NGOs still active in north

While the security situation has severely deteriorated in parts of central and southern Iraq over the past two or three months, NGOs still seem to be divided on whether the Kurdish-controlled north has taken a similar turn for the worse. On the ground, there is little evidence of increased security. Indeed, in the city of Arbil, where tensions were very high in the aftermath of the 1 February double suicide bombing that killed over 100 people, most of the checkpoints in the city were dismantled a month ago. In their place, the Kurdish authorities have set up bigger roadblocks at the entrances to the city. They have also dug a ditch around Arbil in an effort to prevent vehicles infiltrating the city across country. Still considered the safest city in Iraq, Dahuk received its first bomb two weeks ago. The device, encased in concrete and timed to go off in the early hours of the morning next to the central market, failed to explode. Among NGOs based in the north, opinions are divided. Some, like US-based NGO Counterpart and Swedish NGO Qandil, continue to work much as they have been doing in the past. "We have employed more guards," Qandil health specialist Giorgio Francia told IRIN in Arbil. "But on the surface at least, it seems safer now than when I arrived in 1998 - then there were bombs going off pretty much every week in and around Arbil." True enough, argues Gerard Gautier, who runs a language school and cultural centre he set up in Arbil in 1999. "Back then, the bombs were just Saddam's way of keeping people on their toes," he said. "Today's bombers just aim to kill." NGO workers remaining in Iraq point out that the majority of organisations to leave have been those setting up missions throughout Iraq in the last twelve months. "The paradox is that when they evacuate the south and centre, they evacuate the north too," said Giorgio Francia. "In part, I think that is due to a political decision on the part of headquarters to treat Iraq as a single entity." That may explain why, as yet, no NGOs formerly based in southern and central Iraq have relocated to the north. Qandil continues to work in Kirkuk and Tikrit and Counterpart in Al-Anbar. Other NGOs working south of the Green Line, that divides the Kurdish north from the Arab south have been forced to rethink their strategies. "I used to drive down to Mosul in the four-wheel drive," Abid Ali Hassan, project manager for local NGO Zakho Small Village Project told IRIN in Dahuk. "Now I take a taxi." Another Kurdish NGO working in Mosul has bought a car with a Mosul number plate to protect its staff from being identified as outsiders. Concordia, another local NGO that used to organise civil society seminars north and south of the Green Line, no longer works in Kirkuk. US officials confirmed recently that intelligence reports suggesting that two cars carrying bomb-making materials may have succeeded in reaching Kurdish-controlled areas. But as operations officer of Arbil's Civil Military Operations Centre (CMOC) Lieutenant-Colonel Gregory Politowicz put it, "we've been getting reports like that for some months now." "I don't see much evidence that the situation up here has deteriorated," he told IRIN in Ain Kawa, two km south of Arbil. "The Kurdish security forces are doing a great job guarding the Green Line." Both in Dahuk and particularly in Arbil, a number of NGOs have decided to pull out international staff. US-based Mercy Corps, the International Rescue Commmittee (IRC) and International Medical Corps (IMC) left Arbil last week. In Dahuk, US NGO Mission East evacuated a fortnight ago following the killing of a Mission East staff member in the south of Iraq. The NGO's team in Dahuk had also complained of being spied on by masked and armed men in a nearby mosque.