KURDS

ANNOUNCEMENT  --  DAXUYANI

For online version of this flyer: www.kurdistan.org/cpa/daxuyani.html

WHAT

Solidarity Demonstration by Kurds and their Friends to Coincide with
Simultaneous Demonstrations in Canada and the European Countries

WHO

There will be Speakers (For now, Congressman Bob Filner has been invited)
Kurdish Music

WHY

To Urge the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)
To Hold a Referendum in Southern Kurdistan
(Over Two Million Kurds Have Signed Petitions to That End in the Old
Country.  According to the Washington Post, Some Sticking Pins in Their
Fingers and Signing it In Blood  --  Thomas Jefferson Would Have Been Proud
of Them)

WHERE

At the Southside of the White House, The Ellipse
At the Intersections of 15th Street NW, 17th Street NW and Constitution Ave.
NW
Washington, DC 20500
Closest Metro Station: McPherson Square

WHEN

Start: 10:00 am, Saturday, February 21, 2004
End: 2:00 pm, Saturday, February 21, 2004

SPONSORED

REFERENDUM MOVEMENT COMMITTEE OF KURDISTAN (RMCK)

Contact Persons in America

Lokman Ablaki, 978.927.3089 Email: besarani22@msn.com
Kirmanj Gundi, 615.963.2298 or 615.941.4546 Email: kigundi@tnstate.edu

Please Tell Your Friends About it.  Forward This Email to Your Personal
List.  Check www.kurdistan.org Website for Updates.
We Look Forward to Seeing You at the Ellipse.

Please also consider signing the online petition of this referendum
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SoKrdRef/petition.html


The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2722 Connecticut Avenue NW # 42
Washington, DC 20008-5316 / USA
Tel: 202.483.6444 / Fax: Please call first.
Web-site: http://www.kurdistan.org / E-mail: akin@kurdistan.org

AKIN has a Petition online; PLEASE consider signing it!
http://kurdistan.org/petition/index.html

A Test of Vision
22 January 2004
New York Post - By Ralph Peters

A British military maxim holds that "experience enables you to recognize a
mistake the second time you make it." By that standard, the United States
should have no difficulty recognizing a grave foreign-policy error in the
making. We¹ve repeated the same mistake, over and over again, for half a
century.

From our amoral support of the Shah of Iran to our unholy alliance with the
Saudis, from our ill-judged backing of Saddam in the ¹80s to arming Islamic
fanatics in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, America¹s great strategic sin has
been to do that which is expedient, rather than that which is more
difficult, but wise.

In diplomacy, as in personal affairs, there are always plenty of "good"
reasons to go for the quick fix and avoid short-term consequences. During
the Cold War, expedience distorted our foreign policy at the expense of our
highest ideals.

Faced with Communist aggression, our behavior was often understandable. But
for a decade after the Soviet collapse, we continued, from force of habit,
to support regimes as odious to their citizens as they were ultimately
detrimental to our interests.

With our war of liberation in Iraq, we turned a historic corner, embracing
again the core American vision of advancing freedom and the rule of law.

However flawed the public rationale for going to war, the destruction of
Saddam¹s regime was a worthy act.

Now we¹re in danger of undoing much of the good our soldiers achieved. Once
again, our government threatens to promote injustice for the sake of
convenience.

The people of Iraq were blessed to be liberated by Americans, but cursed to
be liberated by Americans in the build-up to a presidential election. After
behaving with courage and vision, President Bush is in danger of committing
a great executive folly: Retreating into traditional wisdom, instead of
marching forward.

This administration led a strategic revolution. Now, in a nervous pursuit of
votes, Bush is on the verge of resurrecting the failed, unjust practices
that abetted tyranny throughout the Middle East and aided the rise of
extremism.

The test in Iraq is our treatment of the Kurds. Given the reluctance of
local governments to count minorities honestly in the Middle East, we know
only that 25 million to 37 million Kurds live between the Persian Gulf and
the Caucasus, between Ankara and Teheran. More than 80 percent of them
suffer political, physical or cultural oppression.

