SHIA MEMBERS OF ARAB CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL DENOUNCE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 000722

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/25/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREF IZ
SUBJECT: SHIA MEMBERS OF ARAB CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL DENOUNCE
ARTICLE 140 RELOCATION PROGRAM

Classified By: PRT Leader James Bigus for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

This is a PRT Kirkuk reporting cable.


1. SUMMARY: (C) In a recent meeting, four Shia Arab members
of the Arab Consultative Council (ACC) presented hard-line,
rejectionist views on Article 140 and its proposed relocation
program. They said that there is no difference in the
political views among Shia and Sunni ACC members noting
specifically that all believe in the unity of Iraq,
opposition to Article 140, and opposition to Kirkuk's joining
the KRG. They claimed Article 140's purpose is to break up
Iraq, and declared the "Shias are in Kirkuk and will not
leave." They denied reports that a number of Shias had left
the ACC because they refused to condemn Saddam's execution.
They allege the National Solution Commission's (NSC) claim to
have enrolled 7000 Shia families to relocate is based on
falsified documents. The ACC Shias said that they received
Sistani's endorsement of their anti-relocation efforts, but a
letter stating this has apparently been "lost." Shia Arab
young men have been subject to arrest and "kidnapping" to KRG
jails, and a number of Shia Wafidain leaders allegedly have
been assassinated. The ACC Shias gave an unlikely figure of
500,000 Shia Wafidain in Kirkuk. Despite high unemployment,
the Shia Wafidain, they said, have developed strong local
ties and want to stay in Kirkuk and not move back to their
original homes. Property claims against Wafidain are unfair
they said, because all persons whose property was taken
during Arabization were, they allege, fully compensated.
Kurdish IDPs who have returned to Kirkuk and are living in
IDP camps as "trespassers on government property." END
SUMMARY.

ACC'S THREE PRINCIPLES

2. (SBU) IPAO met on 14 February with four Shia Arabs who
are members of the Arab Consultative Counsel (ACC). (NOTE:
the ACC is an umbrella organization that encompasses a wide
range of tribal and other Kirkuk Arab political and community
groups. It is generally seen as a spokesman for the Sunni
Arab community and its concerns, specifically its opposition
to Article 140. END NOTE). The four ) Sheikh Farhan
Abdullah, Sheikh Abdul Rahman Atiya, Mr, Nahm Aboud, and Mr.
Jasim Mohammed --wore sheikhly attire and appeared to be in
their mid-50s. Sheikh Atiya opened, describing himself as
representing the "Southern Tribes Association" in Kirkuk, as
well as the ACC. He said the Southern Tribes organization
members are all Wafidain (lit: "beneficiaries" of
Arabization) and exclusively Shia. There is no difference,
he said, between the standpoint of the Sunnis and Shias
participating in the ACC. Both groups, he said, operate on
three principles: the Unity of Iraq; opposition to the
imposition of Article 140 in Kirkuk; opposition to Kirkuk's
annexation to the KRG.


3. (SBU) Atiya stated that "everything else" is "just minor
and negotiable things." "We believe," he said, "that Article
140 is based on an intention to break up Iraq and to plant
ethnic strife in Kirkuk." He noted that "European counties
and the US grant citizenship to aliens who have lived there
for five years. We are Iraqis and Article 23 of the
Constitution gives us the right to live anywhere in Iraq...we
have lived in Kirkuk for twenty years or more(why then was
this oppressive decision (the recently announced Article 140
Wafidain relocation program) made against the Arabs?"

SHIA ARABS IN KIRKUK TO STAY

4. (C) Asked why he assumed that the program was
involuntary, Atiya said that the decision clearly stated the
program would focus on "returning Wafidain to the South who
had arrived in Kirkuk between 1968 and 2003." Atiya
criticized the terms of the relocation offer, saying that the
per family amount offered, 20 million IDs or about $13,000,
was "not enough for one meal for Article 140 Commission
chairman Al-Shebli and his colleagues." Atiya said that he
wanted to give this message to the US Government ) "the
Shias were in Kirkuk and would not leave."

