HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN IRAQ'S KURDISTAN REGION

U.N. criticises Iraq's Kurdistan on press freedom
25 Apr 2007
Source: Reuters
By Yara Bayoumy


BAGHDAD, April 25 (Reuters) - Journalists in Iraq's Kurdistan face arrest and harassment for reporting on government corruption and poor public services, the United Nations said in a report on the autonomous region.
The U.N. also criticised Kurdish officials for failing to tackle frequent cases of "honour killings" of women and said hundreds of detainees in Kurdish prisons were held without charge.

Kurds promote Kurdistan as one corner of Iraq that is relatively stable, in contrast to the rest of the country that is engulfed in sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunnis. Drawing on that image, Kurdistan plans to build a $400 million "media village" for international organisations.

While most journalists' deaths in Iraq took place in Baghdad, the human rights report on Iraq said most arrests of journalists it recorded between January and March were carried out by the Kurdish security forces.

"The (Kurdish) authorities continued to subject journalists to harassment, arrest and legal actions for their reporting on government corruption, poor public services or other issues of public interest," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said.

The report welcomed a recent review by the Kurdish National Assembly of legislation on freedom of expression and the launch of investigations into several cases involving curbs on media freedom.

Women's rights to life and personal security remained a "serious concern" in the Kurdish provinces of Arbil, Dahuk and Sulaimaniya given the high incidence of "honour killings and other abuses against women", UNAMI said.

"Between January and March, UNAMI received information on some 40 cases of alleged honour crimes ... where young women reportedly died from 'accidental burns' at their homes or were killed by family members for suspected 'immoral' conduct."
It said it continually received reports about domestic and communal violence which were largely ignored by the Kurdish authorities.

The United Nations said it was also concerned about arbitrary detentions by Kurdish authorities. Hundreds of detainees have been held for long periods without charge or without being referred to an investigative judge, it said.

In some cases, detainees were arrested without judicial warrants and all were routinely denied the opportunity to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

The report said UNAMI had received allegations of torture or ill-treatment of detainees at government detention centres.

UN Assistance Mission for Iraq
(UNAMI)
بعثة الأمم المتحدة . 1
لتقديم المساعدة للعراق
Human Rights Report
1 January – 31 March 2007
(Extract)

Detentions in the Region of Kurdistan

72. UNAMI remained concerned about the practice of administrative detention of persons
held in the custody of the Asayish (security) forces in the Kurdistan region, the majority
having been arrested on suspicion of involvement in acts of terrorism and other serious
crimes. Many are said by officials to be members or supporters of proscribed Islamist
groups. Hundreds of detainees have been held for prolonged periods, some for several years,
without referral to an investigative judge or charges brought against them. In some cases,
detainees were arrested without judicial warrant and all are routinely denied the opportunity
to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

73. UNAMI also continues to receive allegations of the torture or ill-treatment of detainees in
Asayish detention facilities. In one heavily-publicized case, Ismail Ahmad Hassan, aged
thirty-five, died while in the custody of Asayish officials in Sulaimaniya three days after his
arrest on 22 April 2004. A Special Investigation Committee comprising three judges with
wide judicial powers and headed by Judge Rizgar Amin, concluded that he had died as a
result of torture. In 2004, the Committee ordered the arrest of three Asayish officers on
manslaughter charges in connection with this case, but to UNAMI’s knowledge none have
been brought to justice to date.

74. On 28 January and again on 27 February, families of detainees arrested by Asayish forces
demonstrated before the Kurdistan National Assembly in Erbil, demanding information on
the whereabouts of detained relatives and the reasons for their arrest, and urging that human
rights abuses and the ill-treatment of detainees in these facilities. Responding to complaint
letters from detainees, the Kurdistan National Assembly’s Legal and Human Rights
committees announced their intention to visit all detention facilities to assess conditions of
detention and to examine the cases of those whom the authorities had failed to refer to the
courts.

75. UNAMI continued to urge government officials to implement the provisions of Iraq’s
Code of Criminal Procedure with regard to detainees held in Asayish custody. In this regard,
UNAMI held a series of meetings in February with officials of the Ministry of Interior and
the Asayish Directorates requesting, among other things, that such cases be reviewed as a
matter of priority. UNAMI welcomed the willingness of KRG officials to give consideration
to adopting measures to process these long-standing cases. Officials stated that a review of
detainee cases was ongoing, and provided UNAMI with a list of names of 76 detainees held
in KDP custody, and 22 others in PUK custody, who they said had been released in recent
months following a review of their cases. UNAMI also discussed with officials its concerns
regarding the lack of effective mechanisms to bring to justice officials accused or suspected
of abusing detainees.

Sınır ötesi harekatın çapı ne olmalı??

Ali Koçak

Kocak64@yahoo.com

Günlerdir Türkiye`nin kuzey Irak politikasıyla ilgili çeşitli senaryolar üretiliyor, kimileri askeri harekat yapılsın diyor, kimileri ise tamamen karşı çıkıyor!!!!!

Herşeyden önce askeri müdehaleden ne kast edildiğini anlamakta yarar olduğunu düşünüyorum..

Sayın Büyükanıt müdahale yapılmalı derken neyi kast etti acaba?

On - onbeş kilometre kadar sınır ötesi harekatı mı, yoksa gerçekten Kerkük`e kadar ilerleyip Misaki Milli sınırlarımızı geri almayı mı kast etti?

Senaryoların ikisi de birbirinden tamamen farklı, dolayısıyla sonuçları da hem askeri açıdan hem de siyasi ve stratejik açıdan farklı olacaktır.

Görünen o ki, gerek ABD gerekse Avrupa Birliği Türkiye`nin kuzey Irak`a müdahale etme konusundan rahatsız.
Bu konuyu Türkiye`nin dostu olarak bilinen eski Başkan Bill Clinton da açıkça dile getirdi.

