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The Kurdish-American Honeymoon Has Ended
7.1.2008
By Yerevan Adham
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January 7, 2008
I woke up and was greeted with news that Turkey
bombed Iraqi Kurdistan. Despite America's alleged
friendship and alliance with the Kurds, Washington
not only permitted Turkey to bomb Kurdish villages
in Northern Iraq, but supplied Turkey with
intelligence to attack under pretext of existence of
PKK in the rugged mountains of Qandil in
Kurdistan-Northern Iraq.
The Kurdistan Labor Party (PKK) is a Kurdish armed
group which started fighting Turkish regime in early
1980s in the hope of getting Kurdish political and
cultural rights. Since then PKK was involved in
conventional fighting against Turkey as well as in
bombing Turkish government establishments.
In past years, even after the kidnapping of PKK
founder and leader Abdulla Ocalan in February 1999,
PKK declared unilateral truce with Turkey several
times, but Ankara's refusal to issue a general
immensity to the Guerrillas has led continuation of
the conflict in southeast Turkey. There has not been
a positive answer by the Turkish government for PKKs’
truces, insisting that PKK put down their arms,
surrender and stand trial.
Kurds have been always victims of the US foreign
policy. Now Washington calls the PKK its enemy. Yet
not one American soldier has been hurt by PKK or the
Kurdish people in Turkey or Iraq. Calling PKK the
enemy of the US only fuels anti-American feelings in
all the countries where Kurds live. It’s true that
Kurds live in different geopolitical boundaries now.
But we all have the same nationalist feeling to each
other.
Almost every Kurd considers PKK a legitimate group
that struggles to get Kurdish rights in Turkey. And
while they disagree with some of the tactics PKK is
using for getting its objectives. The way PKK is
fighting Turkey is the way Iraqi Kurdish Armed
groups fought the successive Iraqi regimes from the
1960s to 1991.
The US and the international community need to look
for factors that caused formation of the PKK in
early 1980s. Listing PKK as a terrorist organization
by the US and European Union is another injustice
committed against the Kurdish people because it does
not make any sense to put a people of over 40
millions people into terrorist category.
Whenever I hear the US calling PKK "terrorist", I
feel that I am called terrorist. That is not just my
feeling as an Iraqi Kurd. But that is the feeling of
my family, friends and most of the Kurdish people in
Iraqi Kurdistan.
I visited those villages that Turkey is targeting
many times over the last couple of years while
reporting for American media.
PKK did not exist inside the villages that Turkey is
bombing and destroying. The loss has been just for
the Kurdish villagers. I was seeing the villagers
that were reconstructing those houses,www.ekurd.net
schools and hospitals
razed to the ground by former Iraqi regime. They
were optimistic about the future after the fall of
Saddam. But this time Turkey acted like Saddam
Hussein in killing us and destroying our land.
It does seem that being a real friend of the
Americans and to have the belief in the mission the
US is trying to accomplish in the Middle East does
not work as long as you are not strategic for what
US wants you to be. Once again Washington proved
that it has not changed its immoral and vicious
position towards those people who helped US
accomplish its mission in Iraq.
Iraqi Kurds have been the best allies of the US
since the liberation of Iraq in 2003 and Iraqi
Kurdistan is the only safe place for the US troops
as since then.
Kurdish problem has existed in the Middle East for
more than a century and it still continues. Despite
the fact the all the regimes have oppressed Kurds in
Middle East, we have been able to preserve our
identity as Kurds even when forced to take up arms
to protect our Kurdishness. Throughout our history
of resistance, the Mountains of Kurdistan have been
our only real friends, protectors and shelters!
There has been attempts by both Turkey and Iraq to
erase our identity and change our culture. There has
been campaigns of Arabaization and Turkishziation of
the Kurds in the past by preventing us from speaking
our language and deprived from education by our
language and even Kurdish music and Kurdish
traditional festivities were forbidden in Turkey.
I am from the town of Halabja where I spent my
childhood sheltering in basements and fleeing from
the Iraqi military. My town was gassed in 1988 by
Saddam Hussein, killing thousands of people in
seconds. Thousands of other villages were razed to
the ground and more than 100,000 of men, women and
children were taken and buried alive in 1980s but
still international community was silent before all
these crimes.