SADDAM EXECUTION IMPACT?

5. (C) Asked about reports that a number of Shia Arabs had
quit or been forced to quit the Arab Consultative Counsel
because they refused to condemn Saddam's execution or manner
of execution, Atiya said that "nothing like this
happened(what has Saddam's execution got to do with the
ACC?" adding that the Kurds are repeating the same ethnic
cleansing policy as Saddam.

NATIONAL SOLUTION COMMISSION FALSIFIED ENROLLMENT FOR
RELOCATION?

6. (C) Concerning the 7000 families that the "National
Solution Commission" claims to have enrolled in the proposed
relocation program, our interlocutors were adamant that the
NSC does not represent the Shia Arab Wafidain community in

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Kirkuk. They asked how the NSC could be representing the
Shia Arab community when they "were receiving money from
certain political parties to do this." (NOTE: the NSC
reportedly was founded by the PUK and admits to receiving
support from the Kurdish political parties. END NOTE). Atiya
referred to the NSC as a "marketing shop in which they buy
the souls of the people with money." He also stated the
NSC's claim to have enrolled 7000 Shia Wafidain in the
relocation program was questionable, and he called on US
authorities to investigate the NSC's activities. The NSC, he
said, had obtained the documents of people who are already
left Kirkuk and were going to use these to make false
residence claims.


7. (C) Atiya noted that while it may be relatively easy to
give people some money and to transfer their ration cards and
even their jobs to places in the south and elsewhere outside
Kirkuk, there were "humanitarian factors" which outweighed
this material assistance ) the Shia Wafidain and their
offspring had lived in Kirkuk for a generation or more and
have developed social and personal ties to this location.
Moving would mean "breaking all of these things and starting
over," something that would be, for most Wafidain, very
difficult. Questioned how he would feel about the relocation
program if it was specifically designated as voluntary, he
responded that, from his perspective, anyone willing to move
should do so without taking relocation assistance funds.

CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

8. (C) Sheikh Farhan then laid out his views on the issue.
He claimed that Article 140 was added to the Constitution
after it was approved in the January 2005 referendum,
asserting that when presented to the voters, the Constitution
had 136 articles, but when later published after approval an
additional nine articles had been added, including Article
140 (NOTE: This claim sounds specious ) drafts of the
Constitution that were circulated before the Constitutional
referendum did have only 136 articles, but it is our
understanding that the current Article 140 was Article 136 in
those drafts. END NOTE).


9. (C) Farhan also cited Article 142, which authorizes
Constitutional review, as impacting the Article 140 process.
This article, he claims, could result in changes to Article
140, and implementation of Article 140 should await the
outcome of any review activities undertaken under Article

142. He added that Article 140 should be subject to review
because it had been inserted to "satisfy certain political
parties." (NOTE: The need to delay Article 140
implementation until Article 142 constitutional review has
been carried out has been a continuing demand of local Arab
and Turkoman critics of Article 140. END NOTE).

ACC SHIAS LOSE SISTANI LETTER

10. (C) The four Shias were asked about reports that the
NSC had received an okay from Sistani for their relocation
activities. Sheikh Farhan, speaking for the group, said that
this was not true. "It is easy," he said, "to claim that
you've met with Sistani." Farhan then said that his group
had in fact met with Sistani's "office manager" in 2005, and,
Farhan claimed, had received a letter signed by Sistani
stating that it was a "sin" for Shias to sell their property
in Kirkuk and a "sin for them to leave Kirkuk." Asked if
the PRT could obtain a copy of this letter, Farhan agreed to
provide it (NOTE: In a follow up phone call after this
meeting, Farhan told us that they had been "unable to find
the letter" and are afraid that it may be lost. END NOTE).


