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Barzani and Talabani: Discredited leaders
who have gone too far
20.2.2009
By Rauf Naqishbendi
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February 20, 2009
Barzani and Talabani have sold out the country.
Nowhere is this treason more conspicuous than in
Kirrkuk, Mosul and Khanaqeen. The American invasion
of Iraq, which presented itself as a golden
opportunity, is gone with the wind thanks to these
two incompetent leaders. They cheated the nation;
they betrayed the confidence placed in them; they
helped themselves and their cronies to get rich;
they looted the nation's entitlements and proceeds
from resources; they forced their control on the
media, the army and all government posts and locked
the whole nation in the grasp of their power
struggle.
Barzani and Talabani divided the nation into two,
not ideologically but as a consequence of a power
struggle that developed around these two despicable
and selfish figures. They suffocated or
undermined every voice for reform and change and
silenced every goodwill aimed at justice and
fairness. Not only are they disinclined to do good
for the masses, but they remained as obstacles
standing in the way of good deeds and good
initiatives. |
Rauf Naqishbendi |
People expected to realize national
recognition embodied in a truly sovereign Kurdish
state that would be recognized internationally.
Instead, Barzani and Talabani created a phony
government unrecognized and meaningless in the eyes
of the rest of the world.
The list of atrocities Barzani and Talabani has
committed against Kurds is long, atrocious, and
painful to disclose. People in Kurdistan used to be
communities of people upholding the sanctity of
their country and their land. They were proud of
their origin and their national identity and without
it they would have been liquidated like many other
nations in Mesopotamia. To their consternation,www.ekurd.netBarzani
and Talabani interjected a culture of greed,
mistrust, and corruption. They have attempted to
root out every iota of patriotism to silence
national exigency, and to clear the field for
themselves to exercise cronyism, nepotism and
favoritism.
Prior to their ascendancy, people lived in a society
where they were taught to give and sacrifice
everything for the well-being and liberty of greater
commonwealth. They were encouraged to fight
injustice and the enemies of humanity. They revolted
and sacrificed for decades. They endured suffering,
destruction, bloodshed, mass slaughter, mass
imprisonment and genocide. While all that was
happening, Barzani and Talabani and their families
were provided protection and they were shielded from
harm's way. They lived abroad. People sacrificed
painfully and greatly while their leaders lived
normal lives. Barzani and Talabani lived like kings
and princes, they never rendered any personal
sacrifices. They were never jailed, or were
persecuted. They contributed nothing from their
personal coffer to assist the cause they led. They
lost nothing and gained everything. Sure, they
haven’t been Nelson Mandela or George Washington.
Now more than ever before, there is a dividing line
between them and the rest of the people. While
people fear return of dark days and dread another
genocide, Barzani and Talabani are comforted because
they can flee the country when it happens, as they
did before. They have stashed away enough money in
the banks abroad where they can live comfortably for
generations.
The injustice has gone too far and needs to be
corrected or the Kurds can expect a reoccurrence of
their past tragedies. This dark cloud created by the
debilitating immorality of unethical leadership must
be cleared or an impending and shocking calamity
will reverberate throughout the entire Kurdistan,
and what awaits on the horizon will be far more
devastating than even Saddam’s genocide.
Saddam bombed Kurds with chemical and biological
agents and bulldozed alive hundreds of thousands
during his Anfal campaign as part of his genocide
practice against Kurds. Saddam was a fanatic Arab
nationalist, and now instead of one fanatic Arab
nationalist there are two tyrannical Kurdish leaders
who are undermining the well-being of their people
to serve their evil personal ambition for power and
their greedy love for money and wealth. They
distributed all public land to their cronies and
their family members, they
placed their friends and family members in the
highest public offices. They ignored the
difficulties of the struggling middleclass and the
hand-to-mouth existence of the labor force. They
created an atmosphere of unaccountability even as
they talked of transparency.
People need clean water and electricity, adequate
healthcare and a schooling system, dairy farms, dams
to provide drinking water and meet the needs of
farmlands, and industrial projects to create jobs.
Instead, the corrupt leadership built expensive
high-rise apartments, exclusive shopping malls,
extravagant hotels and golf courses, all of which
are beyond the common people’s affordability and
tailor made for their own family members and
cronies.
There has never been an instance in Kurdish history
where so much money has been appropriated to the
Kurdistan region, with so little to show for it. And
despite the vast sums of money appropriated, people
remain helpless and overly dependent on others for
their needs. There has been no historical precedence
where so much money has been looted from the people,
while so much wealth has been created to benefit the
leaders. Barzani and Talabani and their families
will forever be the disgraceful historical figures
remembered for their total lack of morality and
their utter irresponsibility.
Too much has gone wrong and for too long under
Talabani and Barzani. It's about time for people in
Kurdistan to act, to right the wrongs, and to react
to the injustices visited upon them to bring
sensibility, sanity and responsibility to a
corrupted social and political structure. Reform
alone will not be enough. There must also be a
change in leadership. The intent of reform is to
correct what has been mistakenly undertaken. But
here we are dealing with a wicked leadership that
has been looting the nation, a leadership that
betrayed the nation in the past and continues to do
so now. These leaders have committed treason against
an innocent nation and they must be dealt with
within the legal frame work and brought to justice.
Newroz, the Kurdish New Year is pending. Should
these corrupted leaders not be set aside, then Kawa
and His Hammer may be needed. There are kings to be
uncrowned, despots to be buried, justice to be
rendered, wrongs to set right.
Rauf Naqishbendi is a contributing columnist for
Kurdish Websites, American Chronicle ,
americanchronicle com and has written
Op/Ed pages for the Los Angeles Times. He has just
completed his memoirs entitled "The Garden Of The
Poets" which reads as a novel depicting his
experience and the subsequent 1988 bombing of his
hometown with chemical and biological weapons by
Saddam Hussein. It is the story of his people's
suffering. Rauf Naqishbendi is a software engineer
in San Francisco Bay Area.
Copyright, respective author or news agency
The contents of this article reflect the author's
personal opinions.
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