Kurds advancing to reclaim land in northern Iraq
6.20.04   Dexter Filkins NY Times

Makhmur, Iraq   Thousands of ethnic Kurds are pushing into lands formerly held by Iraqi Arabs, forcing tens of thousands of them to flee to ramshackle refugee camps and transforming the demographic & political map of northern Iraq. Kurds are returning to lands from which they were expelled by the armies of Saddam Hussein & his predecessors in the Baath Party, who ordered thousands of Kurdish villages destroyed and sent waves of Iraqi Arabs north to fill the area with supporters.
The new movement, which began with the fall of Mr. Hussein, appears to have quickened this spring amid confusion about American policy, along with political pressure by Kurdish leaders to resettle the areas formerly held by Arabs. It is happening at a moment when Kurds are threatening to withdraw from the national govt if they are not confident of having sufficient autonomy.

In Baghdad, American officials say they are struggling to keep the displaced Kurds on the north side of the Green Line, boundary of Kurdish autonomous region. The Americans agree that the Kurds deserve to return to their ancestral lands, but they want an orderly migration to avoid ethnic strife and political instability. Thousands of Kurds appear to be ignoring the American orders. New Kurdish families show up every day at the camps that mark the landscape here, settling into tents and tumble-down homes as they wait to reclaim their former lands.
Kurdish migration appears to be causing widespread misery, with Arabs complaining of expulsions and even murders at the hands of Kurdish returnees. Many of the Kurdish refugees themselves are gathered in crowded camps. American officials say as many as 100,000 Arabs have fled their homes in north-central Iraq and are now scattered in squalid camps across the center of the country. With anti-American insurgency raging across much of the same area, the Arab refugees appear to be receiving neither food nor shelter from the Iraqi govt, relief organizations or American forces.

"The Kurds, they laughed at us, they threw tomatoes at us," said Karim Qadam, a 45-year-old father of 3, now living amid the rubble of a blown-up building in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad. "They told us to get out of our homes. They told us they would kill us. They told us, `You don't own anything here anymore.' " 10 years ago, Qadam said, Iraqi officials forced him to turn over his home in the southern city of Diwaniya and move north to the formerly Kurdish village of Khanaqaan, where he received a free parcel of farmland. Now, like the thousands of Arabs encamped in the parched plains northeast of Baghdad, Qadam, his wife and 3 children have no home to return to.
The push by the Kurds into the formerly Arab-held lands, while driven by the returnees themselves, appears to be backed by Kurdish govt, which has long advocated a resettlement of the disputed area. Despite explicit prohibition in the Iraqi interim constitution, Kurdish officials are setting up offices and exercising governmental authority in the newly settled areas.

The shift in population is raising fears in Iraq that the Kurds are trying to expand their control over Iraqi territory at the same time they are suggesting that they may pull out of the Iraqi govt. American officials say they are trying to fend off pressure from Kurds to move their people back into the area. "There is a lot of pressure in the Kurdish political context to bring the people who were forced out back into their hometowns," said a sr American official in Baghdad, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "What we have tried to do so far, through moral suasion, is to get the Kurds to recognize that if they put too much pressure on Kirkuk and other places south of the Green Line, they could spark regional and national instability."
Local occupation officials appear in some areas to have accepted the flow of Kurds back to their homes. According to minutes of a recent meeting of occupation officials and relief workers in the northern city of Erbil, an American official said the Americans would no longer oppose Kurds' crossing the Green Line, as long as the areas they were moving into were uncontested. Kurdish & American officials say the occupation authority has been financing projects in Makhmur, former Arab area recently resettled by Kurds.

Biggest potential flash point is Kirkuk, a city contested by Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. Kurdish leaders want to make the city, with its vast oil deposits, the Kurdish regional capital and resettle it with Kurds who were driven out in the 1980's. To make the point, some 10,000 Kurds have gathered in a sprawling camp outside Kirkuk, where they are pressing the American authorities to let them enter the city. American military officers who control Kirkuk say they are blocking attempts to expel more Arabs from the town, for fear of igniting ethnic unrest.
"The Kurds are pushing, pushing," said minister for displaced persons and migration Pascal Ishu Warda. "We have to set up a system to deal with these people who have been thrown out of their homes." To treat the burgeoning crisis, American officials last month approved spending $180 million to compensate Arab families thrown out of their homes; earlier they set up a similar program, with similar financing, for the Kurds.

Americans have distributed handbills in Arab & Kurdish camps calling on Iraqis to file claims and produce ownership documents. Some Iraqi & American officials say those claims could take months or even years to sort out, and will provide little immediate help to the families, Arab and Kurdish, languishing in the camps. Some people said American officials waited too long, more than a year, to set up a mechanism to resettle displaced Iraqis. By then, they said, the Kurds, tired of waiting, took matters into their own hands.
Former U.S. ambassador Peter W. Galbraith, who advised Kurdish leadership, said he recommended a claim system for Kurds & Arabs to Pentagon officials in late 2002. Nothing was put in place on the ground until last month, he said, long after the Kurds began to move south of the Green Line. "The C.P.A. adopted a sensible idea, but it required rapid implementation," Galbraith said. "They dropped the ball, and facts were created on the ground. Of course people are going to start moving. If the political parties are encouraging this, that, too, is understandable."

Kurdish leaders say they are merely taking back land that was stolen from them over 4 decades. Publicly, Kurdish leaders say that they are committed to working within the Iraqi state as long as their federal rights are assured, and that no Arabs have been forced from their homes. In villages & camps where Kurds returned, Kurdish leaders are more boastful. They say they pushed the Arab settlers out as part of a plan to expand Kurdish control over the territory.
"We made sure there wasn't a single Arab left here who came as part of the Arabization program," said Makhmur mayor Abdul Rehman Belaf of the large area in northern Iraq that was emptied of Arabs and is now being resettled by Kurds. Belaf is a member of the Kurdish Democratic Party, one of 2 main Kurdish political parties active on the other side of the Green Line; virtually all of Makhmur's officials belong to the party, too. "We haven't stopped yet," he said. "We have more land to take back."

Before the war began in 2003, Arab settlers worked the fields in the areas surrounding Makhmur. Most of the settlers were brought north by successive waves of Mr. Hussein's campaign to populate the north with Arabs, killing or expelling tens of thousands of Kurds. Exactly what happened when Hussein's army collapsed is disputed. Kurdish officials say the Arab settlers fled with the army. No expulsions were necessary, they said. Some Arab families, like those who settled around Makhmur long ago, have largely been left alone.
"Saddam's people asked me to take Kurdish lands in 1987, and I said no," said Salim Sadoon al-Sabawi, a 60- year-old Arab farmer in the village where his family has lived for generations. "When the Kurds returned, they left me alone. There was no violence. We are like brothers." Asked what the Kurds did to the Arabs who migrated into the area recently, Sabawi paused, and his son, Arkan, broke in. "They threatened people with death," Arkan said. "They told them to get out."
"Let's be honest," Mr. Sabawi told his son. "The Arabs who left all came here as part of the Arabization program. They kicked out the Kurds. It wasn't their land to begin with."

Kurdish mayor Belaf said before the war the Makhmur area was 80% Arab. A year later, he said, it is 80% Kurdish, as it used to be. As hard as life is for Arabs in refugee camps, it seems to be hardly better for the Kurds displacing them. Adnan Karim, 34, said his home was burned by the Iraqi Army in 1987. He began a life on the run after that, fighting Hussein as a pesh merga, marrying, having children and moving from one place to another. Last year he returned to old military camp Qara Hanjir near Kirkuk, hoping new govt would set aside some land for returnees like him. Nearly a year later, he is still waiting in a camp.
Karim said he was trying to provide for his wife and 3 children with a $40-a-month pesh merga pension and money from odd jobs. But much of his money is spent buying water from a truck. Watching his children play in the dirt around him, Karim, a bedraggled man, gave in to despair. "I have spent my whole life this way," he said, "just as you see me."

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Kurdistan covers 74,000 sq.mi., mountainous with fertile valleys. 25-28 million Kurds in the world claim to be the world's largest ethnicity without a country to call their own. Kurds are mostly Sunni Muslims & descended from the Medes. Language is form of Persian, but centuries of isolation have created many dialects & tribal schisms. Most Kurds, although known for gaudy attire, have assimilated successfully into Turkish society.
Kurdistan "effectively was created when the U.S and Turkish military (Operation Provide Comfort) created a safe zone for the 1.5 million Kurds displaced by Hussein's attempt to eliminate the Kurds. During the three-year military occupation by the Americans, they managed to form two major political parties from the diverse group of Kurds. There were actually democratic elections held among the area's 3.5 million residents in 1992. The area is essentially divided into east and west. The west is controlled by Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the east by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal Talabani, with the center being the regional capital of Arbil. (also Irbil & Erbil) hellish limbo; Strongholds at both Iraq's Arbil and eastern Turkey's Diyarbakir have been largely recovered by the Iraqis & Turks respectively. For now, the Kurds have possession of a frozen, windswept mountainous country with little chance of being granted independence.

