PUK's new war

On the 29/11/09, three men approached the outspoken Kurd journalist Nabaz Goran outside Jihan magazine offices in Erbil. After having made sure of his identity, they physically assaulted him. In a press conference given shortly after, where he was shown with bruises on his face, Nabaz Goran accused the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two parties controlling Kurdistan, to have perpetrated the aggression.
Attacks on opposition activists and journalists critical of the authorities are increasing in Kurdistan. There has been abductions and beatings, even a murder in the past, but they recently stepped up.

For nearly two decades, autonomous Kurdistan has been governed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who divided the region in two fiefdoms in which they exercice an almost absolute control, and share the power at the Kurdistan Regional Government.
But during the july provincial elections, a new political movement, Goran (nothing to do with Nabaz Goran), made unexpected good results, allowing it to become an alternative force in the Kurdistan parliament.
Jalal Talabani's PUK feels particularly threatened: Goran leadership is actually made of its former influential members who left because their demands for reform were ignored. Their stance against corruption and their call for a more democratic society gave them the support of a population tired of rampant embezzlement amongst the PUK and its autocratic rule.

Its power contested in its own territory, by its own population, the PUK reacted by a purge. 2000 public sector workers, suspected to have supported Goran, lost their job. Following the same principle, Sulaimaniya University's Student Union was reportedly instructed to collect information on its members, the purpose being to detect then root out any Goran sympathiser.
In the same time some highly theatralised mass meetings took place: they were featuring members from Goran, numbering by the hundreds, attending gatherings at some PUK offices where they were collectively abjuring in the presence of a party's senior member and were coming back within the ranks of the PUK. If they were only 100at the beginning of november, their number, and the frequency of the events, increased sharply to reach 500 attendants at Sulaimaniya the 26/11/09 - the fourth event of this kind in just five days. When he came back from Baghdad the 01/12/2009, Jalal Talabani was presented in his stronghold of Qalachoalan, outside Sulaimaniya, with 1000 Goran members returning to the PUK. Some of them are, quite obviously, the former public service members who lost their job after having voted Goran in july, and who were said they would have their job again if they were coming back to the PUK. It is equally said that some of the participants are attending several of the events, or that administration workers are detailed to inflate numbers.

The strange spectacle of people marching to a compound as if they were surrendering led to Shaho Saed, a Goran representative, to compare them to prisoners who have been captured.
For it really looks the PUK considers itself at war.
Born during the liberation battles against Saddam Hussein's oppression, PUK revealed itself to be an efficient war machine, but didn't perform as well in peace. Faced by its defeat in the july polls, and with the crucial national elections coming, the party reversed in the situation which was the more familiar to it: by declaring an all-out war.

Beside the mass gatherings and the relentless campaign against Goran in the PUK press - Jalal Talabani, during a meeting with the PUK press directors past week, is said to have instructed them to intensify the attacks - the beatings, abductions and else appear to be another aspect of this war.
Nabaz Goran hasn't been the only one to sustain an attack in the wake of the july PUK defeat. In september, Kak Soran, a Norwegian People's Aid worker who spoke out against corruption, was abducted and detained during three days by some unknown aggressors, during which he was drugged and beaten. Dara Tofiq Agah, a Goran activist, was attacked with metal bars in broad daylight in Sulaimaniya while the 11/11/09 the editor of Wirdbeen magazine was shot at - and missed. Another journalist, Ahmed Mira, editor of Levin magazine, survived a botched attempt of abduction which could have resulted by his death.
These attacks are said to be carried by a section of the PUK Asayish (internal security services), dedicated to the harassment of dissidents.
The increased cooperation between the KDP and the PUK is, in this context, a worrying development. Previously, a person targeted in the KDP held Erbil would have been relatively safe in PUK's Sulaimaniya. But now, the support the KDP is bringing to Jalal talabani's party, its partner in the Kurdistan Regional Government, means a more efficient repression.

Nabaz Goran, now living and working in Sulaimaniya, says anything can expected. The attacks, he says, will increase. And so thinks Ahmed Mira, whose yesterday's Levin issue publishes a lashing condemnation of Jalal Talabani. Some people are predicting he will become the next victim of PUK's war.