Kurdistan and the
Black Sea
SOVIET
UNION
Gulf crisis
TURKEY
Caspian:
'Sea
Ruwandiz:
• Tehran
SYRIA
Kirkuki
Sanandaj
Baghdad
IRAN
IRAQ
Euphrates R.
SAUDI
ARABIA
KUWAIT
Persian
Gulf
Area where
Kurds live
0
Miles
300
JF
KURDISTAN is a country the size of France with 25 million inhabitants and a centuries long history. The great majority of the Kurdish nation however is divided between Iraq,
Turkey, Iran and Syria. The struggle of the Kurdish people for their national self-determination has been violently repressed in all these countries. This denial of Kurdish identity and nationhood has been backed up by the big powers who arm these states and by the international institutions. What has been the Kurdish reaction to the Gulf crisis? The French Trotskyist paper Rouge interviewed representatives of five Kurdish parties in Paris for its issue of October 11, 1990. The interviewer was Michel Morel. ROUGE
NOBODY could wish for a war today" says Ahmad from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) from Iraq. "That would mean the deaths of thousands of civilians. But can the Saddam problem be resolved without war? If yes, then nobody is opposed, but personally I do not believe that. The embargo will not make the dictator see reason. We are ready to ally with the devil to get rid of Saddam."
Iraqi Kurdistan has been destroyed. Thousands of villages have been razed to the ground and a million and a half Kurds live in camps surrounded by police. There is no family which has not seen at least two children tortured or killed in the fighting. "The invasion of Kuwait gives the Kurdish people an opportunity. If Saddam Hussein is overthrown then everything is possible."
"Saddam Hussein will be even more dangerous in five years if he is allowed to continue" explains Bayar who represents the Iraqi Democratic Party of Kurdistan. "The DPK is a peaceful party which defines itself between socialism and communism, but we are defending the rights of the Kurdish people. We did not choose to take up arms, we have been forced to do it."
In 1970, Saddam Hussein signed an agreement with Mustafa Barzani, "historic" leader of the Iraqi Kurds. Saddam recognized thereby the autonomy of Kurdistan, promising that regional institutions would be established within four years.
In 1974 Saddam reneged on these promises, following a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, which had before 4 then been favourable to the Kurds. After that the Shah of Iran supported the
Kurds, with the agreement of the USA. However the Shah also signed a treaty with Iraq, in 1975 in Algiers, and dropped the Kurds. In 1983, Turkish elite troops moved in to clean up the Kurdish frontier regions, with the agreement of the Iraqi regime. At the same time eight thousand of Barzani's troops were arrested and taken by the Iraqi army to an unknown destination. Their fate remains undiscovered. In 1988, some 5,000 men, women and children were gassed.
Military scenario cannot be rejected
"There are only two solutions for getting rid of Saddam Hussein. The regime could be overthrown from within or the issue can be resolved by military intervention." Bayar insists "one cannot reject this last scenario." At the same time he is against the permanent presence of foreign troops in the region and states that he has no illusions in the imperialist powers. The Kurdish people have been among their primary victims.
And when, for the first time, he was received by the French president François Mitterrand recently, he stressed that a real change of attitude would only be credible on condition that the Kurdish question and its peaceful solution was recognized as an issue.
Since the defeat of Barzani in 1975 the Kurds of Iraq and Turkey have been separated by thirty kilometres of no man's land where the villages have been destroyed, the trees cut down and the water supplies blocked up. Troops have orders to fire on anything that moves.
Azad Hoguir, an official for the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (NLFK) in Turkey, condemns Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. But he believes that this is merely a pretext for the imperialist powers, whose intervention has nothing to do with international law. "When Baghdad attacked Kurdistan with chemical weapons in recent years there was no protest. Today, the region's problems cannot be resolved by military intervention. On this level, the imperialists will do not better than the Iraqi regime."
Only the progressive forces of the region itself can contribute to resolving the Palestinian question, the Lebanese dilemma or the Kurdish problem, according to Azad Hoguir. But these forces are too weak and are unable to offer an alternative to the governments that presently exist.
Popular protests coincide with Saddam's policy
The popular protest movements in countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Syria, or Palestine against the intervention of foreign troops in the Gulf tend therefore to coincide with Saddam's policy. "They nonetheless express a legitimate anti-imperialist desire and must be supported." The occupation of Kuwait may create favourable conditions for the Kurdish struggle. If Saddam falls for example, the Intifada in Turkish Kurdistan ( see IV 184) led by militants of the NFK might find support from the Kurds of Iraq.
In Turkey, the front has been supporting the movement against the military intervention, and it has taken part in demonstrations to this end organized in Europe. "The Turkish state is preparing for war. It
International Viewpoint #193 • October 29, 1990
hopes to profit from the deployment of Western troops to strengthen its ties with the West, get new credits and justify its own state-fascist policy in Kurdistan."