Türkiye`nin müdahale etmesi durumunda, anlaşılan ABD Türkiye`ye karşı askeri bir harekata kalkışmasa bile siyasi ve ekonomik açıdan zorluklar çıkaracaktır.

Peki on - onbeş kilometre kadar Kuzey Irak`a sınır ötesi askeri müdahale Türkiye`ye neler kazandırır?

Hiç birşey kazandıramayacağı gibi bazı şeyleri de kaybettirecektir!!!!

Sadece PKK’ya karşı bir harekat yapılmış olacaktır ve millet olarak bir şeyler yapıldı diye kendi kendimizi avutmuş olacağız.

Peki Barzani`nin sesi kesilir mi?

Hayır, üstelik Barzani bu durumdan güçlü çıkar ve daha çok konuşur.

En büyük zararı ise silahsız olan Türkmenler görecektir!!!!

Türkiye ise bu durumdan hiç bir şekilde kazançlı çıkamaz; sadece halkın öfkesi bir nebze yatışmş olur.

Ve bu durum, açıktan olmazsa bile, Türkiye`deki halk tepkisini azaltmak için ABD`nin bile işine gelebilir!!!!

İkinci senaryo ise Türk Ordusu`nun Kerkük`e kadar ilerlemesi olacaktır. Bu da Türkiye`nin uluslararası dengeleri açısından çok ciddi bir karardır; fakat tehlike kapıya dayanmadan bazen riskler de göze alınmalıdır!!!

Tabii ki, böyle bir kararın alınması güçlü bir siyasi irade ve koltuğuna düşkün olmayan bir yönetim ister..

Peki Türkiye`de var mıdır böyle bir siyasi irade?

Göstergeler böyle bir durum yansıtmıyor!!

Diyelim ki böyle bir irade oluştu ve bu tür askeri harekata karar verildi, neler olabilir?

Türk Ordusu Kerkük`ü ele geçirdiği anda dengeler değişir ve orada gücünü elde tutabilmesi için gereken desteği halktan da alır....

Ve Türkiye artık güçlü bir şekilde bütün taraflarla masaya oturur. ….

Kerkük ve bölgenin kaderini, bölge halkının adil bir şekilde paylaşılmasında söz sahibi olur.

Bu durumda Türkiye`nin gerek ABD gerekse, AB ile ilişkileri zedelenecektir;

Ancak unutmayalım ki dış politikalar menfaatler üzerine kuruludur ve menfaatler gerektirirse ilişkiler tekrar toparlanır.

Netekim Türkiye`nin o bölgelerde gözü olmadığı bilinmektedir; böyle bir harekat sadece gelecek olan tehditleri engellemek ve bölgedeki soydaşlarına sahip çıkmak amacını güdecektir.

Askeri harekat için siyasi irade oluşamazsa ve bu seneryolar gerçekleştirilemezse o zaman ne yapılmalı?
Eli kolu bağlı oturup, Barzani`nin tehditlerine karşı susarak, her şeyi Allah`a mı bırakmalı?

Tabii ki hayır… siyasi boyutta aktif olmak gerekir…..

Sadece meydanlarda konuşmalar yaparak veya notalar vererek değil, bilfiil stratejiler üretip bölgede savaşa girmeden harekete geçilmelidir.

Bu durumda ABD ile bazı konularda ortak hareket edilmeli..

Kuzey Irak`a ticari ve siyasi yaptırımlar uygulayarak, orada aktif bir şekilde söz sahibi olunmalı.

Gerekirse, Habur kapısı kapatılmalı ve Suriye ile anlaşarak, Kamişli üçgenini (Türkiye – Suriye – Irak üçgeni) serbest ticari bölge ilan etmeli ve Telafer`a bir kapı açmalı.

Kuzey Irak bölgesinin Kürtler ile Türkmenlerin eşit şekilde yönetime katılmalarını sağlamada Türkiye rol oynamalı.

Bölgenin himayesine Türkiye de katkıda bulunmalı…...

Sadece yetkililerin nutuk atmaları ile Türkiye’nin Irak`ta bir şeyler yapabileceği imkansız gözüküyor.....

Türkmen politikası sadece Kerkük üzerine odaklanmış olmamalı….

Çünkü bu durumda Telafer ve diğer bölgelerdeki yaşayan Türkleri Türkiye kendinden uzaklaştırmış olacaktır ve nitekim uzaklaştırma yoluna da gidiyor…!!!!!!!!!

Türkiye, Türkmenleri harcamak yerine daha da aktif ve milli menfaatler doğrultusunda kullanmalı ve yaklaşılmalıdır.

Türkmen cephesinin önemli ve kurulmasının yararlı olduğunu düşünüyorum; ancak amaca tam hizmet ettiğine de inanmıyorum.

Türkmen cephesinin kültürel ve siyasi boyutlarının yanısıra Türkmenlerden oluşan çok özel eğitilmiş askeri ve istihbarat kadrosunun da bulunması gerekiyor.

Böylece Türkmenler bir saldırıya uğradıkları zaman kendilerini savunmak olanağını bulacaklardır.

Ama bunun tersine Türkiye geçmişte peşmergeleri eğitti!!!

Türkiye`deki yetkililer hiçbir zaman bu konulara sıcak bakmadılar ve her seferinde ne lüzum var diyerek, Türkmenlere bir saldırı olursa Türk Ordusu var dediler.

Ama ne yazık ki gerçekler haklı olmadıklarını gösteriyor!!!!!

Durum ne olursa olsun hiçbir şey için geç kalınmış sayılmaz…

"öfkeyle kalkan zararla oturur!" deniyor.

Doğrudur, ancak zarar görmemek için koltuğa çakılıp kalınırsa da, atı alan Diyarbakır'ı geçer!!!!!!!

http://turkishgazete.com/yazarlar/detail.asp?iData=308&iCat=683&iChannel=1&nChannel=News

THE TURKMENS HAVE A NAME: "TURKMENS"

TO WESTERN WRITERS:

THE TURKMENS OF IRAQ HAVE A NAME: "TURKMENS"

THEY ARE NOT CALLED "OTHERS"

SO STOP USING "and OTHERS" IN LIEU OF THEIR ONLY AND TRUE NAME:
TURKMENS!!!

