Iraq has decided to conduct a general census of its population by the end of 2020, 23 years after its last census in 1997. While the last census excluded the Kurdistan Region, the 2020 one will include the autonomous territory in the country’s north.
Mahmoud Othman, a member of Iraq’s Supreme Census Committee and director of Sulaimani’s Statistics Office, sat down with Rudaw on August 31 to explain that the new census will be digitized. No longer depending on pen and paper, technologies like GPS to better access locations will be employed instead.
The census, which Iraq’s Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has strongly insisted on holding, might face resistance, especially from minority groups in Kirkuk and the Nineveh Plains, as it has not been determined whether the question of ethnicity and religion will be among the over 70 questions asked.
Much preparation was made for a 2009 census, but it never saw light as Turkmen and Arabs in disputed Kurdish-Iraqi territories feared the areas could come back under Kurdish rule following the assessment.
Counting for the census has been set the ambitious timeframe of a single day. An estimated 300,000 individual counters working for the government will be needed to gather the data.
Othman spoke to Rudaw about the census and how it will deal with the disputed territories - particularly Kirkuk. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Hiwa Jamal: Will a census be held in Iraq in 2020?
Mahmoud Othman: We hope so, but we have a bad history with this process. Following the toppling of Saddam and his regime, Kurds have tried since 2004 to convince Baghdad to hold a general census, because an Iraqi census has not been held for 22 years now. His Excellency the Prime Minister, who has decided for the census to be held in 2020, is of the mind that the census be done in one day.
Is it possible to conduct the census within one day?
Up until the 1957 census, the citizenship directorate in Iraq’s Ministry of Interior oversaw the process to determine the status of individuals. In the years 1977, 1987, and 1997 [censuses excluding the Kurdistan Region], the Iraqi Ministry of Planning took the helm. It would be done in a day.
Past censuses were held in pen and paper form. The results would come out in three to four years, by which time the results would be meaningless and expired. There would be an improvement in every subsequent census. They claim 1957 was the best census year. However, we have many criticisms of the process [for that year]. Depending heavily on the village chieftains, census conductors would sit only in the house of the chieftain. They didn’t visit [individual] houses.
If the 1957 census was not that sophisticated, why is it referenced is so much, especially when making the case for the proportion of Kurds in Kirkuk, the disputed territories and Article 140?
Actually, Kurdish intellectuals in Kirkuk were critical when the 1957 census was held, claiming Kurds were treated unfairly because the civil employees who did the census were Turkmen and Arab. Kurds then were rural, so education was not widespread among us. We didn’t have [Kurdish civil] employees. Ali Askari, may he rest in peace, says he caught some of these civil employees recording Kurdish families as Arab or Turkmen – even though the family had specifically said they were Kurdish.
You talked about Kirkuk. I have compared the figures of the 1947, 1957, 1977, 1987 and 1997 censuses, and it could be seen truly how the regimes in Baghdad have barbarically and chauvinistically attempted to underreport the number of Kurds in areas disputed until today. Even with all the critical observations of the 1957 census, Kurds comprised 48 percent of Kirkuk’s population, while Turkmen made up 29 percent of the population. Arabs comprised 22 percent. The Kurds number as much as both of them combined.
Seeing this percentage, year after year, regimes both royal and republican have attempted to shrink it. In the censuses of 1977, 1987 and 1997, the Kurdish percentage decreased all the way to 16 percent.The Turkmen, who are currently are at odds with us Kurds and refuse to reach a treaty with us, had their percentage dropped all the way to 4 percent. The percentage of Arabs was increased from 28, 29 percent all the way up to 79 percent.
You can see now that only a fraction of forcefully expelled [Kurds] have returned [to Kirkuk]. For example, Tuz Khurmatu, Kifri, Kalar and Chamchamal, which are Kurdish areas, have been cut off from Kirkuk [administratively]. Despite all that, Kurds form 52 percent of Kirkuk’s population.
I wanted to touch on matters relating to Kirkuk later, but we will delve into it now. In Kirkuk and in Kurdistani areas outside Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) control, can an accurate census be done under current conditions? How can this be done in a manner that is just and reflective of reality?
Concerning Kirkuk province, through history, [the actions of] those who have ruled and occupied Iraq prove that Kirkuk is Kurdistani. Attempting to decrease the number of Kurds in Kirkuk, from the royal era all the way up until today, efforts to Arabize and Turkify Kirkuk, were all aimed at taking Kirkuk away from Kurds. Kurds, in their uprisings in the past 100 years, have been fighting to take these territories back. This has remained the case despite political, armed and dialogue efforts. Why?
Ever since the toppling of Saddam, Kurdish officials decided that, through mindful discussion and political efforts, the topic of Kirkuk needed to be resolved. This led to Article 140 in the Iraqi constitution. The Article is yet to be implemented. The Article was to be implemented in three stages, including normalization and reverse of Arabization policies through sending settler Arabs back to their original places, linking back the areas that were administratively cut off from it, then holding a census on the bases of which the people would determine whether to be ruled by the Kurdistan Region or Iraq.
We made very good preparations for census in the years 2009 and 2010. Unfortunately however, due to the reasons I mentioned, the Iraqi government cancelled it one week before the date of the census.
Mr. Mam Jalal [Talabani, then President of Iraq] gathered all the Kurdish officials, factions and parties, representatives of sects and ethnicities from Kirkuk in a meeting with the Iraqi government and the UN, asking why the census was not held.It turned out that some Turkmen and Arab brothers had objected, claiming that if the census were to be held then all the areas would return to the Kurdistan Region. The then-Minister of Planning asserted that a census would not be an automatic decision on the fate of these territories. The fear of the true size of the Kurdish population becoming clear has become a scary thing for them.
Conditions for the holding of a successful census, according to UN standards, are stability and security. There are 2 million IDPs who are still not back home from places destroyed [in the war against Islamic State]. There are also sectarian and ethnic conflicts between Kurds and Arabs, and the issue of the disputed territories.You said there needs to be stability for a census. Is there enough stability in Iraq, especially in the disputed Kurdistani areas outside KRG control - especially Kirkuk - to hold a census?
The Iraqi government has given a promise to return as many IDPs as possible. Second, they want to hold the census in one day due to security concerns, as they are fearful. If it goes on for two days, three days, it will fail in Iraq. All that comes after convincing the International Census Advisory Board that there could be a concise, clean, and scientific census within one day, devoid of interference. From 2004 until 2009, when the best preparations were made, political and ethnic interference prevented a census from being held.
There have been arguments made that questions concerning one’s ethnicity and religion should be taken out of the census question form. Will these questions be included? Do Kurds want them included?
There have been no discussions about the form yet.It is the task of the KRG to settle on something with the Iraqi government. Of course Kurds want these questions included. Why hold a population census? To have thorough information on every individual and family in the country. Questions of ethnicity and religion are included in the census of other countries. If you don’t know how many religious groups you have in your country, how can you set up plans to serve, protect, and develop them? Or how many ethnicities there are, and what their proportions are so that their constitutional rights can be determined?
Can we know roughly the size of the population of the Kurdistan Region? What is the unemployment rate among that population?
It is nearly six million. We have a population of 5.821 million individuals, IDPs and refugees not counted. In 1990, the unemployment rate was 60 percent. In 2013, that dropped to 7 percent in the 15-64 age range. When we say 15-64, we refer to the age range of the labor force. 60 percent of the population of the Kurdistan Region falls within this age range. After years of financial crisis, the unemployment rate has increased to 14 percent.
Translated by Mohammed Rwanduzy
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