After former U.S. President George Bush gallantly came to the aid of Kuwait, a country weakened by too many late nights at the disco, the Kurds thought they were next in line to be liberated from big, bad Saddam. Obviously, the Iraqi Kurds never studied postwar Eastern European history or oil exploration. The U.S. did send them bread. We save the military stuff for rich backward people; until they get that oil out of the ground, they will have to be poor backward people. … 44 cruise missiles at $1.5 million each translates to $113.20 per Kurd in Iraq. That doesn't include building or delivery costs. A mild exaggeration, but appropriate, considering the UN had just allowed a $50-per-Kurd allowance to feed the destitute Kurds in northern Iraq.) Smugglers charge $3500 per family to escape from their mountainous hell to Germany. … efforts have been successful in creating sympathy for a people deposed. In our own humble opinion, one of the most powerful opinion shapers was Coskun's photos of the Kurdish refugees fighting for bread featured in news magazines around the world, including Time. The problem is that there is little even a sympathetic person can do to help the Kurds."

"Bill Clinton OK'd a $20 million in covert action to overthrow Saddam from the north, sending cruise missiles to the south, knocking out unrelated Iraqi radar & air defense sites as an expensive IOU to the Saudis and Kuwait.. The actual figure ended up being $200 million by launching B-52s from Louisiana to Guam and then to the Persian Gulf to launch 13 cruise missiles. Those salvos nearly matched another 14 Tomahawks from U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. The next day, the military used the bizarre term of 'mopping up' to justify the launching of another 17 Tomahawks to take out the 15 air defense centers in the south. The U.S. did not do anything to protect the Kurds or to defend the "safe haven" they created for Kurds after the Gulf War. A few days later, Saddam and his new Kurdish buddies captured the rest of Kurdistan.
The intrigue came to light when the papers revealed that Saddam had wiped out a 6-year, $20 million CIA operation to back Barzani & his KDP. The goal was to support a grass-roots uprising against Saddam run by a handful of CIA agents with dozens of trained terrorists to overthrow or assassinate Saddam. Barzani decided to ditch Uncle Sam and called in Uncle Saddam instead, with much more effective results. Father & son Necherwan live off "customs fees" they collect from trade, include oil & drug shipments, between Turkey & Iraq. The outlook for the Kurds is dim since their demands for a new homeland would not only remove a major chunk of Turkey but a major portion of Iran, Iraq and Syria as well.
  DangerFinder Fielding Worldwide 1998

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Turkish political, military leaders agree to extend emergency rule in southeast
10.30.01   AP

Istanbul   Turkey's political & military leaders agreed Tuesday to extend emergency rule in 4 predominantly Kurdish provinces of southeastern Turkey. The National Security Council, made up of top generals & ministers, agreed at its monthly meeting that emergency rule in the provinces of Diyarbakir, Tunceli, Hakkari and Sirnak should be extended for 4 months beyond 11.30.01. The extension must now be put to a vote in parliament, which routinely approves the Council's decisions.
Emergency rule was imposed in 13 provinces in 1987, as the army battled with Kurdish rebels demanding autonomy for the southeast. It allows provincial governors to impose curfews, call in soldiers to suppress illegal demonstrations and ban rallies. As fighting subsided, emergency rule was gradually lifted in 9 provinces, most recently in Van province in June 2000. An estimated 37,000 people, mostly Kurdish rebels & civilians, died in the 15-year conflict, which has been reduced to sporadic clashes since rebels announced a cease-fire in 1999. Most of the rebels have since crossed the border into neighboring Iraq & Iran. The army has rejected the cease-fire and says it will continue fighting until all rebels surrender or are killed.

Bush Likes Turkish Austerity Moves
4.18.01   AP

Wash.D.C.   Pres. GWBush telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit on Wednesday to express U.S. support for his economic austerity program. Bush "underscored the critical importance of Turkey implementing these economic reforms and noted that the U.S., working with the intl community, will continue to be supportive of Turkey as it moves forward with its economic reform program & its program with the International Monetary Fund,'' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. The Turkish govt announced a plan Saturday to slash govt spending; overhaul the state banking system, which for years has funneled cheap loans to key political constituencies; and privatize companies in a program to tame inflation, curb interest rates and allow for stable growth. In the next couple of weeks, Turkey is expected to sign deals for billions of dollars in international loans, including $6.2 billion from the IMF.

Lira collapse driven by panic not logic
2.26.01   Charlotte Denny The Guardian

Is the financial collapse in Turkey the start of another emerging markets meltdown like the Asian crisis? So far, no, but it's a bit early to declare the danger over. The lira has lost more than 30% of its value since the government stopped trying to prop it up last week. That makes Turkey's large foreign debt more expensive to repay because most of the loans were made in dollars. As a result, Turkey's already wobbly banking system is under further pressure.

Why did the government devalue?
It had to. Overnight interest rates had risen to 4,000% as it desperately tried to hold the lira's value to the dollar. Just as in the Asian crisis, floating the currency swaps one problem for another. Interest rates have fallen back, but now foreign, not domestic borrowing is putting the strain on the financial system.
Isn't that what happened in some Asian countries?
Yes, although Turkey's debt is nothing like as big. South Korea owed foreign lenders $150bn when its financial system started crumbling. Turkish banks have borrowed around $45bn. It's a much smaller economy and has limited trade links outside of Europe. Asia's crisis spread rapidly because many countries in the region proved to be weak when their economies came under pressure. Luckily for Turkey it has some strong neighbours. Germany is the country most exposed to bad losses and its economy is scarcely going to be troubled by a $10bn sour investment.
So are the risks limited to Europe?
The trouble with financial crises is that they are about panic not logic. If investors decide that emerging markets are looking dodgy again, they may pull out of the countries they consider weak, regardless of whether there is any logical link with events in Turkey.
Which countries are the likely victims?
Countries with lots of short term international borrowing are vulnerable. Within Europe, the Czech republic is a possible candidate, though its total bill isn't very high. Argentina and Brazil owe a lot, and about half of it is short term borrowing. Another factor is currency pegs which are looking increasingly like bad idea. When speculators take on governments, they usually win because they have more money - as is demonstrated by the ejection of the pound from the exchange rate mechanism.

Which countries still have fixed currencies?
Malaysia and Argentina still fix their currencies to the dollar. Hong Kong has a fixed currency but it operates a system whereby it holds as many US dollars as are needed to buy every single Hong Kong dollar in circulation, thus ensuring a speculative run on the currency can always be stopped. Most Latin American countries have abandoned pegs in favour of currency boards - like Hong Kong's - or fully adopting the dollar. However, Africa is a different story. It has two big regional currency blocs which are pegged to the French franc and therefore the euro. The economies of the region are weak because of falling commodity prices, and political upheaval which is also shutting down western aid programmes. A devaluation would make political and economic sense and would have limited impact on the rest of the world because the economies are so small to begin with.
So which country is the number one candidate if the crisis spreads?
Probably Argentina. It owes a lot of money, it has a pegged currency, which is coming under increasing pressure, and it has had big inflows of "hot money" from investors in search of a quick return taking a bet that the currency peg will hold. If the peg crumbles there will be a mad rush for the exits.

Turkey admits Iraqi air raid, probes casualty claims
8.18.00   AFP English

Ankara   Ankara said military operations started only after measures were taken to prevent any harm to civilians in the Kurdish-held enclave. Turkey admitted Friday that it had launched an operation against Turkish Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and said it was investigating claims by Iraqi factions in the area that civilians were killed in the strike."Turkey carries out operations in northern Iraq from time to time as part of the combat against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)," a spokesman for the Turkish foreign ministry, Huseyin Dirioz, said. Dirioz said such military operations started only after measures were taken to prevent any harm to civilians in the Kurdish-held enclave. "In a similar operation on the 15th of August, necessary measures were taken once again to ensure that the civilian population would not be harmed," Dirioz said.

In February 2000, the State Dept's human rights bureau released a scathing report on Turkey's record in 1999. It still flunked all 7 benchmarks.

" … highlights of Turkey's history. The Ottoman forebears of the modern Turks swooped down from outer Mongolia to conquer the Middle East up to the borders of the Persian Empire and to occupy a vast domain populated by Christians and Muslims. Details of the conquests still live in dusty stacks in our nation's libraries, though they remain an enigma to most Americans who still have trouble locating that part of the world on the map. And what a dismal history it is.
The Janissaries, crack troops of the Ottoman Sultan, were Christian boys forcibly taken from their mothers before they reached the age of eight and raised as Muslims and defenders of the Empire. As men they were turned loose to murder those who gave them life. History holds other times when Christian mothers wept. For instance, on September 18,1824, nearly 2 centuries ago, the Salem Observer informed Massachusetts readers of "the cruelties of the Turks. On entering Melenia, they put to the sword all the Christians above 8 years of age, and at Pergamos, they massacred in thirty eight hours, ten thousand Christians." NY Times 10.11.1917 noted that before the first crusade, the Arabs had never persecuted Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem & the Holy Sepulchre, "But the Seljukian Turks changed all that when they occupied all Syria & the Holy Land in the eleventh century. They persecuted Arab, Jew & Christian pilgrim alike."

