28th.
December, 2002
Some
guys answering the descriptions of Kurdish leaders are going around the Arab and
Middle Eastern world pretending to be the leaders of the Kurds. I would like to
point out to the world that they must be fakes and impostors.
The best proof of this lies in our leaders’ oft-declared great love for
their people and homeland. For the past 60 years they have asked the Kurds to
present a great deal of sacrifices, a great deal of fighting, suffering strife,
poverty, Genocide and other atrocities, simply to be treated as a nation with
its own national rights and privileges. They would therefore hardly say or do
anything which may against that, would they?
The
function of a patriotic leader is to safeguard the national interests of his
people and homeland. That of a democrat is to uphold the democratic values and
purpose. Combine the two and you will get a formidable leadership which will
never allow their nation to be or become subservient to another. As a matter of
fact our leaders raised the slogan of “Kurdistan
or death” and pushed everyone to fight the Iraqi governments of Qasim,
Arif 1, Arif 2, the first Ba’ath Government, Bazzaz and the second Ba’ath
Government, which they flirted with for quite a while and now are joining in the
international (US) drive to oust. Is it not ridiculous then to suggest that the
Patriotic Democrats would somehow let the people down and hand power back to a
majority Arab government in Baghdad, waiting for them and their public to be
generous enough to grant the Kurds a Federal State of any efficacy? Only a month
ago they would not have accepted even a viable autonomy because they did not
want something less than what they already have.
Besides,
there is so much need for social services, hospitals, economic progress and
development in Kurdistan that our leaders are keen to hold any extravagant
expenditure such as travelling abroad to Turkey or Arab countries with large
expensive entourages simply to tell everyone that our people are impotent,
docile, and completely helpless
and dependent
on external help and they wish for no more than returning to be good, loyal
Iraqis. The guys who do that sort of thing do not care about the great majority
of Kurds. They could never claim to be patriots or else they have no idea what
patriotism means. They could never be democrats or know what it entails.
Democracy
is the Rule of the People. It
means that the people must have the last say at all times. When it comes to
matters of self determination even a proper democratic parliament, fully in
touch with the nation, would find it next to impossible to don the mantle and
decide for the entire population. The Erbil rubberstamp
“parliament” would hardly be the right organ to decide for the whole nation,
because it is not a decision regarding the price of foodstuffs or imposing a tax
or building an international bridge. It is about the fate and destiny of the
whole nation on all sides of the oppressive and divisive frontiers. What is more
is we have had our fingers burnt in the past because one or more such leaders
(example Idrîsî Bitlîsî Seļaĥeddîn, Sheikh Meĥmûd, etc.)
sold us to our enemies or took the wrong side, thus keeping us in chains for
close to a millennium.
No
patriot would ever link his fate and destiny with a foreign group or nation in
preference to his own flesh and blood, let alone to his nation’s sworn
enemies. The fat man in Turkey, therefore, could not be the same as our leader
who has been telling the Kurds that he has been fighting for Kurdish rights, for
the past 40 years. Our leader would rather die than announce his subservience to
anyone. When he kisses the enemy’s hands or other less reverend parts he is in
fact doing so in a symbolic gesture on behalf of the nation, if he is truly a
Kurdish patriot and representative of their will and desire for freedom.
As
a matter of fact our leader is so fond of his homeland that he has “Kurdistan”
in the name of the party he has formed and still eads. More than that, he is so
utterly patriotic that he has the word “Patriotic” in the party name also. Now, I and most of my
compatriots are certain he means Kurdish
patriotism by that and not Iraqi or Arab
patriotism.
And
to make sure that the nation is united
around the goal of patriotism that he has combined the words Kurdistan with
patriotism in the name of the party in the hope that the
entire nation would be united around his vision of free and liberated Kurdistan.
The
guy the world media is interviewing and talking to claiming to be our leader, is
nothing but a loudmouth who is constantly degrading the Kurds and Kurdistan, one
day, hopping to Baghdad to kiss Saddam on both cheeks, another calling for a
federal state of Iraq and the next day saying: “All of us are now Iraqis and
nothing else” or things like: “We should now exchange our Kurdish clothes
for the Iraqi cape and from now on we are all just Iraqis” and such rubbish.
It is bad enough to make such treacherous utterances but far worse to make them
after twelve years of freedom and self rule. In my opinion the population would
rather sign to change their ethnicity to Arab as the Kirkuk and Khanaqin Kurds
have been forced to do for at least that way they get some privileges. The
impostor’s Arabisation suggestion does not even come with any sweeteners or
rewards at all.
It
is true the two guys kissing backsides and our illustrious leaders are quite
similar in shape, weight and other features. About the same heights and each
weighting similar amounts, wear glasses and have similar mannerisms but our
leaders have a history of campaigning for Kurdish patriotism and graduated
thousands of young men in orgies of blood to promote the rights of the Kurds to
freedom and self-determination. They have never shrieked from the responsibility
of getting hundreds of thousands massacred and gassed for their great patriotic
democratic cause. Even today we see images of the Anfal and Halabja victims on
the satellite TV stations they has set up. The guys touring the regional
capitals are a great friend of ex-Saddam lieutenants and are telling the Kurds
to forgive all those who spilled Kurdish blood. Our leaders have sacrificed a
lot in the path to freedom even though the people finally achieved it in 1991 by
pure chance and the people’s efforts.
Our
great leaders sacrificed many of the young and strong followers; their beloved
men whom they treated as their own
children, to get to where they are today, courted by TV stations and world
leaders, developing their beloved homeland and buying and owning big expensive
hotels, commercial and residential houses and land. Not for nothing did they
accept the position of the beloved and adored leaders of the Kurds. Not for
nothing did they abandon their “flats” in Tehran, London and Washington for
the poor and frugal existence they have endured in Kurdistan for the past twelve
years. The Prime Minister of Slemani has been quoted complaining about some of
the criticism heaped upon them from the Diaspora saying: “what do they know about the
conditions we have here?” Indeed I say if they did know the poverty
and squalor the members of the Patriotic and Democratic parties have tolerated
for themselves, some even living away from their loved ones in Europe and the
USA, the Diaspora Kurds might be so moved that they may even send them some
money to help them in their daily struggle.
Imagine
living alone in a five to ten bedroom house with only four or five servants, ten
bodyguards, drivers and having no more than a dozen Toyotas and Mercedes outside
your door. Would anyone with the superb education, nobility, family background
and wealth of these great leaders accept such conditions? I doubt it! So you
loudmouths of the Diaspora who know nothing about the conditions on the ground
and have nothing better than to dig into the sides of our loving and “patriodemocratic”
leaders shut up and mind your own business
as our leaders try to mind theirs!
Such
leaders as ours could never betray their own people for any post in the Iraqi
regime or pot of gold, while the impostors and look-alikes currently go around
talking of nothing wanted by the Kurds apart from one of the three main power
positions in Baghdad and a few ministries for the boys. It is laughable for
anyone to suggest that the two “patriodemocratic”
leaders would be after such trivial worldly gains to the extent they would sell
the entire nation they have “worshipped” for six decades.
No
one but no one would ever believe you if you said that after the historic accord
between the two main “democratic and patriotic parties” to promote a federal
state with the Kurds staying in control of the areas they control now, that they
settled for a promise of a sort of “decentralised administration” to be
formulated later by the so called Iraqi Opposition and voted upon by the entire
Iraqi people. Because any idiot would see that that would turn the cart
completely over and the Kurds will not have a cat’s chance in hell of getting
anything closely resembling what they had hoped to get before they took the
plunge and ventured into the abyss of Iraqi conflict or anything close to what
they enjoy “now”. But mark my words I did tell them
so!
The
traveling impostors however, are going around meeting officials of this and that
enemy country making all sorts of irresponsible promises without the slightest
mandate by the Kurdish people and in the absence of their Significant Other.
After all, what are accords for, if everyone presents a completely different
version of policy to the other? I firmly believe that if either of those
impostors met their Kurdistani double there would be a great fight to the finish
between them. That is why I think the guys outside Kurdistan are playing a role
quite similar to that played by the six or so Saddam’s doubles.
That is clever is it not? And in a similar way too they are claiming to
represent the past, current and future opinion and will of their peoples and in
the absence of the people’s voice who could say otherwise?.
Already
one loudmouth impostor has broken all the rules of unity and patriotism. He
claims to be speaking in the name of the Kurds. Our leader (his double) could
not make such a claim because he knows that even if Parliament “voted” for a Federal solution, that was twelve
years ago and parliament does not exist except in name today and being an honest
Kurdish patriot who believes in the union
of Kurdish opinion, he would never claim he has any such mandate, never-mind
making policy and promises haphazardly and on the spur of the moment. For a
start neither he nor his Significant Other are either members of that
parliament, nor its official representatives. Being un-elected they only
represent at best their own parties. Our leader would recognise that. Besides
they both started with a “Federal Constitution Project” which they claim was
discussed by both parties as well as by their rubberstamp parliament but the
guys who are touring the world have simply discarded their own invented
constitution. Obviously they cannot be democrats or patriotic.
Secondly,
his message to the world and utterances are quite out of control, one-sided and
damaging with no co-ordination with his Significant Other whose party had the
“majority vote” in 1992 in the make-belief election which led to the
rubberstamp parliament which later became the sole property of the other party
for six years. Since 1992 and the fraudulent “vote” for federalism the
Kurdish people have been denied representation of any kind in mainstream
politics. Just as Hitler did in 1933 when he was democratically elected these
two impostors have short-circuited the will of the people with the fake
parliament, claiming to have no choice due to their “internal fratricide
wars”. Thus, neither he nor the leader of the other party, do represent the
will of the people. I therefore believe that our leader who graduated from
Baghdad Law School as a lawyer and an ex-communist knows the full value of being
mandated by his clients before claiming to represent them.
Everyone
knows the contents of the “preparatory committee” and that shares and
proportions have been given to each group. As the relative
minor party in the Kurdish duo one would expect that he would at least observe
and respect the rights and obligations of the other side. It is unclear and
unlikely that the two parties will be given separate shares of power in a
“future Iraq”. In that eventuality one would hope that one side would not be
played against the other as I have always predicted. For example will they be
represented on a 50-50 basis, a 51-49 basis or a 70-30 basis? But a real danger
is for the other groups and the external forces they must serve would make a
deal with either of them and completely demolish any chances of the Kurds
getting any united national representation – already one is singing the
Iraqis-only tune. This is the most likely outcome which means the two parties
have (or if not yet, will) completely abdicated responsibility and everyone will
just be working for their particular group.
Another
reason to think that the guy claiming to be a Kurdish leader is a creation of
the Turks, Saddam or some other anti-Kurdish entity is the fact that he does not
give a damn about the original federal scheme which they started with. His main
aim is to get back to his beloved Baghdad and occupy a large posh office and get
his hands on a great deal of wealth and power. Our
leader has no such ambitions or desire and would continue to fight for the
homeland and the nation, I think. When he has completed his God-given mission of
saving and freeing his beloved Kurdistan and Kurds he will simply go back to
become a private citizen in south London living in his modest flat and continue
to lead a frugal and contented life, having got the Kurdistan ship safely into
harbour and having recompensed the nation for the Halabja and Anfal Genocides
which the impostor was the prime cause of.
These
impostors constantly tell us that they have to accept less than true freedom
because they have no choice. They tell us that the neighbouring countries are
against our legitimate rights, the International Community deny us our God-given
rights; our Country is landlocked and could be blockaded. The Kurds they say
would be decimated if they asked for more. They tell the people to be satisfied
with what the leaders are bargaining for because that is the extent of their
effective diplomacy. All this however means if true that the leaders are not
accepting what they are of their own free will and desire. Thus they are under
duress and not choosing freely. Therefore, the Kurds according to these
impostors are under very real and grave danger of annihilation if they dared ask
for their minimum national rights. Which clearly implies that they must accept
the status of non-nation as a people and non-human as individuals, This, also
means that they could not be negotiating in the name of the Kurdish people, and
therefore have no right at all to claim that, what they are doing, has the
blessing and support of the people under any conceivable circumstances.
