The policies and tactics of Kurdish authorities could expose minority groups in northern Iraq to “another full-blown human rights catastrophe” unless the minorities receive better protection, according to a report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch.The report describes how the Kurdish government has sought to repress minorities, subsume the identity of Shabaks and Yazidis into that of Kurds and sow rifts within the groups with bribes and patronage while suppressing dissent through violence, torture, arrests and killings.
Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has said Arab-Kurd tensions are the country’s biggest security threat. But over the past six months, in parts of Iraq’s north, American commanders have brokered a quiet, if uneasy, détente between the two sides’ military forces. Officers from Iraq’s mostly Arab national army have started working with counterparts from the Kurdish regional government’s armed militia, the peshmerga.
Filed under: Iraq
