|
It seems incongruous,
that a country that has been fighting, negotiating
and pleading for independence, since 1867, when the
last autonomous Kurdish regions were entirely
eradicated by the Ottoman Turks (and the then
Persian governments), has still not achieved any
appreciable measure of self rule. (Save for the
Coalition protected Kurdistan Regional Government of
Northern Iraq.)
The Kurds of the North, have over the centuries,
been slaughtered, enslaved and exploited and
dispersed world wide, yet, in the turmoil of what is
present day Iraq, Kurdistan is surprisingly
tranquil: only Arabic and Iranian killers from
outside of the Kurds’ homeland, disrupt what is
relatively speaking, a peaceful, industrious,
prosperous and educated society.
During a recent visit to Iraq, and more particularly
Kurdistan, I found children going to school in
greater numbers, universities open and flourishing,
small shops and stalls with abundant goods of every
description, tourist resorts, albeit tentatively
open and expanding, all as a result of the freedom
from the mass killer, Saddam Hussein.
Mercedes, Renaults, Jaguars and Toyotas are to be
found in peak hour traffic jams at intersections in
the cities of Sulaymaniyah, Irbil, and even in
Halabjah, the provincial city that was subject to 72
hours of terrifying bombardment with weapons of mass
destruction in 1988, which killed many thousands of
women, some pregnant, babies, children, old men and
youths in their prime of life, because they were
Aryan and not Arabic.
The struggle of the Kurds for their very existence
has for generations been a saga, perhaps not ever
exceeded by such a prolonged period of adversity by
any other ethnic group on earth in modern history.
If that struggle was to amount to nothing, or, a
proposed Federation of Iraq, (the concept of which I
support), was to be continually thwarted by the
maniacal killers who believe in their distorted
minds that God, any God, wants these fools to kill
for Him, and Federation therefore fails, then it is
my personal opinion that Kurdistan should be
supported by international agreement in securing
those present boundaries occupied by the Kurdistan
regional Government.
I have had the honour of meeting on many occasions,
his Excellency Jalal Talabani the General Secretary
of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), together
with Dr Rouch Shawez, the Iraqi Vice President and
currently head of the Kurdistan National Assembly,
from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), who as a
team, have an abundance of experience and acumen,
and are more than capable of leading any future
democratic, independent and united state of
Kurdistan.
It has been put to me, that any such entity would
fail because the country would be denied access to
the sea; Mongolia, Belarus, Slovakia, Austria,
Switzerland, Macedonia, Zambia and now Afghanistan,
to mention just a few of a variety of independent
states, and all members of the United Nations, that
do not have seaboards. Much functioning
infrastructure exists within the KRG, sealed roads,
reservoirs, universities, abundant small and medium
enterprises, and much more.
It is true that any future independent state of
Kurdistan may cause some concern in abutting
contiguous countries with significant Kurdish
minorities, but that could be negotiated.
Kurds have, after all, lived in a tenuous peace in
Iran and Syria for many years. Turkey, with the
arrest and jailing of the Turkish Kurd leader,
Abdullah Ocalan, and its somewhat optimistic
application to join the European Union, has recently
found tolerance for their Kurdish minorities.
An independent state of Kurdistan could be the
harbinger that would ultimately bring peace to, not
only the ten thousand year old cradle of
civilisation, but other countries of the Middle East
and to other continents.
The Kurds must not be the losers again with another
impotent, inequitable Third Millennium Balfour
Declaration that gave only despots, religious
fanatics and brutal dictators to the oil-rich
countries covering the ancient Tethys Sea. The
Kurds, under these conditions, deserve self rule in
some form, and soon.
Ross Lightfoot
Senator for Western Australia
Top |
® 