Counting iraqis: why there may never be a census again

These are all important reasons as to why Iraq needs to conduct a census as soon as possible However a census is also very important to many politicians in Iraq for other reasons. They all want to know the size of the ethnic and sectarian groups in Iraq because of the fact that these numbers are so connected to who gets what, where and when.

One highly ranked source in Baghdad politics told NIQASH that the census forms will ask citizens as to whether they are of Arab or Kurdish origin. The source also said that the inclusion of another question as to which sect every Iraqi belongs to – and in particular, whether they are Sunni or Shiite Muslim – could also be controversial. “The country’s leaders still don’t know whether to include such a question,” the source said. 

| عربي | کوردی

niqash | Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | 20.06.2013

Iraq’s PM recently said a census would finally be held. There are pressing political and economic reasons to do so. But nobody has managed to hold one yet; there are plenty of good reasons not to count up Iraqis too.

Around a fortnight ago Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confirmed that his government was determined to hold a census as soon as possible. The announcement was made at a press conference in Erbil, in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, which al-Maliki held together with Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.

The reasons for this were clear. Al-Maliki was making a conciliatory visit to the Iraqi Kurdish, with who Baghdad has been at loggerheads with recently. And the Iraqi Kurdish have long wanted a census because it would help settle one of the most contentious issues between themselves and Baghdad – that of the disputed territories, areas they say belong to them because there are so many Kurdish living there but which Baghdad says belongs to Iraq because there are just as many Arabs there.

If it was known exactly how many Kurdish lived in an area and how many Arabs lived in that same area, it might be possible to begin to hold the popular referendum that’s needed; such a referendum would allow locals to decide whether they want to be part of Iraq or whether they want to be part of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Iraqi Kurdistan’s share of the Iraqi national budget has also been disputed. Iraq’s Kurds want a 17 percent share of the national budget whereas the current government, led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, says they can only have 12 percent.

“Our problems with Baghdad are very connected to how many Kurds there are actually in Iraq,” says Kurdish MP, Shwan Mohammed Taha. “Holding an accurate census and having numbers that everyone agrees on would help resolve the issues with the budget and with the disputed territories.”

IRAQ – PARTITION BY CENSUS, Statement of the BRussells Tribunal Committee

IRAQ – PARTITION BY CENSUS, Statement of the BRussells Tribunal Committee

Link to BRussells Tribunal website:
http://brussellstribunal.org/

Link to the Statement
http://www.brussellstribunal.org/Census081010.htm

PARTITION BY CENSUS


Statement of The BRussells Tribunal Committee (08 October 2010)

We, the undersigned, defending the right of Iraq to independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, rejecting the attempts of Iraqi puppets promoted by the US occupation to trade the national rights of Iraqis and to institutionalise via census the criminal demographic engineering they have pursued by force, declare that:

From the first day of the US-UK occupation of Iraq, the occupation began to undertake a series of measures, directly or through its local allies, to destroy Iraq as a state and a nation and to partition it along ethnic and sectarian lines.

Today, the puppet government of the occupation and its Kurdish partners are trying to hold a population census in Kirkuk province whose aim is to give a permanent legal character to the criminal social engineering, ethnic cleansing and demographic changes that have been implemented under occupation.[1] This could unleash a full blown civil war across Iraq, and potentially lead to its partition and a consequent regional war.

In addition to the death of more than one million Iraqis, the ethnic cleansing and other means pursued by the United States, United Kingdom and their allies in order to implement the process of partitioning Iraq, in its cities and regions, have caused the forced migration of 2.5 million Iraqis out of Iraq and the forced displacement of 2.5 million others from their homes inside Iraq.

The ethnic cleansing suffered by the population in the provinces of Mosul, Diyala, Salahuddin and the Baghdad area, and most notably in Kirkuk and the so-called "disputed areas" — where the population is forced by various means, including systematic assassinations, bombing civilians, collective punishment, transfer, displacement, deportation and other crimes against humanity, to migrate only to be replaced by people from other provinces or even from outside Iraq — is a clear crime of destruction and part of the intended partition of Iraq.

