Kurds pin hopes on fragile ceasefire

OPPONENTS of the Iraqi regime are keeping their fingers crossed that the ceasefire arranged in the fighting between rival Kurdish factions in northern Iraq will hold.

If it does, this will enhance the prestige and political weight of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the opposition group of Kurds, Sunnis and Shia, backed by the United States, seeking a democratic alternative to the Baathist regime.

If the ceasefire collapses, it will spell untold misery for the Kurds and undermine the endeavour to create a viable, pluralistic opposition.

Like many conflagrations, it started with a small spark. It was a petty dispute over land at the beginning of the month which set the forces of the two traditional warlords at each others' throats.

Thuggish elements in Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) took advantage of his absence outside Kurdistan in Syria to act against the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Masoud Barzani. The two factions have been rivals for decades. Mr Barzani's father, a charismatic tribal chief, split the KDP off from city intellectuals centred on Mr Talabani in the Sixties.

The factions have been split geographically and ideologically. Mr Talabani's support is in the south and east, around Sulaymaniyah. Mr Barzani's supporters are strongest in the north and west, and have enjoyed good relations with the Iran of both the Shah and the Ayatollahs.

Two years ago, the two factions achieved one of those rare acts of reconciliation in the Middle East.

After the Western coalition forces provided protection for Kurds living above the 36th parallel, the Kurds who fled the Iraqi offensive after the Gulf war returned home. The two factions took part in substantially free and fair elections to a parliament.

The two sides won similar amounts of seats, and divided power equally. But power- sharing proved unwieldy. Some of the smaller parties joined the KDP and upset the balance with the PUK.

On 1 May, a KDP military commander, Ali Merhan, from the INC headquarters in Salehuddin, set off with bodyguards for the district of Qalaat Dizer in Sulaymaniyah province. His family owned a shop there, and he went to collect the rent. It was a PUK-controlled area, and the a fight ensued. Mr Merhan was killed.

The next day KDP forces took their revenge on a PUK official, Ali Nabi, in Raniyya. The clashes spread. The PUK military chief Jabar Farman, defence minister in the Kurdish administration, took the offensive. However, on the field of battle KDP forces have consistently taken ground from the PUK.

The INC president, Ahmed Chalabi, who is not a Kurd, immediately arranged a ceasefire. It quickly collapsed. Again he banged heads together. This ceasefire collapsed. A third ceasefire was arranged. This seems to be holding, except for some clashes between Islamic Kurdish forces and the PUK near the Iranian border.

The fighting has exasperated much of the population, which is sick of factional fighting and showing a growing distaste for party politics.

All mediators are intent on bringing Jalal Talabani back to Kurdistan to end the tension. Mr Talabani has set conditions on his return to Kurdistan to talk to Mr Barzani. However, it appears that he is aware he has lost control over his own followers. He is unlikely to return until he is sure that he can reimpose his authority over them.

The fighting in northern Iraq has implications beyond merely the fate of the Kurdish people, according to Kanan Makiya*, an Iraqi human rights activist, who was the first to document the regime of fear in Baghdad, and who has just returned from northern Iraq.

'The clashes weaken the overall stability of the safe havens, which I see as a stepping- stone to a fundamental change of the whole of Iraq.'

'Cruelty and Silence' by Kanan Makiya is published by Penguin at pounds 6.99

(Map omitted)