Another
thing is the cheerful gleeful way these impostors are accepting the
“solution” which has been imposed upon the Kurds. No one who is being forced
to accept such humiliating subjugation could look so happy and triumphant as
these two impostors or work so tirelessly to impose their own will over the
people with such enthusiasm. Their attitude demonstrates that far from accepting
the union with Iraq reluctantly they are in fact triumphant for “achieving”
it.
Christmas.
25th. December 2002
My
God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? With these words Jesus addressed God, his
“father”, as he suffered the pain of long nails through his hands and feet
before his spirit ascended to the heavens. So the story goes. But, seeing his
disciples in tears he took pity on them and said: “Do not cry for me. Cry for
yourselves. Blessed be the barren and the womb that bore no child”.
I
thought long and hard about this statement trying to reason why the “Son” of
God seemingly advocated complete cessation of the procreation process. Was this
a statement of anger or of blessing? It struck me to be the first religious
statement which had any resemblance to truthfulness. Here was the “son of
God” prophet expressing hopelessness and disappointment at the behaviour of
mankind for whose service and reform he had come into the world. I could not
help feeling that what he had said could easily be the words of the Kurdish
nation wishing their current “leaders” never to have been born.
The
loudmouths among the activists of the masses who had shouted “free Barabas and
crucify Jesus” (Federal Iraq as opposed to free Kurdistan) must have so
disgusted Jesus that he blessed the “barren” instead of the “fertile”. And
in a dire warning he is quoted as having said: “You will plead for the
mountains to fall upon you and the hills to cover you” and then in a last
gesture of compassion and forgiveness he says: “Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do!” in a sea of lies and deception paid for by the CIA and
the other equally deceptive “intelligence” services those who are pressing
for the implementation of the “united” Iraq may win the day but the peoples
and nations which will be forced together are sure to explode out of such an
oppressive solution.
It
seems that the world has not changed a bit. Because of the thousands whose job
it is to disseminate misinformation and one-sided propaganda that they are now
at loggerheads with each other attacking each other’s versions of lies and
misinformation. All we can say is: God forgive the people for they know not what
is true and what is false.
Hypocrisy
and deceitfulness is not something new then. Jesus was just one of those who
suffered from it. Today we witness the great heights to which they have reached.
We experience a battle of wits by all sorts of people such as professors and
philosophers when in reality they are making mere propaganda for their cosy
little causes. The same person, who is seen tearing his hair out defending the
Palestinian cause, advocating a fully independent state for them to add one to
the 22 Arab states already in existence, has a complete 180 degree reversal of
attitude when it comes to the Kurds.
Take
for example the article on Kurdishmedia by Jeff Kline concerning
“Misinformation” by Edward Said regarding Kanan Makiya. Kline who I believe
is a Jew and a supporter of Israel is a great advocate of a “Pluralist”,
“united” and “Multi-Ethnic” Iraq giving the Kurds some measure of
“federalism”. He has been following Iraqi opposition parties, attending
every one of their conferences and meetings, making friends with some of the
members, as if his main job is to present their views and goals to the entire
world. However, his efforts seem to be concentrated on convincing the Kurds (on
Kurdishmedia) of the merits of the US policy on Iraq and that of the Iraqi
opposition. His defence of Makiya is emotional and robust. To him all Iraqis and
Kurds should be of the same opinion and philosophy as Makiya’s. “Said” who
is not someone to be laughed at, despite his duplicitous treatment of the
Palestinian and Kurdish causes, is a “joker” and a “hypocrite” without a
shadow of a doubt, as far as Kline is concerned. He is a mere pebble-thrower
when it comes to supporting his people’s cause.
But
Kline has also been advocating a separate peaceful and Independent Palestinian
state alongside Israel. However, he has never and I suspect never will advocate
a Federal Arab-Israeli state as Gaddafi once jokingly advocated calling it
Isratine. Why not, we should ask Mr Kline and why is he so interested in Iraq
and its future?
What
is most interesting is Kline’s claim that you can recreate a “united Iraq”
of 18 million Arabs with another nation stuck to it by force, which has always
been called an Arab state, has been a founding member of the Arab league,
claiming to have been the birthplace of the Arab Caliphate and suddenly start
calling it a non-Arab
state because Makiya likes to be magnanimous to the second class Kurdish nation.
We Kurds do not want to thwart Arab dreams of unity and prominence. This is why
we should support the creation of an Arab state out of the Arab part of Iraq but
also establish our own separate state. If Kline and people who support his
“dream” of a future Iraq are truly worried about Kurdish rights and
aspirations then they should grasp the nettle and come out in favour of full
(not half) rights of having our own state. Someone like Jeff Kline should have
no difficulty advocating such a solution especially in the light of his undying
support for Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state, if what he
writes comes out of his own beliefs and convictions.
The
blatant duplicity of some so called writers on Middle Eastern affairs has never
deterred them from carrying on in their propagandist roles. We Kurds are the
worst when it comes to believing anyone with a smooth pen and a western-sounding
name. We are also taken in by western supported demagogues such as Mr Said and
Makiya, both of whom have been elevated to the greatest heights by Western
propaganda machinery.
Mr
Jeff Kline dismisses Said’s arguments regarding Yugoslavia and very real,
bloody and terrible situation in the Balkans which forced separation and the
creation of several Nation States but advocates a Utopian, semi-theological
notion of “living in peace and harmony” as if all it takes for everyone in
Iraq to become an ideal “federal” democracy is to believe in the US goals
and do the “multi-ethnic”, democracy dance and all will be fine. Mr Kline
and those advocating the “only scheme” solution ignore the Soviet experiment
which also led to the disintegration into several nation-states and some that
remained in the Russian federation. Even the complete imbecile can see the
difference between the conditions of the nation states and those unfortunate
nations such as the Chechens who have been enduring the “loving” atrocities
of the Federal State.
Kline
who I also suspect has never visited Iraq; his sum total experience being the
meeting of a few of these western-reared opposition characters, seems to believe
that he can base all his findings and theories on them and their recycled ideas
about a monarchist non-nation state, ignoring the history of the country, its
nations (what he calls ethnic groups) and its Geography. I do not think that
anything would help change Kline’s ideas or attempts to influence the
unsuspecting Kurdish opinion because he is not writing to promote truth or
“brotherhood”; but merely supporting one Arab he agrees with against one he
does not. Recently we have been inundated by articles and “research” papers
by Arab and non-Arab “Writers” all publishing their produce on Kurdishmedia,
having become aware of its influence in matters Kurdish. The keen observer would
easily see it is not a simple coincidence but an attempt to hijack the Kurdish
internet media away from its patriotic mission and to use it as a vehicle to
spread anti-patriotic propaganda and promote their own agenda.
We
should care not an iota what Said says about Makiya or vice-versa and yet our
website has recently been cluttered with all sorts of articles written by
non-Kurds, some extolling the virtues of Iraq’s tourism and others bringing a
wrestling match to our web site between two Arabs of differing attitudes to the
affairs of their own nation refereed by a Jewish American who is totally biased
towards Israeli interests and sees an opportunity of pacifying an Arab country
known for its extreme pan-Arabism by advocating a non-Arab, docile state which
would conform to the US and Israeli policies. The West sought the dismemberment
of the Soviet Union because they claimed the nations in the union had to be
free. Today they are forcing Kurdistan into a future Iraq because they want it
to act as a weight, a ball and chain around the neck of an Arab Iraq, to prevent
it from playing a part in the rebirth of Arab power and we Kurds should
understand their evil schemes.
Furthermore,
the bleeding wound of human suffering today is Israel and Palestine where both
Arabs and Jews are getting massacred. If I were Jeff Kline with so much wisdom
and reason I would try to find a solution for that problem and leave Iraq well
alone. Iraq has not during the past twelve years attacked anyone apart from the
Kurds briefly and in its ethnic cleansing policy towards the Kurds in the areas
under its control. But Iraq in all its metamorphic forms in the past, including
during a “democratic”, multi-ethnic state system, has done so ever since its
creation by the British. The majority of Kurds in south Kurdistan have been
living in relative peace albeit in abject poverty and starved of any progress or
decent living conditions thanks to those who have always been after their own
interests and who share Mr Kline’s vision of Iraq. As such there is no urgency
for all the preparations for war by the US and no logic in working so hard to
abort the De-facto state only to stick it back onto the unstable and
conflict-ridden monster the West created and nurtured. The situation therefore
is the most stable we have had for the past century, with no internal or
external war, either in Kurdistan or Iraq. This therefore ought to be the state
of affairs which we should protect and work to improve and not to destroy it to
restart the old suspect experiment again.
But
since Mr Jeff Kline has allowed himself to choose for us and promote the
abandonment of the Kurds of all desire to become fully free and independent then
let me suggest to him that Israel should follow his advice and join a federal
state within the Arab world and should be happy with a “democratic federal
representation” of a mere 5/350 or 0.014%. Surely two Semitic nations should
have a much greater chance of co-existing with each other than Arabs Kurds
Turcoman and so on, and Kline the “Humanitarian” visionary should go on to
live in that state happily ever after. For him to sacrifice us so easily is not
acceptable to any red-blooded Kurd. Thank you Mr Kline but No, Thank you!
Said
and Makiya are used by the West in influencing public opinion. Both Said and
Makiya would find it impossible to have a single line published in the Western
Media if they did not conform fully to the foreign policies of the
establishment. Makiya was invited to the opposition conference because of that
and not because of his opposition record or his personal struggle against the
regime of Saddam Hussein. He shot to fame after writing and publishing a timely
book which gave the US administration something to beat the Saddam regime over
the head with. Had he written one pointing to Israel’s behaviour he would not
have been able to publish it or become known, as he is today. Mr Kline must
surely have noticed the large number of ex-Ba’athists, Saddamic Intelligence
Officers and people who have been implicated in the Anfal and Halabja Genocides
who sat in the front rows of the opposition conference hall and must be aware of
those who did not but are in constant touch with the US administration, plotting
to take over Saddam’s rule. He is hardly going to lecture us on the merits of
his “only scheme” based on those guy’s records is he?
Nevertheless, he does make what he must consider the epitome of reason: “Said conveniently chooses to ignore the fact that Iraq is a multi-ethnic state and, due to its multi-ethnic nature, the federal solution is the only scheme that will treat Iraq’s various ethnicities fairly. Iraqis should be able to decide their fate. Said should have no say in the future of Iraq’s Kurds or any other of its people, and I am quite confident that he will not.” This is the strangest statement by a Jewish American who claims every right for himself to have his “say” in the fate of Iraqi Arabs and denies it in the same statement to a Palestinian Arab. In this quite simplistic but not naive way, Kline also intimates that the Federal “Only Scheme” is the will of all Iraqis and he knows what is best for the Kurds.
Mr. Kline’s article is a big piece of wool meant to blind the Kurdish reader with more good Samaritan-type ideas. Below is a classic one:
“How can Iraq be an Arab state when such a substantial portion of its population is non-Arab? Iraq’s Kurds have been victimized for decades in the name of pan-Arabism and, nonetheless, both of Iraq’s major Kurdish parties (the KDP and PUK) have committed themselves to a unified and democratic Iraq. Is Said suggesting that the Kurds of Iraq should risk what they have achieved since 1991 to establish a pan-Arab Iraq in which they will again be second-class citizens? This suggestion would be truly laughable if Said and his numerous fans did not take it seriously!”
It is Jeff Kline’s statement which is hilarious. The fact is everyone knows that Israel has a 25% population of Arabs and yet no one disputes the fact that it is a Jewish state so why is it so farfetched to call it an Arab state. Russia is called a Russian state despite the fact that it contains many different ethnic groups and look at Spain, Algeria, and numerous other states called by the name of their Spanish and Arab majorities. Even China contains many different non-Chinese nations, some as large 100 million or more and yet they are all referred to as Chinese. Secondly, it is Kline, and Makiya and their “fans” who are trying to push the Kurds to risk what they achieved since 1991. The KDP and PUK, having failed to lose the main achievements through their internal conflict which resulted out of greed and their attempts to loot the nation’s assets, are now, like Kline and Makiya, trying to hand over the people like a flock of sheep back to a new rag-bag of religious chieftains, unhappy individuals, ex-Anfal and Halabja officers, ex-fraudsters, disaffected Ba’athists who until recently went along with all of Saddam’s atrocities and estranged distant relatives of long-gone “royals” claiming the non-existent Iraqi throne.
