HOLD UP IN BABA GURGUR, by Gilles MUNIER

Published in AFRIQUE ASIE (October 2007)
For original in French please see:
http://www.afrique-asie.fr/article.php?article=215

http://www.gmunier.blogspot.com/



T R A N S L A T I O N

HOLD UP IN BABA GURGUR
By Gilles Munier


Pressed by their leaders, hundreds of thousands of Kurds from Iraq, but also from Syria, Iran and Turkey are settling in Kerkuk. Far more than the number of inhabitants who were expelled under Saddam Hussein. The aim: to modify the ethnic composition of the city before the referendum that is supposed to be held before the end of 2007.

Since 10th April 2003 – the day after the fall of Baghdad – a real Kurdish invasion took place in Kerkuk: Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, respectively leaders of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) organized militarily a massive immigration of Kurds to the territories they wanted to conquer. The newly arrived Kurds registered on the election lists and are waiting for the referendum which is to take place before next December 31st. The aim of the operation: to give a democratic varnish to the annexation of Kerkuk and its surrounding region by the Kurds and hand over to the Americans the petrol fields of Baba Gurgur, situated near Kerkuk.

Turkmens and Kurds

The International Crisis Group (ISG) has received the testimony of a - Turkmen - member of the Governorate which summarizes the situation: “In 2003, Kerkuk had 800.000 inhabitants. Today it has 1.150.000 inhabitants. Where do these 300.000 additional inhabitants come from? They correspond to at least 50.000 families. One knows that 10.000 families were expelled; where do these 40.000 additional families come from?” Since then the population has reached 1,5 million inhabitants, mainly Kurds who are in favour of the annexation.

The practical application of the operation is not simple because article 140 of the new Iraqi “constitution” states that the referendum must be preceded by the “normalisation” of the situation in the region, and by a “census”. The “normalisation” is under way. It means the return of the displaced Kurds, Turkmens and Assyrians and – in parallel – the departure of the Arabs who replaced them. Pressures are being put on the Kurds who refuse to return because they have remade their life somewhere else or fear that the annexation will turn into a blood bath. In order to make them change their minds, the “Kurdish Regional Government” no longer delivers administrative documents to them and deprive them of social aid.

The methods utilized against the non-Kurds are more radical. If they refuse the 15.000 dollars compensation, they risk being assassinated or disappearing in the prisons of the autonomous Region. The attack of 7th July 2007 in Amirli – 150 dead, 250 wounded – reminds us of the savagery of the Irgoun in Palestine. On the spot, the Kurdish secret services are accused and the answer was not slow in coming: on 16th July a vehicle exploded in Kerkuk in front of the UPK headquarters, making many victims.

The newly arrived Kurds (in Kerkuk) do not all live there. Many remain in Suleymaniya or in Erbil, because of the lack of housing or for security reasons. They only go to Kerkuk during the week-ends to justify their “relocation”. To become an elector in Kerkuk, it is sufficient to dig foundations of a house or to reserve an apartment in a building that has yet to be constructed … The “census”, however, is not easy to organize. It must carry out the ethnic and religious tally of the inhabitants of the Kerkuk region, and that of the “contested territories”, that is to say those which are claimed by the Kurds. The problem is that these ‘contested territories’ stretch from Mount Sinjar at the Syrian border, to the Iranian border… and to about 20 kilometres South of Baghdad. For the Arabs, Turkmens, Yezidis, Shabaks and Assyrians who have been living in these regions for a considerable period of time and who are all hostile to the partition of Iraq, it is a declaration of war.

There have always been Kurds in Kerkuk, but those who pretend that the city is Kurdish are falsifying history. The Ottoman archives, the tales of travellers, the reports from diplomats posted in Mesopotamia and from spies – namely the Intelligence Service at the beginning of the 20th century – attest without any exception that Kerkuk and its region are Turkmen. The Kurdish leaders say that their right to constitute a State goes back to the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, but they forget to mention that the promised Kurdistan… did not include Kerkuk. At that time, the British would not have liked them to claim a region with promising resources: the oil veins which had been detected stretched from Mosul to Kasr El Shirin, passing below Tuz Khurmatu, Kifri and Mandali, regions which are essentially inhabited by Turkmens, and not by Kurds. In February 1925, the Société des Nations Commission which investigated on the Mosul question – attributed to France by the Sykes-Picot Agreement – proposed unofficially to the Iraqi leaders to incorporate the wilayet to Iraq if they committed themselves to give up the Turkish Petroleum Company to the British, which they did. Thus, the Iraqi border was drawn as the English wanted.

The discovery of the huge petrol field of Baba Gurgur, on 15th October 1927, greatly upset the ethnic balance in the surroundings. To the Kurds who already lived there were added those hired by the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC): mountain people reputed for being docile and hard working. The Imam Kassim neighbourhood in Kerkuk was reserved for them. IPC preferred them to the Turkmens who were suspected of Kemalism, and they utilized them to counter the growing influence of Arab nationalism and of Bolshevism in Iraq.

The Kurds from Kerkuk are mostly descendants from the refugees of the wars which were started under the monarchy and the republican regimes. The revolt of Sheikh Mahmoud, proclaimed “King of Kurdistan” in November 1922, was crushed in blood. Thousands of Kurdish mountain dwellers, fleeing the deadly gas bombardments of the RAF sought refuge there. In 1945, the first revolt of Mustapha Barzani was also crushed by the English. The inhabitants of the destroyed villages also sought refuge in Kerkuk, while their leader found asylum in the USSR after having been a general - during a short period of time - in the ephemeral Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, in Iran.

