted, and contributed to Arab Iraq's defeat in the late 80's in a long war against Iran. Following the US attack on Arab Iraq in 1991, the Peshmerga (Kurdish militia) were successful against Saddam Hussein, and commanded control of northern Iraq. Kurds I've spoken to insist that this liberation was enacted out by the Kurds in 1991 and not by the Americans in 2003! This area forms only a small part of Kurdistan, which was carved up after World War 1, and was divided over Turkey (20 million Kurds), Iran (10 million, Iraq (5 million) and Syria (3 million). Now Iraqi Kurdistan is the first and currently only Kurdish region to be autonomous and largely independent.

So why isn't Iraqi Kurdistan its own country, since the Arabs in southern Iraq are now disunited? One Kurd I spoke to put this down to oil, Kurdistan's key to post-war recovery. Without cooperating with the Arabs in southern Iraq and staying in federation with Iraq, oil-rich Kurdistan may have no other access to the sea to export the oil. Especially when its neighbours Syria, Iran and Turkey are trying to prevent their own portions of Kurdistan breaking away. Helping Iraqi Kurdistan export its oil may come back to haunt these three countries, especially if Iraqi Kurdistan aids separatist movements like the PKK in Turkey...

Nevertheless, even though a violent history exists between Arabs and Kurds, there were plenty of Arab tourists from Baghdad at Sipa waterfall in Akre. Re-educating the Arabs on attitudes towards Kurds? The disputed city of Kirkuk remains a hot spot for violence between Kurds and Arabs, along with Mosul.

War veterans in Kurdistan, like Nawzar's father, are now treated as national heroes and now receive benefits from the Kurdish government, such as housing and education.

A hilltop view over Akre showed that a massive re-vegetation project had been underway for more than five years. The aim was 2000 trees every year. Most of the surrounding hills were now covered by very young trees. On another hill stood a castle, only 70 years old, which had housed Saddam's army in Akre, apparently so feared by the Kurds that they were afraid to look at the castle for fear of being taken away by night. The castle now houses the poor, and I must have spotted a hundred satellite dishes when I visited! There are plans to tear down the castle, replacing it with the new government headquarters. New government buildings are dotted all over the city, Some of them being architecturally very impressive.