11. (C) Asked if there had been many insurgency-related
arrests among Shia Arabs, our interlocutors responded that
the Shias were a "peaceful and moderate" community, were not
involved in violence, "unlike other Arabs." That said, they
claimed that over 350 Shias had been arrested and "kidnapped"
and were now incarcerated in Sulimaniya, an issue for which
they wanted redress. (NOTE: this seems like a large figure
for arrested Shias: a probably more reliable Sunni Arab
source had given us the same number for all Arabs ) not
apparently differentiating between Sunnis and Shia --
arrested in Kirkuk and sent to Sulimaniya for incarceration.
END NOTE).

ASSASSINATIONS AND POPULATION

12. (C) Farhan said that his group did not think that
arrests were "such a big problem, " but the Kurdish political
parties' "don't like people speaking out against Article 140
) "there have been many assassinations of our leaders(" He
then named half dozen people whom he claimed had been killed
among the local Shia leadership. He said that the threat of
violence "limits our ability to act(we feel intimidated."


13. ( C) Farhan stated that there were almost 500,000 Shia
Arabs in Kirkuk, all of whom are Wafidain. He suggested

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that we visit local Shia mosques when they are having prayers
in order to get a sense of the size of the community. (NOTE:
this number seems grossly exaggerated. The National
Solution Commission has estimated the total size of the
Wafidain Shia community at about 10,000 families or 60,000
people. A Sadrist community leader recently told us he
thought there were only about 2000 Shia Wafidain families
left in Kirkuk, and said the rest had already returned to
their original homes. Sunni Arab Article 140
Commission/Kirkuk PC member Mohammed Khalil estimates total
Wafidain still resident in the province at about 230,000
individuals, including both Shias and Sunnis. END NOTE).
Concerning Sunni Wafidain, Atiya said about 40% of Sunnis
were Wafidain, most from locations in provinces adjacent to
Kirkuk. A small portion came from the South along with the
Shias.


14. (C) Atiya added that the Shia Wafidain were not just
concentrated in the southern part of Kirkuk, but could be
found throughout the city. When they first arrived, up to
70% were government employees (NOTE: reportedly many Shia
Wafidain were police, a role that did not endear them to the
Kurdish population. END NOTE). Now, he said, many were
"removed" or have retired ) currently, about 10% of Shia
Wafidain are farmers, another 10% are day laborers, and many
of the remaining 80%, especially young men, are unemployed
and cannot get jobs "because they are Shia Arabs."

ARABIZATION VICTIMS COMPENSATED BY SADDAM?

15. (C) Asked if he thought economic conditions might be
better in southern Iraq, in the Shia Wafidain's original
homes, Atiya said no ) "staying in Kirkuk is best." In the
current unstable situation, he said, "how can we go to a
place that we've lost contact with(after three decades?
we've adapted economically to Kirkuk," he continued, "give us
the relocation money and let us stay here, and we will use it
to build Kirkuk." Asked about IPCC claims against Wafidain,
Sheikh Farhan responded that "all the people from whom homes
were taken (i.e., Kurds and Turkomans) were compensated
during the former regime. No one can say that they didn't
receive property. If anyone did not receive compensation,
let him come to us and we will help him get his property
back." Farhan also criticized people like those in Faylek
(A Kurdish IDP camp) for "trespassing on government property"


16. (C) The Shia reps concluded the meeting saying that they
wanted to convey "one message" to the US Government, namely
"...that those people (the Kurds)don't want to recognize us
as Iraqis(they distrust our Iraqi identity."


17. (C) COMMENT: These ACC-affiliated Shia Arabs were one
of the most strongly anti-Kurdish and anti-Article 140
process interlocutors that we have met in Kirkuk. As with
many other political groups in Kirkuk, it is unclear how
large a constituency they truly represent. In our
experience, their claims that, for example, there are 500,000
Wafidain or that all claimants under the IPCC/CRRPD Property
Claims process had already received compensation, seem
ludicrous. It may be that these Shias' exceptionally harsh
opposition to Article 140 reflects that fact that departure
of large numbers of Shia Wafidain would leave them with few
followers and reduce their local influence. The story about
the lost Sistani letter is perhaps indicative of their likely
veracity. We will, however, continue to follow up about the
Sistani letter. END COMMENT.
KHALILZAD