The war for Kerkuk

After the toppling of the monarchy, on 14th July 1958, President Abdel Karim Kassem proclaimed a general amnesty. Barzani, a pro-communist at that time, entered triumphantly in Baghdad. The understanding between them lasted for two years until the Kurdish chief – advised by the Soviets who wanted to hinder the western oil supply – demanded the creation of a Kurdish autonomous region with Kerkuk as its capital. Kassem immediately declared war on him. In September 1961, thousands of Kurdish refugees ended up in
Kerkuk. They were settled in Iskan, to the East of the city.

As the USSR supported the successive Iraqi governments, Barzani turned towards Iran, Israël and the United States who utilised him to destabilize the regime of the Aref brothers, and later the Baathists who came to power in July 1968. In June 1972, Barzani opposed the nationalisation of the IPC affirming that the petrol of the north was Kurdish and that he would hand over its exploitation to the Americans as soon as Kurdistan became independent. In March 1974, he refused the autonomy law negotiated with Saddam Hussein, alleging that the map of the Region did not include Kerkuk. The fights started again with their share of dead and refugees. As a consequence of the Iran – Iraq war in September 1980 new villages along the border with Iran were destroyed. The survivors found themselves in hamlets built in the Erbil plain. Since the fall of Baghdad, on 9th April 2003, they have been transferred to Kerkuk in view of the upcoming referendum.

The Gulf War of 1991, the economic sanctions, then the toppling of Saddam Hussein, have given the Kurdish separatists the opportunity to create a State. Will they seize it? Nothing is less sure, because Kerkuk is not only an apple of discord between Iraqis – Arabs and Turkmens against Kurds – but between Massoud Barzani and Talabani who detest each other. The latter exercises specific rights, arguing that the majority of the Kurds in Kerkuk speak Sorani, the dialect of Suleymaniya, his fiefdom.

The two war lords are making verbal statements without measuring the consequences. For Barzani, Kerkuk is “the heart of Kurdistan”, and for Talabani “The Jerusalem of the Kurds”, a suggestion, it is said, from the Israeli Mossad. Strengthened by American promises, they think they can prevail. If they succeed, the city will be the capital of the autonomous Region, then of an “independent” State, and may be one day that of a “Great Kurdistan” including the Kurdish regions of neighbouring countries. Bechtel, the American company which built the Kerkuk-Haïfa pipeline – which was shut down at the creation of Israël in 1948 – is already studying the means to provide oil and water to Israël from Iraqi Kurdistan…

This of course is without reckoning with the Iraqi resistance and Turkey’s more or less violent reaction where the Kemalists believe to have a right of inspection ‘droit de regard’ over the former Mosul wilayet. It would also be ignoring Moqtada Al-Sadr who supports the Marsh Shiites, who have been expelled from Kerkuk. This does not deprive them from the right to vote in the governorate, he says. Transfers of registers of Arabs or Turkmens on the voting lists of other regions – in exchange of a few hundreds of dollars – are perfectly illegal. He intends to organize a parallel referendum with them if the Kurds maintain theirs.

The Kurdish hold-up which is being prepared in Kerkuk worries the Middle-East. According to Al-Binah al-Jadidah, a Shia Baghdadi daily, King Abdallah of Arabia has proposed last April to Massoud Barzani and to Borham Saleh, Iraqi “Vice –Premier Minister” 2 billion dollars to postpone the referendum for 10 years. They refused.

Bloomberg Markets estimates the oil reserves in the autonomous Region at 25 billion barrels. With Kerkuk -10 billion barrels – and the “contested territories” – 20 billion barrels – the incomes of the “Great Iraqi Kurdistan” would exceed those of Mexico or of Nigeria. One can understand that these numbers have gone to the heads of the Kurdish war lords and that they arouse much envy abroad.

Al Gore's Peace Prize

Al Gore's Peace Prize
It's As Ridiculous As If They'd Given Goebbels One in 1938

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Put this one up on the shelf of shame, right next to Henry Kissinger's, or the peace prize they gave to Kofi Annan and the entire UN in 2001, sandwiched between the UN's okay for the bombing of Serbia, the killing of untold numbers of Iraqis, many of them babies and children in the years of sanctions, and its greenlight for the bombing of Baghdad in 2003.

In 1998 the Nobel crowd gave the prize to Medecins Sans Frontieres, whose co-founder Bernard Kouchner is now France's foreign secretary urging the bombing of Iran. Like Gore, Kouchner was a rabid advocate of the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia and onslaughts on Serbia.

The UN often has an inside track on the "Peace" prize. The UN Peace-Keeping Forces got it in 1988. In 1986 another enthusiast for attacking Iraq and Iran, Elie Wiesel, carried off the trophy. Aside from Kissinger, probably the biggest killer of all to have got the peace prize was Norman Borlaug, whose "green revolution" wheat strains led to the death of peasants by the million.

When Gore goes to get the prize he shares with the pr hucksters and falsifiers at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Gore should be forced to march through a gauntlet of widows and orphans, Serbs, Iraqis, Palestinians, Colombians, and other victims of the Clinton era.