5 years later, American Consul to Smyrna, George Horton penned these unhappy words: "I have often been impressed with the hopelessness of making people who have not been eye-witnesses, comprehend the dreadful character of the massacres which are carried on by the Turks against the Christian population of the Orient … One of the keenest impressions which I brought away with me from Smyrna was a feeling of shame that I belonged to the human race … the Turks were glutting freely their racial and religious lust for slaughter, rape and plunder within a stone's throw of the Allied and American battle-ships because they had been systematically led to believe that they would not be interfered with … And this, the presence of those battle-ships in Smyrna harbor, in the year of our Lord 1922, impotently watching the last great scene in the tragedy of the Christians of Turkey, was the saddest and most significant feature of the whole picture … Christians were abandoned as no Christian power desired to offend the Turk, from whom great benefits were expected...It is a curious fact that the Turk is still able to deceive Europeans, despite long observation of his tactics' (Report on Turkey, USA Consular Documents)"
More than 160,000 military & police made eastern Turkey into a war zone, and travel is strictly controlled. The 750,000-member Turkish military has staged three coups since 1960 in fear of Muslim fundamentalism upsetting Turkey's secular traditions. Turkish PM Necmettin Erbakan & his Islamic-led govt resigned 6/97 before he became 4th coup.

ATAA Assembly of Turkish American Associations   Turkish Press Review

"Human rights leave chopper deal in a spin"
5.22.00   Time

Turkey warns of retaliation if U.S. makes genocide charge
10.5.00 Wash.Post

  Turkish officials warned US risks losing use of Turkish base for air patrols over northern Iraq if House approves resolution accusing Turkey of genocide against Armenians 80 years ago. In response, Turkish officials considering appointing Baghdad ambassador for first time since end of Gulf War in 1991 and will join nations sending aid to Iraq despite U.N. sanctions. Leaders of all five parties in Turkish parliament declared "Grand National Assembly will evaluate extension of Operation Northern Watch" U.S. & British patrols from Turkey's Incirlik air base to northern Iraq to enforce U.N. restrictions on Iraqi military deployments. Turkish parliament votes every 6 months on whether to renew approval for Incirlik. Current extension ends Dec. 30.
Western diplomats said Turkish measures unlikely as hurt itself as much US. Skepticism Turkey stop Incirlik patrols because Iraq then launch military operations forcing thousands of Kurd refugees into Turkey where Turkish military fighting Kurdish separatists for 15 years. Turkey might retaliate more strongly against Armenia, with whom has no diplomatic relations. Turkey set tough new visa restrictions on Armenians today. Armenian Foreign Ministry welcomed House vote and called on Turkey to begin dialogue on genocide issue & economic cooperation, Russian news agency Interfax reported. Clinton opposes resolution, spoke with Turkish Pres. A. Necdet Sezer Monday before committee vote. Turkish news media reported govt considering other retaliation, incl dropping scheduled negotiations U.S. defense contractor Bell-Textron to buy 145 attack helicopters costing an estimated $4.5 billion.

As many as 12 to 15 million Kurds live in Turkey (third of Turkey's members of parliament and foreign ministers have Kurdish background). … When Ottoman Empire disbanded at the end of WW1, western Allies created country of Kurdistan in 1920 with Treaty of Sevres. They changed their minds in 1923, when they decided it was more expedient to suck up to Turkey and make it an anti- communist buffer zone against Russia. However, 1923 treaty of Lausanne did provide for basic recognition and rights, largely ignored by Turkey and Iraq. … The outlook for the Kurds is dim since their demands for a new homeland would not only remove a major chunk of Turkey but a major portion of Iran, Iraq and Syria as well. They also run up against Turkey's goal of uniting the various peoples within its border and the call for peaceful and political settlements to rights, but they maintain a hard line on secessionist groups. Even if Turkey were to be conciliatory, many people forget that the PKK is waging a battle on four fronts (not incl terrorist activities in Europe) and has little chance of convincing the hard-line govts of Iraq, Iran and Syria to give them concessions. PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan ran operations out of comfortable house in Damascus, Syria & Bekaa Valley until lured into capture & Turkish death sentence as terrorist

The PKK targets the local population and is on the run from the Turkish Special Ops teams. The PKK controls the countryside at night, and the government controls the major cities. There is continual warfare on a daily basis, as the Turkish govt seeks to annihilate the 10,000 or so ground troops the PKK has in the country. The PKK shows no quarter to Kurds they think are sympathizers, yet are surprisingly lenient with foreigners they kidnap. Of the 20 or so foreigners they kidnap in a year, all are released without harm. To root out remaining pockets of rebel resistance in eastern Turkey, the govt relocated some 3000 subsistence farmers who were thought to be PKK sympathizers. Those with the brains to keep their political sympathies to themselves, about 70,000 considered loyal to govt, were rewarded with a gun & $200 a month in cash and instructed to defend their villages, hardly night watchman's pay in eastern Turkey. These guys have become target practice for hungry soldiers and rebels alike. The army tends to burn entire villages to the ground for a few loaves of bread, while the PKK simply kill the village guards and take the community's food. An average of 10 village guards a month are killed.

In 1993, the Kurds began a sporadic bombing campaign in Istanbul & Antalya designed to scare off Western tourists. In Europe in 1993, Kurds created global publicity with series of terrorist activities against Turkish embassies & businesses (airline offices, banks and travel agents). Germany, with Turkish community of more than 2 million (quarter of them Kurds), was understandably nervous about becoming a battleground and quickly banned 36 Kurdish political organizations. France also banned two Kurdish political groups, and Great Britain is trying to figure out how to stop the regular extortion of Turkish emigrants and/or their businesses by the Kurds. While the U.S. turns a blind eye to the PKK atrocities in Turkey, it is actively using the Kurds to help destabilize Hussein in Iraq.

DangerFinder Fielding Worldwide 1998
"To me, the important question is, how much money is available ?"
Solarz testimony 2.26.97 House Intl Relations Committee
NEW THINKING ON FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

2/14/00 UNI   high$ D.C. foreign lobby battles   Apco Assoc.
Council on Foreign Relations   Ctr for Strategic & Intl Studies
NED   ICG board

Congressman from Istanbul
Dir. Santa Fe Intl Corp, principal shareholder SFIC Holdings
(Cayman) Inc, wholly owned subsidiary of Kuwait Petroleum Corp
In 1993 Clinton appointed Solarz chairman of board of Central Asian-American Enterprise Fund, US govt funded investment co. registered in Delaware & operating as profit-oriented venture capital institution with a goal of investing in profitable small and medium size businesses in Central Asia with 6 offices in Central Asia & D.C. office with total 90 full-time employees (D.Nicholson, former CEO). $150 million fund to support direct investment & loans in small & medium businesses in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan. During 2000, CAAEF will review its loan portfolio, which is experiencing higher than expected levels of loan delinquencies. Local partner banks tend to be undercapitalized with the central bank.

Spring 1993 "Congressman from Istanbul"
V.B. Saeedpour Dir.Research, Ctr for Research, Kurdish Library
"… former Democratic House member Steven Solarz of Brooklyn, called by the Turkish press a "proTurkish Congressman." (Hurriyet 12.9.85) This wasn't always the case. As a freshman in Congress Solarz actually co- introduced Res. 269 to designate April 24, 1975 as a "Day of Remembrance of Man's inhumanity to Man" and Res. 148 to commemorate victims of genocide, both incl Armenians. When a year later he authored legislation requiring the National Institute of Education to develop a genocide curriculum, he recommended the Holocaust and the Genocide for inclusion. In 1982 letter to Armenian organization, Solarz said, "I have no personal doubt, and indeed have said on many public occasions that the slaughter of a million or more Armenians by the Turks was one of the most unjust and unconscionable events of human history, and I certainly join you in deploring it."
Like weather, Solarz turned. Reportedly informed by letter from the Jewish community in Turkey that refusal to cooperate could jeopardize their well being, Solarz, in subsequent statement on resolution introduced in 1985, justified change of heart in this way "One of the problems with this resolution is that it asserts what happened to the Armenians was a genocide when the fact that it was a genocide is itself in dispute...There is no evidence that I am aware of which demonstrates that the Ottomans were trying to exterminate all Armenians." (Congressional Record 12.12.85) With the passing of time, his opposition increased. In 6/88 letter to obtain financial support from Turkish physicians, Congressman S. wrote, 'For over a decade in the U.S. Congress I've worked hard to advance the interests of the Turkish people.'"

Jan. 93 Wash.Rpt MidEast Affairs "Solarz' Indian Dreams Dashed"
Paul Findley, former Cong., chair Council for Natl Interest Wash.DC
Before 1992 elections, Solarz' future seemed secure. In 5 easy campaigns for re-election in his heavily Jewish Brooklyn district, he worked hard & successfully in securing contributions for future election campaign needs. He didn't need the money and allowed it to accumulate year after year until, in early 1992, it topped $2 million, an all-time high for members of the House of Representatives. First hard blow came when congressional district he represented for 10 years was divided into 6 parts, each added to adjoining district. Eager to stay in the House, Solarz decided his best bet was to seek nomination in nearby district in which Hispanic citizens predominate but with few Jews. To win, Solarz would have to defeat five other candidates, each with Hispanic ancestry. If re-elected, he would be the number two Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, with a good prospect of later becoming chairman. His campaign fund was greater than the aggregate of all five opponents. But his &/or his wife's mishandling of personal finances was likely the worst obstacle in his ill-fated campaign for re-election to Congress as well as his subsequent quest for a diplomatic post.
NewYork Times over the years carried abundant positive publicity about his exploits for Israel but published an article about his bad debts. Despite generous congressional salary & earnings of his wife, Solarz established a record of not paying bills. Still worse, he emerged as one of worst offenders in highly publicized scandal two years ago over abuse of the House bank. In recent years, he had written 743 overdrafts on his personal account at the bank. While he eventually made good on all of the overdrafts, the level of these abuses aroused broad protest. He lost the nomination.

