Article 58 of the TAL outlines a road map to redress the ill effects of the decades of ethnic cleansing, genocide and Arabization against Kurdish people which reached its climax after the bloody military coup of February 1968. That coup brought the Baath party, which the Kurds believe to be fascist, into power in Iraq. The KDP and PUK hailed the inclusion of article 58 in TAL as a great victory for Kurds, but so far none of the measures outlined in article 58 of TAL have been implemented. The Arab dominated Baghdad government has done nothing to help the 400`000 Kurds deported from Kirkuk to return to their ancestral city of Kirkuk. The Kurdish refugees who ventured on their own to return to Kirkuk are living under miserable conditions, with no sanitation, no running water, no subsistence, no schools, no homes, and no health centers.

The Iraqi government(and Washington) appear to be insensitive to the plight of those victims of the regime of Saddam Hussein and also seem to be working against the returning of those Kurds into Kirkuk. The 250,000 Arab settlers who were brought by the regime of Saddam Hussein from central and southern Iraq into the homes and lands of Kurds in Kirkuk are still there - and nothing has been done to move them back to their origins in central and southern Iraq.

Instead of moving the Arabs back to their original homes, the interim Iraqi administration is attempting to force the elections now in Kirkuk where the Arabs are currently the majority. After 40 years of Arabization and deportation of Kurds, after the governorate of Kirkuk was dismembered by the Baath regime, and the Kurdish towns which were part of Kirkuk governorate such as Chamchamal, Tuzkhurmatu, Kifri and Kalar, were all annexed to other governorates just to dissolve the Kurdish majority of Kirkuk and establish the Arab domination of the Kurdistani oil-rich city. Add to these problems the fact that the Kurds continue to suffer grave injustices at the hands of the Iraqis and especially the Iraqi terrorists, and you have a formula for serious disatisfaction with the proposed election being held at all. When your friends continue to suffer beheadings it's hard to get all fired up over having an election that you perceive to have the deck stacked against you having any success in, before it even begins.

(reference sources for the above Hyscience commentary are emails from Kurdish readers and the Kurdistan Observer).

Here is what Kurdo (of Kurdo'sWorld) offers as to why he will not be participating in the Iraqi elections (in his own words):

I will NOT vote because :

* A report published by the Kurdistan Regional Government's Human Rights Ministry, announced that this year 130 Kurds have been beheaded in 2004 by terrorists. (Hawlati.com). Voting for Iraq, means more Kurds killed in Iraq.

<>* The so called "Kurdistan Alliance" list, which is created by the 2 ruling Kurdish parties for the upcoming elections, has some of the Kurdish Baathiests who participated in killing innocent people in the 1980s [Hawlati.com]. So shall I vote for my killers ?!

* 500 Kurdish families, estimated to be 3000 people, have been forced out of the Kirkuk town of Haweeja by Arab nationalists. We thought in the new Iraq we won't be forced out from our homes because of our identity. But it seems no difference. Shall I vote for my ethnic cleansers ?!

<>* Around 200 000 refugees are still waiting to return to Kirkuk, they live in tents in the worst conditions ever, the Iraqi Defence Ministry is forcing the Kirkuk Council to give lands to the former members of the Iraqi Army from Southern Iraq. Yet another wave of Arabisatoin by the new rulers of Iraq. It seems that the Iraqi government is not actually thinking of solving any problems in Kirkuk, and they seem to continue their ethnic-cleansing started by their former boss "Saddam Hussein" in Kirkuk. [pdf file, ASO newspaper, original documents].

This is only a small scale of the problems. Problems on the ground are much more. Not to add the lack of oil, electricity, gas, and many more.

In other words, the U.S. has quite a way to go if we want to win the hearts and minds of the Kurds as willing participants in the Iraqi elections. As Kurdo spoke of in his above comments, why should the Kurds vote for a people(Iraqis) or a situation that history has already demonstrated as being against your best interests? The Kurds do not trust the Iraqi Arabs - based upon their history I don't think that I would either.