European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 23, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Assignment aftermath Back again. On my own soil stories by Joseph Owen staff writer the sweat of training lessens the blood of Battle Quot screamed a slogan painted in arterial red arabic characters on the Side of a vandalized iraqi army building. The slogan preached to no one. The soldiers who once trained at the tiny Al Sadiq army Post Northwest of Dozhuk were gone. They left when the dry unbaked Knoll on which the Post sits became part of the  coalition forces temporary Security zone. A Large piece of Sheet Metal caught up in a blast of hot june wind clattered across a Yard careering past a discarded Axle and broken pieces of masonry. A pockmarked Tablet stood at the Post Entrance As evidence that someone had used yet another oversize portrait of Saddam Hussein for target practice. The buildings uninspiring hovels built of the Square Tan Concrete blocks so common in iraqi military architecture were missing doors windows and even roofs. None of this detracted from Shakir Yosif Abdullah s Serene satisfaction at being in what was for him the promised land. Quot i still think i am in a dream to be Back again in my own Village and on my own soil Quot he said As though Bastke a the kurdish settlement of his boyhood a still crowned the Knoll on which he stood. But the Village no longer exists. The iraqi government forced the kurdish residents out in the mid-1970s, razed most of the houses erected the army Post on top of them and built an Arab Village nearby. The Story has a thousand echoes. Northern Iraq littered with destroyed villages towns and cities has become the junkyard of kurdish culture. Quot we did no to have weapons to resist or fight against the evacuation of our Village Quot Abdullah said. Quot we were scattered in Many places. Some of us went to Zakhoo. Some went to Dozhuk. Others went to  but the 40-year-old Farmer and father of 10 regards the intervening 16 years As merely an unpleasant interruption in a Chain of rightful kurdish proprietorship he pointed in various directions Down at the Suleivani Plain with its swaying stalks of Ripe  to up or it a w a can you Ato Ephon you know that then is a scorpion Ami a Black Snake in a room and you re told to sleep there Quot asks Shakir Yosif Abdullah. Quot Over there you ban see the plots of land the pieces of farms cultivated by the arabs. They belong to us. We Are the owners Quot he said. A the government had erected watchtowers to prevent the kurd from returning and destroying the arabs Grain Harvest. But the few remaining arabs fled when the kurd moved info the Arab Village in May now the kurd want to keep the Harvest and rebuild their own Village. Abdullah with several relatives in Tow had spent More than an hour escorting visitors through the Fields and ruins. At every Stop nostalgia battled with invective for command of his running commentary. Here is where the scoundrel arabs let cattle Graze on the Graves of our ancestors. Here is where they Cut Down our Beautiful Orchard leaving Only the two scrawny Trees you see now. Several cold Springs had provided us with water and refrigeration but As you can see the arabs filled them All in. Never lapsing into Light banter he returned repeatedly to the same two themes kurd have always lived Here and the coalition forces should make sure things stay this Way. Quot it is on the British maps and it is written in history that these villages have been kurdish All the time Quot he said at one Point on the Knolt he entered a House that had survived the Village demolition and which the army had commandeered As officers quarters. Then he shuffled to the Back of the Post where an empty heliport  to a Jumble of bulldozed ruins. Abdullah said the site where he was born Lay under the heliport. Searching the Northern horizon he pointed to the ruins of several other depopulated kurdish villages. When the arabs moved into the area he said they were Quot filthy dirty poor  they left wealthy owning cars and palaces and living better than the kurd. Quot the arabs Are living like parasites on Western civilization.  do nothing for themselves Quot Abdullah said but he blamed the iraqi government for fostering such dependence. Quot Only this regime has created the conditions to make the kurd feel bitter about arabs and make the arabs exploit the  he said the kurd will flee from the iraqi government again if coalition armies pull out of Iraq. Quot can you sleep when you know that there is a scorpion and a Biack Snake in a room and you re told to sleep there i think it s impossible to do Quot he said. Quot they will not abandon us. They will not leave us behind otherwise we will be exterminated by this criminal  Arab widow fears retribution like Abdullah Hassina Saleh also lives on the Suleivani Plain has 10 children and worries about becoming a victim of retribution. But for Saleh a widow in her 30s, the threat seems much More immediate. Hers is one of the few Arab families left in sum ail a Large town where refugee kurd have returned by the thousands. Saleh said her extended family has been in sum ail for 40 years and during most of that time arabs and kurd lived together there without incident. Quot we were one people until we invaded Kuwait Quot she said. Then the War started the one Many iraqis Call the War against the americans followed by the failed kurdish uprising against Saddam Hussein in March. Sum ail blazed with exploding mortars and automatic gunfire As the government and the kurdish rebels exchanged volleys. It a they turned everything upside Down they burned the schools. They burned the desks. They destroyed everything in the government building Quot Saleh said of the kurd most arabs abandoned the town heading South. The kurd killed some of them before they could get out Saleh said. Later most kurd left too fleeing to the mountains in the North. Saleh did t Budge. Hassina Walsh Here with Ona of har 10children, is one of the few Arab Raa dents of sum ail a town of kurdish refugees. Quot i am a woman with Many children. I could t afford to leave this town Quot she said. When the kurd returned some tried to evict her. Two came to the door and told her she had to leave her modest but comfortable House. She refused saying she did t have the Money to pay rent anywhere else. Saleh s husband whose portrait still hangs in the family living room died of an illness a few years ago. Saleh said the government has t made any payments on her husband s pension for five months. At the marketplace she said one Man tried recently to prevent her from receiving a ration of the flour being distributed there. He said this is american flour. It has been sent for the kurd a a a kurdish woman stepped in to defend Saleh s right to a share however and she got her 26 Pound share. Salehm a offspring done to roam far from their Small tidy walled in front Yard. Quot they used to play with the children in the neighbourhood freely. Now they Are afraid to play with those children Quot she said. Some of her children Are grown but they have adjustment problems. Saleh s son Mohammed 19, said a group of rebels captured him and took him to a political party Headquarters building at gunpoint to question him about an incident in which he had t been involved. And the harassment at Home still occurs occasionally. People bang on the door or jump on the roof just to make a disturbance. Saleh said she is afraid to try to do anything to get it stopped. Sum ail lies at the Edge of the same Small political no Man s land that includes the provincial capital of Dozhuk. The Arab Community in sum ail is finished she said. Quot if i could afford it i would have gone to Mosul Quot Saleh said referring to a predominantly Arab Metropolis to the South about an hour s drive away. Quot its very hard for us because they Point at us and say you Are arabs Quot Page 4 a the stars and stripes tuesday july 23, 1991