Back in Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign Gore was told to earn his keep with constant pummeling of George Bush Sr for having been soft on Saddam. Gore duly criss-crossed the country yoking Saddam and Bush in fervid denunciation, his press aides passing out speeches flatteringly footnoted with references to the work of the journalists covering his campaign. Gore charged that Bush had given Saddam "one of those milquetoast routines George Bush is so famous for". "The cover-up of Bush's arming of Saddam was", Gore shouted, "bigger than Watergate ever was." Right before the 2000 election Gore called for expansion of the no-fly zones in Iraq and said that any Iraqi plane venturing into such zones should be shot down.

In early January, 1993, Thomas Friedman interviewed president elect Clinton and asked about Saddam. Clinton amiably responded, "I always tell everybody, I'm a Baptist. I believe in deathbed conversions. If he wants a different relationship with the US and UN, all he has to do is change his behavior." This elicited cries of outrage from the national security establishment, and its prime respresentative,vice president-elect Gore, who announced that there could never be normal relations with Iraq so long as Saddam remained in power. He reiterated the call for a coup, if not by the Iraqi military then by the CIA (which in point of fact had been in receipt of a 'presidential finding' from Bush, three months after the guns of the Gulf War fell silent, authorizing it 'to create conditions for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power').

Vice president Al Gore was then given authority in the Clinton Administration for Iraq policy. On April 14, 1993, Bush went to Kuwait, whose regime duly arrested 17 people charged with plotting to kill Bush with a bomb placed in a Toyota Landcruiser.

Again the national security establishment mustered in support of a plan to hold Saddam accountable and bombard Baghdad, a plan hotly advocated by Gore and his national security advisor, Leon Feurth. The two individuals most reluctant to endorse this plan were Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr. "Do we have to take this action?" Clinton muttered to his national security team as the cruise missiles on two carriers in the Persian Gulf were being programmed.
Eight of the 23 missiles hit the residential Mansour suburb of Baghdad, one of them killing Leila al-Attar, a prominent Iraqi artist. According to Clinton's pollster Stan Greenberg, the bombing of Baghdad caused an uptick of 11 points in Clinton's popularity, a lesson Clinton and Gore did not forget. Years later, in the 2000 campaign, Gore out-hawked George Bush Jr on the subject of finishing the job in Iraq.

On June 29, 2000, Gore was in Chicago to talk about "energy policy incentives for cities". Danny Muller of Voices in the Wilderness went to Navy Pier, where the event was being held. Gore was at the podium amid wild ovations. Muller remembers the scene: "I raised my voice and asked 'Mr. Gore, why should anyone vote for an administration that kills 5,000 innocent children a month through sanctions in Iraq?' Gore stopped. And he laughed. He actually laughed. He said he would discuss this later in the day. I responded by saying that every ten minutes a child dies in Iraq due to sanctions and we do not have the time to wait."
Muller was still protesting as Gore's security goons hauled him off.

The specific reason why this man of blood shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the IPCC is for their joint agitprop on the supposed threat of anthropogenic global warming. Bogus science topped off with toxic alarmism.

It's as ridiculous as as if Goebbels got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1938, sharing it with the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for his work in publicizing the threat to race purity posed by Jews, Slavs and gypsies. (The peace prize actually went that year to the Nansen Committee for Refugees.

Gore certainly played his part in creating Iraq's current 4 million refugees, among the greatest displacements of the past hundred years.)

read on:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn10132007.html

Iraq's ex-oil chief accuses Kurds of suspect contract

Fri Oct 12
Agence France Presse reports that Issam Chalabi, Iraqi oil minister under Saddam Hussein has accused the Kurdistan Regional Government of awarding an oil contract last month to a US company for areas outside its territorial control.

In an interview published in the latest edition of the Middle East Economic Survey, Jordan-based Issam Chalabi said the production-sharing contract signed with Hunt Oil will cause more friction between the Baghdad government and the Kurdish authorities.

Baghdad has already criticised the Kurdish authorities for signing deals with international oil companies before the federal oil law has been approved.
If confirmed, the latest development would suggest the KRG may have broader political ambitions for control of oil and gas in the disputed areas adjacent to its territory in northern Iraq, said Chalabi.

The Hunt deal covers four structures in Blocks 6, 7 and 8 - Jabal Kand, Fajir, Nerjis and Ain-Sifni - in the Dahuk area in the northwest of the KRG region, he said. The Kurdish authorities have released no specific details of the deal.

Chalabi, who held the Iraqi oil portfolio from 1987 to 1990, said "the first three structures fall outside the jurisdiction of the KRG, in the Nineveh governorate."

He told MEES that Hunt's signing with the KRG for terrain outside its three governorates of Dahuk, Arbil and Sulaimaniyah would have negative legal and political implications.

"This will be considered a very serious matter from a political point of view between the central government and the KRG," he said, adding that this was especially true since Hunt Oil is a US company.

The former minister said his suspicions about the Hunt agreement were raised because, in contrast to other awards made by the KRG, no information about the blocks concerned or their location was announced by the Kurdish authorities.

Speaking in general terms about Kurdish contracts with international oil companies, Chalabi said he supported the Iraqi government's denouncement of the contracts as illegal.

"I think they are absolutely right, because even if you go to the constitution it says in Article 111 that oil and gas are the property of all the Iraqi people.

"This means agreements ought to be signed by the only body that represents those Iraqi people, and in the absence of an oil law that gives particular authorisation to anyone else, it must be only the central government that has the right to sign these contracts," he said.

