The Shabak in Nineveh call on the Central Government to cancel the decision of land distribution to the Arabs in their districts

Written by RJ
Editor OT/OK/GS
Alsumaria News -Thursday 2nd of June 2011
The Advisory Board of the Shabak in Nineveh governorate called on Thursday the central government to intervene in order to cancel the decision of the council of Nineveh province concerning the distribution of more than 300 pieces of residential land to the families of Arab martyrs in the districts of Shabak. The Shabak Advisory Board considered the decision as an attempt to seize the territory of Shabak and Arabization of their areas.
The Head of the Board, Salem Khadr Alshabaky, said in an interview with Alsumaria News, the council of Nineveh governorate issued yesterday a decision to distribute 340 pieces of residential land to families of martyrs in the Shabak village of Derokhan that located within the district of Bartella in Nineveh Plain. He added, all those families subject to this decision are of Arabic nationality and the governorate of Nineveh aims through this decision to the Arabization of areas of the Shabak and the seizure of their land under the pretext of housing the families of martyrs. He also added that the Shabak reject again the Arabization of their areas and will stand against the project being the Shabak districts are covered by Article 140 and cannot be disposed in any way.
Alshabaky demanded from the Central Government and Kurdistan Regional Government to intervene and put an end to the decisions of Nineveh Province. He demanded also from the Peshmerga forces to defend Shabak territories and to protect them. He referred to the existence of more than 1200 Shabak martyrs in the region and wondered why Nineveh government did not distributed the pieces of lands to the residential Shabak families of those martyrs?
The Council of Nineveh province decided several months ago to establish 160 housing units in the Shabak village Baydokht that located 8 km north of Mosul, for those people coming from areas south of Mosul. Nineveh Council also decided earlier the distribution of 400 pieces of residential land in the same region which was met by wide reactions from the Shabak political organizations.
Recently, many Iraqi Christian organizations demanded from the Iraqi Government, Kurdistan Regional Government and local Nineveh Government to stop settlement projects in the area of Bartella, the town that located in Nineveh Plain. This demand came as they believe of such projects to be an extension to the policies of the previous regime aiming to cancel the national existence and to obliterate the historical identity of the region and devote the demographic change in the areas covered by Article 140 of the Constitution.
The Shabak Advisory Board supports the application of Article 140 of the Constitution and the combination of Shabak areas with Kurdistan Region.
The Shabak candidate, Muhammad Jamsheed, who supported by the Shabak Advisory Board, has won the only quota seat allocated to the Shabak in the Iraqi Parliament during the election that took place on the 7th of March 2010.
Shabak are group of Iraqi population considered by certain researchers as part of the Kurdish nationalism, while other researchers considered them as one of the independent Iraqi nationalities. They are distributed in nearly 72 villages and towns in Nineveh Plain and its neighborhood with estimated 450 thousand people, according to United Nation sources.
The area of Nineveh Plain located north-east of Mosul consist of three districts: Al-Hamdania, Sheikhan and Talkafe. The population of this Plain consist predominantly from Christians, Kurds, Yazidis and Shabak. These areas are still under dispute and covered by Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution.
Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution indicated the normalization of the situation of Kirkuk and disputed areas in other provinces, such as Nineveh and Diyala. A period was given (ended on the 1st of December 2007) for the implementation of all the issues included in this article. The article gave the freedom to the people of these areas for self-determination of either to remain as independent administrative unit or to combine with Kurdistan Region of Iraq through an organized referendum. But, many obstacles led to the delay in the implementation of several essential items in the above mentioned article because of political reasons, according to Kurds politicians. On the other hand, Baghdad says that the delay is not deliberate. It was clear that the Ministerial Committee responsible for enforcing of the Article has carried out some of its clauses, such as the compensation of the victims, while nothing was done about the most important issue, the referendum for the city of Kirkuk.