11
February 2003
Children
often come across a situation of having to select an item from a list of four or
fewer items and often resort to a completely random selection method which they
have learnt from their parents as a simple and fair way to pick an item from the
list. The important thing however is that all four items must usually be of
equal importance, or otherwise, to the child. You would not apply this method,
for example, to items of considerable differences in value, usefulness or even
harm. Furthermore, changing the starting point will almost certainly determine
the final selection.
So,
the idea is, you start your rhyme pointing to the items at random and where you
stop you pick that item as your choice. An element of luck comes into this and
you may end up with a bad choice but more likely than not, your choice would
make no real difference to you if all items are of equal status or importance.
The
reason I have cited this rather childish method of selection is because we
occasionally get some Kurds trying to make a choice between the four States
occupying Kurdistan, trying to find reasons for preferring one over the others.
But it is not only the private Kurdish individuals who sometimes go wild over
the virtues of one or the evils of another occupying state. The “leaders”
are also often doing so. We will remember the famous claim a few months ago by
Mr Massoud Barzani when he clearly said that if Turkey attempts to take Kirkuk
or Mosul they - his faction - would turn the ground into a graveyard under their
feet.
A
couple of months later He ended up going to Turkey inviting them in and
accepting everything he was told. Needless to say no one understands why, such a
“patriotic” leader, should be so choosy, as to whether Saddam’s regime is
better and more trustworthy to take care of those oil-rich “Kurdistani”
cities than the Turks. After all eight hundred years of Ottoman rule kept them
Kurdish while 80 years of Arab rule has turned them into Arab and Turcoman
cities. The campaign of Anfal, Chemical Genocide and ethnic cleansing which has
been going on there are hardly good credentials for Arab Iraq to keep possessing
them. Furthermore, if he has such power to enable him to kick the “but” of
the NATO-supported, regional power, why is it he has not been able to kick the
“but” of the Saddam regime, greatly weakened by the Gulf wars, sanctions and
in a demoralised isolation for the past twelve years. Could it be that he is
making a random choice?
As
for Talabani, we know how fond of Baghdad he is and his love of all that is
foreign. His beloved Syria; Revered Iran; and of course the PUK’s Turkish
parentage. The only nation we never hear the PUK talk about, with endearment,
love or enthusiasm is the Kurdish nation. They adamantly claim that they are
Iraqi patriots and Socialist International members ready to sacrifice the last
Kurd for the unity, and territorial integrity of Iraq.
And
was it not Massoud’s party who massacred the few Kurdish PKK operatives in
Hewlêr to please the very Turks he so resents today? When the Turkish forces
and their security and intelligence operatives entered Kurdistan recently
someone asked: “Why have the KDP not resisted them and turned Kurdistan into a
graveyard as they boasted?” Someone else replied, because they never said they
would do so if the Turks entered south Kurdistan, but merely if they entered
Kirkuk and Mosul because they think those Kurdistani cities must stay in the
hands of the Saddam regime where they belong.
Last
week a good friend of mine, living in the United States, sent me and some
colleagues, an email urging us that we should publicly condemn what seems to be
an attempt by the Turks to occupy and annex south Kurdistan. I replied that
whatever we as individuals tried to do, the two parties who claim they represent
the nation, are signing and agreeing deals which sell our homeland piece by
piece to the same people we consider to be enemies of our nation and a danger to
our safety and national security. Turkey and the other states would do what they
feel is best for them and in that they receive the enthusiastic support of the
party leaders who get super VIP treatment and every logistical help to keep
control of the minds and muscles of our people.
And
as long as there is no intellectual mass among the Kurds who can directly
address the population, and as long as the masses are not listened to or given
any weight, these parties will continue to claim that the people are behind them
and therefore what they do counts and is regarded as legitimate. All else, they
claim, is noise and counterproductive nonsense.
His
reply was: “we must do something and we cannot sit idly by while this is going
on”.
The
dilemma which is currently facing the Kurdish population of south Kurdistan lies
in the desire to live in peace and give the ruling parties as much support and
opportunity to reach maturity and behave as patriots, which is what was supposed
to be their motto some forty years ago when they first started calling the
nation to arms against occupation, racism and oppression. They have since
changed colour in a manner so often that any chameleon would be proud of. Mr
Talabani, who is an ex-communist, described his party to Gulf News, as a Social
Democratic party. This is not to say that he necessarily knows the difference
between, social democracy, communism, democracy, dictatorship or any of these
defunct or fashionable ideologies. Nor does it mean that he is a man who has
stable principles and would stand steadfast against anything he may consider to
be directly opposite his principles or beliefs. We remember his deals with Iraqi
regimes before Saddam since 1966 and later the kissing bouts with Saddam in
1991. In a world where Capitalist, “democratic” USA rules, the middle ground
seems to him to be called “Social Democracy”. So what are the differences
between his faction and the other? Well, the other party is a “National”
party based around one family – the Barzani family, he claimed. The PUK
however are not all Talabanis, he added.
So
at last we have a “scientific” comparison between the two
parties from the horse’s mouth, and we need worry no more as to what the
make-up and ideologies of these parties are. The only problem is the names. The
Talabani lot call themselves “The
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan”, which suggests that it is not only a
“national” party but also “nationalist”. The “Union” in the name can
only be interpreted as the union of Kurds. “Patriotism” must and has to be
linked to a national homeland. And of course the last word Kurdistan tells us
very clearly which homeland we are talking about. The KDP according to the PUK
leader is also a nationalist party. The emphasis however is on “Democracy”
which is completely lacking both in the party’s make-up and structures as well
as in its outlook on the national aspirations and will of the people.
In
addition, the behaviour of both parties is a million miles away from caring or
catering for their nation or homeland. The only thing which they keep faithful
to is their greed for money and power, their deep dislike of each other and
rivalry which they try to control from time to time to enable them to go forward
and get a bit more or if they realise they may both perish if they continued
fighting. The love of money and power and their self-preservation have been
their prime mover and concern and have precedence over all else.
The
other side of the dilemma for the Kurds is the fear of the enemy “in person”
coming back to rule, because they would not only keep them backward and poor as
their two patriotic, democratic parties have done during the past twelve years
but also kill and massacre many of them. Thus if only they could be sure that
their foreign enemies were only interested in their wealth and assets as do
their indigenous enemies it is quite likely they would not resist and would in
fact prefer the far more administratively competent enemy to their own
incompetent and completely dishonest administration.
The
party leaders of course realise that the way to counteract this negative
attitude is for the parties to demonstrate more patriotism, reliance on their
people and improve their expertise and efficiency. This, however, they believe,
would alarm the enemies and cause the party leadership anxiety and fear. In the
cool light of day they almost invariably choose to ignore the nation’s
interests and practice an anti-patriotic policy, risking the alienation of their
nation for the sake of appeasing their powerful enemies. Their role is at
present not that of builders of the Kurdish Homeland but agents for the US and
the surrounding states. Instead of thinking about liberating the nation they are
busy choosing a master for them.
The
practicing of this seemingly safe policy has now led to a conviction on the part
of leaders such as Talabani and Barzani. So much so, that they appear genuinely
happy and enthusiastic about it. Anyone who has any doubts about the sincerity
of their or their parties’ strong support and belief in their policy should
note the way they have transformed their Satellite TV into Arabic broadcasting
mouthpieces for the Iraqi opposition and the vehement way they resist and try to
silence any patriotic Kurdish voice or at the very least keep them well away.
Thus
they are hardly telling the truth when they claim that they only adhere to that
treacherous policy because it has been forced on them. You do not spend your
meagre financial and political resources on gathering individual Iraqis and
present them as Iraqi opposition with so much vigour, travel far and wide to
advertise the idea as Talabani and Barzani have done, because they you been forced into accepting that damaging
solution. They have not been carried to the Altar kicking and screaming, as you
might expect. They have gone there and even arranged the biggest wedding party
Kurdistn has ever known and are dancing the night away as well. And anyone who
opposes them is a political novice, has-been or wants the demise of the Kurds,
according to their propagandists.