The United States, the United Kingdom and their allies waged an illegal war of aggression against Iraq and occupied its territory. This war in itself is a crime punishable under international law. International law, in particular The Hague Regulations of 1907, the Geneva Conventions and additional protocols, and the Genocide Convention, explicitly prohibits occupying powers from instituting changes aimed at permanently altering the foundational structures of occupied territories, including the judiciary, economy, political institutions and social fabric.[2]

International law considers the systematic transfer, deportation or displacement of population a crime against humanity.[3] Residents of affected areas, the Iraqi national forces, the displaced, and the majority of the people of Iraq declare this census null and void. It has no binding legal consequences and cannot and should not be used to support or justify the intended partition of Iraq.

We demand that no census be conducted before the free return of all Iraqi refugees. We demand that the question of ethnicity not be used to instigate the partition of Iraq and that it be removed from any census, now and in the future. We declare as fraudulent the justification under occupation of a census on the basis of long term planning in the context of a temporary and unstable demographic situation.

We demand that the United Nations and the Arab League and all governments, personalities, organisations and institutions support the demands of the people of Iraq by not recognising the results of this census, and by not assisting in conducting it. This census is designed to reward criminals for their crimes at the expense of their victims.

Please sign to support this statement.

Dr. Ian Douglas, coordinator of the International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq and member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal
Abdul Ilah Albayaty, Iraqi political analyst and member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal
Hana Al Bayaty, member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal and the International Initiative to Prosecute US Genocide in Iraq
Dirk Adriaensens, member of the Executive Committee of the BRussells Tribunal
Prof. Em. François Houtart, Participant in the Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal on US Crimes in Vietnam in 1967, Director of the Tricontinental Center (Cetri), spiritual father and member of the International Committee of the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre, Executive Secretary of the Alternative World Forum, President of the International League for Rights and Liberation of People, Honorary President of the BRussells Tribunal and senior advisor to the President of the United Nations General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, recipient of the 2009 UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence
Prof. Dr. Lieven De Cauter, philosopher, K.U. Leuven / Rits, initiator of the BRussells Tribunal
Prof. Patrick Deboosere, Demographer, VUB - member of the BRussells Tribunal executive committee
Ward Treunen, former TV producer - member of the BRussells Tribunal executive committee
Hugo Wanner, VZW Netwerk Vlaanderen - member of the BRussells Tribunal executive committee

NOTES

[1] Forced displacement and the construction of walled-in districts and their associated regimes, by contributing to demographic changes in Iraq, contravene international humanitarian law, including Article 49, paragraphs 1 and 5, of The Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949, and as such constitute war crimes.
[2] Articles 43 and 55 of The Hague IV Regulations on Laws and Customs of War on Land, 1907 (HR); Articles 54 and 64 of The Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in the Time of War, 1949. Occupying powers are obliged to manage the resources of the occupied territory under the law of usufruct only. This means that while they may use national resources as necessary to the upkeep of the wellbeing of the population in the occupied territory (Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 64) they cannot profit from the use of such resources or award themselves partial or whole ownership of such resources. The US remains a belligerent occupier of Iraq.
[3] Article 7 (1) (d) of the Elements of Crimes of the International Criminal Court.
________________________________________
ENDORSED BY
Denis Halliday Ireland Former UN Assistant Secretary General & United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq 1997-98, recipient of the 2003 Gandhi International Peace Award
Niloufer Bhagwat India Vice President of Indian Lawyers Association
Matthias Chang Malaysia Trustee of The Kuala Lumpur Foundation To Criminalise War
Dr. Curtis F.J. Doebbler USA International Human Rights Lawyer
Karen Parker USA Attorney , Association of Humanitarian Lawyers, partners of the BRussells Tribunal
Salah Omar Al Ali Iraq ex iraqi minister/ex Iraq's ambassador to UN
Abdulkarim Hani Iraq Former Health minister
Ahmed Manai Tunesia Former expert with the UN, President of the Tunisian Institute of International Relations - Tunesia
Naji Haraj Iraq Former diplomat, Union of Arab Jurists
Sabah Al Mukhtar Iraq/UK President of the Arab Lawyers Association
Eduardo Galeano Uruguay Essayist, journalist, historian, and activist
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky Canada Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
Dr Zulaiha Ismail Malaysia Perdana Global Peace Organisation
Dr Souad Al Azzawi Iraq Researcher on the use of DU in Iraq, Asst. Prof. Env. Eng - University of Baghdad
Gideon Polya Australia retired senior biochemist, author: biochemical scientific publications and global avoidable mortality
Paola Manduca Italy Scientist, New Weapons Committee
Stephen Lendman USA Writer, analyst, co-host of The Global Research News Hour
Felicity Arbuthnot UK Journalist
Dahr Jamail USA Journalist
Nicolas Davies USA Author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
Max Fuller UK Author of For Iraq, the Salvador Option Becomes Reality and Crying Wolf, deaths squads in Iraq
Merry Fitzgerald Belgium Europe-Turkmens of Iraq Friendships Association
Sigyn Meder Sweden Member of the Iraq Solidarity Association in Stockholm
Joachim Guilliard Germany Journalist, Anti-war movement
Inge Van De Merlen Belgium Member of the BRussells Tribunal