When writing about all the different communities in Iraq: Iraqi Arabs, Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi Assyrians you use their proper names, so what is the reason you omit naming the TURKMENS???
Writing about Iraq and especially about Kerkuk -the Turkmens' capital city and main cultural centre - and not mentioning the Turkmens is simply ridiculous.


Comment to Justin Raimondo:
In your article " Hitchens' Kurdish Sojourn" you write: "now hundreds of thousands of Kurds are being moved back into Kurdistan, and many of them are heading for Kerkuk to reclaim land and homes."
"to reclaim"? you mean : "to confiscate" land and homes belonging to Turkmens, government buildings, barracks, football stadium etc...

For your information, the great majority of these Kurds (over 600.000) who are heading for Kerkuk have never set foot, never lived, never worked, never resided and never owned land or houses in this city.

April 20, 2007
Hitchens' Kurdish Sojourn

Kurdistan is 'perfectly swell' – if you aren't a dissident journalist
by Justin Raimondo

Christopher Hitchens "had a perfectly swell time" in "Iraqi Kurdistan," as he calls it, where he spent the Christmas holidays, and he tells us all about it in the current issue of Vanity Fair. He has always been sympathetic to the Kurdish cause, and to say that Hitchens lionizes the peshmerga would not be putting too it strongly. "I confess," he writes,"

"To a slight lump in the throat at revisiting the area and seeing thriving, humming towns with multiplying construction sites, billboards for overseas companies, Internet cafés, and a choice of newspapers. It's even reassuring to see the knockoff 'MaDonal,' with pseudo-golden arches, in the eastern city of Sulaimaniya, soon to be the site of the American University of Iraq, which will be offering not only an M.B.A. course but also, in the words of Azzam Alwash, one of its directors, 'the ideas of Locke, the ideas and writings of Paine and Madison.' Everybody knows how to snigger when you mention Jeffersonian democracy and Iraq in the same breath; try sniggering when you meet someone who is trying to express these ideas in an atmosphere that only a few years ago was heavy with miasmic decay and the reek of poison gas."

No one sniggers at Locke, Paine, Madison, and Jefferson, but only the uses to which they are put by defenders of a foreign policy that would have appalled each and every one of these worthies. Nor does anyone hereabouts snigger at Kurds who express liberal or even libertarian ideas: far from it. Yet when these ideas are applied to the political reality of Kurdistan, such expression could be dangerous for those who dare to speak. As Michael Rubin, hardly an opponent of the war, pointed out on the National Review blog recently:

"An Iraqi Kurd writes that ten days ago, KDP security forces kidnapped and tortured the journalist Nabaz Goran, a writer at the independent weekly Hawlati after he wrote critical articles about corruption in the ruling Barzani family (He sent photos which I do not pass along). Both the KDP and PUK have taken to targeting journalists from the only two independent papers, and there have been other instances of kidnapping and torture of anti-corruption activists at the hands of KDP security forces. Masrour Barzani, head of KDP intelligence and Masud Barzani's son, is the subject of one human rights law suit in Vienna for alleged abuses under his command in the case of Kamal Said Qadir, another whistleblower. Iraqi Kurdistan may seem like a success compared to the rest of Iraq but, when it comes to rule-of-law, it's important to recognize that the trajectory is, unfortunately, backwards."

I covered the horrific persecution of Kamal Said Qadir in this space over a year ago: Antiwar.com also published Dr. Qadir's piece on the rather interesting history of the ruling Barzani clan, as well as an article by Aaron Glantz on his case. Hitchens doesn't deign to mention Qadir, the suppression of the free media, or the thuggish kleptocrats who have seized control of Kurdistan, controlling both the economy and political life by the sheer threat of intimidation. Kurdistan is peaceful because the pershmerga, valorized by Hitchens, have kept the population in subjection with the threat of brutal force. Dissidents – and nosy journalists who stick their noses into the shady business dealings of the twobig Mafia-like families who control the country – are likely to find themselves in jail, beaten to a pulp, or forced to flee abroad.

Mr. Goran's case didn't receive all that much publicity: a few Kurdish websites, Reporters Without Borders, Michael Rubin, and that's pretty much it. We certainly didn't hear anything from Senor Hitchens, who is too busy painting a rosy portrait of this overseas paradise of Lockean virtue, which he holds up as a vision of what might have been and might yet still be: "Kurdistan continues to demonstrate how things could have been different, and it isn't a place from which the West can simply walk away."

Kurdistan's peshmergabully-boys resemble their comrades in Hitchens' Hall of Heroes – the Kosovo Liberation Army. That drug-dealing, human trafficking gang of thugs has also seized control of a country – with the invaluable assistance of the Americans – and imposed its Mafia-like rule over a war-weary and beaten-down populace, intimidating critics and potential rivals into silence, shaking down middle class businessmen, and employing an army of young hoodlums to do their bidding, all of it made possible by multi-millions in military and economic aid from the U.S. government. "Liberated" Kosovo, under the heel of the KLA, has become a haven for smugglers, arms-dealers, drug kingpins, and traffickers in human bodies, and Kurdistan is swiftly following its example.

One of Kurdistan's chief exports is terrorism. On the long border with Turkey, the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) conducts a campaign of bombings and assassinations that often reaches deep into Turkish territory, and has taken many thousands of lives over the years. The Turkish military has responded with its usual disregard for human rights – and human life – and the latest eruptions are threatening to break out into full-scale warfare. Another possible front in the next war may well be the Kurdish-Iranian border, across which "Pejak," the Kurdish insurgent group that seeks to "liberate" their Iranian brothers, regularly crosses in order to carry out attacks. Seymour Hersh recently reported in The New Yorker that both the U.S. and Israel are funding and supporting Pejak.

