THE UIGHURS

The Uighurs
-By Erkin Alptekin (*)

Introduction
The Uighurs are the native people of Eastern Turkestan, also known as Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The latest Chinese census gives the present population of the Uighurs as slightly over 6 million(l) There are also 500,OOO Uighurs in Western Turkestan, known as Uzbekistan, Kazakistan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan(2). Almost 150,000 Uighurs have thier homes in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Western Europe and the United States(3).


Chinese sources indicate that the Uighurs are the direct descendents of the Huns(4). The Huns are the forefathers of the Turkic people.


The name "Uighur" is mentioned in the chronicles of the Chinese Han dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), Wei dynasty (265-289 A.D.), Tang dynasty (618-906 A.D.), and Sung dynasty (906-960 A.D) (5).


Although they were known under different names such as Wei-ho, Gaoche or Yuan-ho in different periods of history, there is no doubt that these people were Uighurs(6) Gaoche means "High Cart" tribes(7) To this day the big wheeled nepe or high cart is a characteristic sight in some cities in southern Eastern Turkestan. Even today the Chinese call the Uighurs Wei Wu Er.
Ancient Greek, Iranian and Chinese sources placed the Uighurs with their tribes and sub-tribes in the vast area between the west banks of the Yellow River in the east, Eastern Turkestan in the west, and in the Mongolian steppe in the northeseast as early as 300 B.C.(8)


After 210 B.C. the Uighurs played important roles in Hun (220 B.C.-386 A.D.),Tabgach (386-534 A.D.) and Kok Turk (552-744 A.D.) Turkic empires which were established in Central Asia.(9)
In 670, 688, 692 A.D. the Uighurs, the Kok Turks and the Shato joined the Tibetan armies in their military expeditions in capturing the Chinese strongholds in north and northeast Central Asia.(1O)


Political History
After the fall of the Kok Turk Empire in Central Asia, the Uighurs established their first state in Mongolia in 744, with the city Karabalgasun, on the banks of the Orkhun River, as its capital.
The founder of this Uighur state was Kutluk Bilge Kul Khan. In 747 he was succeeded by his son Moyunchur, a powerful leader who subdued other Turkic clans, consolidated the monarchy, and extended hls rule in the north to Lake Baykal, in the east to Kansu and in the southwest to Eastern Turkestan.(11)


It so happened that just as the Uighurs became united and strong, the Chinese Tang dynasty under Hsuan-tsung (712-756 A.D.) was undergoing a sharp decline.In 751 a Chinese army was disastrously defeated in the battle of Talas River by the Arabs and their allies. In the same year, a Chinese invasion of the Nan-chao to the southwest was thwarted with appalling losses to the Chinese; and a Chinese force under An Lu Shan was defeated by the Khitan in the northeast. These disasters were but the prelude to a much more fearful catastrophe - the rebellion of the former trusted minister An Lu Shan which broke out in 755.


It was under these circumstances that the Uighurs were invited by Su-tsung, the Hsuan-tsungs successor, to send armies to help the Chinese. In this event the Uighur forces played a key role in the recapture of both Changan and Lu-yang in 757. The Uighurs did not hesitate to exploit the Tang dynastic debt owed them, by acts of appalling pillage. The chinese emperor agreed to pay 200,000 rolls of silk as tribute annually to the Uighurs and granted the Uighur Khan one of his daughters in marriage(l2). She was the first of the three princesses of Chinese imperial family to become an Uighur khatun in the period 744-840 A.D.(13)


Moyunchur Khan died in 759 and was succeeded by his son Bugu Khan. During his reign, the Uighurs reached the apex of their power. They began with China, which engaged in forced trade of Uighur horses for Chinese silk - an exchange which was noted frequently in Chinese sources before 829.

In 762 Bugu Khan went to the Middle Kingdom where he helped the Tang dynasty in the final battles against the rebellion which had racked it for so long.

In 779, Bugu Khan was killed by his first cousin and chief minister Baga Tarkan. Bugu Khan's Sogdian allies and advisers had wanted him to take advantage of the death in 779 of Emperor Tai-tsung and the state mourning involved in it, to undertake an invasion of China. Bugu Khan agreed to do this. His first cousin Baga Tarkan opposed the plan; and when he saw the tide turning against him, murdered Bugu Khan and set himself on the throne. Baga Tarkan, believed that at this stage China could have been conquered by the Uighurs. But he did not believe that the Uighurs would be able to preserve their national identity if they once conquered China, a vast and populous country even then.


After the death of Baga Tarkan in 789 and especially after that of his successor, Kulug Bilge Khan in 790, Uighur power and prestige declined.
In 795, the rule of the Uighur state passed to another Uighur clan. Under this new clan the Uighurs became more and more steeped in religion, which softened them and planted seeds of advanced culture which characterized the Uighurs of later ages. The most important ruler of this clan was Kutluk Bilge Khan, whose successful military exploits, both before and during his reign, are reported in the Karabalgasun inscriptions(14.) He did not succeed, however, in restoring the Uighur empire to its former power.


With Kutluk Bilge Khan's death in 805, the forces of disintegration of the Uighur state gathered momentum. War broke out abroad with the powerful Kirgiz neighbours to the north; while at home, court intrigue eroded the power of the royal family; rebellions broke out, and, to add to everything, a bad season and severe winter in 839 killed much of the livestock upon which the Uighur economy was so dependent. In 840, the Kirgiz, invited by a rebel chief, attacked the tottering state, killed the khan, and took the capital.


This first part of Uighur political history shows the Uighurs as the protectors of the Chinese empire for almost a century. On the other hand, the relationship was not really a friendly one. There was abiding resentment on the Chinese side. The reason was that the Middle Kingdom was obliged to be protected by a "barbarian" people.


Although the Uighurs lost over the centuries so many of the features of their entirely nomadic past, the Chinese continued to regard them as uncivilized barbarians as they did other peoples. The Uighurs, for their part, never gave the Chinese the respect which the latter would have liked (15).


After the fall of the first Uighur empire, a group of Uighurs emigrated to the west banks of the Yellow River in Kansu; a second group emigrated via Yetti Su to the southern part of Khan Tengri or Tian Shan in Eastern Turkestan; the third and the largest group of Uighurs emigrated to the northern part of Khan Tengri where their ancestors were still living(16).


The Kan-Chou Uighur Kingdom
The Uighurs who emigrated to the west banks of the Yellow river in Kansu established a kingdom in 850 known as the Kan-chou Uighur Kingdom.
This kingdom never became a major power, but the Chinese had great respect for it as seen from the Chinese court praise of the Kan-chou Uighur King when an Uighur and a Tibetan ambassadors visited the Chinese capital in 911(17).
Nevertheless, this kingdom was absorbed in 1228 by the Tankuts who established a state in the area known as Western Hsia.
Several thousands of these Uighurs still live in the Kansu area under the name Sarik Uighurs or Yellow Uighurs, preserving their old Uighur tongue.


The Karakhoja Uighur Kingdom
The Uighurs who emigrated to the northern part of Khan Tengri in Eastern Turkestan established the second Uighur Kingdom in 846 known as Karakhoja Uighur Kingdom near the present day city of Turfan(18). The Chinese recognized this kingdom and sent Wang Yen de in 981 to Karakhoja as their ambassador(19). Wang Yen De stayed in Karakhoja for three years.


The Karakhanid Uighur Kingdom
The Uighurs who settled in the southern part of Khan Tengri, established the Karakhanid Kingdom in 840 with the support of other Turkic clans like the Karluks, the Turgish and the Basmil, with Kashgar as their capital(20).
In 934, during the rule of Satuk Bughra Khan, the Karakhanids embraced the Islamic religion(21). Thus, in the territory of Eastern Turkestan two Uighur kingdoms were set up: the Karakhanids, who were Muslims, and the Karakhoja Uighurs who were Buddhists.
The Islamic kingdom was overrun by the Karakhitays in 1124. The Karakhitays are also known as the Western Liao. They were a mixture of Mongol, Turkic and Tunguz people. Thus the Buddhist Uighur Kingdom became vassals of the Karakhitays.


In 1218 the Buddhist Uighur Kingdom was voluntarily confederated with Chengiz Khan against their common enemy, the Karakhitays whom they defeated(22). The Uighur King Barchuk was accepted "graciously" by Chengiz Khan as his "fifth son The Buddhist Uighurs maintained their sovereignty in the north and Mahmud Yalvach, a Muslim Uighur was appointed to the administration in the south(24).


Chengiz Khan died in 1227, and his empire was divided among his four sons.Chagatay inherited Western and Eastern Turkestan. Like his father; he did not interfere with the internal affairs of Eastern Turkestan. After his death Turkestan was divided into two parts again by rival khans in a power struggle to succeed Chagatay. After a bloody struggle Timur succeeded to the Chagatay's throne in Western Turkestan in 1368.


The rule of the Muslim part of Eastern Turkestan passed into the hands of Khizir Khoja, who staged an invasion of the Buddhist Uighur Kingdom in the north in 1397 and brought them under his rule. After that the lslamic religion also spread among the Buddhist Uighurs(26.) This Islamic Uighur Kingdom of Eastern Turkestan maintained its independence until 1759(27).


The Manchus who set up a huge empire in China, invaded the Uighur Kingdom in 1759 and dominated it until 1862. During this period the Uighurs revolted 42 times against the Manchu rule with the purpose of regaining their independence(28) In the last revolt of 1863, the Uighurs were successful in expelling the Manchus from their motherland, and founded an independent kingdom under the leaderhsip of Yakub Bey. This kingdom was recognized by the Ottoman Empire, Tsarist Russia and Great Britain(29). But for fear of Tsarist expansion into Eastern Turkestan, Great Britain persuaded the Manchu court to conquer Eastern Turkestan. The money for the Manchu invasion forces was granted by British banks(30).


