Refugees: A Kiss Before Dying?

By Lisa Beyer

Who would ever have imagined that kiss? There on Iraqi TV was Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, whose people have been betrayed, gassed, shot and forced into exile by Saddam Hussein, reaching out to the tormentor himself. There was Saddam, who once said he would run a sword through the rebellious Talabani before permitting him to return to Iraq, pressing his lips against the cheek of the Kurdish representative. It was enough to make even the most cynical Middle East watcher blink hard and move closer to the set.

That widely publicized embrace in Baghdad last week symbolized the improbable news that after battling each other for the past two months, the Kurdish leadership and the Iraqi authorities were trying to make peace. After five days of talks, the two sides tentatively agreed that in exchange for the Kurds' ending their uprising, Baghdad would give the minority community some form of autonomy in northern Iraq, where the Kurds predominate. But details of the arrangement remained to be settled, and the deal could very well fall apart. Even if an armistice does hold for a time, no seasoned analyst expects it to bring lasting peace to the Kurds. "Saddam is buying time," says a high-ranking Turkish diplomat. "He will take his revenge when he can afford to."

Such was the skepticism surrounding the wispy accord that the U.S. and its allies did not so much as pause in their efforts to establish a safe haven for the Kurds in northern Iraq. Said a U.S. official about the agreement: "We can't welcome it. We can't pooh-pooh it. So we're extremely neutral." However, if the detente reached in Baghdad sticks, it may yet serve the allies' interests. If a final pact prompts the displaced Kurds to return to their homes, it would relieve the allies of the enormous difficulties they face in trying to aid the refugees without becoming entangled with Baghdad.

The possible pitfalls of the allied relief operation were underscored last week when hundreds of armed Iraqis appeared in the town of Zakhu, near the tent cities the allies are building for the Kurds. The gunmen were defying U.S. military orders that all Iraqi security forces withdraw to a line 25 miles to the south. Though they wore police uniforms, the men, plainly soldiers, made a joke of their disguise, shouting to reporters, "Police, police!" and laughing.

Saddam, said a senior British diplomat, was "trying to twitch a muscle," and it made the allies nervous. "Just one shot by an Iraqi soldier could trigger a battle," worried another London official. At the same time, the presence of the armed men was dissuading the fearful Kurds from moving into the new sanctuaries. "Our problem is not tents," said Rajab, a Kurdish guerrilla commander. "Our problem is security."

A few days later, Washington and London gave Iraq what a Bush Administration source called a "Schwarzkopfian" message -- "gentle but firm." The implication was that the U.S. and Britain were prepared to use force, if necessary, to remove the gunmen from Zakhu. Baghdad relented. Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Abdul Amir al-Anbari told reporters that 50 "policemen" would remain behind. That was fine by Washington, provided that the 50 were natives of Zakhu -- not outsiders bused in -- and that they registered with the Americans. The Iraqi about-face, in turn, prompted the first small trickle of Kurdish refugees to come down from the mountains and move into an allied tent city.

Thus in addition to the indignities of his war loss and having his southern flank still largely under U.S. control, Saddam now finds northern Iraq occupied by foreign forces who freely order his troops around. Hopes of putting an end to such humiliations surely contributed to his decision to offer the Kurds an olive branch. Saddam was also motivated by a desire to bring calm to the country so as to encourage the lifting of U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq. "The embargo is killing him. He can't begin reconstruction," says a senior Western diplomat in Ankara. "He has to have money if he's going to have any future."

For their part, the Kurdish delegates, who represented the four major Kurdish organizations, figured they were negotiating from strength. Not only has Saddam been weakened by his defeat in the gulf war, but, explains a European spokesman for the Kurdish Front in Paris, "this is the very first time that the plight of the Kurds has been internationalized." The minority leaders are also desperate to bring their people home, down from their squalid border shelters where they are perishing by the hundreds every day. If a shaky truce is the price, so be it. The Kurdish chieftains feel especially responsible for ending the misery of the exodus since they helped cause it by urging their people to rise up against Saddam in March.

What's more, the Kurds, like Saddam, are in the market for time, a breathing space in which to rebuild their guerrilla forces so that when the next fight with Baghdad comes, they will be ready. Concerns that the delegation was hopelessly naive were somewhat mitigated by the participation of Nashirwan Barzani, who represented his uncle Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish guerrilla chief whose Democratic Party of Kurdistan is more militant than Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Just what terms the Kurds might exact from Baghdad were unclear last week. Such is the cultist world Saddam has created that the talks were suspended until this week so that he could publicly celebrate his 54th birthday. According to British diplomats, though, the deal includes more Cabinet seats for Kurds in a reorganized government, safe passage for returning refugees, the adoption of democracy in Iraq and autonomy for the Kurds within their native area. Whether the major oil-producing center of Kirkuk should be included in the autonomous zone is a divisive issue, as it has been in past negotiations. Saddam's offer of democracy sent eyes rolling in allied capitals. In times of adversity, Saddam has repeatedly promised his people free elections, but he has never delivered.

No matter what deal Talabani and his associates may finally end up with, many of their constituents will remain deeply skeptical of Saddam's intentions and will resist returning to their homes. They have seen Baghdad renege before -- on agreements made in 1966, 1970 and 1984 -- leading in each case to renewed fighting. Many Kurds insist that they will not accept any accord unless its enforcement is guaranteed by the U.N. That might be unacceptable to Saddam, who initiated this process to regain control of his country, not to cede it.

Over time, though, returning home or at least relocating to one of the tent cities may begin to look more appealing to the Kurds than continuing to squat in their miserable mountain asylums along the border. Turkish forces patrolling their side of the frontier may speed up that reassessment. "When the weather gets better," says a U.N. worker, "the Turkish military will get the journalists out, then give the refugees a survival kit and push them out, at gunpoint if necessary." Other relief specialists add that within a month, the streams in the mountains will dry up, forcing the Kurds to leave.

The rapprochement in Baghdad may enable the allies who are assisting the Kurds to extricate themselves more quickly from Iraq. Two days after the tentative accord was announced, the U.N. agreed to take over the administration of the tent cities, a role the allies had been pressing on the organization. For now, allied forces will remain to provide protection for the camps; the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops would require a Security Council resolution, which the Soviet Union and China would probably block for fear of setting a precedent for U.N. intervention in their own rebellious outlands. But if Saddam abides by his promise to keep his hands off the Kurds, garrisoning the refugee centers may prove unnecessary.

None of which suggests that a new compact with Baghdad promises any great salvation for the Kurds. At most, it offers a return to normality. For the Kurds, that has long meant waiting, and preparing, for the battle to come.

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington, William Mader/London and Lara Marlowe/Zakhu