Those two “parties” have never polled the people on anything which concerned them. The PUK have a history of receiving millions of dollars and military assistance to work for the Iraqi regime even before Saddam usurped power and continued to receive large sums from Saddam to make life difficult for the Late Barzani. In 1996 it was the turn of the KDP to use Saddam’s help against the PUK. Throughout their conflict which claimed many lives of young and old, no one, not even their rubberstamp parliament could reason with them and only outside intervention managed to stop them. In the sixties and early seventies, both received large sums of money from the Americans and the Shah of Persia to fight Saddam only to be abandoned to the misery of Iranian and European social security oblivion. They did not then and have not now given the slightest attention to the democratic will and desire of the Kurdish people. They are not likely to change whatever system Iraq may be plagued with by the US or Britain.
Even when they created the infamous and discredited 50-50 system and parliament they instructed Parliament to vote for the idea of federalism which they are now facing great resistance to. Since 1992 the so called “parliament” and democratic experiment has been defunct and worse than useless. Citing those two parties as if they are the true voice and representatives of the Kurds is no different from Saddam’s citing of the 600 or so Kurdish Muslim clerics who issued an anti-opposition Fatwa, as the true opinion of the Kurdish people. I submit that the Kurds are today as close as they can be to being first class citizens of their own homeland. It is not only “laughable” and deceitful but also crazy for anyone to suggest that being forced into becoming 25% of another nation would somehow make them First Class citizens. Such a suggestion contains an implication which is that “the Kurds” are not a nation but a mere ethnic group within a sacred Iraq.
What makes
me really depressed though is the lack of Kurdish pens to present the truth of
the Kurdish cause and work for the interests of the Kurdish people. Why are the
Kurdish intellectuals who write to me with their support completely silent on
the media? Why do they allow anyone and everyone to continuously and quite
unfairly attack the right of our nation to freedom and self-determination in
this twisted and devious manner? Why do the Kurds always have to be the
bedfellows of someone else, instructed and guided by complete strangers who have
their own agendas, goals and schemes?
My
God, My God why hast thou forsaken your Kurdish children? Why is it that we have
to ignore our own interests and sacrifice everything to please the Yankees, the
Limies and the Samies?
Why
should we save Barabas in preference to ourselves? Dear God please spare us the
evil of the Liars, the Hypocrites and the Propaganda Machineries.
21
December 2002
Long
before the 9-11 attack on the US and George Bush and Tony Blair’s great
conversion to human-rights and democracy advocates for the entire globe, I wrote
an article called “Fast Forward to the Past”.
Our web readers can find it on the list of my Kurdishmedia articles. In it I
have depicted the behaviour of the Kurdish leaders, the regional powers and
those who control the lives of all of us around the world. I have suggested that
they are all attempting to return the clock back as far as the Kurdish cause is
concerned, competing vigorously to take us back to previous failed attempts to
recreate an Iraqi state which would remain vulnerable but which would serve the
purposes of the omnipotent Anglo-Saxon hegemony.
The
Kurdish leaders were at the time, just as they are doing now, advocating giving
up the freedom they gained and hurried to Baghdad to hand back the keys to the
great Kurdish prison, but, even with their wet kisses, Saddam wanted none of it
and insisted to go back to something far short of the March 1970 agreement.
The West and in particular the US and Britain did not agree and appeared to
favour a full return to the 1925 Royal Iraq which had been created to
accommodate Sharif Hussein’s demands for a Kingdom for each of his sons.
Turkey on the other hand wanted the area to go back under its rule claiming to
have inherited the mantle from the Ottoman Empire. During the past few weeks we
saw a conference held in London (after refusal by all European states) which has
not even resolved these basic scenarios. In fact if anything the situation
appears to be far more complex than before as a result of two suitors for the
Iraqi crown, multiple opposition groups both inside and outside Iraq and free
for all claims and counter claims of “dictatorial” Kurds with no notion of
“democracy” trying to impose their will over the majority Arab people of
Iraq as well as accusations of treason, anti-Arab conspiracies, disunity and
disarray beyond Saddam’s most optimistic expectations
When
the last gulf war ended, the Kurds found the opportunity of their life. Some
western friendly observers wrote, optimistically, that the Genie was now out of
the bottle and it was not going to go back in, as the ancient story goes. At the
time I wrote that people who had heard the story had forgotten a very important
and vital part of it. After the Genie gets out, it starts to frighten the little
boy who found the bottle. To return it back to the bottle, he tries a trick by
challenging the big and powerful Genie to go back into the bottle to prove that
it had actually come out of it. Foolishly, the Genie obliges and gets back into
the small bottle whereupon the boy promptly puts the cork back and becomes the
master and starts using the Genie for his pleasure.
Kurds,
everywhere, are being told that they have to go back “into the Iraqi bottle”
to prove they are not separatists because they are frightening the poor helpless
Turks and Arabs. They are told that in this way they will get whatever freedom
and democracy the people deserve.
Those who claim to represent the Kurds are two groups who do not possess one
iota of legitimacy since no one apart from their own circle of supporters have
voted for them in party conferences. Messrs Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani
are not members of any elected parliament. Each party has appointed its own
members as ministers and pretend to be the Kurdistan
Regional Government. Each have sent one of their number to the UK and
call him the KRG Representative but
neither of them would deal with anyone who does not fully support them or adhere
to their policies and therefore they do not deserve the label they have given
themselves. But each representative carries out his party “activities” as The
KRG Representative. Parties such as these do not and cannot be the
catalyst for the establishment of democracy and peace because democracy is a way
of life and a system and not just a label or name you pin on your lapel.
The
US and Britain are so despised in Iraq and the Arab and Islamic world that today
they find no one more effective than the two Kurdish leaders to use them to
implement their policies in the Middle East. They are not doing so because the
two Kurdish warlords are models of democracy and liberalism but because they
would do as they are told since they have lost all their credentials as leaders
and protectors of a nation such as the Kurds. Despite that all these two and
their three other unrepresentative partners (the sixth separated and left)
managed to gather was a mishmash of disparate and conflict-ridden groups and
individuals some of whom would rather see the others dead than friend. But the
pickings are rich and the opportunists and hypocrites
had a field day, getting what little publicity and prominence they got as a
result of the press and media searching for legitimate and proper
representatives of the Iraqi people. Thankfully the Kurds were not represented
as a Nation and they should remember this in the future.
There
are many thousands of Kurds who have had it up to their nostrils with Genocide,
murder, oppression and false “brotherhood”. They are also absolutely ashamed
of and condemn the way their wishes and patriotism for their homeland has been
debased and soiled by those who claim to speak in their name for the sake of
clan or group gains and advantages. I am therefore convinced that the silent
majority whose voice has been hijacked and sidestepped by the KDP and PUK, will
never accept any deals signed by such organisations. In 1991 it was the people
who brought these opportunist people back from exile and neglect, still thinking
they might have some Kurdish pedigree or patriotism but soon they found out that
they made a big mistake. Ever since the 1992 “election” the southern section
of the nation has been isolated and the two parties, milking all the resources,
have also replaced them as the brain, conscience and integrity of the whole
Kurdish nation without going back to them through any proper elections. For the
past six years, i.e. after their rubberstamp parliament became under the control
of just one of the parties and lost all legitimacy and recognition by the
people, they have refused to hold further elections while both have continuously
been unashamedly claiming that they have a mandate from a legitimate Kurdish
Parliament.
However,
for the past two weeks activists from both the KDP and the PUK have been busy
trying to avert the threat of all the hornets they released with their leaders
sponsoring the so called Iraqi Opposition Conference. The conference was told
they must produce some final declaration no matter what or risk losing their
places in any future Iraqi Government and all the highly-paid posts, privileges
and riches their mouths have been salivating over for decades. The Queen Hornet
(Saddam and his large Ba’ath party and machinery) are still in Baghdad and the
West may still strike a deal with him or some other suitable Ba’athist.
Perhaps even with those Sunnis the Kurds and their Shi’a partners in London
prevented from attending or did not invite.
But
you may ask why did the Kurds and their Shi’a partners not invite many
personalities and groups? The short answer is they are not used to working with
anyone who may differ from them in his thinking or analysis. During the past
twelve years they have used a shield of ignoramus party apparatchiks to keep any
intellectual, scientist or technologist who does not share their vision of a
future Kurdistan well away from the country. Their second policy of starving the
country of freedom, decent living conditions of healthcare, standard life
amenities and liberty, leaving the majority of the necessary and required
development, the building of industrial, economic and general infrastructures as
they are, has led to tens of thousands of the illiterate and educated young to
abandon their country in search of their basic living.
I
cannot remember a period in my childhood or youth when more than a small
percentage of young eighteen year olds were totally illiterate in Kurdistan.
Today however we see tens of thousands of young Kurds who come to the west
completely illiterate and unable to even sign their social security forms.
This
dual policy of keeping away the educated and the elite, and driving them out of
the country is nothing short of deliberate and is in full conformity with Saddam
and Turkey’s policy of keeping Kurdistan on the breadline, illiterate,
backward and incapable of surviving without their magnanimous handouts or
intervention.
A
writer on Kurdishmedia has recently written claiming that the attendees of the
by now widely discredited conference represented the vast majority of opposition
opinion. I should like to remind him and our readers that such a claim is far
less credible than that of Saddam’s 100% referendum of allegiance to the great
leader. At least he has been controlling Iraqi opinion for 34 years and not
afraid of submitting himself as a candidate for election to the post of
President while the two Kurdish party leaders have not once dared hold such a
referendum for the 12 years of their control of south Kurdistan. Both the
Baghdad administration and the Kurdish ones claim to be democratic with a
parliament behind them. At least, the Saddam regime conducts its elections on a
regular basis and not once in a lifetime, as the Kurds have done and now claim
eternal legitimacy. Just as in Baghdad, party leaders are eternal and divine and
no one should ever dare criticise any of them.
In
a programme on the ANN, a “representative”
of one of the parties with a history of divisive action among the Kurds was
preaching the virtues of a united “Iraq”, claiming it to be consisting of a
“mosaic”
of nations, races, religious sects and pluralistic politics. He spoke at length
of how the opposition groups, his party, its twin sister, and the rest of the
six (now five) were going to bring all of the colours of the rainbow back to
Iraq in a peaceful and democratic way. The “Federal Solution”, he nearly
lost his voice pleading, was open to discussion and modification. There has been
hardly any mention of the great “Federal Constitution” anymore. It seems we
now must wait for the entire Iraqi people to give the Kurds the right to a
federal state in a referendum. Fat chance!
“Federalism”
was by no means a must or a final solution, he cried, at the top of his
boisterous voice, in an attempt to reassure his Arab audience who nevertheless
have consistently accused the Kurds of a blatant attempt to choke the voice of
the Iraqi Arab people. I remembered at once this “representative’s” attacks, in 1996 and until recently, on
anyone who at the time of the fighting between his party and the other one,
would not condemn or castigate the other party; their “enemy”. He would not
be satisfied if you simply decided to be neutral. I also remembered the very
childish way he shunned and stopped speaking with anyone who disagreed with his
patronising, jingoistic and offensive attitudes.
Iraq,
many of his co-conspirators stressed, is an Arab country and part of the greater
Arab nation. Any talk of race, national minorities, religion or sects goes
against that basic fact. Everyone should simply accept that Iraq is an Arab
country whose religion is Islam. The real voices of the Arab nation were
missing, Mr Hasan Al-Alawi, ex-Ba’athist, friend of Saddam and prominent
opposition member, today, complained on ANN.
