Touchstones

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  I end the day in one of the few restaurants still open in Baghdad, The White Palace, where I hope to get away from that wretched fried chicken dish to which I have gained a completely unjustified aversion. The speciality of this place is Cusi, lamb seasoned with spices and served with white rice. A real feast, I am assured. But I can’t accompany it with the appropriate glass of ice-cold beer because the place does not serve alcoholic drinks. The friends I am eating with are surprised: they drank beer here a few days ago. The explanation is that religious fanatics have threatened to kill restaurant owners if they do not enforce a non-alcohol rule. It doesn’t matter, even with water – as Ahmad Hadi might exclaim, licking his fingers – the Cusi is really delicious.

  5 June–6 July 2003

  7. The Kurds

  Travelling north out of Baghdad towards Iraqi Kurdistan, we move into a different landscape, language and culture, and also, over the days, the towns and cities look different. After four hours’ drive by car, through a flat, scorched desert, with Bedouin villages and burned-out personnel carriers and scattered army lorries, there are the mountains, which we begin to climb an hour later, in the middle of the oilfields, up to the city of Kirkuk. Leaving that city and heading for Suleymaniya, the road gets steeper and the roadside is covered in green, in pine forests and slopes covered by cultivated areas where a few weather-beaten labourers with timeless faces are working. No one would say that there had been a war in these parts.

  Still less in Suleymaniya, an attractive city with broad, clean, tree-lined streets, traffic control officers on street corners, women dressed in Western styles, Internet cafés everywhere, McDonald’s and a forest of satellite dishes on the roofs of the houses. I knew that the war had scarcely touched the place, but I was not expecting to find a scene of such normality. I was also not expecting to find posters thanking President Bush for ‘The liberation of Iraq’ and greeting Paul Bremer, the proconsul, who had just been here to visit the members of one of the two Kurdish governments that have divided Iraqi Kurdistan. The government in Suleymaniya is run by Jala Talabani’s Patriotic Union Party of Kurdistan; the other government, whose capital is Irbil to the north, is the domain of Masud Barzani’s Democratic Party of Kurdistan. The fierce rivalry between the two parties, and the fratricidal violence – in the 1994 conflict between the two communities there were more than three thousand casualties – has merely increased the misfortunes of the Kurds, who represent twenty per cent of the Iraqi population (somewhat under four million). They were systematic victims of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, which attacked them viciously, especially during the attempted rebellions of 1975, 1988 and 1991, when they sought greater autonomy and resisted the enforced ‘arabisation’ of Kurdish villages that the regime was implementing, massacring the native population and replacing it with Sunni Arabs. In 1988, entire Kurdish communities – including children, women and old people – disappeared, an extermination programme that culminated in the massacre at Halabja, in March of that year, in which more than four thousand Kurds were killed with chemical weapons.

  But walking through the streets of Suleymaniya, one would say that all this belonged to the far-distant past. There are no American soldiers to be seen (‘They are dressed in civilian clothing, in the cafés and restaurants, fraternising with the locals,’ Shalaw Askari, Jalal Talabini’s Minister of Information would later tell me), and the only soldiers visible are the local peshmergas (fighters) dressed in their baggy trousers, their baroque turbans that seem like something of a Rembrandt self-portrait, and the long lengths of printed fabrics that they roll around their bodies like belts.

  Iraqi Kurdistan has made very good use of the twelve years of total autonomy imposed by the Allies in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, setting up a regional government and establishing an exclusion zone outside the authority of Saddam Hussein. As well as having a government of their own for the first time in their history, the Kurds have enjoyed considerable economic prosperity, as can be seen in the building work, the well-stocked food and general stores which have goods from across the world, and the throng of people in the cafés, refreshment stalls and restaurants throughout the city. However, there is not a single Kurd prepared to tell a stranger wandering around Suleymaniya that the community wants independence. They have all learned their lesson and repeat, like a slogan, that they want to remain part of a federal and democratic Iraqi government that would guarantee them the autonomy that has worked so well for them. They are very aware of the fears that the very idea of an independent Kurdistan raises in neighbouring Turkey, whose twelve million Kurds live in a state of constant tension with the central government.

  All this is explained to me in perfect English – he studied in the United States and in Britain – by the young and dynamic Shalaw Askari, the Information Minister, who receives me instead of Jalal Talabini, with whom I had an appointment, but who had to travel unexpectedly to Moscow. In the past, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was Marxist and received aid from the USSR, but now it is pro-capitalist and an active supporter of the coalition. The peshmergas had worked closely with the coalition forces, which is why this region remained almost untouched by the invasion.