With Bill Clinton as president, Solarz began aggressive campaign to win a major foreign policy position in the new administration. He openly sought appt as Secretary of State, then shifted to position of permanent US rep at UN. Those efforts failing, he sought selection as ambassador to Japan. When that position went to former VP W.Mondale, Solarz turned attention to India & emerged as leading candidate. Pending normal FBI check into his background, Solarz occupied a temporary office in the State Dept & awaited presidential orders to go to New Delhi. New York City weekly newspaper that specializes in news related to India reported unusual delay in the long expected formal nomination of Solarz, for many years Capitol Hill's leading proponent of Israeli interests, as President Bill Clinton's ambassador to New Delhi. According to the report, the appt was anything but certain. Suggesting big trouble, the administration had not sent notice of intent to New Delhi, a notification that normally is made in advance of ambassadorial appts. 2 days later, syndicated columnist Robt Novak reported, "New York Democrats this past week were informed that after routine FBI investigation Solarz was out of the picture totally & permanently." New Yorkers were told Solarz will not be named to "the promised post of ambassador to India or to any other federal job."

U.S. foreign-policy makers like Solarz follow the Kissinger doctrine of nurturing, not solving, the Third World disputes that keep people who seek freedom and democracy poor and suppressed. To keep the support of the American public now that the communist empire is gone, such members of the political/ military establishment are creating a new bogeyman they call Islamic fundamentalism. Indian rulers, inheritors of the British Empire, eagerly dance to this tune. They portray the centuries-old struggle for self-determination, democracy and freedom from autocratic rule by the Kashmiri people, most of whom are Muslims, as a religious separatist movement.
10/93 "Kashmiri view: Issue is Suppression of Self-Determination"
R.A. Khan, dir. L.A. based Kashmir HumanRights Fdtn The Washington Report p37
2/25/00 Natl Journal   Former House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston, R-LA, who resigned shortly before he was to become Speaker at the end of February last year following reports of an extramarital affair, quickly set up his lobbying shop accompanied by veteran aides who proved to be valuable assets last year while one-year ban on lobbying former colleagues was in effect after his departure from Congress. (The prohibition does not cover former aides.) "I was an advocate for my district and for my country," says the 56-year-old Livingston. "Now I'm an advocate for my clients. I don't see a great distinction." "You used to leave Capitol Hill and sell your relationships with former members as a valuable commodity," says Fred Wertheimer, a champion of campaign finance reform. "The new part of the game involves buying your way in by raising large amounts of money for the powers-that-be."
Livingston, lead lobbyist on the firm's Turkey contract account, by far its most lucrative assignment, recruited Former House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon R-NY and former Rep. Stephen J. Solarz. D-NY, a senior counselor at APCO Associates, to work with him. The trio has multiple missions to perform for Turkey, a longtime NATO ally with image problems due to its repression of Kurdish minorities. For starters, they'll focus on helping the country secure more weapons, including a purchase of about $1 billion worth of attack helicopters that Turkey is anxious to complete. Congress would have to approve the deal if the helicopters are from the United States.

The threesome will also work to facilitate a complex $2.5 billion oil pipeline deal the U.S. strongly backs in the Caspian region for geopolitical reasons. But the project has faced enormous financing difficulties & political problems: American oil companies & some outside analysts warn the quantities of proven oil in the Caspian area are still not great enough to justify the costs. As conceived, the pipeline would carry oil from Baku in Azerbaijan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, a 1,200-mile route. Some oil lobbyists suggest that Turkey's hiring of the new team is a harbinger of efforts to get new financial concessions to help build the pipeline. "It could be the start of transforming U.S. support from political support to other, more tangible support, such as concessionary financing," said one source. "This particular pipeline is troubled," Livingston acknowledges. "We hope we can overcome the obstacles and push it forward … If it's good economics, it will probably happen." For its Turkish work, Solomon's firm will receive $700,000 from the $1.8 million contract. [ 39% ]

7.28.98 Bill Royce, VOA Farsi Service from NPC photo The problem is that the CIA are amateurs compared to Hussein. Saddam's youngest son Qusay planted agents in the Iraqi deserters that were recruited by the INC/CIA. They knew every detail of the "covert" operation. DangerFinder Fielding Worldwide 1998

4 million Kurds live in Iraq.
from1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices re Iraq
Sunni Kurds are approximately 18-20% population. Except in Kurdish-controlled northern areas, citizens legally may not assemble other than to express support for the regime. In northern Iraq, many independent newspapers appeared over past 7 years, as have opposition radio & tv broadcasts.
Absence of central authority permits significant freedom of expression, including criticism of the regional Iraqi Kurdish authorities; however, most journalists are influenced or controlled by various political organizations. Although the rival Kurdish parties in northern Iraq, the PUK & KDP, state that full press freedom is allowed in areas under their respective control, in practice neither effectively permits distribution of the opposing group's newspapers & literature. In northern Iraq, all central govt functions been performed by local administrators, mainly Kurds, since the Govt withdrew its military forces & civilian administrative personnel from area after 1991 uprising. A regional parliament & local govt administrators elected in 1992. This parliament last met in May 1995. The 2 major Kurdish parties in de facto control of northern Iraq, the KDP & the PUK, battled one another from 1994 through 1997. In September 1998, they agreed to unify their separate administrations and to hold new elections in July. The cease-fire held throughout the year; however, reunification measures were not implemented and no election was held.

In the Kurdish-controlled area of northern Iraq, there's a group of fighters worth watching. The Ansar, or Partisans, of Islam have clashed many times with the PUK, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the 2 dominant Kurdish guerilla groups in control of most of Iraqi Kurdistan. Some of the Ansar's members are believed to have trained in Afghanistan and to have strong ties with the al-Qaeda network and with Iraqi govt. BBC's Jim Muir visited the area near the Iranian border.
These are the fighters of the Ansar of Islam, a major headache for the main Kurdish faction; earlier this month they killed 8 PUK men in an attack. But the most serious action by the Islamic extremists was last year when they surprised a village held by the PUK. They captured & massacred 42 guerillas. They even filmed themselves picking over the bodies of their victims. Some of them had their hands tied behind their backs.

This is the Ansar leader, Mullah Krekahb (sic), in a rare interview with a Kurdish newspaper. With his long black beard and black & white turban, he outlines the stark vision of Islam which his followers adhere to. "Democracy is based on 4 principles, which are not permissable in Islam. As far as Islam is concerned, democracy, from beginning to end, is heresy." A few km away, PUK guerillas man frontline positions on a windy hilltop which they captured from the Ansar. Their commander, Mullah Akmar Juran (sic), has no doubt about some of their affiliations. "They wrote poems praising Osama and the slogan of al-Qaeda or Taliban group. Among them are a group of Arab pupils previously belonging to al-Qaeda."

Jalal Talibani is leader of the PUK. As far as he's concerned, there is only one thing that's certain about the Ansar's affiliations. "There was relations between them & Afghanistan, al-Qaeda & Taliban. Many of them were trained there. There are now from 20 to 30 Arabs now with them. Even their theoretical leaders are from these Arabs."
At the security prison in PUK controlled territory, a captured Iraqi intelligence officer of 20 years standing, Abu Oman al-Badadi (sic) insisted one of the top Ansar leaders, Abu Wa-el (sic) is an active Iraqi intelligence officer, and that the group is heavily infiltrated by Baghdad. "Their basic allegiance is to al-Qaeda but some of them were trained in Iraq and went to Afghanistan. When the Americans attacked, they came here. Iraq is supporting them and using them to carry out attacks."

If Iraq & al-Qaeda are involved with the Ansar in one way or another, they certainly make strange bedfellows. The common denominator is that they are opposed to the Americans, so there is a logic to it. If U.S. does proceed with plans to get rid of Saddam Hussein's regime, there is no doubt the Ansar are a group to watch.

    Gunmen kill Iraqi Kurdish leader
    2.9.03   Jim Muir BBC
Suleimaniya, northern Iraq   Kurdish military officials in northern Iraq say one of their senior commanders has been killed by a militant Islamic group suspected of links to the al-Qaeda network. A commander for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Sherkh Jafar said gunmen posing as defectors from the militant Islamic group, Ansar al-Islam, killed Shawkat Haji Mushir, along with 5 other people in an ambush on Saturday.
The Ansar control a small pocket of territory near the Iranian border inside the area of northern Iraq held by the Kurds. U.S. also accuses the group of co-operating with Iraqi Govt, charges the group has denied.

