Persecution of Iraqi Turkmen in Ba'athist Iraq

The Persecution of Iraqi Turkmen in Ba'athist Iraq refers to the persecution of Iraqi Turkmen by the government Ba'athist Iraq, under Saddam Hussein.

History The 1957 Iraqi census was recognized as the last reliable census before the Arabization policies of the Ba'ath regime.Anderson, Liam D.; Stansfield, Gareth R. V. (2009), Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise, pp. 43, University of Pennsylvania Press, It recorded 567,000 Turkmen out of a total population of 6.3 million.Knights, Michael (2004), Operation Iraqi Freedom And The New Iraq: Insights And Forecasts, pp. 262, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Betts, Robert Brenton (2013), The Sunni-Shi'a Divide: Islam's Internal Divisions and Their Global Consequences, Potomac books, pp. 86, University of Nebraska Press, Güçlü, Yücel (2007), Who Owns Kirkuk? The Turkoman Case (PDF), pp. 79, Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2007Anderson, Liam D.; Stansfield, Gareth R. V. (2009), Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise, pp. 58, University of Pennsylvania Press, This put them third, behind Arabs and Kurds.Gunter, Michael M. (2004), "The Kurds in Iraq"(PDF), Middle East Policy, 11 (1): 106–131, pp. 131, , archived from the original (PDF) on 23 June 2012

Throughout Ba'athist rule, many Iraqi Turkmen would register as Arabs in order to avoid being targeted.International Crisis Group (2006), Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle Over Kirkuk (PDF), pp. 5, International Crisis GroupAnderson, Liam D.; Stansfield, Gareth R. V. (2009), Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise, pp. 64-66, University of Pennsylvania Press, The Iraqi Turkmen had a history of migrating to Turkey in times of crisis dating back as early as the Mosul question. However, due to the intensified political and social repression, the Iraqi Turkmen diaspora in Turkey increased significantly during the Ba'ath period and began to change Turkmen practices in Iraq itself.City of Black Gold: Oil, Ethnicity, and the Making of Modern Kirkuk, Arbella Bet-Shlimon, 2019, pp. 171, .

Around the same time the government of al-Bakr signed the 1970 accord with the Kurdish rebels, it was making similar gestures toward Turkmen organizations.City of Black Gold: Oil, Ethnicity, and the Making of Modern Kirkuk, Arbella Bet-Shlimon, 2019, pp. 171-172, . In January 1970, the Iraqi government issued a resolution recognizing the Turkmen as an ethnic group with language and cultural rights. It referred to Turkmen as "the Turkmen minority" which spoke "Turkmani" rather than Turkish, and it specified seven rights supported by the government, such as the native language classes in primary schools, the translation of school materials, the creation of a union for Turkmen litterateurs, and the growth of Turkmen programming on Kirkuk's local television. The Turkmen Brotherhood Association continued to focus on Turkmen interests but moved in accordance with the Ba'ath regime and praised the developments in minority rights. However, immediately after, the actions of the Ba'ath regime toward Turkmen began to contradict the 1970 Turkmen rights resolution.

The Ba'ath regime intended to dilute the Turkmen identity to be less threatening. They only tolerated the Turkmen language if it was written in the Arabic script and presented as a separate language from the Turkish spoken in Turkey. The Kardeşlik magazine of the Turkmen Brotherhood Association initially published in Arabic and Arabic-script Turkmen, only adding Latin-script Istanbul Turkish in 1964. In 1971, the Iraqi government banned the Latin-script Turkish section.City of Black Gold: Oil, Ethnicity, and the Making of Modern Kirkuk, Arbella Bet-Shlimon, 2019, pp. 172-173, . The government began to withdraw many of the freedoms it gave to the Iraqi Turkmen in the 1970 resolution. The hundreds of Turkmen schools which opened in Iraq were closed shortly after. The Turkmen began a three day boycott campaign and held some protests in Kirkuk, with the government arresting and severely torturing 50 of the Turkmen protestors. The government increased pressures on the Iraqi Turkmen. The Turkmen had no relation with the Iraqi state, were not granted loans, were not allowed to work in state offices, and the Turkmen graduates of universities were not appointed to Turkmen districts. In 1972, only 500 of the 10,000 employees in the Kirkuk oil company were Turkmen. In March 1970, the Iraqi–Kurdish Autonomy Agreement gave the Kurds status in the Iraqi constitution. The Iraqi constitution adopted on July 16, 1970, recognized only Arabs and Kurds as the components of the Iraqi nation. As part of the agreement, a plebiscite was needed to find out the boundaries of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. The plebiscite was planned to be held on October 26, 1970, and required Iraqi Turkmen to pick between the Ba'athist government or the Kurdish government. As the Ba'athist government could not have prevented the Kurds from entering Kirkuk either way, the plebiscite was never held.Ortadoğu'da Türkmen Sorunu, Cuma Dadak, Haydar Çakmak, 2019, pp. 21-22, Ufuk University, Ankara In 1977, the Revolutionary Command Council took over the editorial committee of the Kardeşlik magazine and significantly diluted its original mission for a communal Turkmen identity. In the same year, the Iraqi government shut down a Turkish cultural center attached to the Turkish consulate in Kirkuk.