U.N. Report on Iraq details and "Ever-Deepening" Crisis

Joshua Partlow and Colum Lynch, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD, Oct. 11 -- A U.N. report issued Thursday outlined an "ever-deepening humanitarian crisis" in Iraq, with thousands of people driven from their homes each month, ongoing indiscriminate killings, and "routine torture" in Iraqi prisons.

Also Thursday, a U.S. airstrike in Iraq killed 15 civilians -- nine women and six children -- and 19 suspected insurgents, the military said. "We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while Coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism," Maj. Brad Leighton, a U.S. military spokesman, said in a statement.
U.S. troops targeting leaders of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq came under fire while approaching a building near Lake Tharthar in Anbar province northwest of Baghdad, and aircraft fired on the site in response, the military said. The bombing also wounded six people, including a woman and three children.

The assessment by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, which covered a three-month period ending June 30, found that civilians were suffering "devastating consequences" from violence across the country. It documented more than 100 civilians allegedly killed by U.S.-led forces during airstrikes or raids.
The report described Iraq in more dire terms than last month's congressional testimony from top U.S. military and embassy officials, which stressed improvements in the security situation.

"The killings are still taking place, the torture is still being reported, the due process issues are still unresolved," said Ivana Vuco, a U.N. human rights officer in Baghdad.

The first draft of the U.N. report was completed in August, but release of the final version was delayed for more than a month following a request by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, according to a confidential account by a senior U.N. official. Crocker insisted that Iraq be given time to respond to the allegations, according to the account. The United States then prepared critical assessments of the U.N. investigation that were included in the final report.
U.N. officials in Baghdad said the report was not intended to challenge the U.S. military's assertion that this year's troop escalation helped reduce violence in much of Iraq. The reporting period ended before the time in which the U.S. military has described the sharpest drops in violence. The U.N. agency said it was again unable to persuade the Iraqi government to release civilian casualty figures.

Vuco said her organization was not trying to determine whether the situation in Iraq had improved or deteriorated. " As long as there are human rights violations, there are still concerns," she said.

Among the most serious issues raised in the report is the treatment of detainees. The U.N. agency found that as of June, 44,325 detainees were in Iraqi or U.S. custody, an increase of nearly 4,000 people since April. Many of them, it said, remained in detention for months without having their cases reviewed or with limited access to legal counsel. The report also expressed concerns about overcrowding and poor hygiene in detention centers, particularly pretrial holding cells run by the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. The agency said it "remained gravely concerned at continuing reports of the widespread and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees."

"In addition to routine beatings with hosepipes, cables and other implements, the methods cited included prolonged suspension from the limbs in contorted and painful positions for extended periods, sometimes resulting in dislocation of the joints; electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body; the breaking of limbs; forcing detainees to sit on sharp objects, causing serious injury and heightening the risk of infection; and severe burns to parts of the body through the application of heated implements," the report said.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said the ministry "totally rejects this report." Khalaf said politicians, journalists and human rights workers have visited ministry facilities and "they didn't witness any kind of abuse."

The U.N. report warned of an increased rate of violence against women, particularly "honor" killings, in the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. In the first half of the year, regional government statistics counted 23 women killed by "blunt objects," 195 by burning and 37 by gunfire.
The report also highlighted the estimated 2.2 million Iraqis now living as refugees outside Iraq, about half of them in neighboring Syria.

In Baghdad on Thursday evening, a car bomb exploded in front of a popular cafe in the New Baghdad neighborhood, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 25, according to police and witnesses. The explosion took place about 9 p.m., as the cafe was crowded with patrons drinking tea and smoking water pipes.

The U.S. military also reported that rockets or mortar shells crashed down Wednesday evening on Camp Liberty, a major U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport, killing two members of the U.S.-led coalition and wounding 40 other people. In a separate incident, a U.S. soldier was killed Wednesday during a combat operation in eastern Baghdad.

Lynch reported from the United Nations.

Who will stop the GENOCIDE OF THE IRAQI PEOPLE BY THE US-UK TERRORISTS?

How many more Iraqis must die before the politicians and decision makers in the western democracies firmly condemn and start prosecuting the leaders of the US and the UK governments for their crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq?

Their hypocrisy and "great principles" make me sick. They pretend to defend Human Rights everywhere in the world... but what about Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan?

I am disgusted with their "deux poids deux mesures" when they decide about genocides and holocausts...

What concrete and immediate measures and resolutions are they taking to stop the GENOCIDE which is taking place in Iraq TODAY?

On Thursday the U.S. terrorists killed 34 people including 6 women and 9 children in the Lake Tharthar region in Iraq. Sadly, this is just one among many other “incidents” in the past few days in Iraq…

Who cares that Iraqis are living in perpetual fear, danger and misery because of the occupation? Who cares that well over one million Iraqis have died of a violent death since the illegal and brutal invasion of their country in March 2003? Who cares that Iraqis must live without water, electricity, fuel, medications and that over one third of the population goes hungry every day?
Who cares that over 4 million Iraqis have been forced to leave their homes ...

And you leaders of the Arab world, what are YOU doing to stop the massacre of your brothers and sisters in Iraq? Have you any conscience left?

This is a day to remember the dead and visit their graves, so just try to imagine how many have died of a violent death in Iraq since the occupation in March 2003: well over one million ! Will you remember them?