Large forces under the overall command of General Zho Zhung Tang attacked Eastern Turkestan in 1876. After this invasion, Eastern Turkestan was given the name Xinjiang or Sinkiang which means "New Dominion" or "New Territory" and it was annexed into the territory of the Manchu empire on 18 November 1884(31).


In 1911, the Nationalist Chinese, under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, overthrew Manchu rule and established a republic.
The Uighurs, who also wanted to free themselves from foreign domination, staged several uprisings against the Nationalist Chinese rule during this period. Twice, in 1933 and 1944, the Uighurs were successful in setting up an independent Islamic Eastern Turkestan republic(32). But these independent Islamic Republics were overthrown by the military intervention and political intrigues of the Soviet Union. It was in fact the Soviet Union that proved a deterrent to the Uighur independence movement throughout this period.


In 1949 the Nationalist Chinese were defeated by the Chinese communists. After that, Eastern Turkestan fell under Chinese communist rule. Uighur language, culture and civilization
The Uighurs were far more advanced than the other Turkic peoples because they lived along the Silk Route which served as a route of commercial, cultural and religious exchanges throughout history.


At the end of the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century, scientific and archaeological expeditions to the region along the Silk Route in Eastern Turkestan led to the discovery of numerous Uighur cave temples, monastery ruins, wall paintings, miniatures, statues, frescoes, valuable manuscripts, documents and books. Members of the expedition from Great Britain, Sweden, Russia, Germany, France and Japan were amazed by the art treasure they found there, and soon detailed reports captured the attention of interested public around the world.

The relics of these rich Uighur cultural remnants brought back by Sven Kidin of Sweden, Aurel Stein of Great Britain, Albert von Lecoq of Germany, Paul Pelliot of France, Langdon Warner of United States and Count Ottani of Japan can be seen today in the museums of Berlin, London, Paris, Tokyo, Leningrad and even in the Museum of Central Asian Antiquities in New Delhi (33). The manuscripts, documents and the books discovered in Eastern Turkestan proved that the Uighurs had a very high degree of civilization compared to the Europeans of the Middle Ages (34).

Uighur Language
The main language spoken in Eastern Turkestan is Uighur. Uighur represents one of the dialects of the widely diffused Turkic language family. Among Western linguists, the term "Eastern Turkish" is also widely in use for Uighur. There is, of course, a great difference between the old Uighur and the present one. Closely related to the Uighur is Uzbek. But the Turkic inhabitants of Kazakhistan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan, Tataristan, Azerbaijan and even Turkey have almost no difficulty communicating with each other.

Uighur Script
Throughout the centuries, the Uighurs used three kinds of scripts. When they were confederated wilh the Kok Turks in the 6th and 71h centuries, they used the Orkhum script, which was actually a Kok Turk invention(35). Later, the Uighurs dropped this script (36) and and adopted their own script which became to be known as the Uighur Script. This script was used for almost 800 years not only by the Uighurs, but also by other Turkic peoples, the Mongols, and by the Manchus in the early stage of their rule in China(37). As the Mongols did not have their own written language, the Uighur script was adopted by Chengiz Khan's empire for all sorts of correspondence(38). Guyuk Khan's (1246-1248) letter to the Pope of that time was also written in the Uighur script(39). The Uighurs were also instrumental in shaping Mongol administration, which was formidable by any standards. They manned Mongol chanceries and, probably because of their knowledge of languages, were often charged with visiting foreigners. Both Plano Carpini and Rubruck mention them. The Uighurs also emerged as teachers of the royal family, governers in China, ambassadors in Rome, today's Istanbul, and Baghdad, scholars in Tebriz and officers in the army (40) . After embracing Islam, the Uighurs adopted the Arabic alphabet, but common usage of the Arabic script came only in the llth century.

Uighur Literature
The first Uighur literary works were mostly translations of Buddhist and Manichaeist religious books. Besides, during the expeditions some narrative, poetic and epic works were also discovered. Some of these works have been translated into German, English, Russian and Turkish(41). After embracing Islam Uighurs continued to preserve their cultural dominance in Central Asia.

In this period hundreds of Uighur scholars, well known in the world, emerged. Hundreds of valuable books were written. One hundred and thirty of these important works were discovered later. Some of these books are in the Leningrad National Museum (42). Among these works, Uighur scholar Yusuf Has Hacip's book, Kutaku Bilik, Mahmud Kashgari's Divan-i Lugat-it Turk, Ahmet Yukneki's, Atabetul Hakayik, Bakshi Herevis, Uighur Mihrajname, Abdulfazil Muhammed Omer's, Esserruh Minelshah, Mavlana Hashim Yarkendi's, Keshf-ul Israr, Mavlana Muhammed Sadreddin Karakashi's, Mujmet-ul Ahkam are very famous. All these works were written in Ihe 10th, llth and 12th centuries.Yusuf Has Hajip's Kutatku Bilik was written in 1069-1070.

It is a unique example of a work that explains social, cultural and political lives of the Uighurs during this period. Mahmud Kashgari's Divan-i Lugat-it Turk, which was also written in this age, bears knowledge as to the dialects of various Turkic peoples living at that time. It also gives information about the dialectical differences, their social upbringings, their customs as well as the regions they inhabited. The author of this encyclopedic dictionary wandered amidst all of Turkic peoples before he compiled his work, studied all the data and thus provided a sound academic basis. Mahmud Kashgari's Divan-i Lugat-it Turk is one of the main source for Turkic studies in the world today.

Iman Hussein Halef of Kashgar was the first Turkic Muslim scholar in Eastern Turkestan who translated the meaning of the Holy Koran into the Uighur language in the 12th century(43). The Islamic civilization that evolved among the Uighurs also gave birth to great Turkic Muslim scholars and writers, such as Iman Bukhari, Tirmizi, Samerqandi, Biruni, Farabi, Ibn-i Sina, Abu Mashhari, Zimahshari, Ulugbek and Alishir Nevai.

Religion
Prior to Islam, like most of the Turkic peoples in Central Asia, the Uighurs believed in religions like Shamanism, Buddhism and Manicheism. Buddhism entered Eastern Turkestan at the beginning of our era(44).. It quickly spread among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, but it was the uygurs who founded Buddhism in Central Asia.

The ruins of the famous monasteries known as the Ming Oy or the Thousand Buddhas built by the Uighurs can still be seen in the cities of Kucha, Turfan and Tunhuang, where the Kan-Chao Uighurs lived.
The Uighur Kin Kul Bilge Khan (685-712) ordered a Buddhist monastery to be built in the city of Bay in Eastern Turkestan(45).
In the city of Kucha, there were more than 50 Buddhist temples, libraries and welfare programs for the support of the poor(46). In the city of Hoten there were 14 large monasteries without counting the smaller ones(47)

When Uighur king Bugu Khan travelled to China in 762, he met some Manichean priests. They succeeded in converting him to their religion and four of these priests returned with him to Karabalgasun. Shortly after, Bugu Khan imposed Manicheism as the state religion(48). This was a political step rather than a religious one. He hoped, by adopting this characteristically Sogdan religion, to direct the future of his people away from the cultural influence of the Chinese who were also Buddhists(49)

The Uighurs embraced Islam in 934, during the reign of Satuk Bughra Khan. He was the first Turkic ruler who embraced Islam in Central Asia. At this time instead of temples, mosques were built. Almost 300 mosques were built only in the city of Kashgar. Among them, most famous are Ihe Azna Mosque, built in 12th century, Idgah Mosque built in 15th century and Appak Khoja Mosque, built in the 18th century. The Idgah mosque can accomodate 5000 Muslims. In the city of Kashgar alone their were 6 big Madrasahs. The Mesudi Library, built in the 15th century, had a collection of almost 200,000 books(51).
Hundreds of MusIim students from various parts of the Islamic World came to Kashgar to study.

Uighur Economy
The Uighurs adopted a sedentary life style earlier than the other Turkic peoples. Thus, the Uighurs knew how to cultivate land as early as 2nd century A.D. The Uighurs were engaged in a much more advanced agriculture by the 7th century. They raised wheat, maize, vegetables and fruits. Water melons that the Uighurs raised in Turfan weighed some 30 pounds(52). The fields were irrigated with water brought from far distances by the "kariz" or "water canals" built by the Uighurs. These "kariz" are still in use in Eastern Turkestan today.

Cotton was one of the principle local products of commercial value. It was the Uighurs who familiarized the Mongols with its use. The Mongol word for cotton is Uighur(53) Cotton and products manufactured from cotton contributed to the prosperity of the region(54).
Another product of commercial value was carpets. The cities of Hoten, Kashgar and Turfan were carpet manufacturing centers. These three cities are still famous for their carpet products.

Uighur medicine
The Uighurs had an extensive knowledge of medicine and medical practice. Sung dynasty (906-960) sources indicate that an Uighur physician, namely, Nanto, travelled to China, and brought with him many kinds of medicines not known to the Chinese(55). The Tatar scholar Rashid Rahmeti Arat has written two valuable books in German entitled Zur Heilkunder der Uighuren or Medical Practices of the Uighurs in 1930 and 1932, relying on Uighur documents discovered in Eastern Turkestan.

In his book Arat gives important information on Uighur medicine and medical treatment. Among the documents he studied he found a very important sketch of a man with an explanation of acupuncture. Relying on this document, some Western scholars claims that acupunture was not a Chinese, but a Turkic invention and that the Uighurs perfected the method(56).

In other fields such as architecture, art, music and printing the Uighurs were also far more advanced. Western scholars who have studied Uighur history, culture and civilization have often expressed a high estimation of the cultural level of the Uighurs. For instance, Ferdinand de Sassure has written: "Those who preserved the language and written culture of Central Asia were the Uighurs(57)". Albert von Lecoq, "The Uighur language and script contributed to the enrichment of civilizations of the other peoples in Central Asia. Compared to the Europen as of that time the Uighurs were far more advanced.