By the late 20th century, the Iraqi government had adopted a policy of treating the different ethnicities as formal groups with unitary interests. Various Iraqi governments used the patronage of the Turkmen elite in Kirkuk to counter Kurdish nationalism. While the Ba'ath regime treated Kurds as an intrinsic threat to the state, its stance on Turkmen varied depending on context. The Ba'ath regime actively persecuted Iraqi Turkmen, it was also common for the Ba'ath regime to mention Turkmen alongside Arabs in Kirkuk as a pretext to target Kurds, while Kirkuk was simultaneously Arabized with both Kurds and Turkmen being expelled from the city or being marginalized.City of Black Gold: Oil, Ethnicity, and the Making of Modern Kirkuk, Arbella Bet-Shlimon, 2019, pp. 173-174, .

The Turkish Foreign Ministry regarded the Anti-Turkish actions of the Iraqi government as a political matter. Salih Mahdi Ammash, the Vice President of Iraq, visited Turkey on January 16, 1971, for one week, and discussed the situation of the Iraqi Turkmen in the official visit. However, the Ba'athist government intensified its efforts to change the ethnic structure of the Turkmen territories. Local authority of villages and local quarters in big cities was given to Arabs, even in villages where all residents were Turkmen. Arabs were rewarded to settle in Turkmen territories. The Turkmen names of the villages were changed to Arabic. The name of Kirkuk was officially changed to "Al-Tamim" in accordance with the order of Presidency number 41 of January, 20, 1976. Arab settlers in Kirkuk were compensated for their traveling costs, given financial support, and convenient loans for buildings. Turkmen were banned from selling their houses to other Turkmen, but were allowed to sell to Arabs. Arab men were awarded 10,000 IQD (then equal to 33,000 USD) to marry Turkmen women. Turkmen clerics were banned from giving sermons in the Turkmen language and were put under pressure by the government. Turkish President Fahri Korutürk visited Kirkuk on April 27, 1976 during his official visit to Iraq. The Turkmen held a ceremony for him, although once he left, many Turkmen who attended the ceremony were arrested. In 1976, new regulations enclosing especially the Turkmen territories were carried out through the administrative division of the country. Management of all Turkmen social, political, and cultural establishments were given to Arabs. The persecution of Turkmen intensified in 1979 when Saddam Hussein came to power, and was seen as the darkest time period in Iraqi Turkmen history.Stansfield, Gareth R. V. (2007), Iraq: People, History, Politics, Polity, pp. 72,

Although Hassan al-Bakr was the president from 1968 to 1979, Saddam Hussein had been very active in the government and gave the ideas for many of the policies against the Turkmen.Ortadoğu'da Türkmen Sorunu, Cuma Dadak, Haydar Çakmak, 2019, pp. 24-25, Ufuk University, Ankara After Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979, the persecution of Iraqi Turkmen intensified.City of Black Gold: Oil, Ethnicity, and the Making of Modern Kirkuk, Arbella Bet-Shlimon, 2019, pp. 173, . The Turkmen were increasingly pressured to assimilate, and many human rights violations on Turkmen civilians were observed. Turkmen needed government permission to sell property, Turkmen lands were nationalized, Turkmen who had Turkish names or spoke Turkish in state offices were insulted, Turkmen houses were confiscated by force, and Arab settlers increased. Shortly after coming to power, Saddam Hussein ordered the execution of around 70 of the highest Iraqi Turkmen community leaders on January 16, 1980. The most influential were Abdullah Abdurrahman, Riza Demirci, Necdet Koçak, and Adil Şerif. The date was remembered as Turkmen Martyrs' Day. After the executions, the Turkmen neither applied for any official positions nor participated in non-governmental organizations. Many Turkmen also began fleeing Iraq. Mahir Nakip claimed that the reason Saddam Hussein executed the Turkmen community leaders was to see the reaction of Turkey, and upon seeing no reaction, felt free to target Iraqi Turkmen throughout the entirety of his rule. On February 28, 1980, the Turkish Foreign Minister, when asked about the executions, claimed that the Turkish government had expressed the concerns of the Turkish public to the Iraqi government, but the Iraqi government ignored it. He claimed that the Turkmen were Iraqi citizens and that Turkey had no right to intervene in Iraqi affairs.IRAK GÜNDEMİ, 1980’DEKİ IRAK’TA TÜRKMEN LİDERLERİN ASILMASI HADİSESİ VE TÜRKMENLERİN BUGÜNÜ, BİLGAY DUMAN, pp. 46, ORSAM, Şubat 2021 Cilt: 12 Sayı: 98 At a Baghdad press conference in 1980, when asked about the executions, Saddam Hussein stated that "these are Iraqi citizens, they committed a crime, they got their punishment. They say they are Turks, so let those people take their bones, do we ever ask what you did to the Arabs in Iskenderun?"The Political Situation of Iraqi Turkmen After The 1990 Period, Çağdaş Duman, pp. 14 In 1976, Arabization policies by the state also intensified.Anderson, Liam D.; Stansfield, Gareth R. V. (2009), Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise, pp. 62, University of Pennsylvania Press, The Iraqi government first banned the Turkish language in 1972. Under Saddam Hussein, in the 1980s, further bans on the Turkish language were made and enforced.

While Iraqi Turkmen were targets of several massacres, such as in 1924, 1946, and 1959, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party was responsible for the massacres on Iraqi Turkmen between 1979 until 2003. Notable massacres included the 1980 executions, the 1991 Altun Kupri massacre, the 1996 Erbil massacre, and the massacres during the Anfal campaign, which had also targeted and killed Iraqi Turkmen despite primarily targeting Kurds. Over 20 Turkmen villages and settlements were depopulated and destroyed by the Iraqi army during the Anfal campaign.Jawhar, Sinan H., Iraq and the Turkmen of Kirkuk, p. 102-104.