Hitchens doesn't want to know about any of this: it would interrupt the flow of his Panglossian narrative, filled, as it is, with ecstatic descriptions of the Kurdish national airline, monuments to fallen U.S. soldiers, women without headscarves, as well as tall tales of the alleged lack of "intercommunal mayhem."

This latter claim is astonishing, given the large number of Arabs and others who are being forcibly evicted from their homes, especially in Kirkuk, where a struggle for control of the city – the center [.pdf] of the region's oil riches – is currently in progress. Saddam Hussein moved in a large number of Arabs, years ago, to dilute the ethnic homogeneity of the area, in the belief that this would make it easier to keep Kurdistan under his thumb: now hundreds of thousands of Kurds are being moved back into Kurdistan, and many of them are heading for Kirkuk to reclaim land and homes. The Barzani and Talabani clans, which control the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurds, respectively, are actively encouraging this ethnic cleansing campaign in a bid to consolidate their power.

Perhaps what blinds Hitchens to the reality of Kurdistan as just another Third World kleptocracy is what he refers to in his piece as "this intoxicating 'birth of a nation' emotion" that gripped him for the duration of his trip. Certainly Hitchens is no stranger to intoxication. Yet one has to wonder if this is just a case of the old sandalista syndrome, in which a Western ideologue overlooks the more sinister aspects of his hosts' political arrangements to warble about the glories of the Kurdish workers paradise – or if something else is at work here.
Kurdish independence would be among the most unfortunate results of U.S. intervention and the subsequent break-up of Iraq for the simple reason that the Kurds would use their newly won nationhood to give sanctuary and support to Kurdish insurgencies from Turkey, to Syria, to Iran, and beyond – a strategy bound to provoke a military response from those governments. This is alreadystarting to happen.

Hitchens and his fellow neocons hail Kurdistan as a model for the rest of the region, and quite openly overlook its blemishes, knowing full well that its value – to them – lies in its status as a staging ground for the next round of wars in the Middle East. This is an eventuality most of the American people fear, and yet the neocons – especially Hitchens – rejoice at the prospect of it.
Like the sort of radical tourist who used to visit Sandinista Nicaragua (we used to call them sandalistas), and still sometimes go to Cuba, Hitchens returned from yet another trip to "liberated" Kurdistan full of praise. However, in a nod to the Gorans and Qadils – without, of course, having to mention their names or the details of their persecution – he writes:

"There is no need to romanticize the Kurds: they have their own history of clan violence and cruelty. But this flag at present represents the closest approximation to democracy and secularism that the neighborhood can boast."

So this is what Americans, in the end, came to Iraq to do: install in power a gang of thugs whose cruelty is relatively mild in comparison to others in a rough neighborhood, and whose "secularism" is perhaps encoded in their complete ignorance of Catholic "just war" theory. No, there is no need to romanticize the Kurds, unless, perhaps, you have an agenda that has nothing to do with Locke, Madison, Paine, or Jefferson, and everything to do with creating yet more trouble in that war-torn part of the world.

This article was published on antiwar.com

2007 UNESCO Mevlana Günleri

Mevlvilerin ayini büyüledi...


http://www.belturk.be/go.php?go=30311fb&do=details&return=last_news&pg=1

ASSASSINATIONS OF IRAQI ACADEMICS

Despite Baghdad "Security" plan: increase in assassinations of Iraqi academics

Dirk Adriaensens, member of the BRussells Tribunal executive committee (19 April 2007)
The following is the complete translation of a document (copied underneath) issued by the Iraqi Association of University Professors and lecturers. The Association protests against the deterioration of the security situation in the universities, and the growing number of assassinations among academic personnel.

March 2007 was a deadly month for Iraq's academics, despite the "surge" of US troops, despite the different security plans. They all failed and will continue to fail, because, to put it in very simple words: the Iraqis don't want foreign occupation.

The new security plan of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - has been used - and has spectacularly failed - in the past. The system of "gating" areas under foreign occupation failed during the French war against FLN insurgents in Algeria and again during the American war in Vietnam. Israel has employed similar practices during its occupation of Palestinian territory - again, with little success", writes Robert Fisk in the Independent on April 11.
How much more useless blood must be spilled before the US understands that it has to leave Iraq? That it's time for them to go? How much more educators must be assassinated before the international community fulfils its duty and denounces the illegal occupation of Iraq?

THE ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS AND LECTURERS

Date : 7.4.2007

STATEMENT ABOUT THE CONTINUING ATTACKS ON STUDENTS, PROFESSORS AND LECTURERS

As part of the continuing and unceasing criminal attacks on university lecturers and Iraqi education facilities, terrorist groups have carried out the killing and attempted assassinations a number of university lecturers. They have assassinated the following :

1- Dr. Ridha Abdul Hussein Al Qureaishi
Mustansiriya University
Assistant to Dean of The Management and Economics College
Kidnapped on Wednesday 28.3.2007 and found assassinated on Thursday 29th March 2007.

2 - Prof. Dr. Khalid Tariq Al Naid
Assistant ot Dean of Medical School for Higher Studies
Al Nahrain University
Kidnapped on Wednesday 28th March and found assassinated on Thursday 29th March 2007 in The Morgue.