Documents discovered in Eastern Turkestan prove that an Uighur farmer could write down a contract, using legal terminology. How many European farmers could have done that at the same period? This shows the extent of Uighur civilization of that time(58). Laszlo Rasonyi: "The Uighurs knew how to print books centuries before Gutenberg invented his press(59)", Wolfram Eberhard: "In the Middle Ages, the Chinese poetry, literature, theatre, music and painting were greatly influenced by the Uighurs(60)". Chinese envoys such as Hsuan Chang, Wang Yen De and Chang Chun who travelled through Eastern Turkestan between the 7th and 13th centuries reported that they were impressed by the high degree of Uighur power, prestige and culture found in the Uighur kingdom(61).

This Uighur power, prestige and culture which dominated Central Asia for more than a thousand years went into a steep decline after the Manchu invasion of Eastern Turkestan and during the rule of Communist Chinese.

For Notes see : http://www.uygur.org/enorg/history/the_uighurs.htm
- Journal Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs: Vol. 8:2, July 1987

(*) Erkin Alpetkin

Erkin Alptekin was born in Eastern Turkestan in 1939. After Chinese take over of Eastern Turkestan in 1949, he fled to India, with his parents. He graduated from Convent College in Srinagar, and the Institute of Journalism, in Istanbul, Turkey. He worked at Radio Free Europe/Liberty, in Munich, Germany where his last position was Senior Policy Advisor to the Director of Radio Liberty. He asked for his early retirement when Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty decided to move to Prague, the Czech Republic, in 1995.
Erkin Alptekin has been effectively lobbying not only his own peoples cause but also that of many other nations, peoples, minorities and the indigenous peoples in the Western countries since 1971. Thus, he became one of three founders and current president of the Allied Committee of the Peoples of Eastern Turkestan, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, in 1985, in Zürich, Switzerland. In 1991, with the support of some of his countrymen he founded the Eastern Turkestan Union in Europe (ETUE), in Munich, Germany. He is one of the founders of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), which is established in 1991 and is located in The Hague, The Netherlands. Between 1991 and 2003, Mr. Erkin Alptekin served as the Vice Chairman, Chairman and the General Secretary of the UNPO. He is the President of the World Uighur Congress, an umbrella organization established in 2004, that unites all the Uighur organizations worldwide.

TERRORISM IS FINE WHEN USED AGAINST IRAQIS

International terrorist Ilyad Allawi with U.S. bodyguard

Saturday-Monday, May 5-7, 2007
GOTCHA
By Malcom LAGAUCHE
http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html

At a press conference in November 2001, George Bush stated:
A coalition partner must do more than just express sympathy. A coalition partner must perform. All nations must do something. It’s important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity. You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.
He then went on to explain that any country that gives safe haven to a terrorist, even if it does not support the terrorist’s intent, is just as guilty as a nation that sponsors terrorism. There was no ambiguity in his message.

Since that time, Bush has coerced countries to perform duties against their own will in the guise of fighting terrorism. He has made up terrorists that don’t exist and threatened countries because of mythical figures. Thousands of people worldwide are in secret prisons because of Bush’s "war on terror."

Despite the tough talk about abetting terrorists, Bush is a collaborator with terrorists. There are two world-class terrorists who will never come to justice because they are protected by the U.S. Most U.S. citizens have never heard of one: Luis Posada. The other, Ilyad Allawi, is vaguely remembered as a former prime minister of the "new" Iraq.

Posada’s list of actions is long and comprehensive. His career highlight was orchestrating the blowing up of Cubana Flight 45 on October 6, 1976, in which all 73 people on board died, including 24 members of the Cuban national fencing team.

Other atrocities attributed to Posada include the planning of the bombing of Cuban hotels, cafés and dancehalls. In cahoots with portions of the Cuban exile community in Miami, Florida, Posada has been involved with bombings and assassinations against Cuban interests in Venezuela, Guatemala and other countries.

It appeared that Posada was going to be brought to justice when he was arrested and put on trial in Venezuela. He escaped and was on the run until 2005, when he was arrested in the U.S. Posada claimed asylum and a judge ruled he could be deported, but not to Venezuela or Cuba. Both countries want to incarcerate him for the destruction of the airliner, but the U.S. administration did not allow this to happen.On April 26, 2006, Posada applied for U.S. citizenship. He has a good chance of becoming a U.S. citizen, allowing him to spend the rest of his life outside a jail cell.

The U.S. "war on terror" does not apply to terrorists who work on the side of the U.S. Luis Posada was a CIA asset for years. He and the CIA worked hand-in-hand on many projects. When asked if he felt any guilt about his hotel and café bombings, he replied, "I sleep like a baby."

Let’s take a look at another terrorist who eventually became Iraq’s prime minister. On May 28, 2004, when the U.S. government announced that Ilyad Allawi would become Iraq’s interim prime minister, most people asked, "Who?" Before this time, he was unknown to the U.S. public
Ilyad Allawi was an Iraqi exile living in London. When he first moved to London, he was a member of Iraq’s Ba’ath Party. Shortly after, he changed sides and sold his services to the British spy agency MI6. Later on, he collaborated with the CIA as well.

In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration had placed the assassination of Saddam Hussein at the top of its agenda, albeit in a covert manner. The plan was for Iraqi dissidents to meet in the north of Iraq (at the time under the protection of U.S. forces) and march to Baghdad. The U.S. was to supply air power and weapons.

Allawi was the man for the job. He was in charge of a U.S.-sponsored Iraqi expatriate group called the Iraqi National Accord (INA). The first part of the operation was to create havoc in Baghdad. For about six months in 1996, INA agents blew up bus stops, cinemas and stores in Baghdad. At least 150 civilians were killed and many more injured.

Syndicated columnist Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun was one of the few journalists who wrote about the plan. In his column, "The Bay of Camels," of August 25, 1997, he stated, "Terrorism is bad, it seems, when used against Americans or Israelis, but fine when used against Iraqis."

The title of Margolis’ column was a mockery of the "Bay of Pigs" invasion by Cuban dissidents backed by the U.S. that turned into an embarrassing defeat. The Iraqi debacle in 1996 had similar implications, yet gained little publicity.

The Iraqis discovered who was behind the terrorist attacks and arrested INA agents in Baghdad. In addition, Iraqi special agents had already infiltrated the would-be insurgents. The scheduled invasion was doomed before it began. The infiltration of Iraqi government assets, along with a decision by the U.S. not to supply air cover, made it a non-starter.

At the time, a civil war was raging in the north of Iraq between the two largest Kurdish factions. One of their leaders, Barzani, asked Saddam Hussein for help in putting down his rivals. The payoff for Iraq was that Barzani alerted the Iraqis to the huge CIA operation in Irbil, in the north of Iraq. The Iraqi troops destroyed the CIA program and helped Barzani take over Irbil, then they returned to Baghdad.

After the failed coup, Allawi was protected by the U.S. and he fled to England. He still was a major behind-the-scenes player involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many know of the escapades of Ahmed Chalabi and his group, the INC, but Allawi continued his work for the CIA after the failed strategy to get rid of Saddam.

On November 13, 2004, The Spectator, a British publication, ran a feature by Andrew Gilligan called "The Strongman of Baghdad." According to the article:
Unlike his main rival in Iraqi exile politics, the banker Ahmed Chalabi, he (Allawi) was low-key and persuasive, hinting at highly placed contacts inside the regime who were ready to turn the West’s way. Not for the last time, Ilyad Allawi was telling the British, and later the U.S. government exactly what they wanted to hear, and the CIA millions started to pour in.

The INA’s most controversial operation during this period was a campaign of what can only be termed terrorism against civilians. In 1994 and 1995, a series of bombings at cinemas, mosques and other places in Baghdad claimed up to 100 civilian lives …

In 1996, with massive CIA backing, Mr. Allawi finally got to mount his coup. It was a complete fiasco, not entirely helped by his decision to announce the supposedly top-secret operation to the Washington Post. Even before this, Saddam’s secret police had secretly seized the sophisticated encrypted satphone sent into Iraq to communicate with the coup plotters and were using it to feed disinformation to the CIA. Once the coup had been crushed and all the plotters arrested, the special line came to life one last tie. It was the Iraqis, kindly ringing up the CIA to let them know it was all over.

The "ringing up the CIA" to which Gilligan refers consisted of an Iraqi officer calling a CIA agent in Amman, Jordan, who was anxiously awaiting word of how the operation was progressing. When the CIA operative answered, the Iraqi officer said, "Gotcha!"

Allawi continued to rake in the revenues from the British and American intelligence agencies. He, like Chalabi, continued to turn out the most outrageous allegations about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The more preposterous, the better. Gilligan added:
Undaunted, Mr. Allawi kept up his contacts (and income) with the spooks and an even thirstier less discriminating audience, the British press. At top-secret meetings in London hotels, murmured conversations with selected extra-gullible hacks would produce exciting headlines in top right-wing newspapers. It was the INA, in July 2000, which fed the Sunday Telegraph the sensational scoop that Saddam had deployed crack "Mata Hari" teams of killer belly-dancers to Britain to assassinate his political opponents, a story which continues to be remembered with tears of real joy whenever Iraq-watching journalists gather to reminisce.

Allawi’s acts of terrorism, lying, and bilking the U.S. and Britain of millions of dollars were well-rewarded: he was appointed Iraq’s prime minister. If any non-governmental citizen of the U.S. or Britain had performed similar acts, he/she would be imprisoned for life. If an administration official of these nations did likewise, it would be considered in "the best interest of national security."

As prime minister in a quisling government, Allawi had virtually no support. The people of Iraq did not respect him. Even Saddam Hussein’s opponents who lived in Iraq their whole lives despised Allawi.

The U.S. spent millions of dollars listening to peoples’ advice on Iraq. But, those they asked for information always gave them the wrong advice. Not one penny was spent on listening to the opinion of Iraqis in Iraq, not exiles living in luxury who had no idea of Iraqi attitudes. Gilligan summed it up:
The trouble, you see, with wafting in a British passport-holder from Wimbledon as your chosen leader is that he has no genuine political capital in Iraq to spend, no popular support to withstand the inevitable crises.