Will you remember your sisters and brothers who are being tortured and who are dying in American and Kurdish-run jails in Iraq today?

Will you remember the orphans, the widows and the elderly who are barely surviving, who are humiliated and who live in constant fear in occupied Iraq today?

Juan Cole misinforming his readers about the number of Turkmens in Iraq

Over the past three years many Turkmen intellectuals and historians have written to Prof Cole to point out that he's got it all wrong about the number of Turkmens in Iraq, but Prof. Cole has decided to ignore their well documented reports and claims and he continues to write that the Turkmens in Iraq are only 800.000 !!!

It is inadmissible that a Professor who claims to be 'well informed' over the Middle East and about Iraq in particular continues to disregard the real number of the Turkmens in Iraq, for economical and geopolitical reasons as pointed out by Dr Hassan Aydinli, the Representative of the Iraqi Turkmens in Europe.

Please see:
http://turkmenfriendship.blogspot.com/2007/08/iraqi-turkmens-appeal-to-eu-decision.html

Besides, when referring to the Turkmens as "little brethren of the Turks" Prof. Cole is undermining the importance of the Turkmens in Iraq who have played an important role in the country's history for over a millenium and who today with their 3.000.000 (THREE MILLION) people represent the third main ethnic group in Iraq (at least 12% of the Iraqi people).

Note: In the same post Juan Cole calls the PKK terrorist organization which is on the list of terrorist organizations in the EU and in the U.S and which is "one of the bloodiest terrorist organizations in the world" according to MI5 "PKK guerrillas"...

The following is an excerpt of what Juan Cole writes in his blog "Informed Comment" today:

"The threat of a Turkish hot pursuit of PKK guerrillas into Iraqi Kurdistan is starting to have an effect on Kurdistan's economy and stability. Inflation is high and some Turkish businesses that had won bids to operate in the Kurdistan Regional Authority (KRG) are going back home in fear of trouble. Getting banks to underwrite economic enterprises is getting harder, which could result in a slowdown for Iraqi Kurdistan. This area was the last in Iraq not to be hit hard by instability, but tensions are growing.

Imagine what things look like from a Turkish point of view. Remember that Turkey is a NATO ally, that it stood with the US during the Korean War (in which its troops fought), during the Cold War, and during Bush's war on terror. Turkey gives the US military facilities, including the Incirlik Air Force base, through which large amounts of materiel for the US forces in northern Iraq flows.
…..
Then, the US gave the Kurdistan Regional Authority control over the Kirkuk police force and unleashed Kurdish troops on the Turkmen city of Tal Afar. (The Turks look on Iraq's 800,000 Turkmen as little brethren, over whom they feel protective, and don't want them dominated by Kurds).

The Kurds promptly announced their aspiration of annexing 3 further provinces, or at least big swathes of them, including the oil province of Kirkuk, and including substantial Turkmen populations. Not only was that guaranteed to cause violence with the Arabs and Turkmen, but it would give Kurdistan a source of fabulous wealth with which it could hope to attract Kurds in neighboring countries to join it, a la German Unification after the fall of the Berlin Wall - except that this unification would dismember several other countries.

Then the Kurdistan Regional Authority gave safe haven to 3,000 to 5,000 Kurdish guerrillas from eastern Anatolia in Turkey who have been killing Turks and blowing up things, reviving violence that had subsided in the early zeroes. Despite the US military occupation of Iraq, Washington has done nothing to stop what Turkey sees as terrorists from going over the border into Turkey and killing Turks. Turkish intelligence is convinced that the camps in Iraqi Kurdistan are key to weapons provision for the PKK, and that funding is coming from Kurdish small businessmen in Western Europe. "

Still heading backwards by Nermeen Al-Mufti (suivi de traduction en Français)

Corruption and partition are the headlines in another dismal week in occupied Iraq, writes Nermeen Al-Mufti

Crowds of Iraqis gathered at the gate of the Syrian Embassy in the once elegant neighbourhood of Al-Mansur in Baghdad, hoping against hope. The UN asked Syria to remove visa requirements for Iraqi applicants, but it didn't ask US occupation forces to improve conditions in Iraq or abide by international law; nor did it ask the Iraqi government to stop making excuses for deteriorating conditions in the country.

Hundreds of Iraqis congregate every day in front of the embassy, hoping to find refuge for their families. Syria used to receive about 30,000 Iraqis refugees every month until visa restrictions were introduced in early October. Many Iraqis claim that Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki asked the Syrians to impose visa restrictions during his visit to Damascus in August. The government is not responding to this claim. It is busy deflecting accusations made by Justice Radi Al-Radi, chairman of the Iraqi Probity Committee.

Al-Radi was made head of the Probity Committee in 2004, but escaped to the US two months ago after receiving death threats, allegedly from Iraqi officials. He told US Congress that Al-Maliki was protecting his allies against prosecution in corruption-related cases. "Al-Maliki protected relatives of his against investigation and allowed ministers to protect employees suspected of involvement in corruption," Al-Radi said. He also told congressmen that Iraq lost $18 billion because of corruption.

Al-Maliki's office dismissed the charges as "false accusation made to promote the interests of well- known individuals and agencies that are involved in a media campaign against the prime minister." The statement of the prime minister's office went further, alleging that "the chairman of the Probity Committee was invited to attend a cabinet meeting and asked to clamp down forcefully on corruption, but [Al-Radi] focussed on minor corruption matters and administrative orders that are outside his jurisdiction, while turning a blind eye to major cases of financial irregularities to curry favour with some parties and political figures."