3 - Professor Khalid AL Hassan
Secretary to Dean of Political Science College
Baghdad University
Found assassinated in March 2007

4 - Dr. Munthir Ahmed Al Ani
(Medical)
Found assassinated with his wife and 2 sons , by the militias, in Al Seydiyya District on Saturday 31st March 2007

5 - The Physicist , Thair Ahmed Jebr,
Physics Department
College of Science
El Nehrain University
Martyred Thursday 5/4/2007
in the terrorist bombing of Al Baghdadiya Satellite Station

6 - The Lecturer, Ameer Mekki El Zihairi
Technology Institute of Baghdad
Assassinated March 2007

7 - Prof. Dr. Sami Sitrak
Prof. of English in The College of Law
Al Nahrain University
Was acting Dean of the College of Law, since the resignation of the Dean after an attempted terrorist attack as well as after the assassination of the 3 Law Professors on the 29th March 2007

We hold The Iraqi Government and The Occupation Forces responsible for the deterioration of the security situation in the universities, and we hold them responsible for the targeting of the lecturers, the educational and scientific facilities, the students and the staff. We demand that the Iraqi Government takes up its responsibilities and orders a serious investigation and takes all necessary measurers to protect the lecturers, students and universities. We ask them to protect this important aspect of the Iraqi Society as well as to expose those who are committing these ugly crimes, which have increased exponentially as a result of the total absence of law enforcement, the lack of investigation into these crimes, and as a result of the cover-up at times.

Signed by

Dr. Ahmed Kamal Ahmed
Head of The Association

OIL over troubled waters

The continuing violence in Iraq shakes its parliament, as it considers a made-in-Washington oil law, reports Nermeen Al-Mufti from Baghdad


Two suicide bombings, one on Al-Sirafiya Bridge and the other in the Iraqi parliament add to Iraq's tragic toll. Al-Sirafiya Bridge is one of the oldest bridges in Baghdad and one of the most splendid in the world. A week ago, a truck driven by a suicide bomber exploded and wrecked that bridge. Arab and Western media, perhaps insensitively, pointed out that the bridge was a link between the Sunni area of Al-Waziria and the Shia neighbourhood of Al-Itifiya. So while the Baghdad inhabitants were doing their best to overcome sectarian tensions, the media seemed to be fuelling those tensions. Now Baghdad has lost one of its most beautiful sites, just as it lost museums, libraries and statues in the past.

Shortly after the bridge was bombed, a man wearing an explosive belt blew himself up in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament, killing and wounding dozens, including the deputy for the National Dialogue Front, Mohamed Awad. The incident posed questions over Operation Imposing Law (OIL), now in its third month. How can a man wearing an explosive belt and carrying an explosive briefcase, infiltrate the fortified Green Zone? Anyone going into the Green Zone passes as a matter of routine through several checkpoints and electronic gates.

Parliamentarian Mohamed Al-Deini says that mobile phone networks ceased to operate one hour before the suicide bombing. The Iraqi authorities had taken over the security in the parliament only a short while earlier. Now the occupation forces say that they may have to take back control of the parliament's security.

The day following the bombing, the parliament held an extraordinary "Defiance Session". Television screens showed deputies wiping their tears and others putting wreaths on the seat of the slain parliamentarian. The Iraqi public greeted the incident with scepticism. Umm Hussein, a teacher, says that, "Iraq in general, and Baghdad in particular, is witnessing suicide bombings in which dozens of civilians are killed everyday, but the Iraqi parliament didn't hold an extraordinary session over those bombings. We've seen no tears in the eyes of our parliamentarians before."

While the US is planning to retake control of parliament's security, the spokesman for the pro-Sadr parliamentarians, Nasr Al-Rabiyi, says that the six pro-Sadr ministers intend to withdraw from the government in protest against the absence of a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces, though. The 30 pro-Sadr parliamentarians will stay in parliament.

Adnan Al-Deleimi, leader of the Reconciliation Bloc in parliament, who stands to lose his immunity over charges related to violence in the country, says that an armed group has broken into his house in Al-Jamaah section of Baghdad. Al-Fadila Parliamentarian Hassan Al-Shamri told a parliamentary session that Deputy Hussein Al-Sannid, a close aid of Nuri Al-Maliki, warned of a plan to kill one of its senior members, Basra Governor Mohamed Al-Waeli. A few days ago, several Shia parties in Basra marched in the city streets calling for the dismissal of Al-Waeli. Basra is Iraq's second largest city and has several major oil fields.Over the past two years, the city witnessed clashes among various armed groups involved in the smuggling of oil.

Ata Qassem Al-Musawi, spokesman for OIL, said that the Iraqi and US forces have killed 5,215 gunmen, wounded over 1,000, and arrested 1,000 in the course of their work. Yet, on the 60th day since the start of OIL, suicide bombers killed over 70 civilians in Baghdad, and some 22 unidentified bodies were found across the country, including six in Falluja and six in Mosul.

The group calling itself the "Islamic State of Iraq", which abducted 20 policemen in February after Sabrin Al-Janabi (not her real name) appeared on television and gave account of her rape by Iraqi police forces, recently gave the government 48 hours to release all women detainees and hand over those suspected of raping Sabrin.

Prime Minister Al-Maliki had ordered an investigation into the case, and the committee responsible actually reported its findings, the only one of hundreds of such committees to do so, though the findings were clearly not enough to satisfy the "Islamic State of Iraq". The fate of the 20 abductees is still unknown. Speaking of committees, the government has just formed two fact-finding committees into the bombings at the bridge and the parliament.

With two months left before the deadline set by the US administration for the passage of an oil law in Iraq, Issam Al-Jalabi, minister of petroleum in Iraq between 1987 and 1990 and one of the world's top oil experts told Al-Ahram Weekly that the seminars he has held outside Iraq are the reason why the law wasn't submitted to the parliament last March as scheduled. The law was supposed to pass at the end of May, but the parliament hasn't dared to table the law, which deals with the distribution of oil fields, the signing of contracts, the distribution of revenues, and the organisation of the petroleum ministry and the national petroleum company.

Many Iraqi oil experts believe that President Bush himself is sponsoring the law. The original draft of the law was written in English and the Arabic translation is full of grammatical and idiomatic errors. Al-Jalabi sent a letter to parliament, bearing the signature of 61 oil experts, which points out the drawbacks of the law. If passed, the law would deprive Iraq of its natural wealth, especially if the foreign companies were given the right to operate fields already producing oil, for they would be making profits without bringing in new investment to the country. However, there are certain Iraqi officials who want the law passed, arguing that it would ensure a "fair distribution of oil revenues among all Iraqis".