Let’s go back to the 1996 "Bay of Camels" debacle and look at how then President Bill Clinton handled the affair. He had to take some military action against Iraq, yet he could not admit that the U.S. had the world’s largest CIA operation in Irbil and that it had been completely knocked out.

On September 3, 1996, Clinton told the press:
Three days ago, despite clear warnings from the United States and the international community, Iraqi forces attacked and seized the Kurdish-controlled city of Irbil in northern Iraq. The limited withdrawals announced by Iraq do not change the reality. Saddam Hussein’s army today controls Irbil and Iraqi units remain deployed for further attacks.

These acts demand a strong response and they have received one. Earlier today, I ordered American forces to strike Iraq. Our missiles sent the following message to Saddam Hussein: when you abuse your own people or threaten your neighbors you must pay a price.

Clinton appealed to the sensitivities of the U.S. public by saying that Saddam again was abusing his own people. There was not one word about the CIA operation or that the Iraqi army defended against an assassination attempt. The most curious aspect of Clinton’s explanation was the area in which the missiles were sent. If Iraqi troops were "abusing" the Iraqi people in Irbil in the north of Iraq, logic would say that a military response would have been conducted in the north.

But, Clinton added:
First, we are expanding the no-fly zone in southern Iraq. This will deny Saddam control of Iraqi airspace from the Kuwaiti border to the southern suburbs of Baghdad and significantly restrict Iraq's ability to conduct offensive operations in the region. Second, to protect the safety of our aircraft enforcing this no-fly zone, our cruise missiles struck Saddam’s air defense capabilities in southern Iraq.

Clinton mentioned that the strike was to "restrict Iraq’s ability to conduct offensive operations in the region." Iraq did not conduct offensive operations in the south. It was in the north. Even a few reporters asked why the south of Iraq was whacked when the Iraqi troops were in the north. Clinton gave a feeble excuse and the press bought it.

The reason Clinton sent any cruise missiles was because of the outcry from Congress to retaliate. But, he could not tell the truth. At the time, the press had no information about the huge CIA operation that had been destroyed.

The operation was not un-noticed by Congress. Most members knew of the CIA operation, but were tight-lipped. After the fiasco, the Democrats tried to downplay the event, while the Republicans went for the jugular.

A document from the House Republican Policy Committee, called "U.S. Intelligence Debacle Worst Since the Day of Pigs," was released on October 8, 1996. The report was primarily an attack on Bill Clinton’s "weakness" on Iraq.

But, much information was included of which the U.S. public was unaware. According to the report:
In early 1996, President Clinton signed a secret directive authorizing a covert CIA operation to unseat Saddam Hussein. He and his CIA director, John M. Deutch, pinned their hopes on a cadre of Kurdish and Iraqi agents operating inside Iraq with undercover U.S. support. In America’s largest covert operation since the successful CIA campaign against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Deutch personally promised the effort would succeed "within a year."But the Clinton-Deutch scheme in Iraq began to come apart in June 1996.

First, the CIA attempt to infiltrate the Republican Guard was uncovered. Reminiscent of the "exploding cigar" fiascoes targeting Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, one of the missions that Clinton approved was to plant a small bomb in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. It went off, but not while Saddam Hussein was there. The fact that the bomb at least detonated was the only success of the infiltration. Through late June and early July 1996, Iraqi security forces systematically exposed every one of the U.S.-backed officers and agents in the ranks of the Republican Guard …
… With hundreds of American-supported Kurds and Iraqis dead or imprisoned, Bill Clinton dishonestly declared victory before a credulous American public who did not know (and could not have known) what actually happened in Iraq.

Though it was the Republicans who brought out the real facts about the debacle in Irbil, they did not do so for altruistic reasons or to enlighten the U.S. public about situations in Iraq. The report was a partisan swipe at a Democrat president. In fact, before the situation turned sour, most Republicans supported the idea of trying to have Saddam Hussein overthrown from within.

The main U.S. asset, Allawi, was quickly transported out of Iraq with most of the U.S. agents. The Iraqi stooges, who thought they were being well-protected, were left defenseless against the Iraqi troops and they paid a hefty price.

Posada and Allawi are in the major leagues of terrorists. But, the U.S. has protected both. Posada probably will become a U.S. citizen and Allawi now splits his time between an expensive, well-guarded house in Jordan, and another residence in London. Some working class Moslem may get arrested in his house in the U.S. and accused for being a terrorist because of his reading material. But, two of the world’s most notorious terrorists are protected by the same administration that said there will be no safe haven for any terrorist in the world.

Coincidentally, the FBI has downgraded the Mother of All Terrorists, Osama Bin-Laden. The current explanation of crimes for his being on the FBI Most Wanted list is:
Osama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombing of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.

What about 9-11? The reason for the invasion of Afghanistan was that the country would not hand over Osama Bin-Laden, the mastermind of 9-11, to U.S. authorities. Now, the FBI says it does not have enough evidence to charge him with that crime.

Afghanistan was invaded and occupied by foreign troops because it was the home of Osama Bin-Laden. Iraq was invaded and occupied by foreign troops because Saddam Hussein and Bin-Laden were in cahoots with each other.

A 2006 U.S. government report stated that there was no link between Saddam and Bin-Laden. It added that Saddam Hussein held Bin-Laden in contempt and assured that no Al-Qaida operatives were allowed to enter Iraq. The FBI admits it has no proof that Bin-Laden was behind the 9-11 attacks in the U.S. But, the truth is immaterial. Iraq and Afghanistan are still both under brutal occupations.

REPORT WARNS OF CIVIL WAR SPREADING TO KERKUK AND THE KURDISH REGION

Report warns of civil war spreading to Kurdish north of Iraq
By Peter Symonds
5 May 2007
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/kurd-m05.shtml


A detailed report published last month by the Brussels-based think tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG), pointed out that ethnic tensions brewing in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk could rapidly become politically explosive. If Kurdish leaders overrode the objections of other communities and pressed ahead with a referendum this year on the town’s status, the ICG warned, “the civil war [in Iraq] is very likely to spread to Kirkuk and the Kurdish region, until now Iraq’s only area of quiet and progress”.

The two major Kurdish nationalist parties—the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—fully backed the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 as the means of guaranteeing their control over the Kurdish north of the country. The PUK and KDP dominate the current Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which rules over a quasi-independent state with its own flag, constitution, militia and economic ties to international investors.

The Kurdish parties insisted on a virtual veto over the constitution drawn up under American supervision so as to maintain and extend the KRG’s powers. In particular, the PUK and KDP claimed ethnically mixed Kirkuk as the capital of the Kurdish region and demanded its inclusion along with its substantial oil reserves. In the face of concerted opposition by Arab and Turkoman parties, a compromise clause was inserted providing for a referendum on the status of the city by the end of 2007. Prior to any vote, Kurdish leaders insisted on a process of “normalisation”—to reverse the attempts under Saddam Hussein to alter the city’s ethnic mix by driving out Kurds and encouraging the settlement of Arabs known locally as Wafidin or “newcomers”.

The push to include Kirkuk in the Kurdish region has not only inflamed ethnic tensions in the city and surrounding districts, but threatens to draw in Iraq’s neighbours. Turkey in particular fears that a Kurdish takeover of Kirkuk and its oil reserves would lay the basis for an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, which would fuel separatist sentiment among Turkey’s substantial Kurdish minority.

The Turkish military has recently threatened to intervene unilaterally against the bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) inside Iraq. While the US has warned against military action, the army’s strident nationalist stance is being fuelled by the current political crisis in Ankara surrounding the presidential elections.

Inside Kirkuk, ethnic rivalry has spilled over into clashes between Kurdish army and police units responsible for security, and various Shiite and Sunni militia, included Islamic extremists. As the ICG reports explains, Kirkuk is increasingly resembling Baghdad, with segregated communities of Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans and Chaldo-Assyrians and escalating violence, including indiscriminate car bombings that have claimed scores of victims.

“Violence at first predominated downtown, where communities commingled, as well as areas inhabited by Wafidin. But in February 2007 it moved to the heart of Kurdish neighbourhoods as if to show that the Kurdish parties’ control over Kirkuk’s security apparatus did not guarantee safety for the Kurdish civilian population,” the report stated. As the deadline for the referendum draws nearer, the crisis is certain to intensify.

Every step in the referendum process is bitterly disputed. Arab and Turkoman leaders accuse Kurdish parties of settling non-Iraqi Kurds in Kirkuk and driving out Arabs to stack the vote in their favour. Kurdish officials brand opponents of the referendum as unreconstructed supporters of the Hussein regime who, in league with Syrian and Turkish intelligence, are responsible for violent attacks in Kirkuk.

Some of the Wafidin have accepted offers of land and compensation to leave Kirkuk, but others insist on remaining, saying that as Iraqi citizens they should have the right to live anywhere. The rules governing the “normalisation” process also provide land and compensation for returning Kurds and annul land grants made under Hussein to Arab settlers.

These guidelines, which were ratified in March, not only heightened ethnic resentments in Kirkuk, but provoked divisions in the federal government in Baghdad, where the ruling Shiite parties identify with the Wafidin, many of whom were Shiites uprooted from southern Iraq.
No agreement has been reached on any aspect of the census or referendum, including such vital issues as who will be permitted to vote, who will oversee the poll and which areas will be covered by the outcome.

If the referendum goes ahead, Arab and Turkoman leaders have threatened to organise a boycott and to resist with force if need be. If the poll does not proceed, some Kurdish leaders have threatened to precipitate a major political crisis in Baghdad by pulling out of the Iraqi government. Others have hinted at a unilateral takeover of Kirkuk and the expulsion of their Arab and Turkoman opponents.