The statement continued: "the claims of the Probity Committee chairman constitute only a small part of the media campaign in which he is engaged. The campaign is financed by certain political figures who hire public relations companies to tarnish Al-Maliki's reputation." A few weeks ago, local Iraqi press ran a report, first published by The Washington Post, to the effect that former prime minister Iyad Allawi hired a major US public relations firm to discredit Al-Maliki.

As a report by the US Government Accountability Office says that capacity-building efforts in Iraqi ministries are running into difficulties related to the lack of competent personnel and the infiltration of militiamen into major ministries, Al-Radi told Congress that 31 employees of his committee have been killed. Representative Henry Waxman (D-California), who chaired the session, wondered if the Maliki government was too corrupt to succeed. Waxman said that US efforts to resolve the crisis were ineffective, suggesting that the US government may be covering up Maliki's actions.

Differences between Al-Radi and Maliki surfaced after Al-Radi accused Qais Al-Saidi, an ally of Moqtada Al-Sadr and chairman of the Parliamentary Probity Committee, of involvement in dubious oil dealing. Al-Saidi retaliated, accusing Al-Radi of corruption and demanding his appearance in parliament for questioning. Although Al-Radi claimed that along with 31 inspectors in his committee 21 of his relatives were killed, the police took no action to investigate the murders.

Meanwhile, a crisis is brewing over the arrest of Mahmoud Ferhadi, identified by Tehran as an Iranian businessman, by US forces in Al-Suleimaniya in early September. Iran retaliated by closing its border crossings with northern Iraq, a move that worsened food shortages in Iraq.

Iraqi parliamentarian Mohamed Al-Deini told Al-Ahram Weekly that the man arrested by US forces in Iraq on 3 September was a major general with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. "His name is Mahmoud Farhadi and he is the commander of the Zafar Camp, which is affiliated with the Iranian Quds Brigades. He was arrested in his private office in Darbandakhan in Al-Suleimaniya, an office that he set up over four years ago. The office is situated close to the security department of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan." Al-Deini said that Farhadi was arrested after the Americans struck a deal with the Kurds, promising "more support in their areas".

David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, accused the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, of being a member of the Quds Brigades. Speaking at a US base near the Iranian border, Petraeus said that Kazemi-Qomi's diplomatic immunity precluded his interrogation by the Americans. Kazemi-Qomi, who was named ambassador to Iraq in May 2006, was Iran's first envoy to Iraq since 1980.

Meanwhile, the US army said that it killed 25 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard during a raid on the village of Jizan in Diyala on the Iranian border last week. Iraqi police said that the victims included civilians.
As the US continues to accuse Iran of arming Iraqi militia with explosive charges and weapons, Mowaffaq Al-Robeie, Iraq's national security adviser, said that the Americans should stop antagonising Iran as tensions were making life harder for Iraqis.

One day after the Americans said that Moqtada Al-Sadr returned from Iran (Al-Sadr supporters deny he ever left Iraq), Sadr signed an agreement with Abdul- Aziz Al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The agreement called for "stemming" Iraqi blood and preserving the higher interests of the country.

Signed on 23 Ramadan, the statement said that "in keeping with the holy legacy of Ramadan, in order to strengthen our relations, safeguard higher Islamic and national interests, and bring the country back to safe shores, we have agreed to stem Iraqi blood and refrain from shedding it under any circumstance, and regardless of creed, because bloodshed violates all religious and moral codes." A higher committee, having branches in all governorates, would be formed in order to "avert sedition and control any potential trouble", the statement promised.

Sheikh Hamid Al-Saeidi of SCIRI said that the agreement came after "significant escalation" in various parts of Iraq, especially in the south. Sheikh Salah Al-Obeidi of the Sadr group said that the agreement demonstrates the "wisdom of Moqtada Al-Sadr and his desire to avert differences with other groups and trends."

In other news, the Kurdish administration in the north welcomed the US Senate's decision to partition Iraq, saying that it was in keeping with the Iraqi constitution. It called for a conference in Irbil to discuss federalism, while accusing those who opposed the Senate's decision of being chauvinistic and misguided. Arab and Turkomen parties called for a boycott of the said conference.

Sources close to the Iraqi Kirkuk Front, an alliance of parties and figures opposed to Kurdish annexation of Kirkuk, said that, "Discussions of partition schemes are a step towards the division of the country." Anwar Biraqdar, chairman of the Turkomen Justice Party, warned against "any agreements endorsing partition plans".

Following reports of torture and rape in Iraqi prisons, Tareq Al-Hashemi, vice-president and leader of the Islamic Party of Iraq, started touring detention centres around the country. He visited the women's prison in Baghdad, where he voiced shock at the lack of proper medical care.

"The visit revealed a complex, thorny, and tragic situation, beginning with the manner of detention and ending with the deteriorating conditions in the prison regarding health and other services," a statement by Al-Hashemi's office said.
Two women died in prison due to the shortage of medicine, the statement added. Some inmates were being held as hostages, to pressure their spouses into surrendering to the authorities. One prisoner said that she was sentenced to death without being interrogated. Another, a school principal, said that she was arrested while searching for her son who went missing over a year ago.
Caption: A US soldier in pensive mood smokes a cigarette northeast of Baghdad.

