Tribes haggle to carve up defeated country

While fighting rages south of Baghdad, in northern Iraq tribal leaders are staging an unseen struggle for control, reports Julius Strauss in Sulaymaniya

2 April 2003

AT CONSERVATIVE Party headquarters, the guns have been laid aside, lemonade and tea served and the room is beginning to fill with cigarette smoke. Zaid Sorchi, Kurdish tribal leader, party boss and commander of 600 loyal gunmen, is plotting with Arab chieftains from the south.

Just down the road outside Communist Party headquarters, a line of white Land Cruisers stands in the sun while bodyguards, armed to the teeth, lounge nearby. Inside, the Social Democrats, the Communists and Kurdish Toilers' Party, which between them have an armed following of several thousand, are discussing military tactics. Welcome to opposition politics, Iraqi-style.

Since the war began the world's attention has been fixed on the southern battlefields where allied armour has been slugging it out with Iraqi loyalists. But in smoke-filled rooms in the autonomous north of the country an equally important, though less visible, struggle is underway that may yet prove the undoing of Saddam. Here representatives of tribes and factions from all over the country gather in small groups to bargain, haggle and barter their shifting allegiances.

Sunni and Shia Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen each have the same aim - ensuring they receive a sizeable slice of the post-Saddam pie while their political foes go without.

Such is the complexity of the negotiations and treachery of the negotiators that, for outsiders, piecing together the agendas of Iraq's myriad factions is all but impossible. A frank discussion with a political leader here is almost unheard of. Barefaced lies are all too common.

Even among the Kurds who are fiercely anti-Saddam there is little love lost and little straight talking. Bad blood and decades of double-crossing mean factional leaders are itching for the chance to betray, embarrass or even assassinate their rivals. Leading politicians travel between safe houses in heavily-armed convoys. Jalal Talabani, who leads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two leading Kurdish parties in northern Iraq, even has an anti-aircraft gun in his personal cortege.

Like the other Kurdish parties, the Conservative Party leaders say they are anxious to see Saddam go.

But their chief concern seems to be taking revenge on Massoud Barzani, the leader of the powerful Kurdish Democratic Party, who destroyed their villages seven years ago. The Communists, whose party headquarters are decorated with portraits of Marx and Lenin, say they too are keen to see Saddam ousted. But they refuse to contribute any of their 4,000 foot-soldiers to the allied war effort, saying they are opposed to an Iraq run by foreigners.

At Conservative Party headquarters, discussions were progressing warily last week. Nevertheless the meeting offered a rare glimpse into the labyrinthine world of Iraqi opposition politics.

Zaid Sorchi first presented his Arab guests with three brand-new hand-held satellite phones, a token of good faith - and a way of staying in touch. He said: "We both believe in tribes. Tribes are the way forward, not political parties. If the tribes rule that will be good for everybody."

One of the delegates was Sheikh Abdul Aliy Humidat from the south. He wore traditional Arab dress and shiny wine-coloured leather shoes. He said: "My tribe is from near the Kuwaiti border. We could lead the allies by secret ways. But of course this time we would need to know it's for real.

"Saddam's henchmen have put our leaders under house arrest and threatened to kill them if they turn against him. Taking Basra would be a welcome proof that the allies are serious." Yassir Muhammad Ali, an Arab from western Iraq who was once in charge of Saddam's presidential palaces, was also present. He wore a brown suit and had bulging eyes.

He said: "My tribe has over a million people including a senior minister in Baghdad. If we pull out, the regime will collapse.

"But we need guarantees that our tribe will be looked after in the new regime, perhaps with a high-ranking post.

"I know many Ba'ath party leaders who have sent word that they will desert Saddam if their futures are secured. Like us, they are just waiting for the right offer."