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Kurdish lawmaker expresses resentment
toward U.S.
22.1.2008
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January
22, 2008
Dr Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, has an ax to
grind with the United States. He's sick of watching
American officials make statements on television
every time the Iraqi parliament makes a move.
He was angry when President Bush last week said he
hoped a law that was supposed to soften restrictions
on former Baathists; he was angry that when the law
did pass with a slim majority in the parliament,
many linked the passage with Bush's statement. An
hour later in Bahrain, President Bush congratulated
Iraq on the law's passage, Othman said.
The law itself in some ways is more stringent than
the one it was supposed to soften, and former
Baathists,www.ekurd.net
thousands of which can
now claim pensions, do not trust the government
enough to return and admit their positions in Saddam
Hussein's government.
"They talk about it as if we are children and they
are directing us," he said, exasperated. "When we
passed the accountability and justice law, after one
hour Bush said publicly we congratulate you so that
everybody will say 'we told you this is an American
law.'" |
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish legislator, member of the
Kurdistan National Democratic Union |
But there are other
things that bother him about what he called a black
and white American foreign policy.
He remember in 1989, he went to the United States
for a month, the last 19 days of Ronald Reagan's
presidency and the first 11 days of the elder George
Bush's presidency. He begged to see someone in the
State Department about what had happened to the
Kurds,www.ekurd.net
he wanted to talk to
them about the gassing of Kurds in Halabja and the
Anfal campaign a campaign against the Kurds in the
1980's that was estimated to have killed between
100,000 and 200,000 Kurds in bombings and chemical
bombardments of Kurdish villages. Officials in the
State Department agreed but said they didn't want to
hear anything about overturning Saddam Hussein's
government. At this time, Saddam was a friend of the
U.S.
They called the next day and said they would see him
but they wanted to hear nothing about secession of
the Kurds. Othman agreed, he would just tell them
the story of what had happened.
The next day they called and said they could not
meet with them. How would this look to their ally,
Saddam Hussein?
He called powerful friends and journalists to
intervene on his behalf. Finally the State
Department agreed to let someone meet with him from
the Human Rights section. But Othman could not come
to the State Department. He must act as if he bumped
into the official in the lobby of a D.C. hotel, he
was told. Othman refused.
During the invasion of Iraq in 2003 the Kurds were
the American's most steadfast allies. Still in the
north, Americans are welcomed, he said.
"You talk to a communist, an Islamist, anyone, they
all love America," he said.
But he is angry at the U.S. policy on the Kurdistan
Worker's Party, the PKK, a militant Kurdish
nationalist group that wants an independent
Kurdistan in parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.
The conflict between Turkey and the PKK has been
fought for decades and in recent months Turkey's
shelling of villages and incursions into Iraqi
Kurdistan has angered the Kurds in the north. But in
this conflict the U.S. did not play a role as a
broker, he said.
Where they could have begun negotiations between the
PKK and Turkey, instead they took Turkey's side and
called the PKK the enemy of America, the enemy of
Turkey and the enemy of Iraq.
"The PKK has been trying to talk to America," he
said. "If you push them and always say they are
terrorists, their policies will become more militant
and they will turn somewhere else."
Othman believes the United States could have
brokered a deal for amnesty for PKK fighters in
Turkey and a concession on Kurdish rights and
changes in the Turkish constitution.
"They support Turkey wrong or right," he said "Why
are their relations with Turkey at the expense of
our relationship with them."
PKK is a listed terrorist organization in the United
States.
"Did they (Turkey) help America during the war? They
didn't let one soldier on their land," he said.
"Faith hasn't grown between America and Iraq."
MCT
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