The first gulf war weakened the Saddam regime and
accidentally gave Kurds a chance to get control over
northern Iraq. But in the final moments, US stopped
backing the Kurdish people, and let Baghdad use its
forces to crash Kurdish uprising in 1991, resulting
atrocities by the Iraqi army against Kurdish
civilians. Millions of people fled to neighboring
countries when the former regime recaptured the
Northern Kurdish part of Iraq.
Later Iraqi troops retreated and we got partial
independence. This assured us that we would not be
killed by Iraqi regime as the international
community and especially America protected us from
any aggressive action by Saddam.
But the older generation was still skeptical about
American stance towards us as we have had bad
experience with Western countries in the past. We
have been always been used by the US for its
interests and in the final moment, Washington always
left us to the ironic and oppressive hands of the
regimes where the Kurds live. Betrayals were
followed by more betrayals.
But once again we put our trust in the United States
government and received US troops in 2003 very
warmly - unlike the other parts of Iraq where
Americans were resisted.
By that time I was working for the foreign press and
seeing how warm and friendly the Kurds from all
Northern Iraq were receiving American troops when
they were driving in the cities of Kurdistan.
Children were throwing flowers and roses to the US
troops as their appreciation for coming and
liberating Iraq from the oppressive hands of Saddam
Hussein.
I myself was one of the craziest and most American
influenced people, hoping that the new generation of
Kurds will not have to study in their basements as I
did as a child. I did not think that again Kurdish
schools would be razed to the ground.
Everyone thought that our future is bright and US is
the light in the end of the tunnel.
In the last couple of years we have been able to
secure our area and make it as the most prosperous
part of Iraq in terms of economy, politics and
security. Hundreds of foreign companies have
invested in Kurdistan because of its good security
and the tolerance of the Kurdish people towards the
Western values that we have embraced since the US
invasion into Iraq.
There are less than 400 US troops in whole Kurdistan
as Peshmargas (fighters) have been able to secure
the region. There were no US casualties in
Kurdistan.
We fought alongside the US troops for liberating
Iraq and then fought and still fight against
terrorism. Kurdish peshmargas and American troops
shed their blood against the common enemy.
US troops come to Iraqi Kurdistan for vacation and
walk without the fear of IEDs.
All the people in the Middle East with the exception
of Israel call us traitors because of our aid to the
Americans and our belief in democracy. We sacrificed
the trust of Arabs and Persians for the sake of the
Americans because we deeply believed the phony
slogans of Freedom and Democracy that American
government proclaimed.
US has a history of rewarding its enemies and
punishing its friends. The Iraqi Sunnis, who started
resisting US troops and killed thousands of American
troops, are rewarded well by increasing their power,
arms and money.www.ekurd.net
The Sunni resistances
made President George W. Bush come all the way from
Washington to the Anbar province to have a meeting
with the Sunni tribal leaders. Bush shook hands with
the leader of an Iraqi insurgent group that used to
kill Americans.
But now as a punishment by the Bush administration
to the Kurds, US has opened Northern Iraq’s sky to
let the Turkish war jets to bomb the Kurdish
villages under the pretext of (PKK) Kurdistan
workers party bases in those areas.
Despite the threats of Turkey to bomb and invade
Northern Iraq, the Kurds did not think that US would
ever let Turkey attack the Kurdish villages of
Northern Iraq, killing innocent civilians and
livestock, and destroying the newly built schools
and hospitals. This is an event which has surprised
all the Kurds, including our leadership because we
strongly believed that we are protected by US.
It’s really strange that US is preserving this
duplicity policy towards the Kurds. I remember the
former US Secretary of State Colin Powel visiting my
hometown in September 2003 and addressing the people
of Halabja, promising that Kurds will not be bombed
and oppressed again. “No longer just the mountains
are friends of the Kurds, but USA is the real friend
of the Kurds now”
But on 16th, Dec, 2007 when the Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice visited the northern city of Kirkuk,
US let Turkey send its war jets to bomb the Kurdish
villages.
Yerevan Adham formerly worked for the New York
Times and NPR. He was also a translator in Iraqi
Kurdistan.
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