He also said that the word “Arab”
had only occurred once in the 2000-word conferences declaration (the
“recognised internationally binding contract”) while the word Kurdish
had been mentioned several times. An Assyrian who had not seen the
“Resolution”, termed “Contract” by Mr Kamal Barzinjy, also faxed in
complaining that there was no mention of the word “Assyrian”
but he was immediately told that the declaration had actually mentioned them. An
Ezidi or Yezidi sent an email demanding that they too should have been included
and was duly assured that they had been, too. Mr
Al-Alawai described the conference as a “soviet-style
conference” sponsored by the Americans. Another Islamic party leader
said he had not been invited because there were only five doors open and they
each had a bouncer working for one of the five Politicians preventing
“undesirables” from entering.
Perhaps
if the conference was to copy and establish western-style systems they should
have invited Iraqi Gays and Lesbians to the conference too. Why not, when
western liberalism means liberty for all and equality under the law?
But
it is quite well known that even in the conference itself there were some
chaotic scenes and very aggressive views expressed against Kurdish aspirations
and “nationalism” calling them separatist and anti the interests of the Arab
nation. The Kurds who nearly abandoned the conference were persuaded to return
only to be made to accept greater sacrifices while the even mildly moderate
nationalist groups simply walked out accusing them and one or two of their Arab
colleagues of dictatorial manipulation, favouritism, nepotism, isolationism and
undemocratic hegemony over the
conference. Obviously, the Kurdish leaders who have been practicing those
policies on their own nation thought they could cow the Iraqis in the same way
they have done their own people but the Arabs are far more sophisticated, active
and experienced than to be duped by the likes of the KDP and PUK.
Mr
Barzinjy who has offered some rather unsound analysis, after the fact, to
justify forced steps by the Kurdish “leaders”, into their role of Iraq’s
saviours by the Americans, fails to see that even Saddam can fill dozens of
hotel lobbies with thousands of people all chanting with one voice that he is
the greatest leader since the prophet Mohammad. Would that make him so, or make
international law justify his actions or any agreements they sign in his divine
presence? Would the existence of a “declaration” or “resolution” or
“declaration” make it international law? I very much doubt it.
International
law as the name implies is “international” because it concerns those
regarded as nations but with an even narrower definition as states. As everyone
knows, it literally means the Law “between nations”. For decades I and
people like myself have been calling for our case to be made international by
asking and demanding for our legitimate Right to Self-Determination as a
bona-fide nation, through international Law Firms but the very people Mr
Barzinjy is now trying to turn into great international Statesmen were
vehemently against any such efforts and working tirelessly to do the exact
opposite by constantly denouncing the right of the Kurds to self-determination
and claiming that they want nothing more than the right to be good Iraqi
citizens. The Kurdish leadership, knowing full well that International Law could
get full and substantial compensation for the victims and families of Halabja
and Anfal refused to pursue that avenue even though I found them the means and
tools to do so at no cost to themselves or the nation. And as I have stated
above they claim that they are democratically elected and because of that they
represent the Kurdish nation its interests and long term aspirations. Therefore
if Mr Barzinjy is interested in the application of international law I would
encourage him to turn his entire attention to those among us who have put all
the obstacles in front of its application for demanding Kurdish rights as well
as for seeking justice and compensation for the hundreds of thousands of Kurdish
victims of Iraqi and Turkish atrocities.
I
further recommend that he tries to concentrate his attention on the sections of
the law which deal with “liberation” and the right to self-determination
rather than look for non-existent legislation to support what a few individuals
and parties have declared as their intentions concerning sharing the loot after
the pounding of Iraq and replacement of Saddam with some other Arab leader.
On
another ANN
programme we witnessed a rather amusing royal battle of words between the
supporters of His Royal Highness Prince Ali bnil
Hussein and His
equally Royal Highness Prince Ra’ad bin Zaid, the likes of which we
have never witnessed on live TV before. Supporters of the latter were presenting
the viewers with an insight into the ins and outs of the old Mecca
Royals and how hunger for power and majesty has not died out and is
still motivating them to reclaim their prize for helping the British overpower
and kick out the dying corpses of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Soon we heard from the accused. A spokesman for His
Royal Highness Prince Ali angrily “refuted” the claims by His
Royal Highness Prince Ra’ad’s supporters who recited nineteenth
century history as they knew it to prove their case. Prince Ra’ad may speak
Iraqi Arabic they said but his wife is Swedish, so there! And so the conference
woke the sleeping lions up to reclaim the carcass.
The
Kurdish parties who have been claiming democratic legitimacy have been
squandering the Kurdish nation’s assets, finances and future prospects and
even their sacred right to self-determination without anyone standing up-to
them. In any democracy the most important aspect of political life is the rule
of the people and that has been quite clearly absent. The main instrument for
accession to power in a democratic society is the election process. Take that
away and you are left with dictatorship. In South Kurdistan, a far from proper
system of voting was used a year after the uprising to conduct a peculiar and
unusual “election” which resulted in a 51-49 result in favour of the KDP.
However, the PUK rejected that result and refused to accept what might have been
regarded as the people’s verdict. That was anti-democratic
act number 1. The KDP, in its “wisdom” also decided to reject the
will of the people and instead accepted equal shares and the establishment of
the infamous 50-50 system which culminated in the civil war. That was anti-democratic action
number 2.
And
ten years after that farce and a civil war later, the “parliament” building
and a large area of south Kurdistan was controlled by the KDP, reducing for six
years the PUK share of government to less than a third when there should have
been at least a 49-51 representation for the PUK. Added to that is the fact that
the greatest proportion of the state revenues are in their hands of the KDP. That is anti-democratic action
number 3. Ant trait of both administrations has been the fact that they
do not have the slightest worry
about bargaining, and gambling with the people’s assets and rights but would
be terrified of making even the slightest murmur against any of the surrounding
states no matter what they did. And if and when they do they put their foot in
it and cause untold damage often for a worthless aim.
But
worst of all is the fact that the people, whose voice has been completely
hijacked and silenced, have not been given any opportunity to exercise their
legitimate rights to vote all that time notwithstanding the fact that the
“parliament” is for all intents and purposes non-existent. And even though
everyone has been asking for new and proper elections the two administrations
have been totally against the idea and have dragged their feet for nearly a
decade without making any real effort to satisfy the will of the people or the
requirements of democracy. These are then the practices of two quite inadequate
administrations who have presided over the biggest exodus of Kurdish talent and
youth ever and the squandering of Kurdistan’s greatest political opportunity.
On
every level and by all the principles of democratic systems, the Kurdish
administrations cannot be regarded as legitimate or democratic. The uneasy
relationship between their party administrations and the subdued and politically
lethargic people who are voting with their feet aided by smuggling agents,
leaving the country can by no means be regarded as a democratic condition. The
nation has been demoralised to such an extent that they have become totally
apathetic.
Yet
it is the confident spokesmen of both of these parties who have the gall to
boast about the “democratic experiment” and about how democratic and free a
society they have created that everyone in the world should copy and adopt. How
then can the Arabs, or anyone they sign a “contract” with, trust them? The
Kurdish people should not be deceived by these opportunistic, power-hungry
groups, especially the “Kurdish” ones. History will prove that Iraq will be
heading for a terrible future but we Kurds will be the worst off if they follow
any plan designed by those two. I do not believe for one moment that any deal
made by these people will be accepted. The KDP has already abandoned their
“great” constitution with all its National Assembly, Federal Assemblies and
farcical articles which only a few weeks ago they were hoping would be the basis
for a new Iraq. Now we know that all they are hoping for is that in a referendum
by the entire 23 million “Iraqis” the Arab population will feel a little
remorse or sympathy for their “brother” Kurds and allow them to have a few
ministers in a central Iraqi government and we will start all over again at the
year 1925.
One
last piece of advice; do not hold out any hopes for Tony Blair underwriting any
deals made among “free” Iraqis. The British Lion is not about to change its
“spots”. Ever since the gulf war, a British Prime Minister has met the KDP
and PUK leaders twice. Once after the Gulf War because they had to instruct them
to go back and play the part of policemen to prevent any possibility of the
Kurdish people taking matters into their own hands and declare independence,
thus breaking their beloved creation into two. And the other time was this week
when they needed to instruct them on what do once the attack on Iraq becomes a
reality. We Kurds should not read anything of significance into this event for
even the British media all but ignored it. The people brought the exiled leaders
back after the uprising when the KDP and PUK were no where to be seen having
fled to Iran and Europe. The people gave them power and trusted them. They have
betrayed the people’s trust and we should now declare our complete displeasure
by withdrawing all support from them for they are not worthy of that trust.
December 15, 2002
Last summer I went to see Mr. Barham Salih, the Slêmanî Prime Minister and as we shook hands I said “I am glad those evil terrorists did not harm you” whereupon he looked at me with great surprise and said: “Really?” I said: “Of course, our differences of opinion does not mean my wishing you harm”.
In a recent article for the “Washington Post”, republished on Kurdishmedia, Mr Salih has made some nicely worded but controversial statements. Furthermore, they are not consistent or logical. The government which he represents has shared power with the KDP for 11 years, but behaved in a way which has been autocratic, very much tribal and partisan and their conduct has been quite different from their slogans and utterances except for their consistent degradation of the rights of the entire Kurdish nation, and their total agreement to help the enemies of the Kurds such as the States which have been oppressing our people for decades. In that department they have indeed consistently served their masters and not their people.
I should like to remind our readers that both leaderships have had several deals with Saddam and I am certain still have warm ties with his regime in secret. In 1991, both leaders kissed Saddam on both cheeks, perhaps once for Halabja and the second time for the Anfal campaign.
Coming from a stable of violent partisanship with no background in democracy, such as the PUK and KDP, but having studied or lived in the West, Salih and others like him in both administrations boast of “democratic” values, the adoption of a multi-party system, freedom of speech and many such concepts they picked up in the west where they had been unknown and ignored for decades by the Western Media and Administrations, before the gulf war, it seems they could not fully understand those concepts but merely brandished them while practicing a completely different system.
For example, whereas in his latest article, prompted by an article published by his rival Sami Abdul Rahman of the KDP, Salih praises George Bush for: “abandoning reliance on unaccountable and repressive elites for a false notion of stability in the Middle East”. One must assume that he is proud of his own record as an Accountable Prime Minister, in a pluralist, democratic “north of Iraq”, which they have settled for. The truth is neither administration has a right to claim “accountability” on the basis of their records. The reasons are:
1 The 1992 election results were far from being a proper representation of Kurdish opinion because they were not based on any proper census or election procedure
2 Even so they abandoned the results and produced a system where the wishes of the “electorate” were ignored
3 They produced nothing of any value for the people apart from more misery and fratricide and soon started fighting which resulted in one of them taking control of more than two thirds of the region including the parliament building and its inhabitants
4 Both administrations (parties) claim to be the Kurdistan Regional Government and the members are simply appointed whenever one emigrates to the West or dies or gets killed
5 The members are not accountable to anyone because their “sell-by-date” has long since expired and for several years they were divided into several portions with no power at all
6 The members do not have any specific constituency and no citizen has any idea as to who represents his interests. In short, what they call parliament is nothing more than a tea-house for chatting and playing parliamentarian games without the slightest resemblance to any standard known parliament. In other words they are a parliament by name only
7 The Kurds under the rule of these two tribal administrations are completely apathetic and are completely engrossed in trying to satisfy the most basic needs. Their leaderships have so engrained the idea that they are powerless, or simply following US, British or Turkish orders, that the average person sees no point at all in demanding better conditions, expecting normal dignified life or expending any efforts to better his surroundings and country. Whenever anybody points to a problem or one of the myriad of deficiencies, or suggests an improvement the “KRG” will immediately launch into all sorts of frightening stories about how the US the Turks or Iraqis would bomb us, strangle us and kill us and so on.
With a population so subdued and demoralized the two leaderships have been quietly milking all the financial, material resources and assets of the nation. After all if you object, “Dark Vader” is just round the corner and he will come and eat you up or put you in a melting pot full of chemicals.
Mr Salih as well as his KDP opposite numbers nevertheless brought the whole world down upon our heads when they fought over some land or shops or whatever (no one rightly knows). They created the biggest crevice among the Kurds, east, west, north and south causing the death of thousands of young people in the process. They have been and are working to make the division of Kurdistan permanent and to impose a de-facto second or third-class citizenship upon the entire Kurdish nation.