The parliament did discuss a document intending to get the international community to pledge funding for the rebuilding Iraq in return for Iraqi pledges scheduled to be signed soon in a conference at Sharm El-Sheikh. Some deputies expressed optimism over the document saying that it would "resolve the troubles of the country". Other deputies expressed their opposition to the document, saying that it should be discussed under provisions of international treaties in Article 64 of the Iraqi constitution. These provisions would allow the document to pass only if supported by two-thirds of the parliament. "Some people in the government want to sidestep the regulations and pass the document without going through the necessary committees," one of the parliamentarians opposing the documents said.

The question of Kirkuk is far from being resolved. Kurdish Minister Mohamed Ihsan said at a press conference that anyone obstructing the referendum on the Kurdish plan to annex the city would "pay a dear price". Meanwhile Turhan Kattana, political adviser of the Turkoman national movement, says that had the Kurds been sure Kirkuk was theirs, they wouldn't be in such a rush to hold the referendum.


Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/841/re5.htm

DR ERSAT HÜRMÜZLÜ'S SPEECH IN WASHINGTON D.C.

Dr Ersat Hürmüzlü is the author of "The Turkmen Reality In Iraq" and "The Turkmen and Iraqi Homeland" published by Kerkük Vakfi . See http://www.kerkukvakfi.com/

The Demographic Situation of Kirkuk
And Iraqi Constitution

Conference 10-11 April 2007

By Erşat Hürmüzlü


The demographic structure of the Turkmens in Iraq is unlike those of the Arabs, Kurds and other minorities. The tribal system, with its advantages and disadvantages, is rooted among Arabs and Kurds, rendering blind loyalty to the tribe, granting tribal chiefs absolute powers, which led to the birth of the feudal system removing debate from decision-making and creating a lack of equal opportunities.

The Turkmens, however, are more family oriented, having intimate feelings for descendants from a grand grandfather who held the same family name. The family system, however, did not prevent any member from getting his share of respect, honor and fame due to a religious, academic or professional status.

This very difference, which was neglected by many researchers, may be a reason for the diminished role of the Turkmen in the structure of the Iraqi society.

However, there are other reasons behind this issue, mainly the attempts to change the reality of the Turkmen existence in Iraq in order to annex Kirkuk into a specific region.

What we can see from either Kurdish political parties or from the publications of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq is that they were in agreement in only one subject, which is the denial of the actual size of this component of Iraq.

Let me give you one example, The Patriot Union of Kurdistan web site has published very recently an article adopted from their own newspaper “Kurdistani Nwe” saying:

We have found a document in the archives of the Foreign Affairs of Britain which depicted the makeup of the inhabitants of Kirkuk in the year 1919. At that time and according to this document the inhabitants of Kirkuk were 91 229, 75 thousand of which were Kurds.

In fact, the official documents of the National Archives in London, in which I have personally researched and studied, show clearly that the British delegation to Lausanne conference in early twentieth of the last century headed by Lord Curzon, had submitted their own figures which states clearly, and although the figures were questionable, that the Kurds were less than half in Kirkuk.

The cause of this disinformation was because an “error” was made in one of the Kurdish writers “Dr. Nuri Talabani” book, published in Arabic, saying that the division of the ethnicities in Kirkuk was as follows: 10,000 Arabs, 35,000 Turkmen, 75,000 Kurds, 600 Kildaniens and 1400 Jews. The total had been published as 92000. The Kurdish participants in this panel have distributed an article of Dr. Talabani, who is mentioning the same figures. I thank them because unintentionally supported our stand.

(Note: Arabic text missing here)

Simple arithmetic will clearly yield the total to be 122,000, and not 92,000. The reason was that in actual figures the number of the Kurds was 45,000 and not 75,000. That means that even with these false figures the Kurds constituted less than half of the whole governorate and not the central city.
(Note: chart missing here)

Why have we considered the figures submitted by the British delegation and Lord Curzon as false?

In his memorandum to the Head of the Turkish Delegation, Ismet Inonu, during the open sessions of the conference, Curzon claimed that the Turkmen population within Mosul Region was 66,000. He claimed also that these figures belong to the researches done by the British officers visited each and every settlement in the region, sometimes even on horseback or by any means necessary to count the people properly in 1919.

However we have discovered the same figures in the report of Wikie Young, one of the staff of British Consulate in Mosul, who clearly states his own estimates by saying that the inhabitants of Kirkuk at that time was 40,000, save 3000 non Muslims, the rest (i.e. 37,000) were all Turkmen.

He adds 1,500 Turkmen living in Tuzhurmato, 10,000 Turkmen in Telafer and quarter of Erbil inhabitants who were as much as 60000(i.e. 15000) were Turkmen. He also mentions that the all Bayat tribe people were Turkmen, say 2500 at that time. The total is 66000. (The Report of Mr.Young dated 5th.April 1910, The National Archives, File No: FO 371/1008).

If we look at the figures presented by the Turkish delegation at that time, we see that the Turks were not claiming that they have collected these figures by officers riding on horsebacks, but from the official records of the state which used to be registered by each part of the Ottoman Empire. These figures were registered before the war when there was no reason to exaggerate the numbers at all. The figures mentioned in this statement show the Turkmen at 146,000. The same statements show the Kurds at that time at 263,000. If we consider the estimations made in the Oil for Food programme of the United Nations and the percentage adopted in the new Iraqi budgets we see that the Kurds are at 17% of the Iraqi population. Now, 17% of 25 million should be slightly more than 4 million. If we consider in the absence of a real census in Iraq that the Turkmen are above 2 million, we see that really the figures of the Turkish delegation were accurate.
(Note: photo of text missing here)

The British authorities never denied that the majority of Kirkuk is Turkmen. This was even stated in 1952 in a report from the British Ambassador in Iraq Mr. J.M. Trulbil, addressed to the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anthony Eden, about the former’s visit to Kirkuk, Suleimaniya and Erbil during the period from 10-14 May 1952, he stated:
“The issue of minorities in Iraq is based on the relationship between the Arabs and non-Arabs, and this relation is evident now than ever before. The coexistence and harmony is clearly demonstrated in Kirkuk, for Turkmens constitute the majority of the population in that region and they live with Arabs and Kurds side by side”. (The British National Archives, London, File No. F.O/173/98738, report of the Oriental Dept. E/1018/2).