  ‘For us, the Americans are our friends, the liberators of Iraq, and we are grateful to them for having overthrown the tyrant Saddam Hussein’, Askari tells me. Now we are speaking quite openly, but a few minutes earlier, when I came into the room and found the Minister waiting for me surrounded by advisers and private businessmen that worked with him, I felt somewhat disconcerted. Why so many people? Because of a monumental error. Shalaw Askari and his entourage were expecting someone who could immediately invest considerable sums in the reconstruction and development of Jala Talabani’s Kurdistan. They explained to me persuasively and in great detail that their most urgent need was for a four-hundred-bed hospital, for which the government already had the land and the building plans (which were at my disposal), and which would not cost more than forty million dollars, and an abbatoir for Suleymaniya, which would cost no more than fourteen million. It really upset me to have to tell them that it was not in my power to make these investments, because I didn’t represent anyone, I was just a South American writer finding out what was happening in Iraq. The young minister blanched, swallowed and – what else could he do? – smiled. ‘We Kurds have learned our lesson,’ he tells me, ‘which is why now, instead of remembering the martyrdom of our people under the dictatorship, or the unfortunate internal disputes that have done so much damage to our cause in the world, we want to work, collaborate and contribute to the establishment of a free and democratic Iraq where we can coexist in peace with the other communities. We have had this peaceful coexistence in Kurdistan for the past ten years. For example, aren’t the Turks respected? Don’t they have their own newspapers and their political organisations operating in complete freedom? It is exactly the same for the Shi’ites, the Sunnis, the Christians and the other religions. There is a place and work for everyone. We are the forerunners of what Iraq should be in the future.’

  When I ask him whether the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan will be part of the Governing Council that Paul Bremer is putting together, he assures me that this is the case: this was something that had been clarified during the recent visit of the head of the CPA. (And, indeed, a few days after this interview, when the new organisation formed to lead the country to a democratic and federal system is announced in Baghdad, both Jalal Talabini and his rival Massud Barzani figure prominently.)

  ‘The key word for the pacification of Iraq is work’, declares Minister Askari. He is ardent, optimistic and very thin, and he talks with his hands as well, like an Italian. ‘Islamist fanaticism, for example, would drastically reduce if the great number of unemployed could all start to work and earn a salary. When you have time on your hands, you can go to the mosque five times a day and become mentally imprisoned by what is being preached there. If you work eight hours a day, plus travel to and from work and the time spent with family, then r
eligion can no longer be your only concern in life. Other equally important things crop up. And certain cobwebs in the brain get blown away and more modern ideas come in’.

  According to him, the violence unleashed against the coalition forces – assaults and ambushes kill one or two American soldiers on a daily basis – are not just the work of the remnants of the repressive forces and Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein. It also stems from foreign fighters sent by Al Qaeda, the terrorist organisation of Osama Bin Laden, and also terrorists from Iran, controlled by the most conservative clerical sectors of that neighbouring country. ‘These people are very afraid of the establishment of democracy in Iraq. They also think that sooner or later the United States will come after them. And they have decided that the war should begin in Iraqi territory.’ But, he is convinced, once the country has its institutions in place, the coalition and the Iraqi forces will soon defeat the terrorist resistance.

  His ideal is transparent: an Iraq made up of professionals and engineers, incorporated into the world, emancipated from political and religious dogma, attracting capital from all parts to develop the enormous resources of the country, with coexistence guaranteed by freedom and the law, and with private enterprise as the motor for development. He points to the businessmen alongside him. They have begun to work, despite the precarious conditions and the difficulties involved in any financial operation given the uncertainty, the legal vacuum and the fact that there are no banks yet, or even a common currency for the whole of Iraq. Here in Kurdistan the dinars bearing Saddam Hussein’s face do not circulate as in the rest of the country – they use an earlier minting. (Though the truth is that the economy is becoming swiftly dollarised). Can one do business and make investments amid such disorder? One of the businessmen, the exuberant and extremely friendly Nagi Al Jaf, smiles triumphantly: ‘Tomorrow we are expecting a delegation of Swiss bankers we have almost convinced to open up a bank in Suleymaniya.’ The Minister reminds me that capital is always attracted to places where there are viable returns on investment and stable and attractive conditions. ‘Here we will have both things.’

  Minister Askari becomes less loquacious when I ask him if it is true that both Jalil Talabani and Massud Barzani have promised Paul Bremer – who mainly came to talk about this issue with the two opponents – to integrate their two governments into one, so that the Kurds can have a single representative voice in the new Iraqi government. ‘We are working together and the rough edges and the old disputes are gradually being smoothed over. The desire for union exists. It is just a question of time.’ That is the only time in our long interview when I get the feeling that the friendly Minister is giving me the official line.

  On the other hand, I am convinced that he entirely believes what he tells me about the Kurds’ desire to reassure Turkey, to assuage the fear that the goal of Talabani and Barzani is an independent Kurdistan, something that the Turkish government has said quite categorically that it will not tolerate. ‘On this point we are all in agreement: we will not fight for secession; we want to be part of an Iraq that represents our rights.’ And he adds, ‘Turkey made a big mistake, don’t you think? They turned down the offer of forty million dollars from the US to allow the coalition forces through their territory to free Iraq. Really stupid, wouldn’t you agree? And, as well as the money, to lose such a powerful friend. Well, that’s their problem.’