Today I heard Jalal Talabani, Salih’s boss and Guru stating that to make a success out of the Iraqi Opposition Conference “We are prepared to make great sacrifices”. That he is prepared to make sacrifices is true but those he usually sacrifices are the young and gullible Kurds who have no means of income other than the meager salaries he pays them to serve in his small army of protectors and bodyguards and the oppressed nation whom he has sold on many occasions just as his opposite number has decided to do lately.
“The most important things to us are the posts of President of the republic (so the next King and current prince Sharif Bin Ali will be appointed as “President”?), the Prime Minister and the Speaker of Parliament. One of those must be Kurdish!” He said rubbing his hands with glee. “And of course a few ministers as well”, he quickly added.
The two Kurdish tribal organizations have had twelve years to make something out of a small part of Kurdistan with guaranteed security and a huge income from the Oil-for-Food programme, and a totally pacified population but the outcome has been hardly anything worth mentioning for the people.
During their internal fights they killed more Kurds in battle than they had ever killed of the Iraqi army. And now that they have filled their pockets they can smell riches beyond their wildest dreams as Ministers in a corrupt, western-inspired government. Therefore it is, once again, time to bargain with the blood of the nation. Mr Salih states: “…fundamental political change in Iraq and by building on the democratic experiment that has taken root in Iraqi Kurdistan”. Unfortunately for him he will not find the Iraqi population so naïve or pacified that they would accept the Kurdish so called, ”democratic experiment”, in Baghdad. Most of the Kurdish “ministers” and “prime ministers” would find it hard to last long, even as middle managers, adopting the same sort of attitudes and practices there as they have done in Kurdistan.
Mr Salih then goes on to completely ignore the facts of the matter and claims that: “The reason for the cycle of instability and violence is that the British-created state of Iraq was based almost exclusively on the Sunni Arab minority”. With this simplistic statement he attributes the entire problem of instability in Iraq to just one thing: The British basing the creation of Iraq on the Sunni Arab minority. This demonstrates a lack of judgment and ignorance of the real historical facts. Had Mr Salih been interested in the truth and refrained from making propaganda for their unbelievable deception, an art which, he and his party as well as their opposite numbers on the KDP, have used and perfected against their people, he would not have made such a statement. The British did not choose the Sunnis to run Iraq but it was the other way round. By that I mean it was the British who were approached by the Sunni Sharif Hussein of Mecca to sign up and assist them to fight the remnants of the Ottomans.
And as part of the rewards the British agreed to create States and appoint Hussein’s sons in power in those states as local monarchs. A descendent of whom, one Sharif Ali bnil Hussein is, as I right, being groomed to be placed on Iraq’s new throne, with Mr Salih’s full support and blessing. At first Faisal the First was rejected by the Syrians and he was transferred to the newly created Iraq from the newly created Syria and Prince Abdullah was appointed as King of Jordan. The Shi’a as well as the Sunnis were involved in these processes right through and were given important posts and had a great deal of influence in Iraq until the Ba’ath came to power. Many of the important ministerial and other posts were given to the Shi’a and indeed several such posts were given to the Kurds too.
Furthermore, the British made sure that with Iraq’s application to join the League of Nations, assurances were given by the “Democratic” “Pluralist” Government of the time that they would give special consideration to Kurdish national and cultural needs. Iraq was also made into three main Governorates, Mosul, Baghdad and Basra, each with a Governor wielding a lot of power with his own administration, funding, police and educational department as well as others. Each Governorate also had its own Municipal councils. There were two chambers just as in the U.K, and democratic freedoms way beyond that of any system in any other Arab country apart from Jordan. For a long time Iraq was divided into 14 Governorates and it remained so until the Kingdom was abolished and now of course we have 18. Mr Salih is therefore wrong to reason that Iraq was a centralized Sunni country which was the reason for instability.
What I am getting at is that despite the fact that the PUK and KDP are mistakenly talking about a future democratic Iraq, Iraq has in fact already been through this “innovative” new system and there is absolutely no guarantee that this time, after all the bloodshed, animosities and the brutalization caused by all that, things would be any better.
From this we also see that it was hardly the British who divided the Arab world but rather it was this business of “a State for each of my sons” which, led to the creation of several states more than were in existence, already. As it turned out, the existence of so many states has given the Arabs a very powerful voice in the UN and in many other international organizations. They have recently woken up to the potential of having all those voices and votes and are using them rather effectively.
But if you wish to have more proof of Salih's misunderstanding of history and its lessons, then look at the following statement:
“At the 1921 Cairo Conference that annexed the Kurdish north to the Sunni Arab center and Shiite Arab south of the country, …”
Note first of all the use of the words “Kurdish north”. Mr Salih could only be referring to the north of Iraq. But if Kurdistan was already the “north of Iraq” how could and why would the 1921 Cairo Conference” annex it to the Sunni centre, etc…?” And if it was annexed to the “South of the country” then what is the problem? Surely North of one country should always be linked to its centre and south, shouldn’t it?
He states further: “Winston Churchill warned that Iraq would be governed by violence. He wrote that a future Arab ruler "with the power of an Arab army behind him . . . would ignore Kurdish sentiment and oppress the Kurdish minority." So, Mr Salih believes that Winston Churchill was right to predict the above event. But since Churchill was generalizing about the Arab Ruler and could not have been aware of what Saddam was going to do in the distant future he must have been laying down a general principle which is this: “future Arab ruler "with the power of an Arab army behind him . . . would ignore Kurdish sentiment and oppress the Kurdish minority”. But Salih is at the forefronts of accepting that an Arab Ruler, should “with the power of an Arab army behind him” govern Iraq. One such ruler could be Sharif Ali bnil Hussein or Ra’ad bin Zaid or Ahmad Challabi, or, or,... and so on. And since the Army of Iraq would also be 80% Arab and therefore Arab for all intents and purposes Churchill’s assertion is a sure prophesy. So does Salih realize what he is leading the Kurds into once again or is he simply showing off the width and depth of his historic knowledge?
But the next statement tries to lead us to think that Kurdistan has been turned into a technological and scientific haven for talented Kurds who are putting their talents to good use because they have an abundance of opportunity. The impression is that Kurdistan is a hive of activity to build and develop the living conditions.
He states: “As the Kurds have shown, Iraqis can put their talents to good use if given the opportunity”
If anything, the KRGs of Erbil and Slêmanî have choked all Kurdish talent except that which specializes in praising, serving and making tea for the leadership. I would like to refer my readers to my last few articles in which I have listed the deceptive nature of the KRGs “achievements”, particularly in the field of healthcare, development and the use of talent.
The boasting nature of our two “prime ministers” and their even less useful henchmen has no bounds. They do not even begin to understand what “development” and “reconstruction” means. The most they consider as development is building a few hotels for their many expensive guests or adorning the roads to their leaders millionaire mansions and headquarters at Sallaheddin and Qallachwalan with flowers or treas. Salih states: “For decades Iraqi Kurdistan was Iraq’s least-developed region, both socially and economically, and it was deliberately under-funded by Baghdad. Yet since the end of the Gulf War, Kurds have embarked on economic renewal and democratization from the most unfavorable of starting points”. In fact Kurdistan is much more backward today as a result of the lack of industry, proper advanced education, proper jobs, medical healthcare and the general everyday life conditions. The rebuilding of ruined houses and villages can only bring you back to the status-quo ante and cannot be considered as advances or development. But even in the field of electric power, gas services, housing, employment and sanitation, things are still far worse than they were before 1990. The difference is that today our conditions are so bad even with $7billion dollars in the bank.
Firstly, the Oil for Food programme and the protection afforded by the West for the Kurdish protectorate can hardly be called a “most unfavorable of starting points”. Secondly, the “economic renewal” which Salih is talking about has not even started except for people who are getting richer by the day such as the political elite like Mr Salih himself who have put on their own shoulders the responsibility of thinking on behalf of the entire nation. The leadership as I have said before, have indeed enjoyed gigantic leaps of personal fortune and financial rewards. The great masses of our young, however, are not using their talent or potential to serve the nation, thanks to the “rosy” conditions our “leaders” have provided them but instead are arriving in the West to become the fourth class of British and Western societies. The talented among them will succeed but no thanks to the behaviour of our KRGs. If they succeed it is only because they can really enjoy opportunities and freedom of choice in the West.
But if only the Kurds just lie down on their backs and let everyone walk over their bellies, and stop that nasty, awful “nationalism”, spit, spit, the neighbours would open their borders and arms and hold us to their bosom and Mr Salih would be able to get even more lovable in their eyes. However since he and the other Prime Minister have been such “extreme nationalists”, calling for a federal State, “Our neighbors, wary of Kurdish nationalism, closed our borders, imposing a crippling embargo”
Mr Salih gives a glowing account of the great media glut the KRGs have introduced into Kurdistan and boasts about rebuilding 4000 villages. Unfortunately for him many of us have not seen such a large number of villages rebuilt. The displaced people of Kirkuk (The Quds “Jerusalem” of Kurdistan as the PUK likes to call it or the heart of Kurdistan as the KDP likes to call it) are still homeless and have no proper work or income. They suffer extreme poverty and survive with the greatest difficulty before the very eyes of Mr Salih and the UN specialized agencies. All this at a time when the UN admits the existence of over $7billion in French banks ready to be used to rebuild Kurdistan. The PUK and KDP administrations were not even aware of the proper figures for the Oil-for-Food programme when I gave them my report. Yet Salih, taking credit for everything they have done as well as for a lot they have had no hand in, says:
“Against these odds, we have revived Iraqi Kurdistan”. It is rather odd that the thousands of the population of Kurdistan who had never thought of emigrating from a “dead” Kurdistan under a tyrant such as Saddam, throughout his reign, but the moment Mr Salih and Mr Nechirvan started “reviving” the country you will not find one young man who is not contemplating leaving Kurdistan at the earliest available opportunity.
Even after the recent accord signed by the chiefs of the two parties, people are still coming in their thousands to Britain claiming oppression by Saddam, by one or both of those parties or running away from Arabization, being press-ganged into armies and militias to fight fot Palestine, the "great" leader or other Arab causes. Not one of them has sought to escape to Mr Salih and Mr Nechirvan's paradise instead of heading to Europe We have read on Kurdishmedia about Kurdish journalists in the Diaspora being sentenced in Kurdistan for saying things one or the other of those administrations do not wish the people or the international community to know or hear about. They have been sentenced using old Saddamic laws still in effect in Kurdistan by our great westernized freedom-loving saviors.
But Mr Salih disagrees with the above. He states: “Protected by U.S. and British air power, we have created an environment of freedom unique in Iraqi history, in which Kurds, Turkomens, Assyrian Christians and Arabs enjoy cultural and political rights. My home city of Sulaimani alone has more than 130 media outlets, including 13 TV stations and dozens of newspapers -- as well as unrestricted access to the Internet and satellite TV”.
“Building freedom has not been easy. Conflict between the two major Kurdish parties stalled democratization and cost many innocent lives”
Let us appeal to Mr Salih to tell us why there would be such armed conflict between such freedom and democracy-loving political elite” in an “environment of freedom unique in Iraqi history?” and over what did they fight, costing many innocent lives?
The process of transition toward more accountable democratic institutions is hindered by resistance from traditional power structures and the threat of interference from our neighbors”, says Mr Salih. That then is the reason they fought such bloody battles and not over local power or the revenues from Ibrahim Khalil. But what are those “power structures” and why would our loveable non-nationalistic neighbours threaten democracy and federalism? And if they do, did we forsake independence needlessly and for nothing?
But such questions and
discrepancies do not stop Mr Salih from some more self-glorifying
congratulations. Listen to this: “But despite
this, Iraqi Kurdistan is a rare
and bright spot of freedom in the Islamic Middle East -- and offers
the potential for more”.
