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Last week a young
Kurdish writer in an article in the Kurdish weekly
Hawlati begged God to send bird flue to Kurdish
officials who have offered his and three other
generations of Kurdish people nothing but death,
treason, tribalism and corruption. God did not
respond to his prayer to send bird flue to the
officials but this week the officials did send bird
flue to his people to add yet another means and
style of death to their proud record of tragedies
and disasters they have afflicted the Kurdish nation
in the last thirty years of their tribal hegemony.
In a statement published on Kurdistani Nuwe only
five days ago (on 28 January 2006) the so-called
minister of health in Sulaymaniya confirmed that
there was no one single proven case of bird flue in
Kurdistan; and on 2 February 2006 pukmedia.com
reported a statement by the same minister saying
that they “have the same advanced medicine which
other nations have” and yesterday pukmedia.com
asserted that “ the government of Kurdistan region
has been able to acquire through the ministry of
health in the region the drugs for bird flue and
that ‘the minister has assured people that the drugs
for this virus are available in Kurdistan and would
be distributed to all health centres and hospitals
in the whole region and added that three
consignments of the medicine have arrived in
Sulaymaniya airport, the second made available by
the president of Iraq Mr Jalal Talabani.” (http://www.pukmedia.com/news/2-2/news1.html)
Today the story is different. Bird flue epidemic is
gripping Kurdistan. Two other people have already
died; four are under intensive care. Until yesterday
the minister of health was talking about 18 people
being isolated for the suspicion of the disease.
Today, according to DPA news “a fresh bird flue
scare has erupted in the Kurdish region in northern
Iraq with reports of 162 suspected cases almost two
weeks after a 15-year-old girl died of the deadly
strain.” The report adds that the head of
pre-emption committee in the Kurdistan Province Najm
Mohammad has asserted to al-Hayat newspaper that the
virus has proliferated throughout Rania, a region
southwest of al-Sulaymania on the border with
Turkey, and described the influx as a "crisis."
While al-Hayat newspaper’s report (2.2.2006) about
the epidemic carries this alarming title: “the
isolation of 50 villages with a population of
400,000 people and new 162 suspected cases of
influenza in Kurdistan” the party-controlled media
in Kurdistan keep their silence and aloofness. The
PUK paper Kurdistani Nuwe has published on its front
page a short message by Jalal Talabani “reassuring
the people of the town of uprising Ranya” that the
bird flue is under control and advises them to
follow instructions given to them by health
authorities to control the virus. He thanks Iraqi
minister of health for going to Sulaymaniya to offer
his help and thanks the US ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad “for sending some medicine” which he
presumably sent in his name to his minister in
Sulaymaniya to assure people that they have the same
advanced medicine that the modern world has.
But what is happening in practice?
First one must not be misled by words such as
minister of health, head of a health committee, etc.
These words have no meanings in South Kurdistan
today. They are all fake. Everything is fake.
Ministers are no body people serving as cogs in the
machine of corruption. There is no plan for
anything, no brain behind any plan, and no sense of
basic human responsibility about any social,
humanitarian and national issue. There are only
private projects of accumulating massive
illegitimate wealth, to steal as much as one can and
in as short a period as one can. This is in fact the
true meaning and content of the two
“corrupministartions” in Kurdistan where five
million people face new forms of daily anfal: death
by various other means: death by diseases, by food
poisoning, by car crashes, by road accidents, by
accidents of gas explosions, because of family and
clan feuds, by continuous killings of women for
honour and other social reasons and through many
suicides especially of young women. The new
generation is lost and victimized: illiterate, idle,
marginalized and abused. The institution of marriage
has come to standstill. The sexist party media, with
no sense of the meaning of discrimination and the
oppressiveness of even language in the humiliation
of women, often report with humour the statistics
that show about 40 per cent of women over age of 25
are not married. The headlines talk about the
spinsters of Kurdistan society. And the word for
spinster is “q’eyre” in Kurdish, which is a very
demeaning and humiliating word which almost
sentences a woman to a life of loneliness, lost
chances and social degradation. Even this label is
enough to make a woman commit or think of committing
suicide.
There is no academic or social institute to gather
information about victims of social anarchy and
political corruption, monitor the issues, analyse
information and suggest scientific solutions. The
universities have become the vanguard of corruption
and criminal abuse of science and education for the
destruction of future of our generations. Dr Kamal
Sayid Qadir’s saga started from his shock at what he
saw at the so-called Salahaddin University where the
role of the colleges and fake institutions is to
ensure that everyone worships the great dynastic
family and no one ventures to voice a word of
criticism. As long as you adhere to this principle,
then as a student you can be admitted to any college
and get any degree and as a teacher you can even
become the Chancellor of the university however fake
and empty-minded you may be!
According to Peyamner website (www.peyamner.com, 3
Feb 2006) in the last six months 175 people died as
a result of car crashes and 961 citizens have been
injured. This is just within Arbil province only and
the figure includes only the registered incidents.
This means one fatal death and more than 5 other
casualties every day. But the list of social news at
peyamner.com and some “independent” newspapers
demonstrates a more frightening picture of the
extent of daily anfal on the streets of cities and
homes of innocent Kurdish families. Statistics
obtained from Sulaymaniya hospital and published by
Hawlati two weeks ago show that 270 people, women
and men, had committed suicide within the province
of Sulaymaniya alone.