A
universal principle of the promotion of any idea is that all its arguments must
be consistent and provable. If you can demonstrate this principle then the rest
is down to your personal persuasive powers. The hard work of trying to convince
people of a weird, outlandish or inconsistent idea will not be necessary. If an
idea is only applicable in certain exceptional circumstances then the task of
convincing people that what you have, though not universally consistent or
logical, is applicable under the prevailing circumstances is also great but
possible if you can show proof of your claim. When the idea has been tried and
failed, miserably as in the case of the artificially-created Iraqi state, then
trying to prove that this time everything would be different and the illogical
and inconsistent conditions would now work in the completely opposite sense is
quite ludicrous, time consuming and reckless.
The
choice we have between Iraqis, Turks, Persians or Syrians is therefore not a
real one. If we were given a choice then we would be infinitely better off with
none of them as our oppressors and masters but the next best thing would be for
all of Kurdistan to have only one oppressor or master. This is an irony but
nevertheless true. under the current circumstances when the party leaders are on
their way to abandon the nation completely for safeguarding their private wealth
and power. There is every reason to believe that we are not about to lose it all
because the Turks are coming – sadly we have already lost it all with the
action and deals of the parties with Turkey and the USA. The question is
therefore, which one if any is most appropriate or least detrimental to our
future prospects for freedom.
As
such I believe that occupation by Turkey, though abhorrent, and very unlikely
will be the aim of Turkey, may actually do some good to Kurdistan. The following
are some of the arguments
·
We would reduce
the division of Kurdistan into three parts only and the part under Turkey would
be bigger and by far the largest part of Kurdistan.
·
Turkey is hated
in Europe and although in NATO, has only one true friend, the USA which is also
nowadays making attempts at changing its foreign policy and looking for partners
to do so.
·
Iraq is an Arab
state with twenty two and a “half” states supporting it in their nationalist
aims and drive to rekindle their “past” glories, albeit achieved as a large
Muslim nation, whose culture and hegemony were achieved by mostly non-Arab
nations. Behind them the Kurds would face more than a billion Muslims, all
siding with their Arab mentors and against us.
·
Turkey will be
forced to change its racist policies especially after taking part against an
Arab state, thus creating more enmity with these states, to be accepted in the
European Union, and Genocidal practices would be impossible to hide or condone.
Our plight and drive for independence would be far more exposed and supported by
the nations of Europe than by the ultra nationalistic Arabs, because it would be
a European problem.
·
Turkey has a
single vote in the UN as opposed to 23 Arab and over 50 Muslim votes.
·
Europe and the
US are not dependent on Turkey for their energy and are therefore far less
likely to stand with them on every issue. We have seen quite clearly how three
of the main NATO countries have refused to support Turkey recently.
·
Turkey is not a
religious country and does not regard the Kurds who are not worshipping Muslims
as traitors to their faith as do the Arabs. Kurdish aspirations to independence
could not be regarded as anti-Islam as it is regarded at the moment by some
Muslim states.
·
A great number
of Diaspora Kurds would be united in their struggle, making it a very powerful
voice and lobby.
·
Turkey does not
have the great resources to conduct a sustained war against such a large
population and the West could not continue to turn a blind eye or support Turkey
in her fight against the Kurds, especially after the pacification of Iraq. There
would be less reason for the US to side against the Kurds as it does at the
moment because Turkey is needed to control Iraq.
·
Despite all the
excesses of the Turks, it was the Iraqis who committed Genocide and the Anfal
against our people and not the Turks. Both the PKK and the Turks talk of 30,000
people on both sides being killed during the fighting between them, compared of
more than 500,000 in south Kurdistan.
·
The two oil
cities of Kirkuk and Mosul produce oil which is then sold back to us at very
high prices at a time when Jordan receives its oil for free or for next to
nothing. The SCR986 programme has allocated a large sum of money according to a
13% ratio, they claim the Kurdish population to be of the entire Iraqi
population, but only a pittance of that has reached the people. It is not
certain that the Kurds will get less favourable treatment than that under
Turkey.
·
The illegal
annexation of Kurdistan, by Turkey, if it happens, will remain a black mark and
a bargaining card in our hands to work for the independence of the whole of the
future northern Kurdistan. It would also drive a great wedge between Turkey, the
Arab states and the Islamic world.
·
The opportunity
would be taken away from the Kurdish party leaders of signing away the deeds of
our homeland to some Iraqi Arab opposition.
On
the negative side, it is possible that the southern Kurds will be less free,
speaking their own language than at present. However, the signs and requirements
of the EU are that they must change this policy and start allowing them more
Kurdish language and cultural freedoms.
Thus
if Turkey is about to commit such a great blunder and annex south Kurdistan, the
Kurds, in particular the independent intellectuals should not fear. I do not
believe it would be as bad as all that. It may even open up greater
opportunities for independence. As far as we are concerned it would still be
Eenee, Meenee, Mynee or Mo. May God’s curse be upon all occupiers and their
lackeys!
9
February 2003
The
threats made today in public and on TV by Iraq’s Deputy President, Taha Yasin
Ramadhan were very much expected. The only thing that was rather surprising was
the fact that they were directed towards the two Kurdish party leaders Massoud
Barzani and Jalal.Talabani and not the Kurds in general.
But
for that fact I would have advised all Kurds to stay as close to these two
leaders as possible, for the greatest degree of safety, judging by the past
behaviour of the Iraqi regime and its predecessors, the Iranian regime and its
predecessors, the Turkish regime and its predecessors and the Syrian regime and
its predecessors towards these two “patriots”.
History
records that all those regimes have at one time or another negotiated,
entertained, protected and aided those two leaders and their immediate
followers. And so they should, because they could never find anyone as jealously
guarding their interests as they have been. For decades, Iraqi government after
another has invited them to Baghdad, handed them millions of Dinars, entertained
them in five-star hotels and never once has either of them been imprisoned, shot
at, attacked or injured, before, during or after those friendly episodes. Even
when they invited and helped the Iranians to come into Kurdistan (regarded by
Saddam as Iraqi land), during the Iraq-Iran war, he bombed thousands of innocent
civilians in Halabja and killed or made traceless hundreds of thousands of men
women and children in the Anfal campaign but carefully left the leaders, safe
and in the best of health.
The
Iranians too backed them, armed and financed them for decades, both the Shah’s
regime and the greatest enemies of the Shah’s regime. No such treatment for
the ordinary Kurds unfortunate enough to be Iranian citizens. One must therefore
wonder why those governments, such great enemies of the Kurdish nation who
openly and publicly have declared and constantly declare that they are against
absolutely any Kurdish entity, let alone any semblance of independence or
freedom and busily working to convince the other Arabs and the entire world not
to allow the Kurds any measure of freedom, should be so enamoured with these two
men who claim to be Kurdish patriots?
But
even the Turks, the arch enemies of the Kurds who hate everything Kurdish from
their language to their very genetic makeup send their helicopters to pick them
up and treat them like heads of state, to the extent that at one time or another
they even provided them with diplomatic Turkish passports.
Finally,
we all know how dear Hafiz Al-Assad has
been to the hearts of these Kurdish leaders and how they are received by the
Syrian high officials including on rare occasions by the President himself and
the great freedom with which they are allowed to come and go as they please
without the slightest hint of annoyance or impediment placed in their way. Mr
Talabani spares no occasion to renew his great admiration of Syria which he
calls His Beloved Syria. But both leaders adore and obey all four anti-Kurdish
regimes and often show such subservient and grovelling attitudes towards them
that make your toes curl.