And here is a masterpiece of analytical thinking: In a desperate attempt to find reasons for “forsaking the dream of independence” Mr Salih cites the following:
“The hard task of reconstruction has taught us to forsake the dream of an independent Kurdistan”.
It is impossible to imagine that the task of reconstruction of one’s country would teach anyone to forsake the dream of independence of his oppressed and decimated homeland. At any rate, to my knowledge Mr Salih has never needed any reasons to forsake such dreams because he has never had them and has always advocated seeking “United Iraq”. He has always stated that he is an Iraqi first and talking of Kurdistan is extremism, even as far back as 1988 when I first met him. Reconstruction it seems consists of building some rather basic housing and schools and halfhearted attempts at establishing two universities. One must contrast these with the posh hotels and palatial buildings they have constructed for themselves.
“When Kurdish self-government began back in 1991, many believed it would lead to the dismemberment of Iraq. Instead, self-government taught the Kurds, especially their political elite, the severe limitations of nationalism”.
I do not know what audience Mr Salih is trying to address with such statements but he has published his article in the Washington Post and they have obliged. In this statement Salih is telling us that Self-government was expected by some to lead to the dismemberment of Iraq. So far so good! He then implies that this would be a bad thing. Then he suggests that the Political Elite (meaning people like him) was taught by “self-government” the “limitations of nationalism”. How Mr Salih can link self-government with learning that nationalism is limited is anyone’s guess but doesn’t it sound clever? All the time Mr Salih is giving us lessons about the evil of Kurdish aspirations of freedom, calling then “extremism”, “nationalism” or “separatism”. To him the Kurds would be practicing “nationalism” if they thought they, like hundreds of other nations, should seek independence. Instead they should realize that the elite have already thought about it and found it to be having strict limitations. Therefore if they have not already done so then they should forsake all dreams of it for ever.
“While most Kurds cherish their legitimate right to self-determination, they recognize that economic rehabilitation, education for their children and basic health care require political moderation. Independence might give us a Kurdish postage stamp, but it would mean a dire future as an isolated, shunned statelet in a landlocked corner of the Middle East”. So even with independence, Kurdistan will still be a Statelet (not a state) and it would be shunned and isolated, even though it would naturally be a member of the UN. I would like to challenge Mr Salih to name me one isolated, shunned landlocked independent state? I also challenge him to name one which has only managed to produce a postage stamp. Even Independent North Korea is not completely isolated or shunned while Iraq which is not landlocked is not isolated completely but has blockaded ports.
And when 40 million Kurds who have harmed no one cherish their right to self-determination, are isolated and shunned, Mr Salih attributes that to their “nationalism” and not to that of those who isolate and shun them, and that is, therefore, the root cause and it is best that they forsake the dream”.
And here is the alternative: “The Kurds can for the first time be full Iraqi citizens, catalysts for democratic transformation”. Just in what way were they not full Iraqi citizens during the Kingdom or before the KDP started to entice them into revolting for the dream of independence Mr Salih does not tell us. And if as he tells us Iraq was ruled by a minority Sunni government and the Shi’a consisting of more than 60% of the population were oppressed before the Gulf Wars then why did they not, like the Kurds, rise up in arms and usurp power? The fact is the Shi’a became undesirable only as a result of the Iran-Iraq war and not before. The Kurds, likewise only became undesirable because the KDP and later the PUK enticed them to revolt dangling the “impossible dream” before them and telling them that they should sacrifice their lives for the noble cause. Then, they were not lectured by the elite to tell them of the limitations of nationalism. Now that the leaders have tasted the riches and power, they want the nation to forsake all their rights and become catalysts for good Iraqi citizenship.
“Most Iraqi opposition movements have endorsed a vision of a federal democratic Iraq. Federalism is vital. Devolving political and economic power, sharing Iraq’s vast potential fairly among its people, will preclude the possibility of another centralized tyranny gripping the Iraqi state and its oil revenues”. Once again, Mr Salih makes unintelligible statements. Why is federalism vital, when it does not solve the question of proportionality? How can he for example assert that sharing Iraq’s vast potential fairly among its people, will preclude the possibility of another centralized tyranny gripping the Iraqi state and its oil revenues? We had the vivid example of Yugoslavia where a federal state existed far more advanced than any the group of people meeting this weekend in London will ever manage, and yet we saw what happened. Then there is the example of the Soviet Union, India with Kashmir and the atrocities being perpetrated between Muslims, Hindu and Sikh. All three examples prove Mr Salih is the one dreaming.
”For too long the Kurds have been seen as a threat to Iraq’s unity. Yet now we Kurds are championing a federal, pluralist democratic Iraq that cannot again brutalize its citizens and threaten its neighbors”.
Mr Salih is the Prime Minister of a part of a US and British protectorate. He of all people should know that the Turks, Arabs and Persians have not only been the threat to Kurdistan but actively attacking her and her people. What other Prime Minister of what other nation has ever uttered words like those of our “Prime Minister”? Every time Mr Salih, his big boss or those on the other side have spoken they have shown concern for and defended the enemies of the Kurds. The article Mr Salih has published in the Washington Post is ample proof of this fact and a concentrated attack on his own people’s legitimate rights. It is an admission of complete and utter failure by someone who is supposed to put his nation and homeland first but has always worked against the aspirations of his people. It is a leaflet advertising the sale of his own nation and homeland and an appeal for their tormentors and oppressors to buy.
His final conclusions is further proof that all he is concerned about is to save his beloved Iraqi state and damn the consequences.
“The final irony may be that the Kurds, the perennial victims of the Iraqi state, will turn out to be its savior”. The Kurds are indeed unfortunate to have such leaders.
15th.
December 2002
The
Kurds will be the greatest losers in a regime change in Iraq said the British
Channel 4 Newscaster.
For
years I have advised the Kurdish “leaders” on the pages of Kurdishmedia and
in person, to concentrate all efforts on strengthening the current De-facto
Kurdish state and to do nothing that might lead to return us back to being an
appendage of some other nation but my calls have fallen on deaf ears. I have
called for coexistence among the two Kurdish parties, rather than a merger into
one monolith, which contains the seeds of its own destruction. I advocated
reaching out to the Kurdish people and investing in our youth, our
intellectuals, scientists and technologists; concentrating on solving our
everyday and chronic problems and the establishment of a proper industrial
infrastructure. I have always encouraged the establishment of strong and
well-developed diplomatic ties with the outside world, paying great attention to
evolving the KRG representations into “embassies” in all but name. In short,
I have argued that: We have a golden opportunity to prove to the world that we
are a nation and we should invest all our efforts into doing so.
We
are in no way obliged to get involved in the US and British plans for Iraq
unless we receive solid written assurances from them for achieving a better
state of affairs for our oppressed nation than we currently have. Time after
time I argued that the possibility of success of any re-linkage into any form of
Iraq being a solution to our predicament is minute stating that in the absence
of a fully recognised Kurdish State, we do, at present,
actually have the best possible solution. We should therefore maintain and
strengthen it by redoubling our efforts to make it permanent. But our
inexperienced and incompetent leaders did not listen and will not listen because
they are deaf and blind to the people’s needs and concerns, think they are
beneath them and take them completely for granted. Their psychological makeup is
designed to worship the non-Kurd and trust only the foreigner.
After
a great deal of pressure from the people which they totally ignored for several
years, it was only when the Americans put their foot down that the Kurdish
leaders managed to agree “friendship protocols” between them, but have in
the past taken, and continue to take the entire nation for granted. They are
offering us a leadership, which is tribal and irrelevant. It is irrelevant
because things could not be any worse without them when the country is run by
the Arab-controlled UN agencies (working in Kurdistan) and when the area is
protected by the American and British forces. The incompetence of the Kurdish
administration is a great scandal. The fifteen or so ministries each party has
set up within their patches are similar to “income-support” centres where
employees and staff sign on, everyday, to receive their monthly “salaries”.
At most they carry out a minimal role in the Oil-for-Food programme, which is
that of suggestion-panels to submit requests, mostly lists of things to the UN
agencies and the latter in turn decide which items they would or would not
implement.
Once
the UN agencies decide they also slowly execute those relatively insignificant
projects, using their own or external contractors they need to engage, most of
whom, come from Turkey, Iraq or other Arab countries with the result that very
little expertise is developed or kept in Kurdistan and hardly any infrastructure
of any value remains behind after implementation. It is long known that the UN,
in connivance with the Iraqis, will not allow any training or capacity
development, deliberately to prevent the Kurds from learning any new skills or
technologies or the ability to look after themselves, in case they succeed in
managing their own affairs. Our Kurdish administrations know this because I as
well as others have made sure they are fully aware of this evil policy.
Nevertheless they have failed to take any appropriate action.
The
role of the political parties is therefore that of a police force to make sure
the people do not take power or decide to take matters into their own hands.
Naturally the West through the UN has been using a tiny proportion of the money
from oil to feed the masses but that is the extent of it. Like grazing animals
they have been keeping them alive for the next “market-day” and slaughter
because without the means of defending themselves against external dangers, or
withstanding any tight situation imposed upon them by external forces, the Kurds
will immediately lose all protection as soon as the US and British planes leave
Injerlik, their resistance will collapse and they become an easy prey for
anyone.
Our
young people are sent to school or to useless “Universities” to graduate and
then the nation will lose them to the queues of social security Britain and the
West inventing any ridiculous story to ask for “Asylum”. That is why most
young people are voting with their feet and leaving Kurdistan as soon as they
are able to, saving themselves four or more boring years in the information,
expertise and equipment-starved universities. They come here with unashamed
stories of signing up as “Arabs”, Saddam’s Feddaiyin or AlQuds Army. A
whole huge army of our young are seeking the Diaspora at any price just to
escape from the hell our “Leaders” have created in our homeland, but Mr Sami
Abdul Rahman still wants the “West” and everyone to believe, that he and his
government, are doing so well that we should applaud their “great”
achievements. The vast majority of the people do not believe them and the fact
that the number of young people from the “Autonomous Kurdish Area” leaving
the country is greatly increasing with time, instead of coming to an end is
solid proof.
In
a recent lecture to KSMA members, a British surgeon recently back from a visit
to Kurdistan said that when asked, 90% of the students of the college of
medicine in Slêmanî University said they will emigrate to the west as soon as
they completed their studies. One guy claimed he had only joined the medical
college in order to go to Manchester, England and pursue his beloved sport of
football. Such is the terrible conditions and demoralisation after twelve years
of “freedom” that hardly anyone wants to remain in Kurdistan to serve her.
Such is the capitulating apathy that our young cannot be bothered to even try to
improve the situation for the people of Kurdistan while in the sixties and
seventies many young men and women joined the “great” fight to become free
and independent when Saddam was ruling all of south Kurdistan.
Today
these would-be intellectuals, technologists and scientists have been so
demoralised, sidestepped and ignored that if they wanted to change matters, they
would have to take to the mountains again and fight their own “Kurdish”
leaders to impress upon them their disagreement with their policies, displeasure
and opposition, and that is something they do not wish to do because they would
be fighting their own flesh and blood. Thus the leaders of the two parties quite
falsely claim that what they are trying to lumber the nation with is what
everyone wants. I found very little faith in the leaderships of the two parties
by the majority of people I met with in Kurdistan on both occasions I visited
during the past two years. I found no one outside the small circle of party
officials and their immediate subordinates who expressed any trust in them. At
best they were apathetic, quite depressed and hopeless.
And
so with the lack of a real opposition and real freedom, people like Sami Abdul-Rahman
can claim that all is rosy and wonderful and there would be no one to prove him
wrong. Without any doubt, the money-grabbing “administrators” have developed
their out great fortunes while the rest of the population only now, after twelve
years have some electricity returned to them as Mr Rahman admits. Their
incompetence has reached such proportions that they have agreed to allow the
Iraqi authorities to build a large power-supply station in Dibis (under Iraqi
control) paid for from the Kurdish portion of the Oil-for-Food programme to feed
Kurdistan with electricity. However the station will become the property of the
Iraqis and under their full control but paid for with Kurdish money. This of
course will also deprive the Kurds of any training and expertise development but
such damaging deals do not worry our leaders because they can fill their pockets
with a little more cash in the wheeler-dealer contracts, which they will get a
portion of. This is the sort of projects, which Mr Rahman is boasting about in
his one and only article on Kurdishmedia.