Kurds have been murdered en masse, imprisoned, driven from their homes,
denied elementary freedom and human rights - and even forbidden the public
use of their language.

Yet in place of outraged protests, we heard only the icy tones of
Realpolitik: Any recognition of the Kurds would antagonize our Turkish
"allies." The Kurds were incapable of forming a viable state. Kurdish
independence would be destabilizing (the greatest sin of all in the eyes of
diplomats). And now, Iraq must stay whole.

Nonetheless, the 5 million Kurds of northern Iraq were able to build a de
facto state over the past decade. Despite the smug warnings of the
"experts," the Kurds overcame their factional differences, inaugurated the
rule of law and made their long-impoverished homeland flourish.

Iraqi Kurdistan became exactly what we claim to want for the rest of Iraq
and the Middle East: a hopeful land on the path to democracy, respectful of
human rights and gleefully market-oriented.

Denied recognition as a sovereign state, Iraqi Kurdistan is, in fact, the
most progressive political entity in the Muslim Middle East. We should be
doing all we can to amplify its success. Instead, worried pols in the Bush
administration seem all too willing to sell out the Kurds to achieve a
house-of-cards "success" in Baghdad before November.

As justification, we¹re told that a generous federal status for the Kurds -
semi-autonomy within Iraq - would be intolerable to Iraq¹s neighbors. In
other words, the interests of the mullahs in Iran, the treacherous regime in
Turkey and the sponsors of terror in Syria are more important than the
welfare and freedom of our Kurdish allies.

This is folly. The Bush administration must demonstrate the courage to
follow through on what it has begun. The Kurds must be guaranteed the
freedoms they already enjoy - in a loosely federated Iraq. And the
historically Kurdish, oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which suffered so gravely
from Saddam¹s ethnic cleansing and his programs to Arabize minority
homelands, must be included within the borders of Iraq¹s Kurdish
territories.

The alternative to recognizing Kurdish practical and moral claims to Kirkuk
is to leave the city and its oil reserves under the control of Iraq¹s Sunni
Arabs - who are doing their best to kill our soldiers and frustrate the
emergence of democracy. In which strategic universe can that be deemed sound
policy?

Of late, much attention has focused on southern Iraq, where one canny Shi¹a
cleric is twisting the knife in the flesh of Bush¹s political advisers. As a
result, we¹re in danger of embracing claptrap "solutions" that squander the
best hopes for positive change and justice.

As the cliché goes, if you want it bad, you get it bad.

Prospectively facing a strong Democratic ticket (Kerry-Edwards?), President
Bush¹s best chance of re-election would come from unwavering leadership, not
a collapse into destructive expedience. Our president needs to live up to
his promises.

Freedom should not be negotiable.

President Bush led a long-overdue strategic revolution. A return to the
failed practices of the past would constitute a self-inflicted defeat. In
November and beyond.

Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2722 Connecticut Avenue NW # 42
Washington, DC 20008-5316 / USA
Tel: 202.483.6444 / Fax: Please call first.
Web-site: http://www.kurdistan.org / E-mail: akin@kurdistan.org
AKIN has a Petition online; PLEASE consider signing it!
http://kurdistan.org/petition/index.html

A Little Bit of Discomfort

Kani Xulam
January 25, 2004

For online version of this article  --  in case your text is all garbled up,
http://kurdistan.org/Current-Updates/discomfort012504.html

³A little bit of discomfort,² is what a friend confided in me by way of his
reaction to the Kurdish film, ³A Little Bit of Freedom,² which premiered
here in Washington, DC, a few days ago.  Another one said, ³The filmmaker
dared to open a door that no Kurd had touched before.²  A third chimed in,
³the only thing that we had left was our honor, and that too became a fair
game for all.²  I was drawn to the larger Kurdish Question, the struggle of
the Kurds for freedom, and its repercussions among an exiled Kurdish
community in Hamburg, Germany.