So
is it because they are great politicians who are so concerned about the plight
of their people that they are prepared to walk barefoot on the fires of hell to
alleviate their suffering? Well, the evidence shows the opposite. No ordinary
Kurd gets any sympathy or help from any official of any of these four states. In
fact all four states treat and have always treated the Kurds be they individuals
or as a nation, as dog shit and display the most vicious attitude towards them.
And while they send their special planes to transport these leaders to and from
their lush offices in Sallaheddin and Qalachwalan, they did everything possible
to stop and made sure that MEDES AIR which offered a once-a-week service to
ordinary citizens between Europe and a part of Kurdistan, stopped and that tiny
route was closed. Did our illustrious leaders move? Not a muscle! We should wonder why the journey of an old Kurdish woman, a
child and his family or a young person from exile in Europe to see their family
in Kurdistan be such a great danger to Turkey whereas the journeys of the
politicians who claim to be Kurdish patriots with Kurdistani dreams, should be
arranged escorted and protected by Turkish planes and personnel..
For
that reason we can only conclude that the subservience and grovelling displayed
on every occasion is merely aimed at making the leaders’ life easy, gain more
help, access to the outside world and enable them to serve the purposes and
requirements of those running the KDP and PUK. Even more than that, the net
result of this “diplomatic” coup which our “elected” leaders have
mastered is that Kurdistan is kept enslaved, constantly under threat and in
danger.
Let
me give our readers an example of the sort of discrepancy between the way an
ordinary citizen is treated by these regimes as opposed to someone who is
supported by one of these two “patriotic” parties. My sister has been
suffering from cancer for several years. I tried very hard to bring her to the
UK for treatment but failed because of the official line adopted by the British,
the Europeans and the Americans towards those they call Saddam’s Own People.
And since they regard all Kurds as Saddam’s Own People, they also demand that
they must suffer with Saddam, knowing full well that he could always get the
best treatment if he should need it.
My
sister did manage to get to Istanbul but after three months of expensive
existence in pain and without help she was forced to return to Erbil. She is now
seriously ill and cannot get treatment or medication and even when she manages
to get the very expensive injections from Damascus where she had been taken
twice each time through two days of the most back breaking long journeys you can
imagine, they find it very difficult to find someone who can administer the
injection in Erbil because the KRG is too busy with other important matters
of state for them to provide expertise or train them or import them from
outside and the UN always passes the buck by claiming they have to obey Saddam
who absolutely bans any Kurd from any training, learning any profession outside
or allowing any external expert to enter officially into Kurdistan.
But
we know very well that should the two Kurdish leaders require treatment or
should any one dear to them do, they have the speediest fast channels to the
best hospitals of the four capitals and to anywhere in Europe or America if they
felt it necessary or the required treatment did not exist in the Middle East.
However,
it is not just cancer which, has multiplied in number as a result of the
chemical and biological attacks by the man our leaders went all the way to
Baghdad, tails between legs to hug and kiss and be hosted and treated to the
best and most succulent tasty meals and the most heart-warming drinks, that is
not being treated in Kurdistan. The few hospitals which the Saddam regime, so
generously built for the Kurds, have also become God-forsaken cesspools of
germs, viruses and vermin and death-traps for ordinary patients in the
“golden” period of rule of these leaders and in the shadow of the SCR986 and
mountain of cash allocated but not utilised by the UN.
Taha
Yasin Ramadhan must be feeling truly desperate and resigned to be on the verge
of being annihilated by the Americans, for him to have issued death threats to
those who have kept Kurdistan in chains for his regime and race. If he had the
slightest hope of surviving he would have realised that he could never have
found anyone more willing and better equipped to serve him than them. The
threat, however, is most certainly to the Kurds who will be bottled in by the
well-prepared regimes on the frontiers they call borders and will be at the
receiving end of the wrath of Saddam for the following reasons: a) as a revenge
for acting as a Bridgehead for the Americans in the words of Dr Barham Salih
suggested in his speech to the Socialist International, b) to create the maximum
casualty among the Americans and the local population without fear of killing
his own people in the process
and c) to incite world opinion against the USA and accuse them of being the
cause of grave humanitarian mass murder and mayhem. God help the Kurds who never
seem to learn their lessons.
The
Americans are reported to have selected the opposition leaders to run the
Post-Saddam Transition Government and given them 100 million dollars for pocket
money. Their choice consists of A Sunniman, A Kurdishman and two Shi’ites.
They have not yet realised that Iraq’s opposition to their opposition will be
far greater, more numerous and well-placed to run the country and democracy
never stipulates that you can rule simply through the opposition. Once these
guys become government you need to have an opposition in position too, otherwise
you would be installing a minority dictatorship. It would be like installing the
Liberal Democrats in power by force and ignoring Labour, the Conservatives and
everyone else.
31
January 2003
Quite
apart from the lack of sound political thinking analysis and judgment on the
part of the up-and-coming Kurdish “politicians”, their planning experience,
crisis-management experience and knowledge is just as woefully lacking.
They
have not learnt a great deal from the past history of the Kurds, or what they
have learnt relates mainly to those historical events of the era of Sheikh
Mehmud, circa 1918-1920. It seems that they are attempting to deal with the
current world affairs using tools which may or may have not been appropriate and
effective for the events of that period, forgetting or not realising that the
situation is quite different and the enemies of Kurdistan are far more numerous
nowadays than in those times, are far more advanced and devious than they were
90 odd years ago.
It
also seems that the main conclusion that the Kurdish party leaders have come
back with is the perfection of the art of subservience and blind allegiance not
to their nation’s cause but to those of the west and their lackeys in the
region, practicing a kind of devoted submission to their will in the belief that
the main reason for Sheikh Mehmud’s demise and the loss of the opportunities
of the first great world war was his lack of vision, “excessive” and
“unreasonable” demands for full independence as well as his stubborn
Islamist upbringing and behaviour towards the British colonial power which was
in charge of our destiny. Thus, the new leaders believe that as long as they
exhibit maximum obedience and tone down the nation’s demands for their
national rights to the minimum, then they will be able to achieve something, if
not for the Kurds, then at least for their own parties, immediate families and
members of their narrow circle of tribal friends.
But
they have found out, the hard way, that the
something they are most likely to end up with could easily be absolutely
nothing. This is because as long as you adopt a desperate attitude and show
preparedness to accept just about anything for your services and the abandonment
of your national rights, the giver, who is in the strongest possible position,
and who will never give you anything as long as he can get away with giving you
nothing for your troubles, will always do so and for as long as he may get away
with it.
A
modern and scientifically-minded leadership would apply similar strategies and
plans as do his enemies if not better and more effective. The inexperienced and
mildly educated activists of both parties are incapable of doing so. They have
been reared on a diet of ideological rather than logical thinking and are quite
incapable of deep and proper analytical planning. They have proved their
dogmatic and naive behaviour throughout the twelve years they have been in
control of the lives of the nation. Nowadays we have the CIA and other
intelligence services training some of them for clandestine and covert action
and to help the American forces run Iraq after Saddam. This would swallow up the
majority of the few English-Speaking Kurds who have had a taste of freedom and
life in Europe, leaving even less conscientious Kurds to deal with political
analysis and decision processing.
At
no time have the party leaders been able to be more than hosts to their new US
and British masters and to play the part of their obedient and mindless
servants. Even when one or the other has broken their habit of following orders
and shown the slightest trend towards independent thinking, one or other of
their enemies has shown him such a “terrifying” glance that he has
immediately withdrawn and eaten his own words. I am by no means advocating lack
of co-operation with the US and British powers for that would be quite foolish.
I am merely asking the Kurds to stand up and be counted and present a specific
Kurdish character which could be relied upon by the nation, trusted by their
friends and respected by their enemies but that has been lacking.
