Exode (des Kurdes d'Irak) - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RIVISfA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETi
..variöi.1s..regïmés. sometimes even"turning'
their guns on one another.
'
Farman Mohamed. an Iraqi Kurdish
rebel, named his daughter Sevres after the
1920 Treaty of Sevres that supported a
homeland for the Kurds in the postwar
carve-up of the Ottoman Empire. Resur-:
gent Turkish power blocked that plan.
Now. like many Kurdish families, Sevres
and her fatherare divided by a national
border, During Saddam Hussein's lethal
poison-gas attacks on the Kurds in 1988.
she and her mother fled to Iran. Her father.
a geologist. hid out in the mountain
caves with the guerrillas who call themselves
pesh Merga- We Who Face
Death.
Saddam Hussein tried everything to
obliterate these Kurdish rebels: razing
some 5.000villages so local sympathizers
couldn't feed them; burning hundred-yearold
walnut trees and choking springs with'
concrete so theycouldn't live off the land;"
deforesting the hills to eliminate hiding
places. But all this, and even the chemi-'
cals. didn't end a struggle for autonomy (
that has gone on now for 100years. sometimes
as hit-and-run guerrilla operations,'
sometimes as full-blown war.
As soon as allied bombs began falling
on Baghdad, Kurds began trickling back
across the mountains, infiltrating their old
villages and planning rebellion. Hussein:
Sinjari. a British-educated Iraqi Kurd, had,
abandoned his business suit last August for.
a PesQ Merga sash and assault rifle. and"
made his way from London to Kurdistan. ,
"I lived in the mountains, like a goat." he
says, "sometimes fighting but mostly talking."
The talk, in a series of secret meetings.
brought once-fractious Kurdish factions
into a united front. It also persuaded.
Kurds collaborating with the government
to throw their support behind a rebel uprising.
Helicopter Diplomacy
Now Mr. Sinjari, like many Kurds. feels
betrayed: President Bush urged Iraqis to.
overthrow Saddam Hussein, and then, at ..
'theheight of the Kurds' brief and success--
fui rebellion, the U.S. permitted Saddam,
Hm;sein's use of helicopter gunships. Re-".
bellion turned to rout. . • .
The sense of abandonment felt by Kurds;
is all the more bitter for being familiar. In'
the early 1970s,Henry Kissinger and the
Central Intelligence Agency worked with,-
the shah of Iran to back a stmilar Kurdish',
revolt. The 1976congressional Pike report
on the clandestine activities of the CIA
gives a telling assessment of. how the
Kurds were used.
"Neither the foreign head of state [the
shah] nor the president and Dr. Kissinger
desired victory for our clients," the report
reads. "They merely hoped to ensure that
the insurgents would be capable of sustain-.
ing a level of hostility just high enough to;
sap the resources of the neighboring state":
of Iraq. It adds: "Our clients, who were:
encouraged to fight, were not told of this
policy. It was a cynical enterprise. even in
the context of a clandestine aid operation....._...__
. _~ ..... ,
7 8
, 'Iif Màrëh'I975. the U.S. and the shah
abruptly dumped the Kurds. The Iranian
border was closed to them in exchang~ for,
'Iraqi concessions on the Shatt al-Arab border
line. The Kurds retreated, embarking
on the same exodus into exile they are reo'
peating today.
Little-Known Cause
Even now, though. most Kurds remain
pro-Western. "If the Americans want a
•force to balance Shiite fundamentalism,
they will find it in us," says Mr. Sinjar!.
..Most Kurds say they are committed to democracy
as the only way to safeguard
their rights. especially in Iraq, which they
recognize is a fragile patchwork of minorities
Ėven though the Kurds are five times
as numerous as the Palestinians, and their
quest for self-determination is in some
ways analogous, their cause never has
drawn the same degree of international attention.
One reason, perhaps. is that the
mainstream Kurdish guerrilla movements
never have resorted to the international
.terrorism embraced by some Palestinian.
groups. Yet the Kurds regularly face the
most brutal of repression.