Washington’s role

The ICG report warns of the dangers of civil war, calls on Kurdish leaders to cancel or at least postpone any referendum on Kirkuk and appeals to the US to end its “studied bystander mode” and develop a “proactive strategy” to defuse the conflict. However, like the current sectarian violence perpetrated by Shiite and Sunni militias, the ethnic tension erupting over Kirkuk is a crisis of Washington’s making.

In the wake of the 1990-91 Gulf War, the US unilaterally imposed a no-fly zone over northern Iraq, effectively barring the Hussein regime from reasserting its control over the Kurdish regions. In the name of “defending the Kurds,” Washington transformed the zone into an autonomous Kurdish state presided over by KDP and PUK, which were bitter rivals throughout the 1990s.

The region became a base of operations for the CIA and other intelligence agencies and a hotbed of intrigue as each of the Kurdish parties sought the support of the major and regional powers.
Following the 2003 military invasion, the Bush administration relied heavily on the Kurdish parties to form a reliable puppet government in Baghdad and in return gave full backing for an autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

With the prospect of greater power and privilege, the KDP and PUK buried their differences and exploited the opportunity to the hilt.
Offering a peaceful and stable north policed by their peshmerga militia, the Kurdish leaders set out to attract foreign investment to their region. At the same time, the KDP and PUK reaped the benefits of an expedient alliance with Shiite fundamentalist parties to secure a number of key posts in the federal government in Baghdad—including foreign minister and president.

A lengthy Washington Post article last month provided details of Kurdish lobbying in the US to advertise “Kurdistan” as a stable business gateway to Iraq and to ensure continued American backing for Kurdish autonomy. The KPG maintains its own diplomatic office in Washington headed by Qubad Talibani, son of the Iraqi president, and spends millions on television advertisements and political lobbyists and consultants.

In February, US undersecretary of commerce for international trade, Franklin Lavin, travelled to the Kurdish city of Irbil to encourage American companies “to think about particular locales that might be fruitful environments for starting a business”.

Superficially, Kurdistan is a booming success. As described in an article in Time last month: “The plains around Irbil—once a glaring semi-desert wasteland—are exploding with luxury housing developments. They have names like British village, which resembles a gated California suburb, and Dream City, which supposedly will have its own conference centre, supermarket and American style school.... An American company wants to build Iraq’s first ski resort in the mountains near the Turkish and Iranian borders. While citizens in Baghdad struggle to survive, a sign in Irbil declares that the city is ‘striving for perfection.’”

The emergence of a small wealthy Kurdish elite has only emphasised the social divide between rich and poor. The bulk of Irbil’s residents are struggling to cope with rising inflation and the lack of basic services. Rural towns and villages are still mired in backwardness and poverty. Ethnic divisions are compounding social tensions as 150,000 Iraqi Arabs have come to the Kurdish north looking for jobs and relative security. Iraqi Arabs seeking to enter the Kurdish region are compelled to have a Kurdish resident vouch for their character.

All of this has only engendered hostility among broad layers of Iraqis who regard the Kurdish leaders as flunkeys of the US occupation. According to US journalist Seymour Hersh among others, the US military, the CIA and Israel’s spy agency Mossad, have continued to use the Kurdish north as base of operations—in particular for infiltrating spies and provocateurs into neighbouring Iran. The recent deployment of Kurdish army units to assist the US “surge” in Baghdad has only exacerbated the enmity.

Kurdish leaders are well aware that they require US backing to maintain their privileged position and to extend their writ to Kirkuk and other disputed districts in northern Iraq. Their opposition to any delay in the Kirkuk referendum is conditioned by concerns that a new US administration may not be as sympathetic. “I trust Bush,” the president of the Kurdistan National Assembly told the ICG. “But who is going to be there in two years? US policy is going to change, and then the best friend we will have is ourselves.”
The Kurdish parties bitterly opposed the US Iraq Study Group report, issued in December, which urged the referendum be delayed.

Having backed the Kurdish nationalists and supported the establishment of the Kurdish region, the Bush administration is clearly reluctant to alienate its closest political allies in Iraq. The inevitable result—more likely sooner rather than later—will be a rapid escalation of ethnic conflict in Kirkuk and across the Kurdish north.

UIGHURS REMAIN IMPRISONED AT GUANTANAMO

Uighur Cases Highlight Legal Wrangling Over Guantanamo Detentions
http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=710

Guy Taylor 18 Apr 2007 World Politics Watch Exclusive

U.S. NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- The recent conviction of Australian kangaroo-skinner turned globetrotting jihadist David Hicks may, at least temporarily, bring an end to years of judicial power struggles that have surrounded the creation of a special war crimes tribunal here.

However, while the special tribunal will bring some form of justice for men like Hicks and other high-profile detainees -- including admitted Sept. 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- the fate of hundreds of lesser-known prisoners is still undetermined.

As Hicks inked a deal in late-March to plead guilty to providing material support for terrorism in exchange for a nine month prison term to be served in Australia, Brig. Gen. Cameron A. Crawford, the deputy commander the Guantanamo prison, told World Politics Watch that military officials have evidence to build future cases against only about 80 of the some 390 men held here.

It remains to be seen what will become of the 310 or so others -- men classified by the Defense Department as "enemy combatants" in the war on terror -- who don't get charged with war crimes. Away from the headlines in the Hicks case, an Olympics of legal wrangling over the issue is ongoing, being contested in U.S. federal courts by human rights, Pentagon and U.S. Justice Department lawyers.

'A Difficult Problem'

For a window into the depths of these legal battles, one need look no further than the case of 17 ethnic Uighurs (pronounced "Weegurs") who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo since shortly after the detention facility opened in early 2002.

The Uighurs hail from a cluster of Muslim towns and villages in Western China's Xinjiang province -- the Uighurs call the area East Turkistan -- where a separatist faction has for years been engaged in a low-intensity struggle for independence from Beijing.

They were detained in the mountainous Pakistan-Afghanistan border region during the weeks following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.Military officials argue the Uighurs are being kept at Guantanamo because they are enemy combatants who associated with al-Qaida in Afghanistan after traveling there from western China prior to the U.S. invasion.

Human rights advocates and pro-bono civilian lawyers, on the other hand, argue the Uighurs went to Afghanistan because they were fleeing torture in their homeland at the hands of Chinese authorities, who are looking to quell the separatist movement in East Turkistan and see the Uighurs as terrorists.

The men ended up at Guantanamo, the lawyers argue, after Pakistani mercenaries seeking cash payouts from U.S. agents rounded them up and handed them over to U.S. forces invading Afghanistan.

During the years since, the Uighurs have presented a difficult challenge for U.S. defense and diplomatic authorities. Initially, there were 22 of them brought to Guantanamo, but after an early review of their status, the Pentagon concluded that five were not enemy combatants. Releasing the five was problematic, as U.S. authorities grappled with the realization that sending them to China would almost guarantee their prosecution -- and potentially execution -- by the Chinese government as separatist terrorists.

As then Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged in August 2004, the Uighurs presented the United States with "a difficult problem" and were "not going to be sent back to China." While the men remained imprisoned at Guantanamo, U.S. authorities spent the next two years searching for somewhere to send them. Last May, the State Department finally settled on an arrangement for the five to be released to a United Nations refugee center in Albania.

It's unclear whether the U.S. government is now looking for somewhere to send the 17 Uighurs who remain at Guantanamo, and how similar their backgrounds are to the five who were released. The State Department referred all questions on the matter to the Defense Department, which offered only scant details on the men.

"Over a dozen Uighurs are being held at Guantanamo, Camp Delta," said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey D. Gordon, a spokesman at the Pentagon. "They are all considered enemy combatants".

'No Country Will Take Them'

Critics of Guantanamo contend the difficulty encountered by the United States in finding a home for the five Uighurs who were deemed not to be enemy combatants explains why the Pentagon now classifies the remaining 17 as enemy combatants.It has become impossible for the United States to find a country willing to take them, says Sabin Willett, a Boston-based attorney with the law firm Bingham McCutchen, which is trying to win the Uighurs a status hearing in U.S. federal court.

It's a problem compounded, according to Willett, by an ongoing "propaganda" campaign being waged by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to convince the world that Guantanamo is a place reserved for serious war criminals. "No country will take them," says Willett, "because either they've read all the newspapers printing claims by U.S. authorities that Guntanamo is a place where the worst of the worst are being held, and they believe that it's true, or, these countries say, 'Well if these guys are innocent, then why don't you, the United States, take them? Why won't you take them if they're not bad guys?'"

"And the U.S. doesn't really have a good answer for that," adds Willett, who says his goal is to get the Uighurs "out of Guantanamo, either to a foreign country that will give them asylum, or the United States."

Legal Limbo

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the United States has detained hundreds of men, classifying them as enemy combatants unworthy of some of the protections accorded to traditional prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. In response, dozens of civilian lawyers such as Willett have fought for the detainees to be handled as international criminal suspects with the right to have their detention reviewed by judges in the U.S. federal court system.

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a double-ruling on the matter in 2004, finding that while the Defense Department was authorized to detain and interrogate prisoners at Guantanamo without charges or trials, the detainees could also file challenges to their detention in the U.S. civilian courts.The ruling supported dozens of filings that had been made in the civilian courts on behalf of Guantanamo detainees, the Uighurs included, who sought habeas corpus hearings -- essentially reviews of the legal and evidentiary justification for their detention.

But the filings, referred to by Bush administration lawyers as a "regime of habeas litigation," were brought to a standstill by aggressive appeals filed by the administration, which sought to win the legal authority to open the special military-run war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo to try the detainees.

The subsequent battle over the legal status of the detainees has been shaped by three developments in Washington. First, in 2005, with a push by Republican Sen. John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, barring cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners held by the U.S. military.

Next, in 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration's design for the special war crimes tribunal, which had been authorized by an executive order in the aftermath of Sept. 11, was unlawful and violated the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice as well as the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

The third development came late last year, in response to the Supreme Court's ruling, when Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The act authorized the Bush administration to move forward with a modified version of the special tribunals at Guantanamo.