My Kurdish friends were referring to a platonic friendship between a Kurdish
teen and an African one that gave birth to a gay moment that came, no one
should be surprised here, with its tremors as well.  The boys fought a bit
and made up.  The Kurds who were watching the film weren¹t as forgiving
though.  There was a sense of invaded privacy.  Something that was yours,
and dear, was no longer so.  To say that it was a time-stopping moment would
be an understatement.  For Kurds, it probably was comparable to how the
Turks after sedating and blindfolding Mr. Ocalan had him pose for cameras in
front of a Turkish flag, or Iranian killers passing as diplomats murdering
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou or Masud Barzani and Jalal Talabani lining up to
kiss Saddam Hussein.

Sometimes it may actually be good to lose everything in life.  Adversity is
a far better teacher than prosperity says the good old proverb.  Perhaps
that is what the director Yuksel Yavuz was trying to tell us in his film.  A
thirsty person who is given a little bit of water may never look for a
permanent source.  Imagine if you will, there is a law that bans the Kurds
from drinking water!  My hunch is, before long, you will find all Kurds
fighting, tooth and nail, for the rivers of their fathers, the Tigris and
the Euphrates.  In this film  --  don¹t let me scare you  --  there wasn¹t
such a stark scenario.  In life, one hardly comes across alternatives so
black and white.  Our foes, for example, have managed to camouflage their
stinking rule with honeyed words that induce sleep, as opposed to disgust,
in the children of Kurdistan.  The filmmaker himself was only trying a bit
of cinema verite to show the world a bit of Kurdish reality in his Altona,
Hamburg neighborhood.  ³A little bit of freedom² was as much about a little
bit of freedom as it was about its total absence in Kurdistan.  When the
players appeared on the stage, virtually if you will, you saw fear, poverty
of soul, and disintegration on many levels.  The most telling part was Kurds
killing and being killed by Kurds.  It is the most popular sport in the
Middle East, a multi-billion dollars undertaking akin to football in this
country or soccer in Latin America and Europe.  Like the gladiators who
fought to death in Ancient Rome, our misery gives happiness to our masters
and provides revenue for American and European arms merchants.  The Turks,
the Arabs and the Persians must have replayed the scene in their daydreams
as well as night ones.  At the theatre, I could not control my tears.

Woody Allen once quipped, ³I took a speed reading course and read War and
Peace in twenty minutes.  It is about Russians.²  This film took five times
as long.  One could, like Mr. Allen, say it was about the Kurds.  But it was
also about our fallen flag, our prohibited language, our partitioned
country, our murdered fathers and mothers, and their orphaned children who
seek refuge abroad and eke out a very precarious existence.  There is
perhaps nothing new about some Kurds falling through the cracks be it in
Kurdistan or outside of it.  What is frightening  --  and no one is alarmed
about it  --  is that the Kurds, as a people, are fitted for this Godless
role and it is business as usual all over the world.

The Israelis have a song that starts with, ³The whole world is against us,
who cares!²  Lately, for me, these words better capture my Kurdish mood than
the Jewish one.  Any Kurd who is half awake or sober --  choose your pick
--  cannot help but notice the unholy alliance of our neighbors and their
Godless supporters who are bent on shamelessly feasting, with blood dripping
from their mouths, on the biggest carcass of modern times, Kurdistan.  These
devils incarnate pass as representatives of Islam, the harbingers of
democracy, and the custodians of the human race.  We Kurds are not a part of
humanity, according to them, and perhaps it is good, given what the strong
are doing to the weak, that we aren¹t.  Looking at Kurdistan from a strictly
Kurdish point of view, there is absolutely no difference between Saddam
Hussein who is sitting in a jail cell in Baghdad and Turkey¹s Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan who will soon be honored at the White House.  The first
one murdered and gassed the children of Kurdistan; the second, in case you
haven¹t been following the news in Turkey, is coming to seek help from a
God-fearing Christian president to deny the Muslim Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan
a place in the sun.  Is Bush going to side with Godless Erdogan, who calls
himself a pious Muslim, and push the Kurds into the waiting laps Osama Bin
Laden?  Perhaps it is still not too late for someone to remind this
president of the maxim, ³the enemy of my enemy is my friend², was coined in
the Middle East.  If his administration does the bidding of Erdogan, and
early indications seem to favor such an outcome, can anyone fault the Kurds
for praying for a second Saladin to put an end to these blasphemous
machinations once and for all?

