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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: Focus on dispute over aid distribution in the north
ARBIL, 29 January 2004 (IRIN) - Homeless people in northern Iraq are falling between the cracks as authorities wrangle over whose responsibility it is to care for them. The Mahmour area an hours drive south of Mosul and Arbil falls within the traditional borders of the Arbil governorate controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
However, Mahmour fell south of the "green line" that divided Saddam Hussein’s regime from that of the KRG after 1991. Until this year’s war, Kurdish people removed from these areas by Saddam Hussein were unable to return to their villages. But now they are and thousands of people want to re-establish themselves on their traditional land and make a living from it once again.
In dozens of villages that need to be rebuilt throughout Mahmour there are arguments over who should be giving them aid. According to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Mahmour falls south of the Green Line and therefore is the responsibility of Mosul or Ninewa governorate.
But the KRG based in Arbil argues the area was historically within its boundaries and the people are Kurds so it wants to help.
Caught in between is the United Nations, which previously funded many reconstruction projects, but has now largely withdrawn from the region because of security concerns. On top of this, it is unclear what role it will have in the future in this region and contracts it was planning with NGOs for rebuilding villages have been put on hold.
Fakher Maraan, KRG’s Deputy Minister of Reconstruction and Development, told IRIN in Arbil that the villages had been part of Saddam Hussein’s Arabisation programme which encouraged Arabs from the south and centre of the country to shift north and displace Kurds.
Those returning after this year’s war had been promised they would receive help to rebuild their villages but everything now appeared to be frozen.
The KRG had been extending its administration south of the former green line to help but has been stopped, Maraan claimed, because the CPA argued it was not KRG’s territory. “And now they are in a bad condition. They have no houses or drinking water or schools and health conditions are bad.”
He said the green line was a false border set up by Saddam Hussein and therefore had no legal standing. “I really don’t care about the green line. If I have to go there I will go. This is six months of delaying and a gap and nobody is doing anything. It is like the Berlin Wall that is now broken down,” he lamented.
He said the UN had money earmarked for projects in Mahmour but was not working in the area at present. “If the United Nations can not come here because of the security situation then it is my duty to go there. I don’t care who stops me. We’re going to go there and help the Kurdish people.”
Maraan argued the KRG had money set aside to help people returning to the area. The CPA argues this is money that should be used for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) inside the KRG’s existing boundaries.
But Maraan said the people going back to Mahmour were coming from his region. He would rather spend the money rehousing them in their traditional areas than on building houses for them in settlements closer to Arbil that the people would soon move out of anyway, to return to Mahmour.
He estimated he had money for 2,000 families. “Instead of talking about the green line we should be getting the green light to help these people.”
He said some NGOs were doing emergency work but most depended on funding through UN contracts. “To me it doesn’t matter if I handle it or the local government but somebody should do the work. These people are caught in no man’s land with the bureaucracy of the CPA and the green line.”
The CPA, for its part, argues the KRG should be concentrating on problems with IDPs closer to home. There are suspicions that the Kurds merely want to push their influence further into the rich agricultural lands of Mahmour, eventually extending its official boundaries.
The CPA argues that it has to respect the administrative boundaries that were in place when it entered the country and Mahmour is not part of Arbil’s governorate.
Other Kurdish authorities were also pushing their influence south into oil rich areas such as Kirkuk. The CPA believes it is up to the new Iraqi government to abolish the green line and settle on new governorate boundaries.
However, it admits the situation is a problem with governorates like Ninewa not having the experience or resources to deal with the IDP problem that the KRG does. Aid agencies working in the area also describe the situation as a massive headache. Parts of Ninewa are traditionally Kurdish, but fell outside the green line.
Swedish NGO Qandil’s programme coordinator, Marinka Baumann, told IRIN in Arbil that the issue was extremely political. It had done some reconstruction work in Mahmour in conjunction with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) but now understood the UN would not fund any projects below the green line. Qandil had therefore shelved its plans south of the green line and was looking at reconstruction projects further north.
Baumann said the situation was a mess that had more to do with politics than a lack of funding. “But it’s very difficult to get a clear answer and the UN is not here and they are working through their national staff but there are travel restrictions so they can’t monitor the situation.”
Qandil, was however, still doing emergency work, operating mobile health teams and tankering water to people south of the line. “Everyone wanted an orderly return (of IDPs). If we want this we have to do something. We can’t just sit back and wait,” Baumann said.
While she accepted claims from some people that the KRG was actually encouraging people to return from Arbil to Mahmour, she could understand KRG’s stance of wanting to help Kurdish people. “For many people it’s going to be a hard and uncomfortable winter and a lot of people had hope that when they returned there would be something better. But when they got back there is nothing.”
Baumann said NGOs were only able to do a fraction of the work that was needed and the situation south of the line was similar to how things were in all of Kurdistan about 10 years ago. “There are so many needs that have not been addressed.” She predicted there would be a deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the next few months.
Galawezh Bayiz of the US-based NGO Counterpart said until August, people had been encouraged to go back to their land in Mahmour with promises of help to rebuild. It had a contract with UNHCR to rebuild one village south of the green line, which it had now almost completed. Counterpart had surveyed 28 other villages in Mahmour but because of the problems in getting funding it was now looking at projects north of this area.
Commander of the United States Army’s Civil Affairs Battalion in northern Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Schute, told IRIN in Arbil that it was repeatedly asking IDPs in the area to be patient. “Stay put. That’s our mantra at the moment. The reality is, look out the window,” he said, pointing to the bleak skies and rain.
“It’s not a good time to move, especially if there’s nothing to move to. People have a choice of basic houses and rudimentary services where they are now or moving to nothing.” He said they were trying to get this message through by repeating it over and over in all their work and believed the majority of people were heeding it.
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Governance, (IRIN) Human Rights
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
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