For
a start they must recognise the difference between the world political scene in
the years pursuant to the First World War and today. For example, on the
positive side, at that time there were no Arab states of any weight. Arab
League, NATO alliance, twenty two Arab votes in the UN, all of which could have
stood in the way of our freedom. Ottoman Turkey was on its last legs and Iran
did not have any say or any power to have a say in anything which might have
been arranged between the British and the Kurds. There was also people like
President Wilson, his 14 point declaration and lastly but not least the by-now
famous Sévres Treaty.
That
may indicate that Sheikh Mehmud was wrong in his dealings with the British and
he should have co-operated fully with them even to the extent of establishing a
strong force to throw the Turks out of Rawandiz along with their intriguing hero
Özdemir Pasha. Özdemir who was of Egyptian roots played a big role in
derailing Kurdish-British relations and agreements and today we have the
Egyptian President playing a very similar role vis-à-vis the Kurdish-American
relationship.
But
then at that time we also had many things that today we have missing. For
example, the ease of communication, high technology and a whole host of
International Laws which are specifically relevant to our cause. And whereas
then we had only a few people who could read and write and a trickle of those
who had higher education and therefore we could excuse the ordinary people and
political activists of gross negligence bordering on treason, today we cannot
say the same. Most of those who are actively squandering our current and most
valuable golden opportunity are European-resident and educated to University and
other high standards.
But
the most deplorable state of affairs is the desire and attempt by the party
leaders who have been half-heartedly and quite incompetently running the Kurdish
homeland, to hand the entire south of Kurdistan and the people back to the Arabs
using arguments which their greatest enemy of the era of Sheikh Mehmud, the
Sherif Hussein of Mecca used in 1918, against the establishment of an
Independent Kurdistan which was his claim that Kurdistan was part and parcel of
Arab lands, and even worse, to team up with the descendent of that same man to
agree with and make that claim official, furthermore, to do so in the name of
the Kurdish nation, falsely and shamelessly.
It
seems that, the current leaders, in their solemn belief that all it takes is to
serve the Masters loyally, whole-heartedly and demonstrably, to achieve a
measure of recognised power within Iraq. The Kurdish party leaders are either
doing so as traitors or as naïve and incompetent people. For, any sane
patriotic politician would have done all he could to build on the De-facto state
which exists and made sure that greater freedom and independence would follow
from any action against Iraq, rather than sacrifice it all to get recruited as
ministers and officials of a new Iraqi state with all its previous conflicting
and warring factions and contradictory forces. Our politicians are telling our
people that they should pull the wool over their own eyes, forget all the
suffering and Genocidal acts against them, the 9 decades of misery, humiliation,
torture, rape of man and land and all its resources as if they were but a dream
which never happened and start believing in a never, never Iraq which would be
democratic loving and respecting of human rights.
And
all this comes out of no real evidence but out of the “promised land” idea
as conveyed to them in secret and verbally by the likes of Colin Powell and
Rumsfield who even now cannot get themselves to call our Kurdish homeland by its
proper name and who refer to us as Saddam’s Own People. Those very people have
advocated an Independent Palestinian state and given billions of dollars to the
Palestinian authority, treated Arafat as the King of Kings during the Clinton
era but have never entertained our part leaders to even a cup of coffee. The
lesson we should have learnt from all this is a famous but rather rude proverb
which conveys the meaning that if you sell yourself cheap you will have little
value, get abused and neglected.
Whenever
one asks the question what is there to do we are given a ready and packaged
answer which consists of: “The circumstances do not allow and the neighbours
will never agree for us to become independent”. The West advises us not to
mention anything about Kurdistan or Kurdish rights because the consequences will
be terrible for us. None of the party leaders therefore bother to a) examine
this hypothesis, or, b) try and
find remedies and answers to this rather evil and oppressive doctrine which is
perpetrated and supported we are led to believe by the “greatest”
freedom-loving, democratic and civilised powers on the planet.
Furthermore,
implied in the doctrine is a suggestion that our enslavement out of all the
nations of the world whose liberty is imprisoned and are seeking freedom, is
permanent and we will therefore remain slaves to others for ever. This is quite
obviously unacceptable by any man worth his salt let a lone by a nation of 40
million individuals. There is only one life and we must achieve our full freedom
because it is just natural and logical. There will be no better or worse
opportunities for us to start working for our freedom.
None
of the so these leaders realise or wish to realise that when you are faced with
this sort of hypothesis then it is your duty to try and deal with it and defeat
its purpose and not to ask your people to lie down and let others sort out your
fate. The true leader never leads his nation into the abyss. He will never agree
to his people’s long term enslavement. Any patriotic leader would not
subdivide his nation into smaller manageable “minorities” to make them easy
to swallow by his nations enemies as the PUK and KDP leaders are doing. They
would firstly try all they can to derive their strength not form a riffraff of
individuals calling themselves “opposition” to some other nation’s rulers,
but from their own people and citizens. If they had the teeniest faith or trust
in their own nation they would have realised that a nation of 40 million is
indestructible and a power to be reckoned with.
At
the moment many party activists of the PUK and KDP are busy holding and
attending meetings with Iraqi individuals and some US and British secret service
and not so secret servants and have lately been invited to the important meeting
at Davos last week. This on the face of it can be regarded as great success. But
it is the success of the camp, which is hell-bent on denying Kurdish nationhood
which is desperately working to erase all the memory of the past twelve years of
self-rule, thus destroying the legal precedence of the existence of the De-facto
state, virtually the nation’s greatest achievement in international law. It is
success in the sense that a somewhat healthy twelve year old “child” is
being sacrificed to provide body parts for someone else’s baby.
Thus
not everything that works would or could meet our nation and homeland’s needs
or requirements. But in a sense this was inevitable because we often witnessed
behaviour by the two main warlords aimed at closing shop and handing the deeds
back to the enemy. In 1991 and before the US managed to dissuade them from
signing their enslavement papers with Saddam, they went to Baghdad and gave the
Kurds the worst possible name you could imagine when they hugged and kissed
Saddam after the events of the exodus which made most people throughout the
world cry and grieve in total sympathy for them. The Kurdish leaders deserve
that distinction with full dishonour. It is the forgiving nature of the Kurds
which allowed them to remain in control and give them their trust in 1992. Ever
since then these two anti-patriotic parties have committed several other similar
suspect acts but this time they have gathered so much brute force and money
that they have cowed the nation into silent and abject apathy.
In
1992, they decided with great egging by the west to hold elections which were
encouraged and praised by the west simply to demonstrate that at least the
Kurdish part of “Iraq” could have a working and democratically elected
“parliament” and government. One must admit that if it had been planned and
properly organised and if the greedy, immoral and anti-patriotic leaders had
been genuine and serious about serving the nation, there would not have been the
ridiculous 50-50 system, the useless administration which two years later led to
the awful mess that ensued and the civil war which lasted, some say until the
last meeting and the re-unification of their rubberstamp parliament with the
sole purpose of declaring their self-destruct and second capitulation, this time
in a voluntary gesture, which could kill all hopes of the Kurds ever getting
their God given right to self-determination..
But
the creation of a system in which they encouraged selfish and corrupt behaviour
based on pure greed and copycat techniques of Saddam and his regime (e.g. the
building of great mansions, hotels, nepotism, petty party politics and the
allowing of mealy-mouthed hangers on to usurp the nation’s funds and power),
the campaign of self and party-leader glorification and the attempt to blow up
the image of their current and dead leaders sky high and in general copying
everything the Iraqi Ba’ath leadership does, and which their current resources
allow apart from committing Genocide, has demonstrated their main areas of
interest in the running of the Kurdish real estate which fell into their hands
thanks to the self-sacrificial acts of the ordinary Kurds who braved the snow,
freezing muddy and inhospitable mountain slopes, to show the whole world that
they had had enough of the western civilised actions causing their continued
enslavement..