There were emotional scenes at the funeral of Shawkat Haji Mushir, a ceremonial send-off befitting his status as a member of the Kurdish parliament as well as a veteran Pashmurgher guerrilla fighter. He, 2 of his men and 3 civilians, incl one child, were killed when they were caught in a hail of bullets & grenades.
PUK officials say it was a carefully-planned ambush, mounted by the Ansar al-Islam, radical Islamic faction with which the PUK has been violently at odds over the past 2 years. A group of Ansar members had signalled an interest in defecting to the PUK and Mr Mushir had been put in charge of the negotiations.

By this account it was a set-up and an extraordinary provocation at a time when the Ansar are under close scrutiny and being dubbed terrorists both by the PUK & U.S. The group has already been blamed for an assassination attempt on the PUK's prime minister last year, as well as for killing dozens of the PUK's fighters on the ground.
In the wake of Mushir's death, a senior PUK official said it showed, once again, that the Ansar is a terrorist group which has to be eliminated. The PUK is deeply concerned that if the expected American & British war against the Baghdad govt breaks out the Ansar may seize the opportunity to wreak havoc behind Kurdish lines. The PUK is consulting with the other main Kurdish faction, the KDP, over possible joint action against a group which has caused problems for them both.

Although the Ansar are reckoned to number less than 1000 men, eliminating the group is not an easy task. They are entrenched in rugged hills and mountains. Some adjacent territory is controlled by other relatively sympathetic Islamic factions and they have the Iranian border to their rear.


The regime continued intermittent shelling of villages in Kurdish administered north. Some deaths were reported. No hostilities reported between two major Iraqi Kurdish parties in de facto control of northern Iraq. KDP and PUK reiterated 9/98 agreement to begin returning to rightful homes many thousands each had expelled as result of intra-Kurdish fighting in 3 northern provinces; however, no effort to implement the agreement was begun during the year.
AINA reports KDP imposed a blockade on eight Assyrian villages in the Nahla area east of Aqra 8/25. ICRC monitors in northern Iraq intervened on villages' behalf; blockade was lifted. During night of August 27, KDP forces reportedly reentered the village of Kash Kawa, rounded up villagers, and publicly beat two, allegedly suspecting connection between village & Kurdistan Workers Party, with whom the KDP often has fought. AINA reported similar night raid by dozen of KDP forces on village of Belmat 9.10.99.

KDP media quoted village leaders & mayor of Aqra denying that any such blockade or village raids occurred. ICRC confirmed it intervened with KDP after receiving Assyrian request and KDP withdrew from villages thereafter. AINA reported armed KDP members entered Assyrian Patriotic Party (APP) headquarters in Dohuk on October 21 and forced its closure. APP offices were allowed to reopen 4 days later.
In the north, Kurdish groups often refer to Assyrians as Kurdish Christians. Military forces destroyed numerous Assyrian churches during the 1988 Anfal Campaign and reportedly tortured and executed many Assyrians. Both major Kurdish political parties have indicated that Govt occasionally targets Assyrians, as well as ethnic Kurds and Turkmen, in expulsions from Kirkuk, where it is attempting to Arabize the city.

Assyrians continue to fear attacks by the Kurdistan Workers Party, Turkish-based terrorist organization that operates against indigenous Kurds in northern Iraq. The Christians often feel caught in middle of intra-Kurdish fighting. 6 Assyrians died Dec. 1997 in an attack near Dohuk by the PKK.
Some Assyrian villagers have reported being pressured to leave the countryside for the cities as part of a campaign by indigenous Kurdish forces to deny PKK access to possible food supplies. Many Assyrian groups reported series of bombings in Irbil in late 1998 and early & late 1999. Assyrian Democratic Movement, the Assyrian Patriotic Party, and other groups criticized investigation into these incidents conducted by the Kurdistan Regional Govt. There were no reported arrests by year's end.

Iraqi Kurdish regional officials report prisons in the three northern provinces were open to Intl Committee for Red Cross (ICRC) & intl monitors. Regular & consistent improvement in conditions observed on weekly prison visits, ICRC officials stated. Kurdistan Democratic Party & Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) reported they reached agreement for mutual release of political prisoners; however, no such release occurred.
UN SecGeneral estimates more than half a million internally displaced persons remaining in the three northern provinces (Irbil, Dohuk, and Suleymaniyah), most of whom fled govt-controlled areas in early 1991 during the uprising that followed the Gulf War. Others are Kurds who fled 1998 Anfal Campaign. Of 1.5 million refugees who fled following the 1991 uprisings, great majority, particularly Kurds, repatriated themselves to northern Iraq in areas where allied coalition prohibited overflights by Iraqi aircraft.

Human Rights Watch & other organizations worked with various govts to bring genocide case at Intl Court of Justice against Govt for conduct of Anfal campaign against Kurds. Approximately 12,000 Turkish Kurds fled civil strife in southeastern Turkey & remain in northern areas controlled by central Govt. UNHCR treating these displaced persons as refugees until it reaches an official determination of status.
Special Rapporteur noted unusually high percentage of women in Kurdish areas, purportedly caused by disappearances of tens of thousands of Kurdish men during Anfal Campaign. Special Rapporteur reported widows, daughters, and mothers of the Anfal Campaign victims are dependent economically on their relatives or villages because they may not inherit the property or assets of their missing family members.

As part of Arabization process, Govt continued to deport Kurdish & Turkomen families. Regional Kurdish authorities report between Jan/99 & November, 362 families (total 2,166 individuals) deported from Kirkuk, Khanaqin, Sinjar, and other areas, and expelled to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. They calculate total of 15,620 households (92,740 persons) displaced since 1991. Those expelled are not permitted to return.
Special Rapporteur reported citizens who provide employment, food or shelter to returning or newly arriving Kurds are subject to arrest. To encourage departure and prevent displaced persons from returning, Govt reportedly mined area around Kirkuk, and has declared it a military & security zone.
  [ This is the province with the oil on the Kurdistan border ]

Roads into area are fortified with military checkpoints. Those being deported required to sign "request" which includes phrase " I signed this form of my own free will." Procedure followed by security forces to evict and deport non-Arab citizens is described by Amnesty International in Nov. report. Citing govt decree, Amnesty Intl reported expulsion process includes confiscation of all family property & food ration cards issued under UN oil-for-food program, and the detention of one family member to ensure lack of resistance.
Once in northern Iraq, majority are resettled in camps with basic supplies such as tents, blankets & food supplied by PUK, KDP & UN agencies.

Govt undertaken so-called " Nationality Correction Campaign" as part of process of Arabization. Some deportees permitted to remain in homes if they relinquish Kurdish or Turkomen identity and register as Arab. Govt denies that it expels non-Arab families. Non-Arabs are denied equal access to employment, education, and physical security. Non-Arabs are not permitted to sell their homes except to Arabs, nor to register or inherit property.
Kurdish grade school teachers and low-ranking civil servants are reassigned systematically outside of Kirkuk province, which has been renamed Al-Ta'mim (" Nationalization" ). Revolutionary Command Council mandated new housing & employment be created for more than 300,000 Arab residents resettled in Kirkuk, while new construction or renovation of Kurd owned property reportedly prohibited.

Constitution does not provide for Yazidi identity. Many Yazidis consider themselves ethnically Kurdish, although some define themselves as both religiously & ethnically distinct from Muslim Kurds. Govt, without any historical basis, defined Yazidis as Arabs. Evidence Govt compelled this reidentification to encourage Yazidis to join in domestic military action against Iraqi Muslim Kurds. Captured govt documents included in 1998 Human Rights Watch report "Bureaucracy of Repression: Iraqi Govt in Own Words," describe special all-Yazidi military detachments formed during the 1988-89 Anfal campaign to "pursue and attack" Muslim Kurds. However, the Govt does not hesitate to impose the same repressive measures on Yazidis as on other groups.

Iraq govt does not permit education in languages other than Arabic and Kurdish. Public instruction in Syriac, which was announced under a 1972 decree, has never been implemented. In areas of northern Iraq under Iraqi Kurdish control, classes in Syriac have been permitted since the 1991 uprising against the Govt. By Oct. 1998, first groups of students were ready to begin secondary school in Syriac in the north; however, some Assyrian sources reported that regional Iraqi Kurdish authorities refused to allow the classes to begin. Kurdish regional authorities denied that they engaged in such a practice. November Kurdistan Observer reported central Govt warned Kurdish region administration against allowing Turkmen, Assyrian, or Yazidi minority school.