At an Iraqi prison in Sulimanyia. a socalled
raping room exemplifies the organized
brutality used against Kurds. The
small, prefabricated building stands in the
prison grounds. a pile of traditional 'Kurdish
dresses and women's underwear dis-
.carded at the door. Inside is only a single
dirty mattress. Women prisoners were
brought here as part of their routine of tor-.
ture, former prisoners say. Male prisoners'
were forced to watch, the rape of sisters,!
mothers or fiancees.
Arab states have remained mute about
this brutality to fellow Muslims. But under
Iraqi repression, Kurds themselves often
use the Palestinians as an analogy for
the.lr own plight. A teacher describes how
she used Palestine to teach .the forbidden
history of Kurdistan. She would show pic.
tures of Israelis blowing up a Palestinian'
house. "I would say, you know how they,
destroyed it?" Her students. having seen~
Saddam Hussein level their own villages,
would chorus "Yes! We know."
Now. the U.S. administration is under
increasing pressure to show that it has
some plan to aid Saddam Hussein's opponents.
"It is one thing not to support the
breakup of Iraq. It is another not to bring
pressure to bear on Saddam Hussein to
stop this slaughter of women and children,"
says Rep. Tom Lantos, co-chairman
of the congressional human rights caucus.
Amid the mounting pressure. State Departe
ment officials this week began meeting'
with Iraqi dissidents. including, last night,
a Kurdish representative. But at the same
time the department's spokeswoman emphasized
that the U.S. wasn't altering its
policy.
Some U.S: supporters of the Kurds nöt~
sardonically that the session may be coming
too late. "These meetings," says Peter
Galbraith. a Senate Foreign Relations
Cot\mitte.e aide,~migb_U'ive a whole new.
meaning to the word post-mortem.". .
International Herald Tribune
.Apri151991
As Kurds Press
Borders, Iran
And Turkey
Appeal for Aid
. Co"mpi/edhy 'O;;rsïQjj F,omD;spù,ches :
NICOSIA - More than I million
Kurds fleeingthe civil war in
Iraq pressedagainstthe bordersof
Iran and Turkeyon Thursday,anq
both countries said thev would
need international assistance tô
deal with the crisis.
; Britain and France. the leading
'Europeanmembersof thecoalition
that overwhelmedIraq in the Gulf
war. urged a more aCiiveWestern
role in trying to save the Kurds,
whose newest uprising stemmed
from the allied triumph. But none,
of the allieswasopenly advocating
renewedmilitaryintervention,
The Bushadministrationcontin--
ued to insistthat it wouldnot inter-.
fere in Iraq's internal affairs.
Kurdish rebels in northern Ira,!
..IndShiiteMuslimdissidcntsin the'
south were still engaged in scat-,:
tered fighting with government,
troops, the State Department reo'
ported. But."in sum,SaddamHus-,
sein is now in control of all tht:,
major towns in Ira4," Richard A,
Boucher. the State D~partmenl.
spokesman.said in Washington,
Iran saidThursdaythat a million.
Kurds had massedat the Iranian
border town of Nowsud, and i~
pleaded for international help té
care for them,
. ,Turkey said it was already pro':
vidinghavento 100.000 Iraqi refu-'
gees and could not cope with the
largegroupsthat wereapproachmg'.
the country. Turkish offiçialscsti-'
mated that at least 250,000IraqiS,:
most of them Kurds, were massed.:
along the frontier. with more fol<
lowing,.
As many as 3 million Kurds are,
believedto befleeingthe townsand.
cities of northern Iraq, fearing'
chemical attack or other reprisals
from Iraqi forcesloyaito PresidenL
Hussein. Iraqi forces have used
poison gas against Kurds in past
.uprisings. :
PresidentTurgut Ozalof Turkey:
said in an interview with British;
televisionthat his country did not
.'havethe resourcesto handi!;large.
1----", rnrmbers-of-additiön-alrefu'ge-es".
The Turkish governmentclosed
the.border with Iraq on,.W.e4nes~
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