And
while Saddam uses a great deal of the wealth of Iraq for his and his families
gratification, wastes a great deal on weapons and the acquisition of military
equipment and technologies, he also dedicates large amounts of funds to the
betterment of education, health, living conditions of ordinary people, on
science and technology and the dependence on the country’s own internal
manpower and resources, as well.
Thus
it gives me great pain to compare the Kurdish party leaders to the greatest
enemy the Kurds have ever had, but the leaders of the Kurdish parties have and
do behave in such an awful way that even by comparison with such a nasty
dictator they come out losers as far as planning, the use of the country’s
human and financial resources or lack of faith in their nation and its right to
self-determination.
Even
more apparent when you compare them to Saddam, is their love and hold on power
every bit matches his, now that they have seen how to get rich and powerful as a
result of the circumstances and the availability of the Oil for Food programme,
because they can see that, as a means to their own and their families enrichment
and aggrandisement.
So,
when you are using all your meagre and second rate political resources to plan
for positions which would safeguard your lives as parties and organised gangs
and secondly your huge and disproportionate income, you will have no inclination
to use any of that apparatus for the sake of the nation’s
right to self-determination or its salvation.
Besides
a split is inevitable between your own narrow party and family interests and
that of the entire nation, especially, when your entire history and background
has been based and built on deceiving your own people and bargaining with its
wealth and potential.
Now,
you may ask, why am I so harsh about these wonderful, calm, civilised,
well-educated party activists when they have done their best to use the 986
resolution for the sake of the “minority ethnic” group they say they
represent and are the “legitimate, democratically-elected” members of
“parliament|”? The Kurds have never had such smooth-talking, Iraqi patriots
in whose mouths snow could not melt.
Well,
the reason clearly lies in their past and in their constant lying, in particular
when they attempt to speak in the name of the nation. For example they claim
that they have been using Kurdish Oil for Food funds efficiently and have been
running the programme while the fact is: more than 70% of the funds in the bank
gathered and allocated for the Kurdish people, is still unused. And while the
ministers and party activists not to mention the two “royal” families live
as do European multi-millionaires, the great masses are living in squalor, their
young men and women, illiterate under the rule of these leaderships, pay all
they possess to get out of their own country at the time when they are supposed
to be governed not by Saddam or governments of their enemies but by their own
Kurdish governments, the very people who for thirty or more years promised the
population freedom and asked them for and received great sacrifices in life and
materials.
In
the twelve years they governed they not only did not assume the basic functions
of a national government, but thwarted all efforts by anyone not of their
organisations who had the slightest intention to serve the people alone, either
unwilling or unable to bribe their party officials. Everything had to have an
element which would bring some economic benefit to them personally or not at
all. Worse than that, the areas which had been covered by Iraqi sanctions such
as water and fuel self-sufficiency were regarded as taboo by our “patriotic
and democratic” leaders. Great quantities of naturally abundant water in the
country could not be made use of in the country which produces it and is the
source of nearly all the water which is consumed by Syria, Iraq, Northern
Kurdistan, Jordan, Palestine and others. Thus during the dry season parts of
south Kurdistan suffered worse shortages than the nations who were situated way
to their south including Iraq.
No
dams or diversions or even off-shoots were allowed by Iraq, even on the
tributaries let alone the main great Kurdish rivers of Dicle and Firat (the
Tigris and Euphrates to you) but the Kurdish leaders asked the population to
suffer in silence and did nothing to alleviate suffering by demanding
International Community protection from Saddam’s tyranny. They just kept on
praising themselves and the “great” achievements they have made for the
people.
Oil
too was taboo to explore or exploit in our own land. Other than Mosul, Kirkuk
and Khanaqin there are other very rich areas containing vast quantities of the
black gold liquid within the liberated zone but the Kurdish administration
claiming falsely the Americans had told them not to touch it, and therefore
rejected our plans to build a refinery using our own expertise to do so.
Nevertheless, a team headed by myself did build a small working refinery in a
record three days and presented our result to the Kurdish administration to
their shock and horror, which later the PUK had enough courage to build in
Slemani with some outside help. Soon after that strategic action Iraqi attitude
changed and they started supplying our own oil at more “reasonable” prices
while they supplied and still do Jordan with the same oil free of charge.
And
with that the PUK administration had agreed to shut the refinery down a fact
which has been recently exploited fully by the Iraqis and oil has now been
turned off for its legitimate owners, the Kurds because of the behaviour and
words of our demagogic leaders. The result of course is terrible shortages or
fuel, food, and the causing of transportation, agriculture and other activities
to come to a standstill.
Clearly,
neither of the two parties had prepared themselves for such a simple move by
Saddam which has crippled life in Kurdistan or had planned for its possible
repercussions just as they have not prepared or planned for any possible
chemical or biological attacks on the Kurds. Their planners who consist of a few
fat cats living luxuriously in the west have been confined to attending useless
meetings with “opposition” members and giving interviews, the main purpose
of which is demeaning and insulting utterances on behalf of the Kurdish nation,
as for the disastrous future they are leading our people to - they have no real
or realistic idea of what it is going to be like. After all, the Americans would
tell them what to do when the time comes.
Any
fool knows that the most vulnerable areas which would be prime targets for
chemical or biological attacks would be Kurdish especially in the light of the
declared total subservience by the Kurdish parties to the will of the British
and Americans. We are often told that the Americans have given them pledges of
protection and yet of all those who might be targets Kurdistan is the only one
without any. Not even a sausage let alone Patriot anti-missile missiles. Even,
Jordan, the most unlikely target has acquired and installed these missiles
whereas the Kurds have not been given even a mask and the people have not been
informed or drilled in anyway about protection from such weapons
All
of the neighbour countries which were visited by Barzani and Talabani, some
repeatedly have answered their demeaning and humiliating attitudes with the
closure of the borders to all media reporters for fear they would report any
atrocities which may ensue as a result of the war in South Kurdistan. Every one
of them and in addition, Jordan and the Kurds’ biggest Arab enemies, Saudi
Arabia and Egypt held a conference the only agreement made was to destroy any
chance of the Kurds being allowed any self-governing entity. All this in spite
of the constant grovelling and hand-kissing which has gone on for the past
twelve years by these same people. The Turks and all the other neighbours do not
and will not trust any Kurd who claims his entire nation is against freedom and
independence. They simply loath and despise them but make use of them
nevertheless to serve their purpose.
The
people of Kurdistan have been humiliated by these self-appointed leaders much
more than their enemies have been able to do so. The net result of the constant
denial of the desire for freedom and the grovelling has, however, resulted in
absolutely zero trust but we have also lost our pride and self-respect by it.
Thus already we see the disastrous results of the policy followed by the Kurdish
party leaders who put their nation’s fate in the balance and opened up the
bidding on the gains of twelve years of self-rule realised as a result of the
great humanitarian suffering which the people undertook to achieve it.
For
twelve years the entire Arab world was unable to destroy the South Kurdistan
De-facto state. The most ferocious and fascistic regimes in Turkey stood
watching unable to remove it. Nor of course could Iran or Syria. However once
the hurriedly- assembled PUK/KDP Alliance of Evil started the nation started
going down the slippery slopes which I repeatedly warned against; everyone is
now trying and have the opportunity to stick their daggers into the heart of the
Kurdish nation. We even have the thoroughly molested and violated Palestinians
having a go and threatening the Kurds of dire consequences.
The
Americans are obviously using the Kurds as cheap cannon fodder and have no
intention of keeping any verbal promise to the Kurds and the Kurds should know
this. This conclusion is not the result of some lie or word which has been
included in their so called promise, but as a logical deduction from the pattern
of behaviour we have seen from them.
Thus
if a government such as the Bush and Blair ones behave towards the Kurds in this
hypocritical way when they need them most, what hope is there of treating them
fairly or justly or not discarding them when the regime change and war is over.