5 to 7 million Kurds live in Iran. In Iran, the Kurds are found in the area known as Kordestan. Their language is banned and teaching of Kurdish history and culture is forbidden. After World War II, their bid for a homeland was put down and the leader was executed. After Khomeini came to power, the ayatollah bombed their villages and camps, creating a lasting insurgency that is active to this day. There are about 200,000 soldiers keeping the lid on Kordestan today, and Kurdistan Democratic party (KDPI) guerillas attack military centers on a regular basis. Iranian govt agents have assassinated KDPI leaders in Austria and Germany. The leader of the KDPI is Mustafa Hejri, who is based in Iraqi Kurdistan and seems to get some support from Baghdad. There is also a left-wing group, the Komala, supported by the govt of Iraq.
DangerFinder Fielding Worldwide 1998
1.5 million Kurds live in Syria. Fighting broke out 5/94 between two parties after a PUK leader was assassinated; they decided to settle their differences without a ballot box using anti-aircraft guns & other heavy weaponry in the central mountain town of Shaqlawa.
PKK renounced the old Soviet-style ways Dec. '95 & Soviet symbols were removed from the PKK flag. Priorities include eliminating rival Kurdish groups. Strongest ally has been Syria's Hafez al Assad. Although Syria withdrew support for the PKK in 1988, it was in rhetoric only. PKK bases inside Syria moved to Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan ran operations out of comfortable house in Damascus, Syria & Bekaa Valley until lured into capture & Turkish death sentence as terrorist.
DangerFinder Fielding Worldwide 1998
Tajikistan is the poorest of the new Central Asian states and the only one in which underlying ethnic, regional, economic & ideological strains led to open warfare & major population displacements. 6/27/97 Peace Accord formally ended civil war begun in 1992 which left at least 50,000 dead & 700,000 displaced and a legacy of hatred & suspicion which makes reconstruction tenuous and difficult. In the fall of 1998, relocation of the U.S. Ambassador & all U.S. employees from Dushanbe to Almaty. State Dept 1999 Human Rights report re Tajikistan
To say there is a civil war would assume that there are two clearly defined sides in a conflict. Truth is in Tajikistan there is no solid definition, only that if a warlord doesn't like what the Russian backed stooge of the week says, he fights back. You can always tell if a peace agreement is about to be signed by the number of bombs that go off in Dushanbe. 		Islamic news   India, one time strong supporter of Palestinian cause, appears ready to jump from sinking Arab ship to Israeli yacht. Those who doubt only need look at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's visit to New Delhi a few weeks ago to get support for his declaration of statehood (initially set for Sept. 13th). Ruling Hindu- chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) very coolly dismissed him. In contrast, Shimon Peres' visit a week later was more favorably welcomed by the Indian administration especially after Israeli foreign minister publicly extended his full support for India's bid for permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Amazon re Kurdistan
Divided first in the 17th century and again in our own, Kurds struggling to control their lands & destiny have long been vulnerable to the service of alien agendas. In the aftermath of World War II, the Soviets backed the tiny Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in Iran until they closed a deal for an oil pipeline with the Teheran Govt. The Republic fell in little less than a year; its leaders were hung in the town square. In the early 1970's the Nixon- Kissinger Administration armed Iraqi Kurdish guerrillas because the Shah of Iran wanted to bring Saddam Hussein to the bargaining table over the Shatt al Arab. When the deal was cut, aid to the Iraqi Kurds was abruptly severed. The revolution led by General Barzani ended tragically in 1975. During the Iran-Iraq war some five years later, both countries supported Kurdish guerrillas in revolt across their borders while they warred on Kurdish opposition within. The latest Gulf episode represents the most insidious use of Kurds to date, for Iraqi Kurds were seduced into a deal with the Turkish govt that would culminate in what may be one of the darkest episode in the Kurdish history of this century. Israel & its Jewish supporters in the United States would play a role in promoting Turkey's Kurdish agenda.

In line with U.S. policy, Israel trained & advised Iraqi Kurds during the Barzani revolution,but their support ended when the State Dept so decreed. Prior to Iraqi chemical attacks on Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988, there was no active Israeli support for Kurds anywhere, except for media & press efforts to draw comparisons between Iraqi Kurds "willingness" to accept "autonomy" and Palestinian refusal to do so. Moreover, media & print was designed to attack Arab "hypocracy" for supporting Palestinian national rights while repressing those of the Kurds. Ironically, promoting Iraqi Kurds as victims while covering Turkey's Kurdish repression is hardly the basis from toclaim the moral high ground. No single Jewish writer has done more to pursue this agenda than pundit Wllliam Safire. In a series of passionate & poignant essays spanning over 15 years, Safire has yet to devote a single piece of writing to the struggle of 15 million Kurds in Turkey. What is most troubling to me as a Jew is that the plight of fifteen million Kurds in Turkey most closely parallels the plight of Jews throughout centuries. For, unlike the Iraqi Kurds who have always been at liberty to be Kurds, those in Turkey were ruthlessly legislated out of their ethnic identity and have remained so for more than sixty years. In 1925, the right to be Kurdish was banned, the most minute infraction of this prohibition severely punished. I remember opening the New York Times on my 51st birthday, March 27, 1981, to read that former cabinet minister Serafettin Elci had just been sentenced to two years & three months at hard labor in Turkey. His crime? He said in public, "I am a Kurd. There are Kurds in Turkey." But no one, Jews included, wanted to hear about Kurds in Turkey.

Neither William Safire nor A. H. Rosenthal have committed passion or pen toTurkey's Kurdish policy. What Safire has done is to skirt the broad issue only to land on the Iraqi Kurd-Palestinian equation. Take for example this 1979 piece: "Drafts of resolutions blow through the halls of the U.N. in New York, presaging the establishment of a separate state for a new "people" called the Palestinians, while no voice is raised in that entire establishment for the legitimate rights of an ancient people now being denied by Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria." "the Kurds are not talking of "self-determination," though that was what they were promised at the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. Nationood is too wild a dream; all they want is the right to live, as Kurds, under whatever flag happens to be flying overhead. They seek autonomy, not sovereignty. They want to be let alone, to have their culture respected. That reasonable quest has provoked the greatest series of hypocrisies in the world today. In their travels in the Middle East, men like Harold Saunders, Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson might ask their hosts the Kurdish question: Why do national leaders who loudly demand a sovereign state for the PLO ruthlessly, and now bloodthirstily, suppress the legitimate rights of autonomy of an ancient people on their own territory?" (The Tennessean 9.24.79)
Writers in Israel tend to follow the same path. In an article printed in the Jewish Journal on October 12, 1979, Fred Ehrman, Chairman of the UOJCA Israel Commission writes: "When the Kurds rebelled in quest of their rights of autonomy in their homeland, they were repeatedly and ruthlessly sup pressed. Yet the world remains silent. Why is their quest for autonomy and "self determination" of no concern to the moral leaders who clamor for the "rights" of PLO murderers? Ehrman also makes passing reference to Turkey, but merely as one of the countries that rule Kurds. In the wake of Halabja, Iraqi Kurds sought to contact Israelis on the assumption that gas attacks reflect the Jewish past. PUK leader Jalal Talabani asked this writer to do so. If the following is fact, Talabani succeeded in making his own connections. A report from Abu Dhabi radio indicated that there were indeed meetings in "occupied Palestine" between Kurdish leaders and Ezer Weizman, Za'aqov Tzur, Gid'on Pat, and Moshe Arens to coordinate a media plan linking killing by gas of Jews to allegations against Iraq as the focus of a media campaign against Iraq. (FBIS-NES-88-183 9.21.88, p. 14)

Beyond the rhetoric of condemnation which gained momentum with worldwide revulsion over chemical weapons use, nothing was done to prevent the final offensive of Saddam Hussein on the heels of his ceasefire with Iran. And so five months after Halabja, in the final week of August, Iraqi forces attacked the Kurds and sent more than one hundred thousand into flight across the border into Turkey. In the Israeli press Turkey was showered with praise for its "humanitarian" act in admitting the fleeing Iraqi Kurds. There was however a story behind the story, a tale obscured in brief phrases beneath headlines that misled American readers. U.S. complicity with Turkey effectively stymied the admission of legitimate humanitarian aid organizations. But this fact never did become an issue in the U.S. press. Ankara denied symptoms of the use of poison gas by Iraq, refused to designate the refugees as such, and deliberately kept the Intl Committee of the Red Cross & the UN High Commission for Refugces at bay. Three of this writer's letters on the topic were published in the New York Times (10.30.88; 4.15.89; 11.22.89). One argued that the title "humanitarian" was not applicable to the Turks.International aid for the refugees was funneled entirely through the Turkish Red Crescent in spite of the fact that Turkey's Kurds complained bitterly that during a 1983 earthquake in the Kurdish region, out of millions in foreign assistance, most Kurds received not so much as a blanket. Yet there was no criticism of Turkey by members of the Jewish community here or in Israel. Nor was there a hint of protest over Turkey's subsequent treatment of these Iraqi Kurds. The choice was no choice. Weighed against Israel's relations with Turkey, Iraqi Kurds didn't stand a chance. Until nearly three years later when they could be used to press the common agenda of the West, Israel and Turkey in the Gulf crisis.

