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Time for Kurdish Rights
11.2.2008
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February 11, 2008
A recent article in the Washington Post entitled “Time
for Kurdish Realism” by Michael
O’Hanlon and Omer Taspinar presents Kurdish autonomy
and the inclusion of the Kirkuk Referendum in the
Iraqi Constitution as some sort of sectarian move
for power by the Kurdish nation and its peoples. The
first sentence of the article presents its view that
Kurds are merely a factional dispute among the
Iraqis. The fact is that the Kurdish nation is the
only one that defines its interests as a nation and
not as a religious faction of Islam. Although the
Kurds are predominately Sunni, they never identified
with the political parties of the Baathists and they
endured the brutality at the hands of Saddam
Hussein’s regime. After the Ottoman Empire was
defeated in World War 1 Kurds were promised a
referendum which the imperial occupiers in their own
scheme for divide and conquer reneged on. Iraq as a
nation with no cohesive national identity was
preferable to the British than nations that were
forged historically and presented a common culture
and territory. So the nations of Turkey, Iraq, Syria
and Iran had boundaries established by the British
that divided the Kurds in those newly created states
and prevented them from their right to national
sovereignty.
Since then the Kurds were subjected to numerous mass
murder campaigns by the political leaders, such as
Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein, of the states
into which they were partitioned. Poison gas was
used against them at Halabja and they were forced
out of Kirkuk in an “Arabization” campaign by
Hussein. The authors admit to this but presume that
the reason for the delay in the Kirkuk referendum
has been their demand for independence. The Kurdish
Regional Government has worked with the central
government in Baghdad with an understanding of their
vulnerability as a people in the region and has
exercised judgment in regards to how to protect its
people and establish a workable political solution
in the context of the current US occupation. They
also confront the historical record of aggression on
their people by the other states in the region and
the record of attempts to forcibly assimilate them
by Turkey resulting in the deaths of tens of
thousands of Kurds.
The writers of the article suggest just the opposite
that: “the Kurds seem to believe that if Iraq fails,
they will be okay.” In fact, just the opposite is
the case that concerns them. They are really taking
the measures they need to now to protect the people
in the event of the dissolution of Iraq after the US
occupation ends and proposing that any future with
Iraq be based on the recognition of their autonomy.
There is no record that anyone can present that
establishes their safety will be assured by any of
its neighbors or any new regime in Baghdad. There is
no guarantee that a centralized regime will protect
the Kurdish people. In fact,www.ekurd.net
the record indicates
that they are already considered hostile to Sunni
and Shi’a political leadership not because of any
military engagement against them by the Kurdish
Regional Government (KRG). Rather leaders such as
Muqtada al-Sadr have actively sought to deny the
political rights of the Kurds within Iraq.
The attempt to make oil the primary focus denies the
historical record of Kurdish peoples and attempts to
present the Kurds as ungrateful to US occupiers in
Iraq. The gratitude of Kurds for the overthrow of
Saddam Hussein should not be confused with their
necessity to establish their own armed forces for
their own defense and the need to rectify the
historical injustice of the denial of Kurdish
national rights. The U.S. does not have the right,
as an occupier, to prevent the political leadership
of the KRG from acting in a manner guaranteed under
the current Iraqi Constitution. The Kirkuk
Referendum is embedded in that Constitution. They
already accepted a six-month delay to it from the
deadline established in the Iraqi Constitution.
Imagine their unreasonableness! Even in the face of
hundreds of thousands of Turkish troops massed on
the border, they agree to a delay.
“Kurdish realism” is based not on a short-term US
invasion but on the recognition that the future must
be prepared for under the present circumstances.
This means the Kurdish nation must be prepared to
confront any and all eventualities. For the Kurdish
nation making a mistake now will be paid for in the
future in the lives of Kurdish peoples. If the
government in Baghdad delays the referendum, then
they are totally within their rights to work around
it and work towards the development of resources
within existing boundaries to provide economic
security for their people. If the suggestion is they
should be silent and submissive when the government
in Iraq delays and stalls the implementation of the
Kirkuk referendum that is simply a prescription for
national disaster.
The Turkish government has still refused to
recognize the Kurdistan Regional Government and has
in the past invaded them. Turkey is not a
disinterested party in regards to the territory of
southern Kurdistan that it once occupied under the
Ottoman Empire and has its own motives in seeking to
expand beyond its current borders. Likewise, it has
its own motives for attempting to present the PKK as
it exists today as a threat. Within Turkey it has
continued its persecution of Kurdish political
parties,www.ekurd.net
such as the Democratic
Society Party (DTP). In the face of these assaults a
non-violent march in Turkey against the planned
Turkish invasion was sent off with 20,000 supporters
demonstrating on February 6 in Diyarbakir. Is it
unreasonable for Turkey to cease its attacks on
sovereign territory or allow the political
representatives within its own nation to represent
their people without the threat of retaliation?
Who is being unreasonable here? Is it the Kurds who
defend their political and national rights or the
Turkish government and military that bombs Iraqi
citizens and persecutes Kurds within its own nation?
Who is being unrealistic here? Is it the Kurds who
confront the power of the largest military states of
Turkey and Iran in the region that have demonstrated
a hostile intent towards Kurdish people or the KRG
that acts to establish the needed economic,
political and military infrastructure that can build
for the future without the shadow of genocide
looming over them?
theconservativevoice com
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