Furthermore, even if the US and Britain did want to allow the Kurds some measure
of self-rule, the signs are there for all to see, that they could and would
easily bend against the pressure of all those biting teeth of those who have no
good will towards us.
As
I have said repeatedly, under the circumstances the best course of action would
have been to do nothing other than to politely turn the US government down. We
should have simply told them that we are not prepared to turn our homeland and
people once again into fodder for their designs. No war or change of regime
launched from our territories but we would not be unhappy if our Iraqi
neighbours should also get their part of Iraq liberated.
It
may be said that we could not have resisted but there are many examples of
passive resistance which have succeeded all over the world which we could also
have adopted and look where some of those who did, are today. What is more
important is the great majority of the world including those who hate us such as
the Palestinians are against both the war and the regime change and therefore we
would not have been alone to ask for our territory and homeland to have been
spared the devastation of war.
We
have indeed committed a great strategic and tactical blunder! Unfortunately only
the Kurdish nation will suffer the greatest loss!
We
have all seen Barham Salih, the British-Educated US-Backed Kurdish Intellectual,
free marketer with capitalist leanings. Today, we have seen him play the role of
the Socialist who is appealing to his “comrades” at the Socialist
International in Rome for their support. Why not, after all he has already
played the role of the Kurdish Patriot, the Iraqi Unification Hero, the man with
Turkish “links” and the “democratically elected” Prime Minister of
Kurdistan, even though he is not very comfortable with that last one because
anything containing the name of Kurdistan is extremism, equal to Osama Bin
Laden’s Islamic fundamentalism. In other words he has played more
Oscar-Winning Roles than Dustin Hoffman or Sir Alec Guinness.
Mr
Salih is nothing if not arrogant, to lecture the Socialist International in Rome
about the evil of Fascism.
“It is profoundly symbolic that we are meeting here in Rome. As
the world watches the gathering storm around Iraq, there is no better place to
meet than in this city, so laden with history, to reflect on the imperative of
freedom and liberation from fascism and dictatorship”.
And
the claim that he has a message from our people:
“I
come to you from Iraqi Kurdistan-bringing you greetings from the Kurdish leadership-and a message
from our people who hope for your support and solidarity in the
struggle for democracy and liberation“, he pleads with them.
The keen eye can easily see how the KDP and PUK’s unelected and
unaccountable activists are playing a most deceptive metamorphic role in all
their dealings with the Kurdish nation and with the outside world. To the
outside world they are a government
democratically and freely elected by the people and they therefore represent the
people’s aspirations, wishes and their very soul. That lie they claim entitles
them to speak in the name of the entire nation. Inside Kurdistan they are
warlords who absolutely loathe each other and cannot stand the sight of each
other. There they assume a closed party-gang stance, distancing themselves from
anyone who does not follow their orders or has any opinion which does not
conform to their interests or attempts any democratic participation or otherwise
in the process of influencing public opinion and government policy.
As one can see from this absolutely false message, that the people
of Kurdistan are Iraqis and wish for nothing more than a democratic and united
Iraq and ask the nations of the world to preserve the Iraqi state which he also
calls a creation of the colonial powers, meaning Britain and France: “the reform
of colonialism’s most disastrous legacy, the state of Iraq- these are
goals worthy of the support of every Social Democrat”. Thus, Mr Salih
wants the support of Social Democrats in reforming the “most disastrous legacy
of colonialism” created by his colonial backers. Mr Salih who is British and a
graduate of Cardiff University, wants the Italian and other socialists to
support the British and American colonialists to reform their own most
disastrous legacy, by creating another legacy for the future generations of the
Kurdish and Iraqi peoples.
In turn he and his colleagues at the PUK and opposite numbers in
the KDP, constantly convey a defeatist and disheartening message to the Kurds,
frightening them into thinking that unless they accept what they are cooking up
for them with the sworn enemies of the Kurds, they would be the victims of mass
annihilation. They propagate a doomsday scenario frightening enough to scare the
very life out of their people. The party leaders say so, claiming that when they
go abroad and talk to the Americans, British and the rest of the world, they put
their feet down in a valiant attempt to convince them of the right of the
Kurdish nation to self-determination, but that they always get a total rejection
so that they are in the end forced to accept the little which they say the
nation has no alternative but to accept.
The truth however which the PUK and KDP leadership never tell the
nation, is that their role outside Kurdistan has been ever since they came to
be, and free to get out of the prison the people is in, to act as apologists for
the people, claiming that they know the Kurds are not “separatists”,
“never have and never will want freedom” except as loyal Iraqis who will
sacrifice everything for the safeguarding of the sovereignty and integrity of
their “beloved” Iraq.
And now for a completely and totally unjustified boast worthy only
of Henry the Eighth. In his euphoria Barham Salih is unable to contain his pride
and joy at what they have achieved in south Kurdistan, calling it “Iraqi”
then “Free Iraq” and lastly “our country”: “Every person in the room can take
pride in what has been achieved in “Iraqi” Kurdistan”. Just why
this should be so is anybody’s guess but Mr Salih believes that what his party
has done is worthy of the pride of the whole world. But when we examine the PUK
and KDP’s achievements, even if we do not list the thousands of shortcomings,
neglected and vital areas of life, despite the $7 billion in UN banks unable to
find any worthwhile project, Mr Salih’s list does not exceed the following
pathetic claims:
• In Free Iraq, we have rebuilt
villages destroyed in the genocidal ethnic cleansing of the Anfal campaign
in 1988;
In fact, after 12 years of Kurdish rule, “democracy and
freedom”, Kurdistan is still the same vastly neglected, and mud-house based
country with most people living in squalor without electricity, water or the
most basic necessities of life. The ruling parties often talk of rebuilding and
development projects but these are mostly insignificant UN initiated projects
consisting of a small pipe for conveying water from wellhead to the nearby
village or a few cement dwellings standing out in barren and inhospitable areas
with very low value and yield.
• We have invested in
education and health, brought infant mortality down to its lowest level ever in
our country;
Again it is not the PUK or KDP who have invested in education and
health. Their investment has been in building hotels and consumer businesses for
themselves as a result of which they are now all very rich people. What meager
money which has been spent has come from charity or UN projects mostly initiated
by reluctant UN Arab staff belonging to the many highly paid and rather
substandard “expert” groups who are appointed on Baghdad’s recommendations
and all their projects have to be approved by the Iraqi regime.
The absolutely atrocious state of Kurdish hospitals and clinics has
been captured on film only a few months ago and is a shameful mark on the
forehead of these anti-patriotic parties. Anyone who is interested can write to
Kurdishmedia and I will gladly supply them with a CD of the film.
• We have used our share of
oil revenues fairly, to invest not in swords but ploughshares, in clinics and
not chemical weapons;
Any one who believes the above jingoistic statement needs to have
his head examined. Firstly, the two parties have not been able to have any say
in the way the share of Kurdish oil funds should be or has been spent. They are
simply not party to the MOU and are only now getting negligible co-operation as
a result of the media campaign conducted by outsiders in the Diaspora.
Secondly, out of the $7 billion allocated only $1,360 million has
so far been utilized according to the latest UN report dated September 2002. As
to why Barham Salih might have used the Kurdish share of “oil for food”
funds to buy swords or chemical weapons, no one can venture a guess. The two
parties have, however, used a great deal of money to buy arms which they often
point towards the chests of their fellow Kurds, an example of which was the
civil war against the KDP and others.