In the first exodus of 1988, the Israeli govt did offer to admit some 200 Kurdish orphans. The Jerusalem Post printed one refugee's response. Interviewed in Turkey by Yehuda Litani, he had this to say, "We all remember how the late Barzani felt towards you, his admiration for everything that had to do with Israel. And now we hear that you are ready to let in 200 Kurdish orphans. What is 200 children compared to the masses of people here in the camps? " The first thing you can do is take in some thousands of refugees like you took in the Kurdish Jews." (Jerusalem Post 10.15.88) But Israel never offered to take in all refugees. In fact, several Jewish activists contacted the Kurdish Library suggesting that 300 Kurdish peshmerga from the camps might be admitted to Israel to be stationed on the Golan Heights presumably to help defend Israelis against Syrians. In the wake of the 1988 exodus, Jenzsalem Post writer, Yosef Goell took a pragmatic approach to justify the concern of Jews for Kurds: "I would say first and foremost that it is in Israel's interest to support the Kurdish movement as consistently as possible, and not only by offering to take in and care for 200 Kurdish refugee children, although that is a laudably humane undertaking. The essential interest that we share with the Kurds, and with other non-Arab peoples in the region, is an insistence that the region is not a "pure Arab sea" but that there must be room in it for the independence or broad-scope ethnic autonomy of Moslem, but non-Arab Kurds; of Arab but non- Moslem Lebanese; of Egyptian Christian Copts; of non-Arab non-Moslem Sudanese Christians and so-called animists; and yes, of Jewish Israelis...When I see Westerners and Israelis who have fallen under the spell of Palestinian propaganda with its 'inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to national self determination, I try to subject them to the acid test of their attitude to Kurdish national independence. If, as is usual, they have never heard of it or couldn't care less, like the Palestinians themselves who do not possess a micron of empathy for the cause of Jewish, Kurdish or anyone else's nationa1 independence, I write them off as victims of a passing chic who are coming into the court of world opinion with unclean hands." (The Forward 10.7.88)

Taking advantage of the unfolding drama, the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington disseminated an Israel Fact Sheet captioned, "The Kurds, A Test of Arab Veracity" which made these points: "One reasonable evaluation of Arab intentions toward Israel is how religiously and politically different groups are treated within Arab societies and how Arab govts provide for human and political rights for indigenous minorities." Citing Iraqi references to Kurdistan as a "Second Israel" and Kurds as "Zionists," it follows the usual vein: "Arabs demand of Israel the same rights that the Kurds seek from Iraq. … Iraq's response to Kurdish attempts to foster an independent, secular democratic state must weigh heavily in Israel's evaluation of similar rhetoric from the Arab world ahout Palestinian rights." (No. 1. Sept. 1988)   Israeli writers by and large made the same argument pressed through the sieve of righteous indignation over suffering Iraqi Kurds, and assiduously avoided Turkey's neglect of those in refugee camps. Because the "Intifadah" was fast becoming Israel's major headache, Ofra Benjio of Tel Aviv University indicted Western media for ignoring the "Intifada in Iraq." (Ha'arets 9.5.88)   Countering criticism of Israel's handling of the Palestinian uprising, Shmuel Schnitzer played the same tune. "I've been waiting and waiting for the reaction of the enlightened, and not so enlightened world to the war of Iraq on its Kurdish population," he wrote. "And I'm still waiting. I've been waiting for media coverage of the sort that informed the coverage of the uprising of the Palestinian hoodlums against Israeli soldiers. for the tidal wave of disguest and moral out rage, like the one that has inundated us for the past nine months. … the West has accorded recognition of the right to national self-determination for the Palestinian people … But it is not prepared to accord similar recognition to the rights of an ancient people such as the Kurds." Schnitzer then proceeds to indict what he terms the "defective operation of the European conscience." "Theywill not remain silent in the face of evil; but they will carefully select between the evils which they will permit to excite their indignation and those which will leave them in cold indifference. An Arab held in administrative detention will drive them out of their minds. A Palestinian rabble rouser who will be taken to the border for deportation will arouse deep feelings of identification. But two thousand dead Kurds or a hundred thousand Kurds expelled from Iraq to Turkeywill not make them lose a minute's sleep. The whole world knows that a campaign of genocide is going on in northern Iraq. But the victims are Kurds. And the Kurds don't exist as a nation and don't have a right to such an existence according to a world in which justice is weighed by false measures." (Ma'ariv 9.16.88) Nowhere among all these polemics was Turkey's Kurdish policy even mentioned.

Kurdish Jews in Israel are used to reinforce official themes. In a report titled "The Kurdish Way" Pamela Kidron noted that "reaffirming friendly relations with Moslem Kurds" has been among the reasons behind the Saharani, the Kurdish festival of Kurdish Jews in Israel. "In Kurdistan the local Agha would send his guards to watch over the campsite at night and protect the empty Jewish houses in town. This time, the Jewish Kurds are watching out for the Moslem Kurds." Even after Halabia and the August 1988 exodus into Turkey, supporters of Israel continued their condemnation of Iraq couched in terms of sympathy for the suffering Iraqi Kurds. But nothingwas forthcoming on the plight of five times as many Kurds fighting for their rights in Turkey. On September 23 Ufuk Guldemir, Cumhuriyet's Washington correspondent, wrote an article captioned "Israel's Shadow on the Kurdish Question." Here are excerpts: "Israel's role in the Kurdish question, while quiet, is active and palpable in the U.S. capital. "joint efforts by the directors of an organization called the Kurdish Program [established by this writer in 1981] which arranged Talabani's visit to the U.S., and the directors of the Helsinki Watch Committees, who have written very critically on the Kurdish question, and Israel, because of their blood ties it is possible to state "On Kurdish issues, there is an Israeli dimension...Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani came to the US with the assistance of the Israeli lobby, his visit was made possible by an organization called the Kurdish Program based in New York, whose directors have blood ties with Israel." The article also charges that "Israel" reminded Turkey of "the Kirkuk matter." It was in fact this writer who raised the issue of Turkey's spurious claims to the oilfields in northern Iraq in a letter printed in the Baltimore Sun (11.11.86). The letter contested Turkey's "historical claim to the region" arguing that if conquest is a legitimate basis for claim, the West should be prepared to return all of the Ottoman conquests including Jerusalem and the Balkans to lirkey. The AJC's George Gruen actually argued in support of Turkey's claim. (Newsday 1.21.91). In 1989 when the Kurdish Library mounted a photographic exhibition in the Cannon Rotunda on Capitol Hill, Cumhuriyet reported that the Turkish Foreign Ministry was investigating. Ministry spokesman Murat Sungur told the press that the meeting was "a creation of a new element from the U.S." A Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing in which this writer participated precipitated this comment from Sungur: "Vera Sacedpour who is renowned for being an enemy of Turkey, who in a sense has made a reputation by working against the unity of Turkey's lands, will speak at this meeting."(Cumhuriyet 10.26.89)

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, Israel and Turkey called for a first strike to wipe out Saddam Hussein's armed forces. (Washington Times 8.31.90) Among the first to call for "humanitarian intervention" to save the Iraqi Kurds was none other than Richard Perle. Because his work for Turkey was never mentioned in his public appearances, he was able to play a significant role as an "objective expert" serving both Israel and Turkey during Gulf crisis: for Israel because war would destroy its major Arab adversary; for Turkey because a decimated Iraq would facilitate Turkish ascendancy in the post war Gulf.
In NY Times op ed which identified him only as a "American Enterprise Inst. resident scholar & Reagan admin Asst Def.Sec," Perle argued against continued reliance on sanctions and in favor of air strikes to destroy Iraq's military capability. (NYT 9.23.90)

Even before the January 16th ultimatum, the Emes reported a Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf established with Perle in a leading role. The new committee urged Administration elimination of Iraq's military capability as "an explicit goal" of American policy and warned against an objective limited to expelling Iraq from Kuwait. (NYT 12.10.90)
Shortly thereafter, the group took a full page ad in the Emes in support of the UN decision to "reject an outcome where Saddam withdraws from Kuwait" and went on to argue that "Even if Saddam Hussein agrees towithdraw from Kuwait, the threat posed by his weapons of mass destruction requires that they be verifiably dismantled - or, if necessary destroyed."

Acknowledging that a military solution would "regrettably result in casualties," the group chided Bush for making "Iraq's unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait our principal objective … We believe that we must also find ways to remove Saddam Hussein's capacity to wage aggression, which now includes chemical & biological weapons and may soon include nuclear weapons as well."
The nuclear theme would continue to play out through the ensuing months. Not surprisingly, the group claimed that if Saddam won, the stage would be set for another Arab-Israeli war. Signatories to the ad incl Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and Stephen Solarz.

Solarz led the House of Representatives in promoting the war, submitting a resolution to approve use of military force. Brooklyn Congressman Major Owens said of the Solarz resolution, "The way the resolution was worded made it totalitarian and anti-Democratic. Instead of giving us 2 resolutions, one in support of troops in the field and a separate one to approve the president's performance, they insisted on putting them together." The Solarz strategy was apparently to frame the resolution so that a vote against the resolution would appear to be a vote against supporting American troops.
Owens was among those who believed that economic sanctions were working and that a peaceful solution should be sought. Rep. Solarz and State Dept prevailed. Many in the Christian community took exception. For example, Rev. Finley Schaef said, "We say woe to you who send your men & women to war" as he looked to the U.S. to serve as the world's "moral example." (Park Slope Paper 1.25.91)

Nor did Solarz' Israel connection go unnoted. Park Slope editorial said, "leading Congressional supporter of Israel Solarz, whose district is home to a large number of Jewish voters, said his position "went way beyond" using force to protect Israel, although protecting Israel was an "additional reason for supporting military action. "If Israel didn't exist, I would have taken exactly the same position," Solarz told reporters. What he didn't say was that his decisions were as much carrots to his Turkish constituents.

On the other hand, Congressman Charles Schumer, also Jewish, saw force only as a last resort. Exchanges on Capitol Hill were heated. Arguing against the Solarz resolution on the House floor, Owens said, "Once we have the US with a great occupying army in the MidEast, it will be hard for Arabs & Moslems to believe that we did not undertake grand strategy to control the region and they will accuse us of having plotted to dominate the Mideast militarily in order to protect Israel." In 1992 Solarz himself became a casualty of redistricting and lost his bid for re-election.