The
two parties who suddenly found a free and independent De-Facto state dropped
into their laps by pure chance, plenty of money and great opportunities which
they have been thoroughly milking for themselves for the past twelve years, have
decided to turn completely, 180 degrees, and start driving the nation back into
bondage and slavery in the knowledge that the people will not rise against them,
and since there is no other way with the press all being owned and run by those
controlling them, there is simply no means of voicing one’s concerns or
opposition to their plans.
The
pathetic group of Iraqi individuals after power and high positions in any future
Iraqi government who sat with the Kurdish warlords in the London hall which they
were allowed to use after the refusal of most European countries to grant them
visas were not a match even for the participants on the Afghan Loya Jirga, who
at least had some tribal support and never before worked for the Taliban or
received large amounts of cash from them or played the role of Jash as most of
this lot had been at one time or another. Nearly everyone of the so called
“opposition” including the Kurds, have or have had one leg in Baghdad or
Tehran or Ankara and another in Washington or London. They are constantly
looking for a higher bid to grab and get out of the equation. In fact they have
only become opposition pals as a result of their visits to these capitals and
not as a result of any proper or effective opposition campaign or activity in
Iraq.
Everyone
who has the interests of the Kurds at heart has reminded and would remind them
of the criminally stupid mistakes of the distant Kurdish past, prominent among
which would be the infamous deal made between Idris of Bitlis and the Ottoman
Sultan, Salim the first who, having witnessed the strength of the Kurds in
fighting Shah Ismail of Iran at Chaldiran, lured them and their 42 independent
principalities into joining the empire and pretty soon he made sure that not one
of them survived and thus he was able to make them part and parcel of the
empire. To this day we have been suffering the consequences of his foul act
while Idris the Cursed received his measly rewards.
Some
readers may wonder why I am so pessimistic and critical when two years ago I was
encouraging my peers to go back to Kurdistan and serve under the current
leadership. At the time I was facing a great deal of criticism for trusting in
this leadership by people who could not forget their past behaviour or bury the
hatchet. My attitude was the result of an invitation to help by
Nechirvan Barzani and my own desire to give them another chance to prove their
genuine wish to serve the people. As a scientist I cannot accept anything
without proof. So my strategy was to confront the KRG with the stark choice of
allowing people like me to serve the nation as best we could or prove once and
for all that they are not interested in anyone but themselves. Sadly they
selected the second choice and proved everyone who has criticised them and
condemned them, right. Therefore, I wish everyone who is not simply after his
own enrichment, and is prepared to keep his mouth shut under all circumstances
to think twice before trusting this KRG. It is now clear the only way to serve
the people is via a regime change and proper freedom and liberty in Kurdistan.
Today
Massoud and Jalal are well on the way to selling Kurdistan again just after the
great opportunity which presented itself to our nation for the first time in
five centuries as if there is a nasty bug in their blood which they cannot bear
and the only way for them to rest in peace is to hand their nation to the
invaders and their lackeys. Since Idris of Bitlis and his infamous deal in 1514
every Kurd has been cursing him and very few have anytime for Sallaheddin
either. History will inevitably treat today’s “Idris of Bitlis” in the
same way for ever.
On
the BBC2 Newsnight programme, Jalal Talabani was quizzed about the Kurdish
demands and his reply was:
“There
are three things most important for us: The posts of President, Prime Minister
and Speaker of Parliament. One of those has to be Kurdish. Of course some
Ministerial posts also have to be Kurdish”. If you analyse this scandalous
statement you will find the true nature of these “leaders” after only one
thing; posts for themselves.
He
also stated that “they” may be protected if they did as they were told. In
both statements there was nothing of interest as far as the Kurdish nation is
concerned, as it has no power to behave in anyway under the rule of these tribal
warlords. “They will protect us if we do as they say”, he claimed,
undoubtedly meaning himself, his party’s lords and those of the other party.
Everyone knows that in a tight situation the leaders are the first to lead in
the fleeing process. “They will not leave us”, he was happy to report. The
pathetic promises he announced betrayed the decades of oppression and Genocide
the Kurds have suffered, which our tribal warlords have been actively pushing
under the rug of history.
I
have read with great consternation what Ms Karen Dabrowska has been writing
concerning Iraq and Saddam. Throughout her articles she has been portraying a
picture of Saddam and Iraq which is far from the truth and, sometimes, insulting
to our intelligence. I have copied her last two articles and will demonstrate my
reasons for saying this using her own words.
In
her article on “Tourism: Stark reality and timeless beauty”, she talks of the
“historic” relics of Mesopotamia as if they belong to the current Arab
inhabitants of the region and in particular to the Saddam regime. She mixes her
facts with many a falsehood and tries to present a romantic and glowing picture
which she then partially destroys in further statements or in her second article
“Made
in America government: new dawn or breakfast in hell?” and
leaves many details and facts out to promote her ideas about Iraq, its short
history, its unstable and conflict-ridden, violent society, at war with itself
ever since its inception in 1921. Not once does she point to the fact that it is
the British design
of this Frankenstein-like creation, putting three different incompatible peoples
together by force, under the rule of the minority, which is the main source of
trouble - instead she puts all the blame simply on the leadership
which the British chose for the composite State.
The
propaganda value of the part of her article about the visit by the misty-eyed
tourist, Rachel Cornell is milked to its extreme to give a sense of “beauty”
and romanticism to the pile of rubble found in the spot where it is said Sumer
had once stood. She talks of Babylon and other places as if you would be
visiting creations which will strike you with awe and wonderment. The truth is
far from that and in the cases of both Sumer and Babylon you would see, in the
British, French and German museums, more interesting things. This fantastically
simplistic treatment of history and the major and complex problems in a country
such as Iraq is obviously designed to raise the tourist value of 21st.
century Iraq, groaning under the rule of tyranny by linking it with ancient
Mesopotamian history, is a great injustice to the true descendents of those
civilizations, to the very invaders who came from the south and elsewhere such
as the Mongols and Tatars and Arabia to destroy and replace those civilizations,
killed every last man, woman and child and ruined their thriving cities and
culture.
Dabrowska
is therefore praising today’s inhabitants of Iraq for civilizations which they
razed to the ground because their new religion entitled them to invade and loot
everything which existed in the land before they arrived or because their
Bedouin and nomadic cultures knew nothing else but conquest and hegemony. What
is more, this fact is still true today and Dabrowska herself points to the way
Saddam has reduced “the descendents of the Sumerians down to a handful and
destroyed their way of life”, although avoiding any mention of his Genocide or
oppression of the Kurds whose internet media she has been using to freely
express herself.
In
her first article she says: “Rachel
recalls haunting, arid, dusty, decaying archaeological sites, ziggurats and the
amazing feeling of walking around a city that is 5,000 years old”. This
is the kind of falsehood which is easily seen for what it is because there is
nothing apart from what Saddam has fabricated in recent years to present as his
vision of Sumer and Babylon and the feeling of walking in a city 5,000 years old
is far fetched and contrived. In fact until the British arrived in Mesopotamia,
these same Ziggurats were non-distinct piles of rubble which the people she is
now attributing them to had no idea what they were and even if they did they
treated them as relics of old civilizations which they had helped turn into that
rubble. Just as the civilization of ancient Egypt had been forgotten by those
who came to Egypt around the dawn of Islam and its counterpart in Nineveh in
Kurdistan were discovered by western missionaries only in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, and now Saddam and Mubarak of Egypt are modeling
themselves on their Kings and pharaohs. Thus, much of Dabrowska’s articles
could not have been better written by the Iraqi Propaganda Ministry if they
tried.
In
fact she kindly tells the international readers all about the companies and
people who run tours to Iraq, presumably free of charge and very cleverly uses Kurdishmedia
and the Kurds to carry the advertisements for Saddam.
She then mentions a few names of Sumerian cities which only exist in tablets
found in Ur that anyone who has read a book written by the Christian
archeologists on the subject looking for evidence of biblical places, events and
prophets, could find, to show that she knows something about Iraq and the
ancient history of “Iraq”.
”According to Sumerian
legends, Eridu was one of the
five cities built before the Great Flood. Its exact origins are lost in the
mists of antiquity but it could
be one of the most ancient settled places on earth”. Even so,
apparently, Ms Cornell couldn’t stand
any more of Iraq’s ancient history to the extent that she said:
“I was very relieved when both the minders and the driver decided there was no
way we were going to this place and we whizzed off to Basrah”.
The next plug statement is worthy of the TV programme “Wish you were here”.
“In Iraq the timeless
beauty of the past is constantly shattered by the stark reality of the
present. In Basrah and Baghdad air raid sirens reminded both tourists and locals
alike that a devastating war may not be far away. Dinner on the last night of
the tour consisted of mazgouf, Baghdad’s famous fish dish cooked over a
charcoal fire with peppers, spices, onions and tomatoes. Then came a boat trip
on the Tigris, under the full moon. “There was music playing – that sort of
yearning Arab music. I will remember that”, says Rachel suggesting she would
rather be back there now”. Dabrowska
adds some hints to those who have not yet had the pleasure of visiting
Saddam’s Iraq, giving the names of tour operators specializing in Iraq.
“Tourists – the editors of consumer magazines, a London mailman, an airport
worker, a retired banker and a gynaecologist - were among the clientele of British-based
“name withheld” Travel and “name withheld” Limited, the two
companies who take tourists to Iraq”.
She even supplies contact names: “Veteran overland tour operator
“Joe Bloggs” has made seven trips to the country since the Gulf War. “Fred
Kilroy” of “name withheld” Limited”, etc… I have not repeated the
names of the tour companies as I do not wish to further the aims of this blatant
advertisement. Joe Bloggs and Fred Kilroy are used in place of the names of the real contact
names, kindly supplied by Dabrowska.
The following assertion however is quite amazing. While Dabrowska
is plugging her tours to Saddam’s Iraq, she states:
”In Iraq the line between politics and tourism is always blurred.
This is an admittance that her efforts are very thinly separated from
politics”. One can only deduce from her favourable reviews of Iraq and her
descriptions of Saddam, the Great Tiger, that she is conveying a strong
political message herself. Just why she felt it appropriate to do so and
advertise Iraqi tourism on Kurdishmedia one must wonder. But, wait a moment; she
has not finished the ad yet.
“In Baghdad’s five-star Al Rashid hotel visitors are forced to
walk over the Bush senior ‘war criminal’ mosaic. But the tourism directorate
is getting a little public relations conscious and allows hotels to keep foreign
currency earnings so they can spruce themselves up. The country’s 300 or so
private tourist agencies who handle up to a fifth of the trade say business was
getting better – until the recent talk of war caused numbers to fall”. Then
the most controversial statement of all:
"Iraq
is a jewel in the crown of Middle Eastern tourist destinations. Its
ancient archaeological sites include Ctesiphon the world’s largest single-span
brick arch from the 3rd century BC, Babylon, Ur, ziggurats and ruins at their
best in Borsippa the place of worship of Nabu, son of the great Babylonian god,
Marduk. Seen at dusk they resemble a science-fiction landscape”.
Could anyone have any doubt about the advertising nature of
Dabrowska’s article on behalf of Iraqi tourist industry anymore? Would it be
over the top to expect that an invitation to meet the great Tiger is on its way?
Then a candid
admission of the nature of Baghdad and its inhabitants: ”The story of Baghdad,
the legendary city of the thousand and one nights has largely been one of
continuous war, pestilence, famine and civil disturbance”. If you collect all
the violent and aggressive periods of Baghdad and the Arab parts of Iraq you
will end up with a most horrific register of wars and mayhem ranging from
Sumerian times when their cities were attacked by the Akadians, the olther
highly civilized people in the middle and south of Iraq, going through the
Mongol and Turkish invasions, and
passing by the bloody British mandate period, the murders of 1958 to get rid of
any semblance of “democracy” and civil society, the 33 years of Ba’ath and
Saddam’s bloodiest rule, the chemical genocide against the Kurds and the Anfal.