Freedom, historian Edward Gibbon wrote, is the happy parent of creativity
and it is a tribute to Mr. Yuksel for deftly undertaking the enduring
Kurdish struggle for liberty through the life of an orphaned Kurdish teen on
film in the cold and lonely streets of Altona, Hamburg, among a notoriously
indifferent population who only two generations ago let six million
defenseless Jews be gassed in its midst.  This film about freedom starts
with footage of a homemade video, a scene from a house in Amed, a.k.a.,
Diyarbakir, where two Kurdish women talk about a squalling pig that has lost
her babies to hunting.  An elderly Kurdish man walks in and becomes the
center of attention.  ³You are being filmed,² one woman tells him, but the
admission registers nothing.  Before long, you realize that the reference to
the pig is actually a metaphor for him.  Provocative?  Yes.  The honest
Germans used to call Jews, rats; the dishonest Turks don¹t call us pigs, but
treat us as such just the same.  For the old man, like the squalling pig,
has lost something precious, his son  --  in the torture chambers of a
Turkish prison.  The pig has his primal scream.  The old man takes it in,
sends his grandson to Germany for safety, and speaks of his love for Kurdish
mountains, a dream that the Turks have put beyond his reach  --  the Turkish
military has banned the Kurds from going to their highlands lest they help
the Kurdish fighters who are battling the Turkish soldiers for freedom.

The rest of the story unfolds in Germany.  We are introduced to the
grandson, Baran, who is now 16 years old.  He works as a delivery boy for a
snack bar in Altona, Hamburg, famous for its red light district.  A kid
removed from his peers, he is shy, confused, and laden with a burden that no
child should ever be subjected to.  In the course of his deliveries, we see
him befriending a homeless captain.  In his breaks, he takes him food.  One
wonders if he is looking for a father figure that was taken away from him so
violently and prematurely?  Perhaps.  The copy, like the real one, is not
much of a help to him.  But the captain has another fan, an African boy,
Chernor, who also visits him on occasions.  At one time, the boys¹ paths
cross in his presence.  Then, the film revolves around their lives.

You notice it at once, the boys need each other; the way plants need water.
Both are lonely.  Both are refugees.  Both are surrounded with people who
are cold and impervious to their needs.  They go on deliveries together.
They learn about each other¹s hopes and aspirations.  Chernor is a
small-time drug dealer.  Baran tells him to stop it.  He says disaster is
another name for his profession.  He tries to find him a job at the snack
bar.  He also tells him of his friend Erkan who became an addict, got
deported to Kurdistan, and ended up living in Istanbul as a lost man.  One
is pleasantly surprised to hear so much wisdom emanating from a mind so
young.  Chernor, on his part, knows a bit of the ³fucked-up² Kurds, but
hears more from his friend, Baran, he pronounces, with his cute French
accent something akin to, Bagan.