Media & press on the Solarz side of the issue promoted the idea that it was not Israel so much as the world that Saddam threatened. But not only did the war serve Israel's agenda, it worked to the benefit of Turkey, which without firing a shot received forgiveness of a $7 billion debt, increased imports of textiles to the U.S . and a host of other percs. The war produced an emasculated neighbor and proved to be a giant step on the ladder to completion of Ankara's Kurdish agenda, the destruc- tion of the PKK.

Not surprisingly, the American Jewish Committee's George Gruen used Iraqi Kurds as the springboard to make a case for Turkey's "claim" to northern Iraq. In an article appearing in Newsday he argued that "When Britain carved up the Mideast, the Iraqis got an oil-rich Turkish province...In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war, the intl community must begin to redress a historic injustice against Turkey & Kurdish people [meaning Iraqi Kurds] … From intl legal & ethnic standpoint, Turkey's claim to Iraq's oil-rich northern province of Mosul is far stronger than Baghdad's … Iraqi Kurds should be permitted to choose independence or reunion with Turkey." (1.21.91)

A virtually identical argument appeared earlier in a letter published in 11.2490 NY Times. Gruen thus opened the door to justify a Turkish claim to Israel. The Ottomans conquered more than northern Iraq; they conquered the Balkans and entire MidEast right up to the borders of Iran. If conquest were to be accepted as legitimizing territorial claims, Turks would have as much claim to Israel as to Iraq.
If conquest is a legitimate basis for claim, why demand Saddam Hussein's forces evacuate Kuwait which Iraqi forces conquered. Both the Newsday article & the Times letter identified Gruen only as Columbia Univ. intl affairs adjunct professor. His role in the American Jewish Committee was never mentioned.

In Israel there was unbounded praise for Turkeys role in the Gulf. Take this example by David Kushner, Jerusalem Post: Turkey's performance during the Gulf crisis has been received with a great deal of appreciation, sometimes even amazement, by the Israeli public. Not only did Turkey support the allied cause, but it appeared to be the most decisive & outspoken in its reaction to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait."
Kushner noted that only a few days before in an interview published in the Post Turkey's Pres. Ozal expounded on "his vision of the new order in the MidEast in which Turkey could assist in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict and help lead the area toward security & economic prosperity. What tipped the balance and placed Turkey solidly among the members of the coalition was not only Turkey's traditional support for legality & stability in intl relations, but its conviction that its interests lay with the Western countries." (Jerusalem Post 1.3.91)

Moreover the Post was among the first to take Ozal's word when he announced that he would go to the Parliament to lift the ban on speaking Kurdish in public in Turkey. The Turkish Parliament didn't move until months later, and even then provided that the Kurdish language could be spoken in public, but only for "non-political communication." Political" communication would henceforth be punishable under new Anti-Terror Laws enacted at the same time.
This was not made known to Jenzsalem Post readers. In Turkey, there never was a change of heart; there was simply a change of tactics. Among some Israelis, there was opposition to Saddam Hussein's removal. "We are all with Saddam," one headline read. Labor dove Avraham Burg commented that "in the present circumstances Saddam Hussein is better than any alternative." "Shi'ite empire" emanating from Iran could pose even greater threat to Israel. (Ha'aretz 3.29.91)

Following the exodus of Iraqi Kurds after the Gulf war, a report in the Jewish Press argued along similar lines that " … despite the sentiments Israel feels for the Kurds, Israel is not expected to rush to intervene in the current uprising in northern Iraq. While the Kurdish rebellion is directed against the regime of Saddam Hussein, which represents a danger to Israel's security, the Kurds are working in coordination with the govts of Teheran & Damascus, which are trying to turn the Kurdish zone into a bridge between Iran & Syria.
Creating virtual territorial continuity between the 2 radical regimes by means of a common Kurdish ally could constitute no less a danger to the peace of the region and Israel's security than did the regime of Saddam. Accordingly, with all sympathy for the persecuted Kurdish minority in Iraq and all Israel's concern over the cruel measures the Iraqis are employing against them, Israel must act not only out of sentiment, but also according to its own security needs." (Jewish Press 4.12.91)

Kurdish suffering in the Gulf war was far greater than the press or vested interests revealed. Embargo starved Kurds as well as Arabs. Intense massive coalition bombing raids killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds serving in Saddam's military. There is no ACLU, no "conscientious objector" status in Iraq. One serves or else.
These realities escaped the attention of the Western and the Israeli press. In the U.S., the public's attention was directed down a well- trodden path. At the height of the exodus, A. H. Rosentha] penned an essay countering Administration fears about Kurdish aspirations with the usual presumptions: "...the Kurds have said they will not demand independence. They might jump at what the Israelis have offered Palestinians - elections and substantial self govt."(NYT 4.2.91)

William Safire followed suit. "The way to give the Kurdish people the freedom they deserve is the same way to give Palestinian Arabs, including those driven from Kuwait, the freedom they deserve: create a new category of sovereignty. The Kurds seek what Palestinian terrorcrats scorn: self-govt, with cultural dignity respected, within the borders of an existing state...the world bandied about is 'suzerainty,' which allows the encompassing state a sovereignty limited to defense and central banking, while providing the inhabitants of a region with real autonomy and ethnic identity short of total independence." (NYT 4.15.92)

Pundits' presumed themselves are privy to what Kurds want . True, Iraqi Kurdish leaders have for years indicated willingness to accept autonomy. But in 12 years of monitoring Kurdish issues on a daily basis, we have no indication whatsoever that this is actually the case. We are persuaded that Iraqi Kurds schooled by their Western friends to tell the West what the West wants to hear. Kurdish PKK armed opposition in Turkey, condemned as "Marxist terrorist" by Safire, were the most forthcoming in expressing Kurd desire for independent greater Kurdistan in MidEast. Like countries that house Kurds & their Western allies, Israel & its supporters do not want to hear that Kurdish demands parallel those of Palestinians.

Our 1991 study of Kurdish aspirations revealed that an independent greater Kurdistan is the ultimate goal of virtually all Kurds. (See Summary of Results, Kurdish Life, No. 2, Spring 1992)

Throughout the Gulf crisis and to this day, Rosenthal & Safire have continued to hammer at Iraq with no good word for beleaguered Kurds in Turkey, a conflict that escalated at an alarming pace particularly since the installation of the coalition's "protective" umbrella for Iraqi Kurds only. Nothing was written exposing the deal between President Ozal & Iraqi Kurdish leaders Masoud Barzani & Jalal Talabani.

Ozal proposed a federated Iraq in fall 1990, north for the Kurds, mid-section for the Turkmen of Iraq and leftovers for Arabs. In return Iraqi Kurds were to "secure" their border against Kurdish guerrillas from Turkey. Less than 2 years later, this rapprochment culminated in Kurds killing Kurds 10.4.92, in collaboration with Turkish military. Iraqi Kurds attacked their kinsmen. A Safire essay only a week before the October joint offensive against the PKK urges the administration to "persuade" Turkey to join the U.S. in recognizing and supplying food & arms to "democratically elected govt" of Iraqi Kurdistan in return for its "curbing Kurdish agitation within Turkey."

To call guerrilla war of Kurds in Turkey "agitation" is to call the L.A. riots a shouting match. Kurds in Turkey were so crushed by the late 1930's that they could not lift their heads, no less their arms until 1984. Since then over 5,000 people died, 2,000 in 1992 alone. Their struggle is defamed, ignored, distorted and manipulated by Western powers & Western press. Safire's most recent NY Times essay runs the same. Minimizing population of Kurds in Turkey and exaggerating numbers in Iraq, he argues for U.S. foreign assistance of $150 million to "democratic" Iraqi Kurds who apparently earned this reward in large part for "cooperating with Turkey." As Safire put it, "Pesh Merga fighters behind Masoud Barzani successfully took on the Marxist terrorist Kurds." (NY Times 5.13.93)

Israel benefits from Iraq's destruction as an Arab power; its relations with Turkey may be detrimental to Israel's future. Beyond peace & security, arid Israel needs water. Shimon Peres & Turgut Ozal already discussed a plan to get water to Israel by creating a pipeline from Turkey traversing Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Peres was right when he argued that "the next MidEast war could well be over water, not land. Turkey is the only land in the region with excess water. (Jerusalem Post 4.28.91)
Not surprisingly, AJC's George Gruen with a grant from U.S. Institute of Peace, an organization established & funded by Congress, is now studying Turkey's water resources. But the water that Israel seeks originates in the Kurdish region of Turkey.

In wake of Gulf war, Anti Defamation League of B'nai B'rith bought a full page ad in NY Times. League solicitation for funds for Iraqi Kurds was headlined, "Who cares about the Kurds? We do " "My failure to stop the destruction of the Armenians had made Turkey for me a place of horror, and found intolerable my further daily association with men who, however gracious and accommodating and good-natured they might have been to the American Ambassador, were still reeking with the blood of nearly a million human beings." Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Arnb. to Turkey (1913-1916)


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