  When we left the meeting, Nagi Al Jaf, the businessman, takes me to a place that, he assures me, is ‘paradise’. He is not exaggerating. Suleymaniya is ringed by mountains, and we go up one of them on a very modern road, through pine forests, the gentle slopes lush with vegetation, until we reach the summit, which is wide and offers a splendid view of the whole region. Down below, dotted with gardens and parks and trees, are the white houses of the city, just as the lights are beginning to come on. It’s a large area, and at each end there are ochre-coloured rocks and wooded sections. At this altitude, the stifling heat disappears, cooled by a fresh breeze that smells of resin. All this side of the mountain is full of families or groups of friends, many of them young, who have installed themselves under the trees, cooking dinner on small braziers, while they talk, drink and sing. Along the road there are refreshment points, and a few isolated houses. And wherever you look everything is clean, beautiful and peaceful. I have to shake my head and tell myself that this is all superficial and misleading, that in fact I am in a country that only yesterday suffered the most atrocious injustice, and that a great number of these mild-mannered trippers who are settling down contentedly to observe the myriads of stars that are just beginning to appear – the most dazzling and the greatest number of stars that I have ever seen – will have many dead, tortured or wounded people to mourn, as a result of the savagery of the dictatorship or the fratricidal blindness of the Kurds themselves.

  Everywhere that I visit the next morning, the market and the adjacent streets, and all the people I talk to, leave me with the same impression: that despite the tragedies of the past and the difficulties of the present, things here are heading in the right direction, and that the people are constructive and hopeful and have a firm resolve to put an end to the ignominious past.

  But when I am about to leave, a casual conversation in the hotel over a cup of hot, steaming coffee with a young construction worker from Erbil, whose name I won’t mention, undermines my optimism: ‘Don’t go away with such a positive idea of what is happening here,’ he tells me in a low voice, after hearing how impressed I have been during my brief visit to Suleymaniya. ‘Don’t be naïve.’ It’s true that a lot of progress has been made, compared to the bloody past, but other problems remain. Iraqi Kurdistan is now divided between two parties which hate one another but have set up two monopoly governments. ‘Can there be democracies with single parties? Only a democracy that is very relative and very corrupt. If you want to do any kind of business, here or in Erbil, you have to pay steep commissions to the Democratic Party of Kurdistan or the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and to the leaders themselves, many of whom have become very rich in recent years with these new powers. There are no real audit mechanisms of any sort that apply to the governments, either here or there.’ Is he right or is he exaggerating? Is his criticism objective or an expression of some resentment or personal failure? I have no way of knowing, of course. But I get onto the jeep that will take me back to Baghdad with a sour taste in my mouth.

  25 June–6 July 2003

  8. The Viceroy

  At the first light of dawn, about half past five in the morning, Ambassador Paul Bremer leaves the non-air-conditioned trailer where he spends the night and runs his daily three miles through the gardens of the old palace – which is a really a fortress – of Saddam Hussein. He showers, and for the next fifteen hours is submerged in his office, at the heart of that giant construction full of crystal chandeliers, marble tiles and golden domes that the Iraqi dictator built as a monument to his megalomania. Indeed, so that there would be no doubt about his intentions, Saddam Hussein crowned the enormous complex with four giant copper heads depicting himself as Nebuchadnezzar.

  Bremer is sixty-two, but he looks a lot younger. He graduated from Yale and Harvard, he was an ambassador in the Netherlands and in Norway and a roving ambassador for President Reagan. He’s an expert in crisis management and counter-terrorism, and had been working in the private sector for ten years when President Bush called him to offer him the most difficult job in the world: to shape the democratisation and reconstruction process in Iraq. He accepted because he has always believed in public service and because his father taught him that if one is lucky enough ‘to be born in the best country in the world’ (‘Well, we believe that it is the best country in the world,’ he qualifies), then one is morally obliged to do everything that the president asks. He also accepted because he is convinced that it is possible to turn post-Saddam Iraq into a functional democracy that will have an effect on surrounding countries and will lead to an essential transformation of the whole of the Middl
e East.

  He speaks clearly and coherently and, at times, he departs from the banalities that are the stuff of any holder of a public office and says intelligent things. But, in his enthusiasm to describe Iraq’s promising future to me, he forgets the laws of hospitality and doesn’t offer even a glass of water to me or to my daughter Morgana. We are suffering from thirst and sunstroke because we had to go through a great deal before finally reaching this office (an hour late).

  The interview was arranged for 11.15 and we arrived at the entrance at 10.30, alongside the great arch, amid the barbed wire and barriers of the guard post. We should have been met there by two officers of the Spanish Military Mission of the CPA. But Lieutenant Colonel Juan Delgado and Colonel Javier Sierra had parked their car in front of the arch, and we were waiting for them behind the arch. This mix-up placed my daughter and me in the hands of some soldiers who searched us, asked us for some incomprehensible passes and told us that they would never let us cross the barriers and get to Bremer’s distant office. For about an hour, we went back and forth to different palace doors, each several hundred yards apart, that we had to cover on foot in the burning sun. When an officer finally agreed to call the information office of Ambassador Bremer, he could not reach anyone because all the staff had gone to the airport to greet the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger who was coming out to spend the 4 July with the US troops in Baghdad.