•
We have a free and diverse media;
The media the PUK and KDP have set up and finance are certainly
free to praise Barham Salih, the PUK and KDP leaders and activists and to
brainwash the population and feed them with the sort of statements Mr Salih has
been dishing out at venues such as the one in Rome, where he has made his
claims. The same sort of media and press exist in Baghdad too but Mr Salih would
hardly call them free. At the same time the voice of the people has been
completely short-circuited and as I have stated in my previous articles the best
proof of that is the total lack of the alternative opinion in the areas under
the control of those two parties, giving the quite false impression that the
entire nation support the PUK and KDP demagogues and agree with everything they
say in the outside world. Another proof if necessary is the fact that many
thousands of young and illiterate Kurds have left the “democratic haven” the
two parties have created, and are leaving on a daily basis on their hard and
dangerous journey to the begging-bowls of Europe.
The great shame of it all is the fact that these unfortunate young
Kurds claim to have come from the Iraqi-controlled areas and pretend to be from
Kirkuk or Mosul whose families are Ba’athist, Iraqi government mercenaries and
Kurd killers because they are not believed if they said they have run away from
the terrible misery their own kith and kin have created for them in Kurdistan.
The lies fed to the West about the wonderful life that has been provided for
everyone by the incompetent, selfish and money-grabbing Kurdish leaders have
been taken at face value by Europe and unfairly make the basis for rejecting
most asylum claims if the claimant admitted coming from the Kurdish Autonomous
Areas.
• We respect the rights of minorities. The ethnic differences with which
all societies struggle are increasingly accepted as part of the landscape rather
than seen as a cause of conflict.
The rights of minorities are indeed accepted because they are
forced on them. The Turkomen are Kings of Kurdistan because the KDP and PUK
would not dare cross them and annoy Turkey who has instilled the fear of God in
them. The Assyrian Christians have the backing of the West and the Islamists are
supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia. Only the Kurds are unfortunate enough to
have no support, not even from their own political parties.
And finally Mr Salih makes it imperative that: ”These
achievements should be celebrated and be a model for the rest of Iraq”.
Unfortunately for Mr Salih, you can fool some of the people most of
the time and most of the people some of the time but never most of the people
most of the time. The acting is realistic and sometimes comic but the message is
jingoistic, dishonest and completely deceptive.
The achievements Mr Salih talks about when he, his party and the
KDP are supported by the West as well as most of the world, have not pushed the
wheels of progress one millimeter forward and we are not even at the point where
we started in 1988. It is true the Iraqis are not murdering our people on a
daily basis but neither are we back to the conditions we were at, as a nation,
at the start of the uprising in 1991.
Mr Salih’s statement which is full of untruths such as the
assertion about infant mortality is quite false and demonstrates his ignorance
of, or unwillingness to recognize, the facts. It is beyond doubt that Iraqi
infant mortality figures are far better than that of Kurdistan despite the Iraqi
and some UN group’s claims. The UN figures about the survival of children,
under one year, show that Iraqi survival rate is 2.6%
of the population versus a figure of 1.7% in Kurdistan.
Furthermore, if we look at the UN tables in the latest report by
the Office of Iraq Programme, we see the infinitely more efficient programme
conducted by the Iraqi government. There is no comparison between the
development and rejuvenation programme carried out by the vastly more advanced
and professional Iraqi departments and that of the so called Humanitarian
agencies working on the distribution plan concerning the Three Northern
Governorates.
Apart from the fact that a much greater percentage of the funds
allocated to the governorates under Iraqi control has been utilized for
substantial and professional projects, the simplest measure of comparison is the
value per project being achieved in the centre/south or the fifteen governorates
which is roughly $2.5
million per project as opposed to $160,000
per
project, in the Three Northern Governorates. Also striking is the
complete lack of detail in the UN-run programme figures of the report, for the
Kurds as opposed to the highly tabulated and very professionally produced tables
and statistics for the centre/south run by the Iraqi government.
Thus the assertions about the UN “oil for food” programme are a
complete fabrication and these statements can be verified by anyone who cares to
access the UN internet website for the Office of the Iraq Programme.
And so the current desperate attempt to hand the Kurdish people and
the homeland back to the master
nation, at any cost, to do with as they please is driven by a desire to pass the
buck and abdicate responsibility. The Kurdish parties, now fully laden with
funds, are hoping that a real
government will take over and relieve them of what they have always considered
an unbearable burden, a nuisance and an inconvenience they are incapable of
bearing, when all they wanted was to absorb as much wealth of the nation as
possible and disappear back to where they came back from. Now that they have
achieved what they wanted and served their masters in keeping the Kurds captive
and under control for over a decade the time has come to collect their rewards.
The Kurdish party leaders can rightly point to their own successes.
They have managed to turn themselves from rags to riches and are living in such
unbelievable luxury that they can truly be proud of themselves. In twelve years
they have achieved next to zero for the nation by comparison to the centre/south
or by comparison to what could have been achieved by a truly patriotic, honest
and professional leadership. For that they may congratulate themselves and jump
for joy at their good fortune.
But if anything demonstrates the naiveté of Dr Salih it is surely
the ”analysis” and arguments he puts forward regarding the World Public
opinion about the impending war against Saddam and his evaluation of Islamic and
Arab opinion and anger at what he and his Iraqi friends in the Diaspora are
trying to do with the aid of the USA and Britain. The simplistic way he
dismisses their influence and opinion is the exact same way he and his clique
and the KDP clique are dismissing the Kurds and their political and national
rights.
Salih the American protégé freely attacks the “colonialists”
in a Socialist meeting. He condemns those who are offering themselves as human
shields for Iraq and reminds them of Halabja and Anfal (which incidentally was
the outcome of his party’s alignment with the Iranians in 1988, forgetting
that his own leader went to Baghdad in 1991 for a passionate kiss and make up
with Saddam.
Salih either does not understand human nature or deliberately
pretends to be dumb. People who see the “leaders” of a nation crawling to
those who commit genocide against their nation would hardly offer themselves for
the protection of that nation. The human shields he so liberally condemns can
see how the Iraqi leadership are standing in the face of the new
“Colonialism” and therefore do so confident that their efforts are likely to
bear fruit.
But there is no limit to the hot-air boasts of Salih and his
pretending to be a man of destiny who is about to carry out some Napoleonic
acts. “We have a free bridgehead in
Iraqi Kurdistan, but we need international help to finish the job,…”. Come
on Socialists of the world, unite and let Barham Salih complete this holy job.
And
who said Mr Salih has no doubts? Having made iron-cast assertions about the
USA’s noble goals, he blesses us with the following:
“Some of the people demonstrating on the streets said that this
war is for oil. Iraqis know that their human rights have too often been ignored
because Iraqi oil was more important to the world than Iraqi lives. It would
be a good irony if at long last oil becomes a cause of our liberation-if
this is the case, then
so be it. The oil will be a blessing and not the curse that it has been
for so long”.
And on the repercussions of the suspect policy Dr Salih and his
circle of friends have followed, he states:
“At present the Iraqi regime has intensified the economic blockade of Iraqi Kurdistan, making our
position even more precarious”. That is all he has to tell the
unsuspecting Socialist audience about the abject poverty and misery the people
have faced under the rule of these unionist Iraqis.
The finale comes in a crescendo of heckling at the opinion of the
masses in the Arab and Islamic streets. He declares in an indignant way:
Others says, "No War
against Iraq, Justice for Palestine". Since when is justice for the
Palestinians, and for the Israelis for that matter, to the exclusion of justice
for Iraqis?
So to those who say "No War", I say, of course "yes", but we
can only have "No War" if there is "No Dictatorship" and "No Genocide."
We hear much about Muslim solidarity and
the so-called "Arab
Street". I know the streets of
Baghdad. I can assure you that they will be filled with jubilant Iraqis after
the dictator has gone.
Let us remember the joy of liberation in Rome in June 1944, the scenes of cheering
crowds in Kosovo in June 1999, the Afghans who danced in the streets in November
2001. Liberation did
not create paradise in any of these places, but it created hope and
opportunity.