What he learns is not pleasant.  Baran relates a story of horror.  His
parents have taken in a wounded Kurdish guerilla under their roof.  Another
Kurd informs the Turkish soldiers of the deed.  Their house is raided.  His
parents are taken in for questioning.  No one sees them again.  He and his
sister have a new name, orphans.  At the age of eleven, he is spirited to
Germany.  Like thousands of other Kurds, he applies for political asylum.
Five years later, he is still waiting.  Then, he meets the betrayer of his
parents in the middle of Hamburg.  The man is fragile, fearful, lonely and
jobless.  The Turks, after milking him, have tossed him as well.  Baran
tells him of his place of employment and urges him to drop by.  When he
finally does, other Kurds in the shop recognize him.  Something snaps in
Baran.  Vengeance overtakes his body.  He finds a way to get hold of a gun.
He begins to stalk the guy.  He manages to corner him on a quiet street.  He
wants to kill him.  But he cannot do it.  The informer apologizes.  He parts
from the scene.

A few days later, they come face to face again.  The encounter is awkward,
but also endearing.  The Kurdish informer has shed his fake Turkish
identity.  In ³a little bit of freedom², he has found his Kurdish voice.  He
is selling roses, green, red and yellow, the Kurdish national colors, in
restaurants for a living.  People who follow Turkey closely know that
traffic lights, which happen to have the same combination of colors, have
gone through transformations in Turkish Kurdistan.  The green has become
blue.  In Germany, a Kurdish informer, in a matter of weeks, has chosen
patriotism over treason.  The present generations of Americans who insist
that Iraqi Kurdistan should remain a part of Arab Iraq have unfortunately
forgotten the true meaning of freedom.  The children of Washington,
Jefferson, and Madison act, behave and speak as if they were the children of
Benedict Arnold.

The film¹s tragic beginning has a tragic end.  Chernor is arrested and will
face deportation.  Baran, the 16-year-old paperless Kurd, decides to take
the law into his own hands to stop the whole thing.  With a pistol, he
confronts a dozen or so armed police officers to free his friend.
Overpowered, he too is detained.  No doubt, he too will face the same
predicament.  Alas, Europe has no room for the ³fucked-up² Kurd or the
African boy.  It had no such compunction when it partitioned Africa and the
Middle East along perfectly straight lines, the source of Baran as well as
Chernor¹s problems.  In the final analysis, the lessons of the film are
clear and unmistakable for the Kurd who is sober and awake.  With a little
bit of freedom, wonders may happen, but one may also face jail time and face
deportation back to the Middle East.  With no freedom, death can be as close
as one¹s shadow.  With freedom, we can claim our womanhood and manhood again
and walk into the fields of light once more.  The old man of Kurdistan put
his hopes in Germany for the safety of his grandson.  The children of
Kurdistan must do better and place their faith, sweat, tears, and if need be
blood, in the land of their ancestors.  Nothing else is redeeming.  No one
else will take up the challenge.  That is what Kurdistan wants.  That is
what its children will do.


The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2722 Connecticut Avenue NW # 42
Washington, DC 20008-5316 / USA
Tel: 202.483.6444 / Fax: Please call first.
Web-site: http://www.kurdistan.org / E-mail: akin@kurdistan.org

AKIN has a Petition online; PLEASE consider signing it!
http://kurdistan.org/petition/index.html

  Kurds' Success Makes It Harder To Unify All Iraq

  A Tale of Two Peoples: Jews&Kurds by Hal Lindsey

  New Year Greetings and A new Book on Kurdistan in English

  A Gagged People: the Story of the Kurds

  Bush's Betrayal

  Declaration of Conscience

 How friendship helped heal a victim of war

  Jiyan Means Life in Kurdish; In English, Death Will Do

  Of Iraq and Its Newspapers: A Kurdish Perspective

  A Chance Encounter with a Turk

  International Politics
  Kurds at the Nexus of Global Politics
  How the U.S. uses one genocide to justify another by Jesse Benjamin

 Unfinished Business in Iraq  by: Ralph Peters

  Between Iraq and A Hard Place
  Kurdish Rights Advocate Wary Over War’s Outcome

  The Kurds story

  Will a U.S. War Free the Kurds?

Iraqi Kurds recall chemical attack

Nerve Gas used in Iraq on Kurds

HOME