Iraq plans census to map ethnic divisions

Khalid al-Ansary and Missy RyanReuters North American News Service
Mar 02, 2009

BAGHDAD, March 2 (Reuters) - Iraq will hold a nationwide census in October, its first in 22 years, mapping ethnic divisions in a survey which could encourage reconciliation or fan the feuds threatening its fragile calm.

The census, the first including Iraq's Kurdish north since 1987, will take place over the course of one or two days, said Mehdi al-Alak, who heads Iraq's Central Organisation for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT).

Alak is planning to send at least 250,000 schoolteachers to homes across major cities and dusty hamlets to shed light on the true makeup of Iraq's diverse population.

Questions on ethnicity and religion promise to make the census a charged affair in a country emerging from years of sectarian violence and still gripped by disputes over political power, disputed territory, and oil. Six years after the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, Iraq's population is believed to be around 28 million, an estimate obtained via distribution of state food rations.

But after years of bloodshed prompted millions of Iraqis to flee their homes, in addition to Saddam-era policies that packed strategic areas with fellow Arabs, the composition of sensitive areas is far from clear.

Such murkiness has made for easy political manipulation across the country. Perhaps the best example of where demography has fuelled discord is the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

Kurds, believed to be around a fifth of Iraqis, claim a majority there and want to make it part of their semi-autonomous northern region, an idea rejected by its Arabs and Turkmen.

The breakdown of Kirkuk's population will be decisive if and when officials hold a referendum on the city's future.

A clear snapshot could be telling in other disputed areas, like Diyala and Nineveh provinces, where the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is looking to assert central government authority at the expense of Kurdish authorities in Arbil.

"We will not allow political, religious or ethnic interference. Our work is simply technical," Alak said.

The census might also alter allocation of the budget, 17 percent of which goes Kurdistan based on population estimates.

NO SECTARIAN BREAKDOWN

Preliminary results, a simple population count, should be ready several days after the census, but more detailed data on ethnicity and religion are not expected until late July 2010.

Alak said religion questions will not delve into sect, so the census will not provide data on the breakdown between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, who have fought a bloody feud since 2003.

The census will count those displaced within Iraq at their current residence, but will note where they lived previously.

It will also seek to include, through outreach by Iraqi embassies, the millions of people who have fled the country.

Alak said a national curfew would be imposed on census day to ensure the survey can be carried out in country where violence is still a fact of daily life.

Even the safest of Iraqi cities are girded by concrete walls and soldiers rumble down the streets in heavily armed vehicles.

The northern city of Mosul, like several other restive areas, is still under siege. In the city, where minority Kurds have controlled the government since 2005, Sunni Islamist insurgents stage car bomb attacks and assassinate police.

(Editing by Dominic Evans)
Source: Reuters North American News Service