We know that the accurate figures of the Turkmen announced by the Iraqi republic after the military coup in 1958 show the real stand as 567 000 (as stated in the report of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy watch No. 735, March 27, 2003). If we adopt and again in the absence of accurate census, the growth rates of Iraq in general which based on Iraqi population growth rates being approximately 3.2% throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s; 2.6% in the 80s; 2.4% from 1990-92, and 2.3% in 1993 as per the figures quoted in the 1993 Unified Economic Report published by the Arab Fund for Economics and Social Development; the Arab Monetary Fund, and the Arab Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, then we can calculate this figures nowadays as more than 2 millions. This fact is in conformity with the above mentioned report stating the percentage of the Turkmen population in Iraq as 9%. In the present we are talking about 25 million living in Iraq, 9% of which is 2,250,000.

Especially in Kirkuk, the situation was always in this regard, until recent attempts began to severely change the ethnic stance of Kirkuk and its surrounding areas. Even the Kurds have accepted this reality during the negotiations between the Iraqi Kurds and the government. We see in David McDowell’s book, A Modern History of Kurds, İ.B. Tauris, New York 1996, the following statement:

“Mulla Mustafa (Barzani) accused the government of resettling Arabs in the contrasted areas Kirkuk, Khaniqin and Sinjar and told government that he would not accept the census results if the indicate is an Arab majority. He also dismissed the offer of 1965 census, which he said forged. When the government proposed to apply 1957 census to Kirkuk, Mulla Mustafa refused it, since this was bound to show that the Turkmens, although outnumbered in the governorate as a whole was still predominant in Kirkuk town.”

Documents:

I have presented tens of the documents including the official maps and reports of the British government, researchers and authors, which none of them are Turks or Turkmen, stating the ethnic reality of Kirkuk as Turkmen.

In dispute, the majority of the Kurdish authors persistently deny the extent of the historical Turkmen presence in Kirkuk; referring to Shemseddin Sami’s Kamus al Alam (Dictionary of the Individuals) as a factual and reputable authority. It is, in fact, an Ottoman encyclopedia of history and geography which makes the highly-dubious claim that three quarters of Kirkuk’s population are Kurds, the remainder being made up of Turkmen, Arabs and other ethnic groups.

Almost all of these authors refer to what they regard as the most authoritative and reliable sources in this regard. They always mention Shamseddin Sami’s work already referred to, as an author they describe as a Turkish historian and traveler holding no particular allegiance to the Kurds, who had visited Kirkuk and written, according to them, an accurate account of the area and its inhabitants.

As a matter of fact, Shamseddin Sami was not Turkish. He was born in Albania in 1266 (AH) (1849 G) where he received his early education in the Greek school at Yanya, and learned Turkish, Persian and Arabic from a private tutor. He later moved to Istanbul where he launched a newspaper ‘Sabah.’ He then turned to writing fiction, among his early stories being ‘The Love Story of Talat and Fitnat,’ which openly questioned Ottoman marriage traditions and ethics. He followed this with ‘The Revolution of Kawa, the Blacksmith,’ which depicted the hero’s struggle against the dictator, Dhahhak. The reaction of the Turkish authorities was to exile him to Tripoli, but he eventually returned to Istanbul where he devoted his time to writing language texts and works of non-fiction.

Ironically, Sami was not a traveler at all, never having once visited Kirkuk or Baghdad despite writing knowledgeably and authoritatively about both cities. The reference to his major work, referred to above, in the Islamic Encyclopedia clearly states that he compiled it from information he obtained in Bouillet’s ‘Dictionnaire universel d’histoire et de géographie’, various Arab and Persian sources and the largely inaccurate reports and records of government officials. His credibility is also seriously undermined by his references to Baghdad as a ‘Turkish’ city where, he claimed, mainly Turkish was spoken, with Arabic being relegated to second place.

Last statement

In a debate, one of the colleagues was mentioning that the Turkmen always exaggerate their numbers in Iraq and that they do not exceed, as he thinks 7-8 hundred thousands.

In my answer I have mentioned that the natural rights of any individual in any community, are totally independent of the latter’s size or strength, in accordance with the principles laid down by the International Declaration of Human rights (and, in addition, upheld by the terms of the aforementioned Iraqi constitution, the temporary constitution which succeeded it and finally the new permanent constitution).

Even if the testimony of Kurdish writers or others like the said colleague is accepted as valid (though they have generally tended to grossly underestimate the numbers of Turkmen in the Kirkuk region) the fact has to be recognized that the Turkmen population actually exceeds that of several entire independent, internationally recognized nations, for instance in The Arabian gulf, in Europe and in Africa.

I have reminded this friend who resides in Geneva, Switzerland to have a look at the Swiss currency, the Swiss Frank. He would see four native languages on it, including Romansh who at time did not exceed 30,000 people, but had 5 members in Parliament in Bern, not because they were a minority, rather because they had the capability and qualities to hold the seat in the parliament.

We wish to affirm our views as Iraqi Turkmens toward the ethnicities issue in Iraq adopted from the Turkmen Charter, in which we believe: It is the firm belief of the Turkmen that the ideal solution for the ethnic problems in Iraq will come to fruition only when the process builds on a solid foundation that embraces all the ethnicities and groups and considers them all as first class citizens and partners in a single nation. The selection of a free and sovereign united government system should be according to the resolve and free will of the Iraqis.

There should be no attempt to push aside any ethnic group or sect of people and withstand from exaggerating the role of one group over another because of certain exceptional state of affairs.