Indeed, Dr Barham knows full
well all there is to know about opportunity and the streets of Baghdad only too
well, during the rule of Saddam. But I doubt if he witnessed or remembers them
after the murder of the King in 1958. If he did, he would not be talking about
them in such a banal way. The jubilation and euphoria in the capital of the “disastrous
colonialist legacy” as he calls it brings and has always brought death
and destruction which culminated with the Ba’ath emerging as the most popular
and strongest force in Iraqi politics.
The thing which is and has been
most effective in the creation and promotion of primitive and savage mob rule in
Iraq is not Saddam who is the product - not the cause, but the fertile ground
which is the people of Iraq and their bloody and conflict-ridden past. People
like Mr Salih are not interested in effective solutions to chronic problems for
they have failed to solve the simplest of their people’s, but only in the
utilization of opportunities to seek maximum advantage to enrich themselves and
their immediate circle of friends and relations. We all know that wars bring
destruction as well as lucrative prospects and that is where they always focus
their attention.
To think of the Arab and
Islamic street as, simply, the Baghdad streets and then to assume that that
street will welcome him and his colleagues with open arms is most misinformed
and will only bring more Halabjas and Anfals to our unfortunate and oppressed
nation. By that time however the party leaders would be far, far away.
In their
anxiety not to be seen defending Kurdish lives and hence Kurdish human and
national rights, both the British and the Americans try to avoid any reference
to them although they are strongly tempted and often forced to use the Kurds’
plight for their mealy-mouthed and hypocritical campaigns against Saddam and his
regime.
On other
occasions these cold-blooded ministers of murder and mayhem refer to the
Genocides to demonstrate that Saddam is evil because he has used weapons of mass
destruction on his “own people”, implying that such an act is a cause for
waging a devastating war against Iraq and a justification for using any means
necessary to get rid of his regime.
Throughout
the current charade which the world has now grown absolutely bored with and in
which the credibility of the USA and Britain have gone down to zero, it has been
clear that the world in general is loathed to the idea of allowing the USA to
spread its global policies (Globalisation) by force when as I had predicted it
had failed to do so by devious means using every kind of corrupt and degrading
methods, ranging from spreading greed, prostitution, drugs, pornography, sexual
deviation and every other “psycho-technologies”, they have developed since
Freud first described his theories about man’s primitive instincts.
But this
powerful Western force for degeneration and control has only been met with
religious fanaticism, less effective even than the communist ideologies which
were claimed to be dependent on science and materialism. The world does not have
a philosophy which would enable its nations to face up to the ideology of greed,
primitive instincts or consumerism as I have described above. The Islamic world
presents a conflicting set of values, ideas and practices, just as much
hypocritical as its Christian and Jewish capitalist counterpart. Islamic nations
are by virtue of their teachings and beliefs, unable to come out of their
“fatalistic” philosophy or faith which believes in the inevitability of the
Koran, and asserts that our fate and destiny have been decided and written for
us and we cannot do anything to change them except by prayers and asking God for
help.
The Arab
nation, who were the first to spread their religio-nationalist faith have now
converted to ultra-nationalism which sees no one else as worthy of freedom other
than themselves. They would resort to religion only when they feel the need for
the support of Islamic nations for their nationalist causes while denying any
other nation that happens to be suffering under the rule of one of their
Nation-States, any national rights of their own. Imbedded in all of that is
their latent desire to rekindle their past “glories” and unite in a powerful
nation-state which would challenge the West and in particular, the United States
of America for control of the hearts and minds and ultimately resources of the
world population.
And so
they are actively pursuing what they believe to be their oppressed and usurped
national rights at the hands of the West, just until they recover the power
which they once wielded while all the signs are they will be even less humane,
just, or fair than the current hegemonistic powers on earth judging by their
violent and conquering past and the current megatons of hatred they exhibit on a
daily basis. God forbid what they would do if ever they had America’s nuclear
and military capabilities.
The
world however includes several other nations with their own specific brands of
religion, culture and history. There are for example India and China, both of
which are not only great States with a variety of ethics and beliefs quite
different from that of the West but at the same time have oriental cultures
markedly different from the material grabbing and worshipping way of life the
Western societies have come to be known for.
Yet,
both these states behave in exactly the same way when it comes to respecting and
granting the rights of smaller nations or any of their own constituent nations,
belonging to a different ethnic origin than the ones in power. We all know how
India, a country known for its peaceful temperament, a main religion loathed to
harming even the smallest of creatures, practicing vegetarianism on a large
scale, treats the Kashmiris and threatens to unleash a nuclear war with its
Pakistani neighbours to maintain its grip on the half of that nation under its
control.
We also
know China’s occupation of Tibet and the policing of that country which does
not vary much from Turkey’s treatment of half of the Kurdish nation still
suffering painfully under their brutal regime. All of this makes it easy for the
USA to claim the high moral ground and behave as they feel like and attempt to
spread their brand of world domination without having to worry about the great
world masses getting properly organised to reject their decedent and vile
external political practices or to stop the world resources from going into the
coffers of a small minority of the world population.
It is
true that the USA has great military power but with ministers of defence so
naive, not to say stupid and Presidents so ignorant not to say ridiculous, the
population of the globe ought to be able to tip the balance of power towards
them. The world population can be extremely effective. They can devise
non-violent methods just as the great Indian Ghandi did to defeat Great Britain
and liberate themselves of the political wolves who are controlling the world,
be they capitalist, communist, Islamists or just plain slave drivers such as
Saddam and the Turkish Militarist men cocooned in their 1920s mentalities.
Intellectuals
from all over the world who are fed up to the teeth with this un-natural, unjust
and unfair situation should do everything in their power to unite in their
opposition to being regimented into western-designed slots, sent to work
everyday simply to survive and live a life without freedom and an existence
designed to oil the wheels of fortune for a few dictators and power and
money-mad sections of the global society.
America’s
current Offensive Minister of “Defence” feels so emboldened by the world
nations’ inability to stop him in his war against Saddam that he makes
statements worthy only of someone who believes he is the direct descendent of
the Almighty and feels not the slightest bit of shame.
Why
should he when he knows he was instrumental in providing Saddam with arms and in
particular chemical and biological weapons? So while Chemical Ali who used to
stick to the shadows of Baghdad
recesses suddenly appears in some Arab states, meeting the western-educated,
human-rights and democratically-minded Bashar Al-Assad, and being entertained by
him without a single note of protest on behalf of our equally forgiving Kurdish
party leaders, Rumsfield who has listened to the Kurdish leaders and seen how
they have defended ex-Head of Army Intelligence and Chief of Staff of the Iraqi
army with responsibilities for the Anfal campaign, has the audacity to
“offer” amnesty against prosecution to what they used to call the “butcher
of Baghdad”. Just how does he plan to grant it to Saddam? Does he have such
power over the World Human Rights courts, bearing in mind the Americans actually
refused to prescribe to the establishment of a most important court recently?
This
shameless gesture on Rumsfield’s behalf is an attempt at cancelling the rights
of the victims of the Genocides perpetrated against our nation and if our so
called leaders have the slightest bit of integrity they should quickly
profoundly and strongly condemn it. Forgiveness and amnesties could only be
granted by those affected by the actions and atrocities and not by the man
responsible for arming the aggressor. No one has the right to forgive a murderer
or Genocidal maniac such as those who killed our women and children and we
certainly do not and will not do so. But what hope is there for someone of the
US Defence Secretary’s intelligence to understand that?
The
striking difference between the way the Western governments pursued Pinochet,
Milosovic and others for human rights violations and their silence about
Chemical Ali and now Rumsfield’s offer (no doubt in his capacity as the
Almighty) is unbelievable foul and loathsome. What are the Kurdish party
leaders, in the meantime, doing in the pursuit of justice for those whose death
they helped bring about in the first place? No doubt they agree with everything
that comes out of any American official’s orifice because they have long since
decided to switch off the little brain they may have had and leave it all to the
likes of America’s Minister of Offence