Today, Iraqi Turkmen politicians, Iraqi Turkmen journalists and ordinary Iraqi Turkmen citizens continue to be killed, aggressed, detained and threatened by the U.S. military, Kurdish militias and Arab terrorist groups. These crimes against the
unarmed Turkmens of Iraq go mostly unreported in the Western media.
Over the past 10 days alone Turkmens have been victims of the following:
1. U.S. soldiers shot three Turkmen brothers in the garden of their home in Kerkuk; these innocent victims who did not pose any threat were: Abbas Nejat Mecit (age 32), Ali Nejat Mecit (age 28) and Faris Nejat Mecit (age 25).
2. Kurdish Asayish kidnapped four Turkmens in Kerkuk among whom a seventy year old journalist.
3. Arab terrorists launched mortar attacks on the Turkmen inhabitants of Beshir, wounding four. In 1986 all the inhabitants of the
Turkmen village of Beshir (more than 10.000 people) were expelled from their homes and their lands and properties were confiscated by the former Iraqi regime and given to Arabs brought from the South of Iraq. After the regime change in 2003 Iraqi Turkmen NGOs with the help of Turkey began building new houses in
Beshir for the expelled Turkmens who were still waiting for the ‘
imported’ Arabs to hand back their confiscated houses and lands. Unfortunately, to-date NONE of the Turkmens’ properties and agricultural lands have been returned and the ‘
imported’ Arabs refuse to leave. Only a very small number of the original Turkmen inhabitants of
Beshir have been re-housed in the newly built houses and they are constantly coming under the attack of Arab terrorist groups.
The tragedy of the Turkmens is that contrary to the Kurds and the Arabs, they do not have armed militias. They are 'between anvil and hammer' at the mercy of the heavily armed Peshmerga and Arab militias.
To create a climate of insecurity and fear among the Turkmen community in the north of Iraq, Kurdish terrorist groups are sending letters containing death threats to Turkmen intellectuals, politicians and journalists.*
The U.S. bear the entire responsibility for the terrible conditions of the Turkmens, for it is they who allowed and encouraged the chauvinistic Kurdish militias to invade and take control of the Turkmen towns and cities back in April 2003.
The ‘Iraqi government’ hiding in the protected green zone has failed to offer protection to the unarmed Iraqi Turkmen community, it too is giving the brutal Kurdish Peshmerga
carte blanche in the Turkmen towns and cities in the north of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military have been arming PKK terrorists and have allowed them to move unhindered in the north of Iraq from where they are launching attacks on Iraq’s neighbours: Turkey and Iran.
This is all part of the US-UK’s Zionist inspired plot to carve up Iraq into small weak states to control the country’s natural resources.
To prevent more blood baths, it is the responsibility of the international community and of all human rights advocates to put pressure on the U.S. and the Iraqi governments and demand:
1. The cancellation of Article 140 of the ‘new Iraqi constitution’ which has been written by the US-UK to allow the Kurds to include Kerkuk in the Kurdish Autonomous Region as a first step towards their proclamation of a ‘
Kurdish independent state’. The annexation of the Turkmen region, TURKMENELI, to a '
Kurdish state' is not only against the will of
all the Turkmens but it would be an illegal act, in total disregard of the basic human rights of the Turkmens who are the second main community in the north of Iraq.
2. The end of Kurdish control over the Turkmen cities, towns and villages in the north of Iraq. The Turkmen region must be protected by Turkmen police and the Kurdish Peshmerga must be forced to withdraw from Turkmeneli.
3. The creation of a new ‘
Properties Ownership Commission’, under the supervision of UN representatives, to implement the return of confiscated Turkmen lands and properties to their rightful Turkmen owners. The “
Ownership Trial Commission’ which was instituted by the Americans at the beginning of the occupation was run by US-appointed Kurds who decided:
a) not to return Turkmen lands which were forcedly confiscated under the Ba’ath regime to their rightful Turkmen owners
b) to allow Turkmen lands and properties to be occupied by the Peshmerga and by the U.S. military.
Needless to say that the Commission’s US-appointed Kurds took these measures without consulting the Turkmens!
The international community can no longer ignore that the very survival of Iraq’s Turkmen community is threatened.
Urgent measures need to be taken to protect the unarmed Iraqi Turkmens from the Kurdish and Arab militias.
Het Mondiaal Centrum Haarlem, St. Tanis voor Irakese Turkmenen en St. Vluchtelingenwerk Haarlem en Omstreken organiseren