Here is a statement which is probably lifted out of the
Ba’ath party manual:
“The Iraqi people are like a necklace where the threat of
nationality unites a variety of unique and colourful beads: the Arabs, Kurds,
Mandeans, Turcomans, Armenians, Assyrians and Yezedis”.
So, according to Dabrowska, the Yezedis are not Kurds”. And
what does she mean by the “Threat” of nationality? I think she means a
“thread” but the Freudian “spelling” slip is more accurate in my
opinion.
Yet, Dabrowska, is quite certain that if only the British had
not appointed King Faisal, tried to bring their own flavour of civilization and
if only the Americans leave the nice Iraqi people alone, there would be nothing
but peace and a beautiful necklace with the many nations living on that haven of
civilization in tranquil bliss, building many more jewels of history such as the
Sumerian Zigurrats and the Lion of Babel.
Dabrowska continues in the same vain by misinterpreting even
the name “Baghdad. This is what she has to say: “Such is the paradox cynical
history has written across the high aims implied in the name “the city
of peace “bestowed upon her by her founder, Abu Ja’far Al-Mansour”. In
fact the name “Baghdad” does not mean the City of Peace but the Garden of Justice and the
name is an Iranian (and Kurdish) one. As anyone familiar with Mesopotamian
history will tell you the Abbasid dynasty owed a great deal of its splendor to
Persian and Iranian cultures.
The rest of the article is also full of possible advertising
and propaganda material for the Iraqi tourism industry and contributes nothing
to Kurdish intellectual knowledge for which Kurdishmedia was originally
established.
The conflict between Dabrowska’s tourism article and the
one about the “Made in America solution” is irresolvable, particularly when
you consider the following statement.
“In the south, tragic
events in the early history of Islam led to the construction of
magnificent shrines in the desert cities of Najaf and Kerbala. Every year
thousands of pilgrims flock to these sites of Islamic splendour, where a tragic
massacre that occurred some 14 centuries ago led to the Sunni-Shia divide in the
Islamic religion”. She talks of a “tragic” massacre when in fact the
period of 14 centuries she is talking about has been full of such massacres
“Iraqi Kurdistan in the north is the place for magnificent
scenery, sometimes wooded and watered by turbulent streams,
sometimes gaunt and bare, but always dramatic and often awesome”. Thus,
Kurdistan is no more than a “nice” place. No, history and no culture and
perhaps no people as well.
And she finishes her masterpiece with this unbelievable
generalization about the Iraqi people as if Ms Cornell had met each and everyone
of them and not simply a group ordered and instructed to treat tourists politely
and well:
“They were very perfectly nice to me on the whole and to all of
us. I found that very moving”, Rachel says in a voice that suggests she has fallen
in love with the country. “The Iraqi people are very dignified,
resigned to their fate – they have seen it all before, bombing, sanctions,
suffering, repression. I really admire them. Another thing which came as a very
nice surprise is their charming sense of humour. They see the funny side of life
despite their circumstances. Despite the poverty, the uncertainty of life,
having to keep their mouths shut, that sense of humour is still in place”.
And as if all the above is not enough, Dabrowska, talking of
Cornell makes the following outrageous assertions, full of Ba’athist
propaganda ideas:
”She is adamant an American invasion would have tragic
consequences not just for Iraq but the whole of the Middle East. Perhaps there
will even be a whole scale slaughter when a cornered dictator uses
his chemical weapons against his own people and sets the oil fields on
fire”.
This statement is a well-worn one used by some Europeans which they
insult the Kurds with and is the most atrocious justification for what Saddam
did to our nation or could do if attacked. Kurdishmedia should take care to
check such statements on its pages. We must be very naive to tolerate such clear
propagandist for Saddam and his vile regime and publish such material which
insult us and justify the massacre of our people in this simplistic and naive
way.
These are the final lines of the piece which Ms Dabroswka has been
kind enough to graze our eyes with.
“Saddam is like a tiger. When you have an extremely large tiger in a
cage and the cage is getting smaller you
don’t go and bang a stick near it unless you want your head bitten off.
What Bush is doing is rattling his stick on the cage bars. I don’t know what
the solution is but I know its not an American or British combined force
invasion. They will not get Saddam. He has not been seen in public for four
years – he has at least seven doubles”.
And here is a statement which clearly attempts a link between
Saddam and his fascist vision of the world and the ancient history of
Mesopotamia, courtesy of Ms Dabrowska:
”Like many of the tourists who visit a country which may soon
never be the same again, Saddam stands in awe of its cultural heritage even though he does not hesitate
to destroy it if it stands in the way of his political ambitions. “We
will fight them [the Americans] with the reeds of the marshes”, he
said in a recent speech. “The
Iraqi dictator was referring to the watery haven of the Marsh
Arabs which he drained. Like their Sumerian ancestors the Marsh Arabs
built cathedral-shaped reed houses and bitumen-covered boats and caught fish
using spears. The scientific evidence Dabrowska has used to prove that is the
“similarity” between Cathedral shaped of reed houses and mud brick – built
Ziggurats. Is that not amazing?
Tragically
the Iraqi government’s extensive
drainage project has reduced the marshlands from their original 15,000
– 20,999 km to less than 1,500 – 2,000km in an attempt to destroy a historic
place of refuge of the regime’s opponents. Around one-fifth of the estimated
half-million Marsh Arabs are now living in refugee camps in Iran, while the rest
are internally displaced within Iraq.
So “Sumerian” hero Saddam is destroying the great Sumerian
(sorry Arab) descendents marshes”, while non-Sumerian Iran offers them refuge,
Tragically!
The final pillar of wisdom is: “Who should have the last word on Iraq’s
future? Perhaps Gavin Young, author of the classic work Iraq: Land of Two
Rivers?”
”Whatever happens, the rivers – the life-giving rivers for
which Abraham, Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib. Alexander the Great, Harun Al Rahid
and a billion other dwellers in Mesopotamia must have raised thanks to their
gods, will continue to give life to other generations”.
Everyone with average intelligence and as much knowledge of the
area knows it is Kurdistan which is the land of the two rivers but Dabrowska’s
article is not about telling the truth. She merely wants to tell us about the
“beauty of Arab Iraq, in case us Kurds do not know how wonderful it is to
belong to such a great civilized nation–(note there is no mention of any Kurds
- just kings and “holy” persons claimed by the Arabs as their ancestors).
The Kurds simply do not exist on this planet.
The
first time I saw pictures of Siamese Twins I was absolutely amazed and
couldn’t believe my eyes. As a child, the old lady who helped my mother, to
look after me and my youngest sister, used to tell me some fantastic stories, no
less so than the best Star Wars or Horror films of today. She was just a
mullah’s wife whose husband had been struck down with paralysis and lost the
use of both legs at an early stage of his life. Now, he was running a small shop
in the district of Sabînkeran of my
birthplace, the city of Slêmanî.
Sometimes she took me to the shop on a visit and to clean up his living quarters
which was also part of the shop and to cook him a long-awaited and very much
appreciated meal. Apart from my family I loved Melajin
(Kurdish for Mullah’s Wife) more than anyone in the world. My family however
believed that I loved her even more than I loved them.
Melajin’s
disabled husband had become a diminutive twisted figure with his legs
permanently locked underneath him in a figure of four. He moved about, using his
hands in a way which did not betray the fact that he had lost the use of both
his legs completely. It was surreal and very scary for a child of only four or
five, such as me. But it was also very clear to me that he had a strong spirit
which kept him going and his agility was nothing short of wonderful to watch. I
was in fact witnessing the great undying spirit of the suffering Kurd, as I came
to respect and take pride in, and which at a later day I was, sadly, to witness
its demise at the hands of the Arab rulers of my homeland but even more so with
the connivance of their Kurdish collaborators.
The
stories Melajin told me in the
dark to help me go to sleep ranged from historic events about the Napoleonic
wars and the numerous Russian invasions of Kurdistan to fictitious stories about
monsters and angels depicting the triumph of good over evil or vice versa. In
those days the cold penetrated your bones in winter and with darkness falling
early, people used to light up their homes using the DC generators which had
been recently brought to Slêmanî
for the first time ever. I remember we had one light bulb which lit the
courtyard and part of our sitting room. People with electricity were as proud of
their new electric bulbs as children are of their mobile phones or DVD players
today. DC lights had a strange habit of flickering and sudden fading. Sometimes
they came back up but often stayed down plunging everyone in complete darkness.
Another of their nasty habits was a shock which would dry you up to death and
wouldn’t release you until someone switched it off.
When
I was awarded my scholarship to come to Britain, I left Melajin
with a heavy heart, not imagining that she would pass away within the first
three years of my residence in the UK. To me she was indestructible. Doctors
estimated her age to be passed the 100 year stage; as old as 120 perhaps, some
estimated. As a child and in my early teens I found her my guardian angel
whenever I needed help against groups of other children with whom I had
quarrels. When chased by too many of them I would run back towards the house
always to find her, a big dry palm tree branch in her hand with which she would
chase them, back away towards the end of the street. None would dare challenge
her and none would be spared her whip should they have done.
She
was a lovely old lady who looked beautiful even at that advanced age. But as a
child I would not sleep until she put her kind arms around me and told me a
story. I remember many of her stories even today, but the ones that made me
think very hard were those describing single-eyed or two-headed men or such
“monsters”. According to Melajin
this was always a sign of bad deeds, dishonesty or deceptive behaviour somewhere
in the “monster’s” life history.
The
existence of such a “monster” as a two-headed person seemed impossible to me
until I saw pictures of Siamese Twins and realised that such a person could be
mistaken for such a creature. It was in the last century, however, that the
first separation of Siamese twins took place. Undoubtedly the operation is most
dangerous and very serious for the lives of the twins. To make matters worse not
all such twins can be separated easily or at all into normal or near-normal
human-beings. Some are joined in such a way that when separated would have only
half a body each. Some actually share vital organs which may have to be divided
to ensure the survival of both.
But
the most difficult case is that of twins who have a single heart or have
disproportionate organs such that one may have a near normal brain or heart
while the other would only have dummy or pseudo organs, quite useless to keep
the owning twin alive after separation. The decision to operate or not is,
therefore, the most agonising any parents could face. It is even tougher for
those whose religious conviction would not allow them to do anything which might
endanger life, let alone the life of their own children. But for a Cypriot
family who had been “blessed” with such twins, that was the exact decision
they had to make, sacrificing the life of one of their babies to allow the other
one to live free from its organic attachments to the other, less viable sibling.
Separation,
in such circumstances is a highly desirable and positive step which people take,
to be free even if it meant the discarding of the entity you are permanently
attached to. It is, therefore, quite natural to want freedom and independence as
I have shown above. People go through surgical and moral pain to achieve it but
they still want to because it is the only natural thing to do in such
situations.
Recently,
someone showed me an article describing a pair of Siamese Twins who had chosen
to stay in that condition until now; aged 27. The interesting thing is they have
finally decided to separate surgically and are, now, making plans to do so. It
seems they could no longer stand each other’s very close proximity.
So
if Siamese Twins born attached want to be detached and free then what would you
think if you found certain people who go around the globe asking people to
believe that it is natural and good for two healthy and separate people to go
through a never-had-been-tried-before operation to turn them into Siamese Twins,
sharing one heart, one pair of lungs, and all their internal organs? Even more
strange is if they were to suggest that one body should have 80% of the heart,
the lungs, the kidneys and everything else necessary for life while the other
should be happy with only 20%.
Those
who now want South Kurdistan to be made the lesser twin of Arab Iraq are asking
the nation and everyone else to believe that becoming a Siamese Pair is the most
logical and sound action the Kurds could take. Intelligent Kurds should see
through these attempts at selling the nation for personal or party gains. The
British created many such Siamese Twins as time-bombs. These creations have been
trying their best to undo the stitches with varying degrees of success. If they
had any sense the Kurdish leaders would not allow the British and American
planners to go over the broken sewing lines to re-tailor the old oppressive
state of Iraq with steel thread, in order to render any future separation
impossible.