The Turkmen citizens affirm their respect for a comprehensive decision by the Iraqis that should take into consideration all the Iraqi ethnic groups who should exercise equal rights in shouldering similar duties in the regions that they inhabit and, that this should be conditional on the credible and just demographic census under the supervision of the United Nations after eliminating the last attempt to change this situation in favor of one group.

The Iraqi Turkmen predict a united, democratic, pluralistic and parliamentary Iraq, in which the government will be chosen by a free and credible election according to international standards, and will not be subjected to narrow-minded ethnic determinations in the distribution of authority or governmental positions. In the public service, the Turkmen believe that efficiency, qualifications, experience, and clear vision should become the standard.

Some people talk sometimes about the rosy futures and urge the people not to live in the past but to look forward. May I suggest here that we should specifically in this subject go backward to the past. To adopt and implement the norms accepted in 1948 in the International Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover to go back to the Iraqi constitution of 1925, which I believe was more moderate and acceptable than all the constitutions which followed, including the so-called “permanent constitution”. Let me share with you what I have counted in the 2005 constitution. There are references in this to Sunni, Shea, Arab, Arabic, Kurds, Kurdistan, Turkmen, Assyrians, Kildaniens, Yazidies, Sabia, Armenians, Muslims and Christians 25 times. While such a reference in 1925 constitution is only one and it is related to the official language of Iraq provided that the other languages are also respected.

Now we declared what we prefer as Turkmen of Iraq, I wish however to express how anxious we are about the situation in Kirkuk and other Turkmen inhabited areas in Iraq. Let me remind you that, at the opening ceremony of the General Assembly of the United Nations 2005, the Greek Cypriot president Papadopoulos expressed his opinion about how to solve the Turkish Cypriot-Greek Cypriot dispute, by saying that the Turks should dropped into the rest of Cyprus. He used the ward “Osmosis”.By this, the plan was to melt the Turks into the other part.

I am afraid that, what was planned in Cyprus is nowadays implemented and taking place in Turkmen areas of Iraq. “Osmosis” is taking place to annul the Turkmen presence in Iraq and annex Kirkuk to a specific region.

We urge the free world to stop this tragedy.

IRAQ'S FOUR MILLION REFUGEES AND INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE

Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty




Faceless Iraqis Testify at UNHCR Conference

Latest Numbers: 50,000 Newly Displaced Per Week
Geneva, SWITZERLAND: Two Iraqi refugees appear with their faces blurred while delivering testimonies in video shown at the opening of a two-day United Nations conference, 17 April 2007 at the UN Office in Geneva.

GENEVA, April 17 (UNHCR) – They were driven from their homes in Iraq, face increasing poverty as refugees or internally displaced and long for the day they can resume normal lives. The words of the victims of the violence in Iraq conveyed the human tragedy to the delegates at a conference opened on Tuesday by the UN Refugee Agency more forcefully than statistics.

"We escaped with our lives and left," says a man now living on a deserted farm in southern Iraq, describing on a short film how the families of five brothers received a written warning ordering them to leave their homes in Baghdad because they were Shiite Muslims. A bullet is still attached to the threatening note he is holding. "Can you believe five families leaving without even their clothes? Some people collected some clothes for us?" As told repeatedly in the film, those driven from their homes have escaped death but now face dire circumstances as the last of their resources run out.

An elderly man, interviewed while lined up to register with his wife at the UN refugee agency in Damascus, describes a woman surgeon selling her belongings, knowing that the alternative is to return to possible death in Baghdad.

The film was shown at the opening of a two-day international conference on the humanitarian needs of nearly 4 million refugees and displaced people in Iraq and surrounding countries that has attracted 450 participants from governments and international and non-governmental organisations.

Interviews on one side of the screen – with faces blurred to protect identities – were combined with still photos on the other showing the violence, displaced people and refugees in tents, and children now forced to sleep on floors.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres, chairing the conference, called for a sustained, comprehensive and coordinated international response to ease the plight of nearly four million Iraqis uprooted by the conflict. The number of displaced is rising at the rate of 40,000 to 50,000 per week.

"What caused us to leave is the deteriorating security situation in the country. They attempted to assassinate my husband and also the conditions for life for my two young sons are too bad," says a woman interviewed while lining up outside the UNHCR office in Damascus. "We are Sunnis and living in Sunni areas and we are persecuted in Iraq." The woman, one of up to 1.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, had arrived in the country three months ago. She was seeking the help of UNHCR, knowing the organisation had provided assistance to others. "We know that it is an international organisation and provides Iraqis with some security, some assistance and that they might help us with a visa to go some place," she says. "There isn't any country that would receive us without the help of the United Nations."

As the refugees' funds are used up, and their last belongings are sold, they face an increasingly bleak situation. A woman interviewed in a soup kitchen run by the Ibrahim Khalil Church in Damascus, explains that she has come because her family's resources have been exhausted after two years in exile. "Whatever we brought from Iraq is finished now," she says. "This is why we came to this centre – that they might give us some help and financial aid, to help with the daily expenses because our financial situation is very bad."

The numbers forced to neighbouring countries are too large for permanent integration, while resettlement is a solution only for the most vulnerable of Iraqi refugees. The solution for most Iraqis will be their voluntary return to their homeland – once that can be done safely.

"We left Baghdad because the situation is very difficult. We were threatened with death and they took our houses and also our shops," says a man who arrived in Syria from Iraq with his family three months ago. "I had an antique shop. I had to leave it and leave all of the merchandise behind to save ourselves and the lives of our children." He is not able to work in Syria and fears what will happen when his savings run out. He wishes he could go home but believes nowhere is safe: "You see what the situation is there – just destruction and death." "I wish I could return tomorrow or even I would return today if they would provide us with security and our houses. Our whole life is there," he says. But his plans for the future are frozen. "The future is dark and I don't think about it."

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/2390/Faceless_Iraqis_Testify_at_UNHCR_Conference