ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A Kurdish villager in rural Kirkuk province claimed that Arab settlers stole his wheat crop, the latest development in a land dispute that is stoking ethnic divisions in the disputed province. “These lands are ours. We have planted the land, and it is ours. The wheat is ripe. We have learned that yesterday they went and harvested them. They took away the wheat,” Hersh Hussein, a Kurd from Mama village in Dibis told Rudaw English on Friday, claiming that the wheat was taken by an Arab family from Nineveh province. Both the federal Iraqi and the Kurdistan Regional governments have staked a claim over Kirkuk province – an ethnically diverse region home to large oil reserves. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq began a policy of Arabization, relocating Arab families from elsewhere in the country to Kirkuk in order to effect a demographic change. In the new Iraq, that policy has been officially abolished, but Kurds say it is being revived. Hussein no longer lives in Mama village, explaining he left because of threats from the Islamic State (ISIS). “There are no Kurds left in Mama village since October 16,” the date in 2017 Iraqi forces took control of the area from the Peshmerga. The village, which lies not far from Pirde where the Peshmerga and Iraqi forces had a standoff in October 2017, is part of the areas that are exposed to ISIS militants since a security vacuum opened up between Kurdish and Iraq forces. A relative of his was kidnapped by ISIS in November 2018 and executed by the group, he said. “We don’t dare go there at night,” he said. On days they go to the village to tend to their farmlands, they leave by 4pm. Thursday evening, an Arab neighbour of his in the village called Hussein, informing him that afternoon a group had come and “stole” his crop. “They have occupied our land. They have built a house on our land,” said Hussein. He alleges the family comes from Baaj, western Nineveh province, saying he has seen their identity documents. This family and others have laid claims to land in the village and vowed to take the harvest, Hussein claimed. “They tell us that we are settlers and they are the original inhabitants. They have filed a lawsuit against us, charging that we took their lands in 2003,” he said. Hussein insists that the land is his and that the Arab family were settlers brought in under the Arabization policy. After Hussein's story was publicized on television, the local police commander called him, promising to assist in legal proceedings. “He told us to file a lawsuit. He asked if we had the documents. Yes we do,” said Hussein. He says he has documents dated from 1969 proving his ownership of the land that has been in his family’s hands for generations. Earlier this week in Palkana village across the river from Hussein’s fields, Kurds claimed that Arabs “carrying firearms” had forcefully invaded their homes. Hatam Taii, a spokesperson for Arabs in Kirkuk, told Rudaw English at the time that the lands of Palkana village belong to the Shammar tribe and they have proof in the form of documents dating from the 1940s and 1950s. He urged calm on all sides, saying “the determining factor between all has to be the law.” Hussein says he has a court hearing scheduled for Sunday. Article 140 of the constitution was supposed to have resolved the issue of the disputed provinces by 2007, but successive governments have failed to implement the steps outlined in the provision.