It also included a key provision barring the right of detainees to challenge their detention in U.S. federal courts -- contrary to the Supreme Court's 2004 ruling, which had granted such rights.
As a result, the dozens of pending habeas corpus filings that had been made in federal court on behalf of the detainees were quashed.

With the new law in place, in February of 2007, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners at Guantanamo.

The ruling, however, has not stopped human rights lawyers from seeking a civilian court remedy for the detainees. Specifically, Willet is pushing ahead with a lawsuit filed in the appeals court on behalf of the Uighurs, arguing that the circumstances surrounding their detention are unique and deserving of a federal court review.

Beating a Dead Horse?

Willett's suit, which is currently pending with a hearing scheduled for mid-May, homes in on the so-called Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which included a key provision designating the appeals court as the final arbiter should disputes arise over the process through which the Defense Department determines that individuals are enemy combatants.

After the Military Commissions Act of 2006 had stripped the rights of detainees to file habeas corpus petitions in federal court, Willett argues, the Detainee Treatment Act became "the last remedy left" for the detainees.

His lawsuit alleges that military officials failed to follow the Defense Department's own procedures during a series of prisoner status hearings given to the Uighurs at Guantanamo. The proceedings, called Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), consist of a panel of military officials who offer each detainee a chance to declare his innocence before the officials review classified evidence against him to decide whether he is being correctly categorized as an enemy combatant.

"Each [Uighurs'] CSRT was inconsistent with the standards and procedures specified by the Secretary of Defense, because none appropriately applied the definition of 'Enemy Combatant,' Willett's lawsuit asserts. "

The CSRT Procedures defined an 'enemy combatant' as: 'an indidvidual who was part of or supporting the Taliban or al-Qaida forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.'"The suit claims that military officials conducting the CSRTs failed to consider case files that had been compiled from interrogations of the Uighurs at Guantanamo and prior to their being shipped to the prison. The files, the suit alleges, "showed that interrogators had concluded that they were innocent of involvement in military or criminal activity."

In an interview, Willett added that the Uighurs' status review tribunals were legally inconsistent. "Some of [the Uighurs] were deemed to be non-combatants," he said. "Others, for arbitrary reasons, were deemed to be enemy combatants, although the last time I checked, the United States was not at war with dissidents from communist China."

Last week, the Defense Department, represented by a team of Bush administration lawyers including Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, filed a response to Willett's claims. The administration argues he is beating a dead horse since Congress recently passed, and the appeals court upheld, a law barring Guantanamo detainees from challenging their detention in the civilian courts.While the response acknowledges the appeals court as the final arbiter of disputes over the legitimacy of the CSRT process, Keisler's team asserts that Willett is really trying to "recreate the habeas regime that Congress recently abolished."

The team points out that all of the Uighurs represented by Willett were previously involved in "a habeas case in district court that [the appeals court] recently dismissed." Ultimately, the team argues, Willett's current case boils down to a simple question: "[Should] detainees captured on a battlefield during a time of war, be given unprecedented access to our nations courts and to classified information, even after Congress emphatically rejected such an approach?"

Directly to the Supreme Court

While the Supreme Court's 2004 ruling clearly stated that Guantanamo detainees could file challenges to their detention in the U.S. civilian court system, the court has since declined to weigh in on Congress' subsequent passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which, according to the Bush administration's argument, all but nullifies the ruling.But, in what can best be explained as an added wrinkle to the Uighurs' case, another group of lawyers representing one of the 17 Uighurs held at Guantanamo has recently filed a petition directly to the Supreme Court. Known as an "original petition for habeas corpus," the filing was evidently motivated by a desire to circumvent the impasse over the Uighur issue in the lower courts.

Filed on behalf of an individual identified only as "Ali," the petition was initially classified because it draws from sensitive Defense Department documents related to Guantanamo. An unclassified version obtained by World Politics Watch argues that the military officials who conducted Ali's initial CSRT in 2004 found him not to be an enemy combatant -- only to have their finding overruled by more senior officials at the Pentagon who ordered that Ali's status be "reconsidered."

The petition cites a chain of internal Defense Department emails in which military officials write the following about the Uighurs:
16 of the 22 Uighurs have been classified as [Enemy Combatants]. . . . Inconsistencies will not cast a favorable light on the CSRT process. . . . By properly classifying them as [Enemy Combatants] there is an opportunity to (1) futher exploit them here in [Guantanamo] and (2) when they are transferred to a third country, it will be controlled transfer in status. The consensus is that all Uighurs will be transferred to a third country as soon as the plan is worked out.
The petition also claims that in directing that Ali's classification be reconsidered, then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Matthew Waxman "noted that '16 other Uighurs with identical circumstances were determined to be [Enemy Combatants]." Shortly afterwards, in 2005, the petition states that Ali was given a new CSRT review and determined to be an enemy combatant.

The Ali filing is presently pending before the Supreme Court.It remains to be seen what legal strategy the Defense Department will embrace in its response. Asked about the overruling of Ali's classification as a non enemy combatant, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler, a spokesman at the Pentagon who specializes in the CSRT process, said it is not against the Defense Department's rules for for military officials in Washington to send the initial findings of a CSRT back to Guantanamo for "further deliberation."

"This is something that happened only a small number of times," said Peppler, who responded to questions by email and declined to say precisely how many times it has occurred, or to discuss the Ali case specifically. "In the majority of cases which were returned for further deliberation, the original CSRT decision remained the same," Peppler said. "Where original decisions changed, they changed in both directions (e.g. from [Enemy Combatant] to [No Longer Enemy Combatant] and from NLEC to EC)."

Diplomatic Poker Chips?

For his part, Willett says the Ali filing exposes the extent to which the legal proceedings being conducted by military officials at Guantanamo are little more than "a Kangaroo court."Willett' suit alleges that the Defense Department's continued detention of the Uighurs has been motivated by a desire to use them as strategic pawns in a murky game of U.S. diplomacy in the global war on terror.

The suit outlines how, shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Chinese authorities began ramping up rhetoric against the Uighur separatist movement in Xinjiang province, claiming the "East Turkistan Islamic Movement" was a terrorist organization whose existence warranted aggressive tactics to quash it.

Prior to Sept. 11, and to the subsequent capture and transfer to Guantanamo of the Uighur detainees, the U.S. State Department did not recognize the East Turkistan Islamic Movement as a terrorist organization. That changed when the United States began preparing to invade Iraq.

In an effort to win support for the invasion from the Chinese, who carry significant diplomatic sway in the Middle East and hold a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, the State Department not only added the group to its list of recognized terrorist organizations but also allowed Chinese agents to visit Guantanamo and interrogate the Uighurs, the suit claims."

The Uighurs -- and specifically the Uighurs in Guantanamo -- became a diplomatic chip in this high-stakes game, a quid pro quo for Chinese acquiescence in the Administration's Iraq policy," the suit alleges."

This astonishing episode in U.S. diplomatic history -- the United States welcoming agents of a communist government to its secure military facility at Guantanamo, granting them prisoner access that it has strenuously denied the U.S. courts, Congressmen, the United Nations, and the Press, and branding as 'terrorist' an 'organization' it had previously determined not to be a terrorist organization -- points up the urgency, at the time, of the Iraq issue," the suit claims.

"This was a naked political deal to help secure China's tacit acquiescence in the Iraq invasion being planned in 2002."Ultimately, the document acknowledges, it didn't work -- the United States failed to build a consensus among world powers to overthrow Saddam and instead opted to enter Iraq with a "coalition of the willing."

Willett contends that political motives underlie U.S. dealings with all of the detainees at Guantanamo, regardless of whether they are well-known terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or David Hicks. "These people will be released when and if there is a political deal with some country to take them, just as [Australian David Hicks] pled because there was a political deal with Australia," he said. "Neither one has anything to do with truth. Neither one has anything to do with your actual status as an enemy or as a criminal. It's all politics here at Guantanamo."

Guy Taylor is World Politics Watch senior international editor.

HRW Report: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT - AUGUST 2004
Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq
http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iraq0804

Case Study: Al-Bashir village (*)

U.S. forces in Kirkuk also conducted a mediation involving the formerly Turkoman agricultural area of al-Bashir, located south of the city of Kirkuk. According to one of the Turkoman leaders, Imam Qanbar Mahmud Ridha al-Musawi, al-Bashir was a thriving Turkoman area of some 700 families, who owned some 48,000 dunums of farmlands. Al-Bashir was home to seven mosques, five schools, and a large hospital. The outlawed Islamic Da’wa Party was active in the area, according to the imam, and in the early 1980s, Iraqi security forces began arresting young men from the village, many of who were later executed. In 1986, the entire community was expelled and moved to communal compounds:

In 1986, security officials started to arrive to the village, informing us that we should prepare to leave the district. Days after this, they came and brought us a bunch of keys with numbered medals attached. They said there were compounds on the road to Tikrit and that we had to move to these compounds. There were six compounds: al-Qadisiyya, Dhi Qar, Shahid, Nahrawan, Yarmuk, and Saddam.

Most of the Turkoman families of al-Bashir were never compensated, although a small minority received some money for their lost houses. About one year after their initial displacement, almost all of the Turkoman families were dispersed to cities throughout Iraq, including Kut, Basra, Arbil, and Diyala, without being provided with housing.

After the displacement of the Turkomans, the Iraqi government embarked on a major irrigation project in the al-Bashir area, greatly increasing the productivity of the land. In the mid-1990s, the government began resettling Arab tribesmen in the area, offering them twenty-five dunums of irrigated farmland on annual leases. More than 200 Arab families moved to the area, including some who had lost their original lands when they were developed as oil fields in the ‘Umar Ibn Khattab area.

During the 2003 war, the Arabs did not flee the al-Bashir area. According to the imam of the village, this was due to the fact that Kurdish Peshmerga did not take control of the area: “When the coalition forces approached Kirkuk with the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Arabs fled spontaneously, and those who remained were attacked. Our area was different, because the coalition forces didn’t take control of our district, so the Arabs just stayed in our places.” Tensions quickly grew as Turkomans started returning to the area and demanding their lands.