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/866/re201.htm

T R A D U C T I O N
Nermeen Al-Mufti - Al Ahram Weekly
L’Irak est encore et toujours sous la botte de l’occupant américain.

Des foules d’Irakiens se pressaient à la porte de l’ambassade syrienne dans le quartier d’Al Mansour, autrefois élégant, à Bagdad, continuant malgré tout à espérer. L’ONU a demandé à la Syrie de lever les restrictions à l’attribution des visas pour les Irakiens, mais elle n’a pas demandé aux forces américaines d’occupation d’améliorer les conditions de vie en Irak ou de respecter le droit international ; elle n’a pas demandé non plus au gouvernement irakien de cesser de trouver des excuses pour la constante détérioration des conditions de vie dans le pays.

Des centaines d’Irakiens se rassemblent chaque jour devant l’ambassade, espérant trouver un refuge pour leurs familles. La Syrie recevait environ 30 000 réfugiés Irakiens chaque mois jusqu’à ce que des restrictions sur les visas aient été décidées début octobre. Beaucoup d’Irakiens affirment que le premier ministre Nuri Al-Maliki a demandé aux Syriens d’imposer des restrictions sur l’attribution des visas lors de sa visite à Damas en août dernier. Le gouvernement ne répond pas à cette accusation. Il est trop occupé à se dégager des accusations faites par le juriste Radi Al-Radi, le président du Comité Irakien pour la Probité [Iraqi Probity Committee].

Al-Radi a été élu à la tête du Comité pour la Probité en 2004, mais il s’est réfugié aux USA il y a deux mois après avoir reçu des menaces de mort, semble-t-il en provenance d’officiels irakiens. Il a déclaré devant des membres du congrès des Etats-Unis qu’Al-Maliki protégeait ses alliés contre les poursuites dans des cas avérés de corruption. « Al-Maliki a protégé d’une enquête des parents à lui et a permis à des ministres de protéger des employés suspectés d’être impliqués dans des cas de corruption, » a déclaré Al-Radi. Il a également affirmé devant des membres du Congrès que l’Irak avait dilapidé 18 milliards de dollars en raison de la corruption.

Le bureau d’Al-Maliki’s a repoussé les accusations comme étant autant « d’accusations fausses faites pour favoriser les intérêts d’individus bien connus impliqués dans une campagne de presse menée contre le premier ministre. » Le communiqué du bureau du premier ministre est encore allé plus loin, alléguant que « le Président du Comité de Probité a été invité à assister à une réunion du cabinet oùil lui a été demandé de s’attaquer avec force à la corruption, mais [Al-Radi] s’est concentré sur des cas mineurs de corruption et des questions administratives en dehors de sa juridiction, tout en refusant de voir les principaux cas d’irrégularités financières, ceci en faveur de quelques cercles et figures politiques. »

Le communiqué poursuit : « les critiques formulées par le président du Comité pour la Probité constituent seulement une petite partie de la campagne de presse dans laquelle il s’est engagé. La campagne est financée par certaines figures politiques qui louent les services de compagnies de relations publiques pour salir la réputation d’Al-Maliki. » Il y a quelques semaines, la pression irakienne locale a publié un rapport, d’abord édité par le Washington Post selon lequel l’ancien premier ministre Iyad Allawi avait loué les services d’une des principales agences américaines de relations publiques avec comme objectif de discréditer Al-Maliki.

Alors qu’un rapport publié par l’Office américain de Responsabilité Gouvernementale [US Government Accountability Office] explique que la capacité des ministères irakiens à se construire connait des difficultés liées au manque de personnel compétent et à l’infiltration des milices dans les principaux ministères, Al-Radi a indiqué au congrès que 31 employés de son comité avaient été assassinés. Le représentant californien Henry Waxman qui présidait la session s’est demandé si le gouvernement de Maliki n’était pas trop corrompu pour réussir. Waxman a estimé que les efforts des Etats-Unis pour résoudre la crise étaient inefficaces, suggérant que le gouvernement américain pouvait vouloir dissimuler les actes de Maliki.

Les différents entre Al-Radi et Maliki ont fait surface après qu’Al-Radi ait accusé Qais Al-Saidi, un allié de Moqtada Al-Sadr et président du Comité Parlementaire de Probité, de participation dans des marches pétroliers douteux. Al-Saidi a exercé des représailles, accusant Al-Radi de corruption et exigeant sa parution devant le parlement pour être interrogé. Bien qu’Al-Radi ait fait savoir que parmi les 31 enquêteurs assassinés au sein de son comité 21 étaient de ses parents, la police n’a pris aucune mesure pour enquêter sur les meurtres.

En attendant, une crise s’est déclenchée suite à l’arrestation par les forces américaines, à Al-Suleimaniya début septembre, de Mahmoud Ferhadi présenté par Téhéran comme un homme d’affaires iranien. L’Iran a exercé des représailles en fermant ses passages frontaliers avec l’Irak du nord, un geste qui a n’a fait qu’empirer les pénuries alimentaires en Irak.

