How would Saladin feel about this. Why are there no rallies in the Muslim World.

New York Times
Iraq Is Forcing 1000s of Kurds From Their Homes, By BARBARA CROSSETTE

More than a decade after President Saddam Hussein began a murderous campaign against the Kurds, Thousands of Kurds today, are being driven from their homes, United Nations officials in the region say. Much of the forced migration is taking place within northern Iraq, from government-controlled locations like the oil-producing area around Kirkuk, which the displaced people say President Saddam Hussein is trying to "Arabize."

They are being resettled in Kurdish areas in the north. The relocation, which the United Nations is beginning to quantify, adds to an already large refugee population in the north. The earlier refugees are Iraqis displaced by sporadic outbreaks of Kurdish infighting, families who fled or were forced north from government-controlled areas of central and southern Iraq during the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and others from Iran.

Officials say the 805,000 displaced people there, about 23 percent of the population, are putting strains on international relief efforts and local populations. They have asked Baghdad to stop the flow.

In a briefing to the Security Council last Monday, Benon Sevan, who directs all of the United Nations programs in Iraq that are not related to weapons, said he was "greatly concerned with the increasing numbers of internally displaced persons." He said conditions at refugee centers were "abominable."

Officials working in the Kurdish region say about 59,000 people have been surveyed, mostly Kurds and some Turkomen, and report that they have been displaced from homes near Kirkuk, an oil-producing city about 200 miles north of Baghdad near the border of Kurdish areas, where there is also a huge military base and airfield.

They have told officials that the Iraqi government apparently does not want them in that strategic area. This round of expulsions has been going on to varying degrees for two years, human rights groups say, but has attracted little attention until now, when the concentrations of people arriving at refugee camps has made the trend obvious.

In its 2001 world report, the private group Human Rights Watch said this week, that Kurds were being expelled from at least half a dozen districts as part of a government program that has forced ethnic minorities to sign forms renouncing their ethnic identities and declaring themselves to be Arabs.

Some refugees arriving in the north say that even that was not enough to avoid expulsion and the seizure of their properties.
Human Rights Watch documented more than 800 expulsions from January to June of this year. At the State Department, the office of the ambassador at large for war crimes, David Scheffer, has been watching the forced relocations as officials prepare evidence for a possible war crimes indictment of President Hussein.

The Kurds have particular reasons to fear the central government. In 1987 and 1988, 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds were gassed to death with chemical agents by Mr. Hussein's government.
At a refugee camp at Kani Shaitan, east of Kirkuk in Kurdish territory, 1,375 people, 994 of them children, have been crowded into a settlement built for 550 people. People continue to arrive at the camp, officials say, sometimes in groups that appear to have been driven out of government-controlled regions en masse. "Unfortunately, the number of families at the Kani Shaitan camp appears to be increasing," Mr. Sevan said. Arrivals are getting ahead of efforts to build homes for newcomers. At another nearby camp, Chamchamal, plans to build nearly 500 houses in time for the harsh winter of mountainous northern Iraq have been held up by a dearth of materials. In other settlements the United Nations has been putting up tents and supplying them with heaters.

The latest report of the United Nations program under which Iraq exports unlimited quantities of oil to buy civilian goods says the presence of so many refugees is taxing the ability of the United Nations housing agency, Habitat. Housing experts are looking for ways to encourage local builders to provide labor and material for crash programs.

In the Kurdish north, comprising the three Iraqi provinces of Dahuk, Erbil and Sulaimaniya, the United Nations, not the government, administers the oil for food program. Because the Hussein government has a record of abuse against Kurds, money is specially earmarked for them.

Direct United Nations administration appears to have meant a better targeted, more carefully monitored relief effort in the Kurdish areas, and Iraqi officials contend that per capita, the Kurds are spoiled in comparison with other Iraqis.

In the last six months, United Nations officials say, economic improvements have continued in Kurdish areas, especially in livestock breeding and poultry farming, as money from the oil-sales program provides food and new stock. More than 43,000 chicks were distributed in recent months, and 10 million fish larvae were introduced into local waters. A million fruit tree seedlings were introduced, and 2,000 farmers and 640 agricultural workers were trained.

But electricity remains in short supply in the north, while it is becoming more available in government-controlled areas. In June, Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, found a mixed pattern in studying malnutrition. In Kurdish areas chronic malnutrition dropped to 14.5 percent of children under 5, from 18.3 percent a year earlier. But the incidence of underweight children rose and acute malnutrition doubled. Officials attribute that to diarrheal diseases that could be corrected with more education about hygiene. Cholera has been all but eliminated in Kurdish areas through a campaign to teach sanitation and good health practices, the United Nations says.