The Turkomans began to threaten the Arabs, who insisted that they would only leave after a decision on the property dispute was made by a new Iraqi government, arguing that they came to the village lawfully, and would only leave under the law. According to Col. George, who initiated the mediation, the situation came to a head one day when the Turkomans came to inform him that all of the displaced Turkomans from al-Bashir intended to march on the village, and that they would kill every Arab who remained. In order to avoid violence, the U.S. troops in Kirkuk initiated a mediation of the dispute in early September 2003.

The mediation was not voluntary, according to the Arab leaders, who told Human Rights Watch that Col. George had given them a choice: either negotiate or “they would bring a judge who would cancel all of our agricultural contracts within one hour and we would be kicked out within a week,” a threat Col. George confirmed to Human Rights Watch that he made.159
The mediation in al-Bashir was led and controlled by U.S. authorities, and did not involve a panel of Iraqis, although Iraqi officials from the agricultural department of Kirkuk were involved in an advisory role with the U.S. mediators.

Unlike the Dogurtkan mediation, where an Iraqi panel actually settled property disputes, the al-Bashir mediation was an explicit short-term agreement, leaving the long-term issues of property-ownership unresolved. Among other things, the agreement provided for the allocation of thirteen dunums of land for the winter agricultural season, on a non-renewable basis, to each landless Arab family living in al-Bashir, and that Arab farmers be granted the winter harvest.

Decisions on land allocation would be made by a committee composed of representatives of the local agricultural directorate and coalition forces. Complaints relating to compensation claims must be submitted within sixty days of the signing of the agreement to a commission set up for this purpose, composed of representatives of Taza district agricultural department, Kirkuk directorate and coalition forces. Arab families originally from outlying areas and who did not own a place of residence in the village would be required to leave the village within a year of the signing of the agreement. Returning Turkoman families would not be allowed to enter the village, except by invitation, during the period in which Arabs remain on disputed land.


(*) The original name, before Arabisation was "BESHIR".

Note: The American supported armed Kurdish peshmerga chased all the Arabs from their villages and recuperated their properties in 2003, while the Turkmens, who have no armed militias, are still waiting to be compensated and recuperate their confiscated properties and lands!

More on this subject in another post...

THE ONLY WAY AMERICAN FORCES WILL LEAVE IRAQ IS AT GUNPOINT

Surging Into Slaughter: The Bipartisan Death Grip on Iraq

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1136&Itemid=135


Written by Chris Floyd
Friday, 04 May 2007

Intro: It is becoming increasingly clear that regardless of who wins the election in 2008, the United States government is not going to withdraw from Iraq. It is just not going to happen. This is the awful, gut-wrenching, frightening truth we must face. The only way that American forces will ever leave Iraq is the same way they left Vietnam: at gunpoint, forced into a precipitous and catastrophic retreat. And how many thousands upon thousands of needless deaths we will see before that terrible denouement?


While Congressional leaders and George W. Bush start "negotiations" on ways to prolong the war crime in Iraq for another year or two (at least), on the ground in Baghdad, the situation is worsening by the day, as Patrick Cockburn reports in The Independent:
"Be careful," warned a senior Iraqi government official living in the Green Zone in Baghdad, "be very careful and above all do not trust the police or the army." He added that the level of insecurity in the Iraqi capital is as bad now as it was before the US drive to make the city safe came into operation in February.

The so-called "surge", the dispatch of 20,000 extra American troops to Iraq with the prime mission of getting control of Baghdad, is visibly failing. There are army and police checkpoints everywhere but Iraqis are terrified because they do not know if the men in uniform they see there are, in reality, death squad members.

Omar, the 15-year-old brother-in-law of a friend, was driving with two other boys through al-Mansur in west Baghdad a fortnight ago. Their car was stopped at a police checkpoint. Most of the police in Baghdad are Shia. They took him away saying they suspected that his ID card was a fake. The real reason was probably that only Sunnis use the name Omar. Three days later he was found dead...

The problem about the US security plan is that it does not provide security. It had some impact to begin with and the number of bodies found in the street went down. This was mainly because the Shia Mehdi Army was stood down by its leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. But the Sunni insurgent groups increased the number of sectarian suicide bombings against Shia markets. The US was unable to stop this and now the sectarian body count is on the rise again. Some 30 bodies, each shot in the head, were found on Wednesday alone.

The main new American tactic is proving counter-productive. This is the sealing-off of entire neighbourhoods, either by concrete walls or barriers of rubbish, so there is only a single entrance and exit. Speaking of Sunni districts such as al-Adhamiyah, a government official said: "We are creating mini-Islamic republics."

Speaking of concrete walls, remember the wall that was being constructed around the Adhamiya neighborhood? Remember how Imperial Viceroy -- sorry, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said he would "obviously..respect the wishes of the [Iraqi] government and the prime minister" after the Iraqi government and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vociferously protested against the American construction of the ghetto in Adhamiya? Well, guess what? Crocker lied. As the Telegraph reports:

American forces have completed construction of a concrete wall around the Baghdad district of Adhamiya despite protests from the Iraqi prime minister and local residents who claim that they are now at the mercy of militants. The wall was intended to help control the activities of militants in the predominantly Sunni Muslim district. But it remains a bastion of extremist al-Qa'eda linked groups. Parts of the district are so thick with armed militants that they are no-go zones to coalition forces.

Capt Mohammad Jasim, an Iraqi soldier manning a checkpoint on the Adhamiya bridge, said: "The Americans did not listen to us. We think this wall has made the area inside the wall more dangerous for people." Um Doraid, a middle-aged housewife, said: "We here inside the wall are still as vulnerable as ever."

And so the transformation of Baghdad -- one of the great cities of the world for more than a thousand years -- into a squalid open-air prison continues apace. This, we are told, is "liberation." And the American Establishment, despite a good deal of thus far non-signifying sound and fury from the Democrats, seem content to let this murderous horror run on.

They tinker on the margins -- should we demand that a certain portion of troops begin to be withdrawn at a certain, ever-receding date? -- when it is plain that the only thing the United States can do at this point to mitigate the suffering of the Iraqis is leave -- and pay reparations for the criminal ruin and death we have caused.The American elites seem paralyzed by this notion, frozen in place as the bloody quagmire rises around them. But one pillar of the British elite -- the knighted general Michael Rose -- is speaking plainly. In addition to the book excerpt we quoted earlier, he has also been talking to the press, uttering truths that no "serious" figure in American politics and media would dare utter. From the Guardian:

General Sir Michael Rose told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "It is the soldiers who have been telling me from the frontline that the war they have been fighting is a hopeless war, that they cannot possibly win it and the sooner we start talking politics and not military solutions, the sooner they will come home and their lives will be preserved."Asked if that meant admitting defeat, the general replied: "Of course we have to admit defeat. The British admitted defeat in North America and the catastrophes that were predicted at the time never happened.The catastrophes that were predicted after Vietnam never happened. The same thing will occur after we leave Iraq."
Bill Blum -- who is decidedly not a pillar of any Establishment -- has more on this theme in his latest Anti-Empire report:

"If the United States leaves Iraq things will really get bad." This appears to be the last remaining, barely-breathing argument of that vanishing species who still support the god-awful war. The argument implies a deeply-felt concern about the welfare and safety of the Iraqi people. What else could it mean? That the US military can't leave because it's needed to protect the oil bonanza awaiting American oil companies as soon as the Iraqi parliament approves the new written-in-Washington oil law?

No, the Bush administration loves the people of Iraq. How much more destruction, killing and torturing do you need to be convinced of that? We can't leave because of the violence. We can't leave until we have assured that peace returns to our dear comrades in Iraq.

To better understand this argument, it helps to keep in mind the following about the daily horror that is life in Iraq: It did not exist before the US occupation. The insurgency violence began as, and remains, a reaction to the occupation; like almost all insurgencies in occupied countries -- from the American Revolution to the Vietcong -- it's a fight directed toward getting foreign forces to leave.

By way, General Rose agrees with Blum on this point, as the Guardian notes:
When he was asked if he thought the Iraqi insurgents were right to try to force the US-led coalition out, he replied: "Yes I do. As Lord Chatham [the politician William Pitt, the Elder, who, in the second half of the 18th century called for a cessation of hostilities in the colonies and favoured American resistance to the British Stamp Act] said, 'if I was an American - as I am an Englishman - as long as one Englishman remained on American native soil, I would never, never, never lay down my arms'. The Iraqi insurgents feel exactly the same way. I don't excuse them for some of the terrible things they do, but I do understand why they are resisting the Americans."

Back to Blum:
Before the occupation, many Sunnis and Shiites married each other; since the occupation they have been caught up in a spiral of hating and killing each other. And for these acts there of course has to be retaliation. The occupation's abolishment of most jobs in the military and in Saddam Hussein's government, and the chaos that is Iraqi society under the occupation, have left many destitute; kidnapings for ransom and other acts of criminal violence have become popular ways to make a living, or at least survive.US-trained, financed, and armed Iraqi forces have killed large numbers of people designated as "terrorists" by someone official, or perhaps someone unofficial, or by someone unknown, or by chance.

The US military itself has been a main perpetrator of violence, killing individually and en masse, killing any number, any day, for any reason, anyone, any place, often in mindless retaliation against anyone nearby for an insurgent attack...

And here is James Baker, establishment eminence, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, on CNN with Anderson Cooper:Cooper: And is it possible that getting the U.S. troops out will actually lessen that violence, that it will at least take away the motivation of nationalist insurgents?

Baker: Many people have argued that to us. Many people in Iraq made that case.

Cooper: Do you buy it?

Baker: Yes, I think there is some validity to it, absolutely. Then we are no longer seen to be the occupiers.