Le parlementaire irakien Mohamed Al-Deini a expliqué à Al-Ahram Weekly que l’homme arrêté par les forces américaines en Irak le 3 septembre était un général important dans la garde révolutionnaire iranienne. « Son nom est Mahmoud Farhadi et il est le commandant du camp de Zafar utilisé par les brigades iraniennes Al Quds. Il a été arrêté dans son bureau privé de Darbandakhan à Al-Suleimaniya, un bureau qu’il a mis en place il y a quatre ans. Le bureau est situé à proximité du service des valeurs mobilières de l’Union Patriotique du Kurdistan, l’organisation de Talabani. » Al-Deini a indiqué que Farhadi a été arrêté après que les Américains aient conclu un accord avec les Kurdes qui leur ont promis « plus d’appui dans leurs secteurs ».

David Petraeus, le commandant des forces américaines en Irak, a accusé l’ambassadeur iranien en Irak, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, d’être un membre des brigades Al Quds. Parlant à partir d’une base américaine à la frontière iranienne, Petraeus a indiqué que l’immunité diplomatique de Kazemi-Qomi ne permettait pas qu’il soit interrogé par les Américains. Kazemi-Qomi, qui a été nommé ambassadeur en Irak en mai 2006, est le premier à représenter l’Iran en Irak depuis 1980.

En attendant, l’armée des Etats-Unis affirme avoir tué 25 membres de la garde révolutionnaire iranienne lors d’une incursion dans le village de Jizan dans Diyala à la frontière iranienne la semaine dernière. La police irakienne a révélé de son côté qu’il y avait des civils parmi les victimes.

Alors que les Etats-Unis continuent d’accuser l’Iran de fournir les milices irakiennes en armes et en explosifs, Mowaffaq Al-Robeie, conseiller national de sécurité en Irak, estime que les Américains devraient cesser de provoquer l’Iran car ces tensions rendaient la vie plus difficile aux Irakiens.

Un jour après que les Américains aient affirmé que Moqtada Al-Sadr était rentré d’Iran (les partisans d’Al-Sadr nient le fait qu’il ait jamais quitté l’Irak), Sadr a signé un accord avec Abdul- Aziz Al-Hakim, chef du Conseil Suprême pour la Révolution Islamique en Irak (SCIRI). L’accord appelle « à épargner » le sang irakien et à préserver les intérêts nationaux.

Signé le 23e jour du Ramadan, le communiqué indiquait que « en accord avec la tradition sacrée du Ramadan, afin de renforcer nos relations, sauvegarder les intérêts islamiques et nationaux plus élevés, et ramener le pays vers des rivages plus sûrs, nous avons convenus d’épargner le sang irakien et de nous abstenir de le verser en n’importe quelle circonstance, et indépendamment de la foi, parce que les carnages violent tous les codes religieux et moraux. » Toujours selon le communiqué, un comité de niveau plus élevé et ayant des représentants dans tous les gouvernorats sera formé « afin d’éviter la sedition et pouvoir contrôler n’importe quel trouble possible ».

Cheik Hamid Al-Saeidi du SCIRI a déclaré que l’accord intervenait après « une escalade significative » dans diverses régions d’Irak et particulièrement dans le sud. Cheik Salah Al-Obeidi du groupe de Sadr a dit de son côté que l’accord apportait la preuve de la « sagesse de Moqtada Al-Sadr et de son désir d’éviter des différents avec d’autres groupes. »

Parmi d’autres nouvelles, l’administration kurde dans le nord s’est félicitée du vote du sénat américain en faveur de la division de l’Irak, disant que ce vote était en accord avec la constitution irakienne. Les Kurdes réclament maintenant une conférence dans Irbil pour discuter du fédéralisme tout en accusant ceux qui se sont opposés au vote du sénat d’être chauvins et mal inspirés. Les partis Arabes et Turkmènes ont appelé au boycott de ladite conférence.

Des sources proches du Front Irakien de Kirkuk, une alliance de partis et de personnalités opposés à l’annexation de Kirkuk par les Kurdes, déclarent que « les discussions à propos du partitionnement sont une étape vers la division du pays. » Anwar Biraqdar, président du Parti Turkmène de la Justice, a mis en garde contre « tout accord reprenant un plan de partitionnement ».

Après la publication de rapports faisant état de tortures et de viols dans les prisons, Tareq Al-Hashemi, vice-président et responsable du Parti Islamique d’Irak a entamé un tour des centres de détention dans le pays. Il a visité la prison des femmes à Bagdad où il a fait part du choc qu’il a éprouvé en constatant le manque de service médical approprié.

« La visite a révélé une situation complexe, épineuse et tragique, en commençant par le type appliqué de détention et en finissant avec les conditions qui se dégradent dans la prison en ce qui concerne la santé et les autres services, » dit un communiqué publié par le bureau d’Al-Hashemi.
Deux femmes sont mortes en prison suite à l’absence de service de santé, ajoute le rapport. Quelques détenus sont retenus comme otages afin que des pressions soient exercées sur leurs conjoints pour qu’ils se livrent aux autorités. Une prisonnière a dit avoir été condamnée à mort sans même avoir été interrogée. Une autre qui est directrice d’école a dit avoir été arrêtée alors qu’elle recherchait son fils qui a disparu depuis un an.

11 octobre 2007 - Al Ahram Weekly - Vous pouvez consulter cet article à : http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/866...[Traduction : AIO - Info-Palestine.net]

Ramazan Bayramınız Mübarek Olsun

Mübarek Ramazan Bayramınızı en içten dileklerle kutlar, sağlık, mutluluk ve başarının yaşam boyu sizinle olmasını diliyoruz.