Only now some semi-independent papers are to some
extent interested in ‘social news’ and within their
limited reporting capacity publish some news of
various deaths and incidents that happen on daily
basis and which give alarming indicators of the
state of the democratic civil society established by
the two ruling parties. For example in Hawlati
(27/01.2006) we find the following news headings:
• In one week three children are raped in
Sulaymaniya.
• Theft and robbery have doubled in 2005: one car
has been stolen three times. A robbery band has
stolen 150 million Iraqi dinars and has not been
captured yet.
• Petrol is scarce at petrol stations but it is
abundant on streets (in black market)
• At Duhok a man kills his son.
• A security officer murders a student n Koye.
• A teacher burns herself
• Two citizens die at a car accident in Kalar
• A woman and her baby are killed in Qaladiza
• Five citizens die in a car accident
• A woman commits suicide
• A girl burns herself
• A boy murders his sister
• A man dies by a fallen piece of metal
And on peyamner.com under the social news we find
these news of incidents in two weeks only (from 21
January to 1 February 2006):
• A man dies and a child injured in car accident (I
Feb)
• An unknown body found in Koye river (29 Jan)
• Six people from one family die in a car accident
(30 Jan)
• In Barderesh a beheaded body was found (28 Jan)
• Domestic violence within families increase (35
Jan)
• An abandoned two-day old baby found in Arbil (25
Jan)
• A person dies and two wounded in a car crash (26
Jan)
• A driver stabbed in a dispute over picking
passengers
• A boy shot and wounded
• A peshmarga dies in a car accident (21 Jan)
• A number pf people wounded in a wedding (21 Jan)
The scale of social death and injustice in Kurdistan
is increasing by day. I mentioned these examples
just to put the issue of bird flue in its true
context: lack of any concern about the problems of
life and death facing Kurdish people on daily basis
and fakeness and corruption of party ministries and
authorities. I know it is important to write about
these essential issues in other dedicated articles.
But I find this so painful I am afraid I cannot
survive writing about them.
Now back to the issue of bird flue.
The first victim of the virus was Shangin from the
village of Sertepkan. She died on 27 January 2006.
Soon after this, her uncle Hamasur, a veteran
peshmarga of 40 years, fell ill with similar
symptoms. The health authorities in Sulaymaniya
continued to deny the existence of the disease and
therefore taking any basic meaningful measures to
prevent its spread.
The most important response I read to the risks of
the spread of the disease from neigbouring North
Kurdistan was a decision by Sulaymaniya
administration to allocate 850,000 dollars for the
efforts to prevent the spread of the disease in the
region!
Yes, 850,000 dollars! But whether even this amount
is truly allocated and how it would be spent, can be
anyone’s guess.
This, however, shows again the degree of lack of
interest in the death of people, social issues and
any sense of responsibility and accountability. In
the same week that I read this news I was contacted
by a high ranking party official in London to tell
me that the week before one of the family
oligarchies in South Kurdistan had transferred 9
million dollars in cash to one of their family/party
official in London. Of course this could be a
stupid, empty and malicious allegation aiming at
bringing some people to disrepute. But it could well
be true. With lack of any accountability measures
and legal mechanisms for the scrutiny of power
practices in Kurdistan, every vice is possible.
Unfortunately the greatest daily possibility or
certainty is the death of innocent people as a
result of these inhumane and irresponsible corrupt
power practices.
After the death of Shangin, the semi-independent
paper Awene interviewed Hamasur in his hospital bed
in Sulaymaniya. A week after the interview Hamasur
died. In the interview (published in Awene 31 Jan
2006), Hamasur reveals what actually happens in
Kurdish villages. He still, despite the death of his
niece, expresses his skepticism that the chickens or
his niece died of bird flue. He says that death of
chickens usually happens every year in Kurdish
villages and they are not bothered by this. But then
he pauses and reflects with some concern and maybe
fears of realization what happened this time which
was different. He says: But this time I left home
one day and by the time I returned in the evening
6-7 of my chickens had died.” But how did he react
to this? He says: we slaughtered the sick chickens
which were not dead and ate their meat!
This shows how empty are all claims of educating
people especially the villagers about the risks of
the death let alone be prepared scientifically and
medically to deal with the risk of a most dangerous
epidemic.
Conclusion
Bird flue is another form of death which does not
make much difference to the somber picture of social
death and desolation in Kurdistan. It is not an
issue that attracts much media attention. The
party-controlled media (tens of TV channels, radios
and publications) are busy with the main important
issues: what posts the leaders get in Baghdad and
how democratic and efficient the government in
Baghdad will be. The poets continue to write their
love poems and romances and the writers continue to
philosophize about post-modernism. Meanwhile perhaps
in every hour a Kurd dies of injustice.
Of course the issue of the prevention of such a
dangerous epidemic is not just a health issue. It
affects every aspect of life especially the economy.
Chickens are the main source of income and food for
many villagers. How can they be expected to
slaughter their chicken, with bare hands, prompted
by fear of disease and advice of health ministers
only?
It is imperative that an urgent well-coordinated and
scientifically/safely implemented action plan to
slaughter all poultry in Kurdistan made but in order
to encourage the farmers to do so and not ruin them
economically it is essential that sufficient
generous compensation money and economic development
plans put in place. The villagers should not only be
compensated for their poultry but they should be
helped by buying alternative sources of food and
income such as cows to them. This will encourage
quick action to get rid of the affected poultry, and
prevents the villagers from facing poverty and
further migration from countryside to cities.
www.kurdistanreferendum.org
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