In spite of all of the above we are told that the presence of the United States military has been and will continue to be a buffer against violence. Iraqis themselves do not believe this. A poll published in September found that Iraqis believe, by a margin of 78 to 21 percent, that the US military presence is "provoking more conflict that it is preventing"....If the United States leaves -- meaning all its troops and bases -- it will remove the very foundation, origin, and inspiration of most of the hate and violence. Iraqis will have a chance to reclaim their land and their life. They have a right to be given that opportunity. Let America's deadly "love" embrace of the Iraqi people come to an end. Let the healing begin.

But as wise man Blum doubtless knows, the healing will not begin. Not even if the Republicans are ousted from office.

Witness the "bold" new plan by leading Democratic contender Hillary Clinton: her proposal to "withdraw authorization" for the war in Iraq -- the same authorization she "boldly" supported back in 2002.

Clinton told reporters that her bill "would mean that troops would be out as of October [2007]," the NYT reports. "'They have no authority to continue,' she said. 'That is the point.'"Ah, but it was not really the point, as her aides hastened to assure the press:
Later, however, her aides said Mrs. Clinton was not seeking a total withdrawal of troops from Iraq, or a quick pullout that could put troops at risk. They said she had called for a phased pullout that would leave a reduced American force to pursue terrorist cells in Iraq, support the Kurds and conduct other missions — a position she continued to support, her aides said.

In other words, Clinton proposes to enshrine a permanent military presence in Iraq, reduced in size by some unspecified measure from the current levels. This is, of course, precisely the goal that the Bush Administration has sought all along: a permanent military presence in Iraq. And all the Democrat plans on withdrawing a portion of American troops hinge on Iraqi compliance with "benchmarks" that also dovetail exactly with the Bush war aims: the creation of American-trained, American-armed army and security forces (a bonanza for U.S. arms peddlers), a government that will do what the United States wants, and, of course, the approval of that written-in-Washington "Oil Law," as Blum notes.In what way is any of this significantly different from Bush has been pursuing ruthlessly over the past four years? ***

On September 11th 2001, the world witnessed a horrible crime. It was a terrible day for all of us. But now years later, we have more than avenged our lost Americans. There have been hundreds of thousands of people killed. Most of them were not Al-Qaeda. They were innocent persons caught in the cross fire. The United States people do not approve of the murdering of civilians.

We have not given this President our approval to do this. Even though I don’t feel well on some days, and have trouble taking each breath, I would save my last hour, to personally drag this President out the front door of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Yours Truly, BLAQFATHER
BLAQFATHER 70.104.89.160

THE UNDERMINING OF THE TURKMEN IDENTITY IN IRAQ

Iraqi Turkmen Representatives and other Members

of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO)

at the United Nations in Geneva, during the UNHCR’S 61st Session
March 2005


FLASHBACK

The following is one of the written statements presented and distributed by the
Iraqi Turkmen Representatives (*) from Belgium who attended the

UNCHR 61st Session in Geneva in March 2005.


THE UNDERMINING OF TURKMEN IDENTITY AND CULTURE IN IRAQ

Although the Iraqi Turkmens are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq, representing 12% of the country's population, they have suffered from assimilation policies and have seldom enjoyed their cultural rights.

In the early 1970s many of the limited cultural rights they had been granted were taken away, education in their Turkish mothertongue in the primary schools was stopped. They could no longer publish their Turkish language newspaper and their radio and television broadcasts were cancelled.

They were treated as second class citizens and were deprived from their basic human rights. In 1997 when the “nationality correction” process was introduced some Turkmen residents from Kerkuk, Tuz Khurmatu and other Turkmen towns and districts were obliged to change their Turkmen identity and register as Arabs in order to buy a house or find a job.

All these cultural and identity repressions have had serious consequences on the Turkmen community as whole. Turkmen culture was not allowed to flourish and people were not even allowed to speak their mothertongue in government offices in their region, Turkmeneli.

Although oil-rich Kerkuk is one of the major cities in Iraq (containing 40% of Iraq's oil wealth!), it was the only large city in the country which did not have a University; students residing in the Turkmen region “Turkmeneli” were obliged to go and study in Baghdad, Musul or Suleymaniya.
After the fall of the Ba’ath regime the Turkmens hoped that their cultural rights would finally be respected and that the Turkish language would again be considered one of Iraq’s official languages. Their disappointment was great when the new Iraqi constitution recognized only two official languages: Arabic and Kurdish.

Thus, Turkish, a language spoken by over 12% of Iraqi citizens and one of the world’s major languages was simply ignored in the “new democratic Iraq”!

When they took over the city of Kerkuk in April 2003, the American supported Kurdish peshmergas imposed the use of the Kurdish language in all government offices in Kerkuk and in other Turkmen cities, they removed all signs which were not in Kurdish and put up Kurdish signs in the streets and even in the city’s hospitals.

The Turkmens are opposed to the Kurdicisation of their region "Turkmeneli" and they refuse the annexation of Kerkuk, their capital city and main cultural center, to the Kurdistan Region.
They do not want to suffer the same fate as the 300.000 unfortunate Turkmens of Erbil who have been sacrificed by the Ba’ath regime when their city was given as a 'present' to Mullah Mustafa Barzani in return for his acceptance to end the Kurdish rebellion in 1970.

During the January 2005 national Iraqi elections, the ballots and all other official documents were printed in two languages only: Arabic and Kurdish. The Turkmens protested against this discrimination and demanded that Turkish be recognised as the third official language in Iraq and that the Turkish language would have its place on future official Iraqi documents and forms.

If their language continues to be denied the place it deserves in Iraq and especially in Turkmeneli (the region in the north of Iraq which is mainly inhabited by Turkmens), the Turkmens fear that they will continue to be subjected to assimilation and marginalization policies, this time not by the Ba’ath regime, but by the Kurds in the so-called “democratic Iraq”.

For Iraq to be recognized and accepted by the international community as a truly democratic country all its citizens, whatever their ethnic origin, should have the right to keep their cultural identity, therefore, Turkish must be recognized as one of Iraq's official languages together with Arabic and Kurdish.

Merry Fitzgerald,
Committee for the Defence of the Iraqi Turkmen Rights

Geneva, March 2005.

(*) Dr Hassan Aydinli and Mrs Merry Fitzgerald

EU should consult Turkey on new Central Asia policy

[Comment] EU should consult Turkey on new Central Asia policy
http://euobserver.com/7/23990

03.05.2007 - 17:52 CET
By Turkish foreign ministry
EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - EU authorities have not yet consulted with Turkey on the formation of the union's new policy toward Central Asia. No official appeal has been made to the relevant Turkish authorities concerning the matter. As a result we do not have any feedback about what kind of role the EU envisages for Turkey in its relations with the countries of the region, despite some minor consultations at EU working group level.

In general, diplomats from EU member states seem willing to contact their Turkish counterparts serving in the region. Turkey has considerable presence in the region. She was the first country to recognize the independence of Central Asian countries and the first to open embassies in all of them.

Turkish people have close cultural ties and linguistic affinities with the peoples of Central Asia and share a common ethnic and historical heritage with the countries of the region. Therefore, our diplomats possess considerable experience on the subject.

The advantages of Turkey's membership of the EU are closely related to the future vision of the EU. Turkey's full-membership will contribute not only to the maintenance of stability and peace in Europe but also to the spread of universal values to the region and beyond.

Turkey's location in the centre of the "Eurasian" geography makes Turkey a key country. In respect to its close ties with the regions, namely the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East, Turkey has the historical and cultural accumulation, strategic location and influence to make positive contributions to the shaping of EU policies towards these regions.

Turkey as EU energy bridge Also with a growing East-West corridor for oil and gas, Turkey already has a central place on the route through which these resources will be transferred to the western markets, making it a reliable partner for energy security in Europe.

An enlarged EU with Turkey as a member will be a source of inspiration to other regions as well. This new vision will demonstrate that diversity and differences may well be accommodated on the basis of common values and interests. This will promote intercultural tolerance and understanding. It will enhance the strategic reach of the EU.Turkey forms a natural energy bridge between the resource-rich countries of the Caspian basin and the world markets.

In this context, Turkey is realising major projects with a view to strengthening its role as a transit country and an energy hub in the region. By doing so, we believe we can substantially contribute to the global energy supply security.

The Trans-Caspian natural gas project is one of these schemes.We believe that the Trans-Caspian gas project through which Turkmen and/or Kazakh natural gas will reach Europe via Turkey, is a matter of urgency as it will contribute to the diversification of routes and supply sources of Europe. Turkey places utmost importance to the realisation of this project without which the East-West Energy Corridor will not be complete.

EU should not make fresh divisions Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are obviously the most important and leading countries of Central Asia, with Uzbekistan having the largest population and bordering all the countries in the region and possessing considerable energy resources.
Kazakhstan has vast energy resources and occupies a wide stretch of strategic geography.

However, we believe that the region should be handled as a whole and certain countries should not be singled out for any purpose. All external actors must refrain from creating new division lines in the region, which would in turn impede regional economic integration.

Since their independence, Central Asian states have taken significant steps in state building, enhancing their sovereignty and increasing their interaction with the world. However, they still face enormous challenges. Democratic transition in the region remains slow and human rights abuses are widespread. The regimes are repressive and dominated by authoritarian leaders. Democratic political opposition is often not tolerated. Emerging civil society and free media are confronted with continuous obstacles. Calls for democratization and improvement of human rights conditions are regarded as a direct threat to existing structures and political interests.

However, transition to democracy and to the rule of law in Central Asia, after 70 years of Soviet rule should be seen as a long term and gradual process to be completed as political stability and economic conditions are gradually enhanced. We believe that the EU has a role to play in that respect. Their integration with the European and Euro-Atlantic institutions will certainly support democratic practices in the region.

This comment was prepared by the Turkish foreign ministry for EUobserver


Note: See http://euobserver.com/24/23932
Berlin submits new Central Asia text to EU diplomats