Last April the Turkish government introduced decrees censoring the press, and restricting the right to strike. Some 250 villages have been destroyed by fire. Fighters, men, women and children have been killed and the inhabitants deported. On August 23 this year Turkey sent a letter to the General Council of Europe, in which it made it clear that these decrees "should be considered exempt from the obligations regarding human rights and basic liberties in the European Convention, because Turkey is involved in a war in South Eastern Anatolia." Use of the word Kurdistan is forbidden in Turkey. The Turkish regime, furthermore, wants to get its hands on the oil-producing Mosul region in Iraq — a Kurdish region.
The Kurdish Workers' Party (KWP) which leads the NLFK, fights for the independence of Kurdistan. It is a young party, founded at the start of the 1980s, which took up arms in 1984.
For Abdullah, an official of the Association of Kurdish Workers in France, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait cannot be justified. "We must force Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait by means of the embargo. If not, his regime will be strengthened. But as far as I know" , says Abdullah, "the United Nations has not supported the sending of troops in the region. The USA has taken the initiative at each stage."
He underlines the hypocrisy of the Western countries who have financed and armed Saddam's regime for years, and supported him in the war with Iran. Hussein has spent these years torturing, hanging and smashing all democratic forces in Iraq, apart from his murderous war on the Kurds.
Negotiations, not armed confrontation
"It is impossible either to be at Saddam's side or agree with the policy of the USA."Abdullah supports negotiations to resolve the region's conflicts, since armed confrontation solves nothing. But the people talking about a negotiated solution are completely ignoring the Kurdish question. This includes the UN which is meant to uphold the right of peoples to self-determination. "This is quite surprising."
"The outbreak of war in the Middle East would have very serious consequences for the peoples of the region and others. " The Association has taken part in demonstrations organized in France against the war.
At the same time Abdullah insists on the responsibility of the left and of democrats: they must make the Kurdish question known. A flag of the Socialist Party of Kurdistan in Turkey (SPKT) adorns one of the office's rooms. Some members
KURDISTAN Some Kurdish organizations
Political Union of Kurdistan (Iraq): A coalition of two currents, a more traditionalist current associated with the party leader Jalal Talabani, the other, the Komala, formally adhering to "Marxism-Leninism", Claimed to have 15,000 guerillas before the 1985 offensive by Saddam Hussein. Supported by Syria, the PUK demands democra-
Icy for Iraq and autonomy for Kurdistan.
Democratic Party of Kurdistan (Iraq): The organization of the historic Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani, and now led by his son Mashud
Barzani. Allied with Iran during the Iran/Iraq war. The party is based on traditional village structures, with the Barzanis being also relig-
Pious leaders.
Kurdish Workers Party/National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (Turkey) According to Fuat Orçun in /V#184, "Before the 1980 coup the KWP (PKK) was very isolated, owing to its authoritarian methods and its recourse to political violence as a way of dealing with political differences.... The violence was also directed at its own militants and sectors of the population that opposed it." Nonetheless, the PKK is the main Kurdish protagonist in the anti-government fighting in Turkish Kurdistan. A "Marxist-Leninist" organization with a pragmatic international line.
The Democratic party of Iranian Kurdistan: The largest Kurdish party in Iran, supported by Iraq during the Iran/Irag war. Calls for autonomy for Iranian Kurdistan within the framework of a democratic
Iran.
As is apparent from the accompanying article, Kurdish organizations are divided by the borders of the states they operate within — and are oppressed by. Often they apply the principle of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" , making alliances with regimes hostile to the one they are directly fighting. Nonetheless, the struggle for Kurdish self-determination, aside from its self-evident justice, presents a strategic challenge to the prevailing order in the Middle East. * of the Association are supporters of this party, some of the Communist party of Turkish Kurdistan.
The Kurds of Iran have not stopped fighting the Tehran government for ten years. Some 5,000 guerilla fighters (peshmergas) have been killed in battle and 50,000 civilians have died. Iranian Kurdistan is the last bastion of liberty in the Islamic republic. But the media suppresses the information. "The European public has not had the right to know about the struggle of the Kurdish people", , explains Azad, an official of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPIK). Mobilizing to save a family of emirs
"In principle, we condemn any annexation, but how can the world mobilize for a family of emirs? If there is really this desire to defend human rights, there are 25 million Kurds to think about. We have been the first to be affected by Saddam Hussein's policies.
"The rapprochement between Iran and Iraq is worrying for us. The West is on the way to making a big mistake." That is, out of hatred towards Iraq to normalize relations with Iran. It has also allowed the Tehran regime to do what it likes against the Kurds in Iran. "The
West is now ready to forget all (Iran's) crimes, its political prisoners and massacre of opposition." According to Azad, the Iranian regime is the worst in the region, and worse today than ten years ago.
The massive deployment of Western troops "is a very dangerous game. All the peoples of the region will pay the price for it. War would bring the absolute ruin of Iraq."
Personalizing a political problem
To eliminate Saddam is not the solution according to Azad. "This is not the first time that a political problem has been personalized in this way, as if the problem will go away if the individual concerned is ousted. It is almost impossible to imagine what the consequences of a concerted attack including the Islamic Republic of Iran would be. After such a war, Islamic fundamentalism would appear everywhere, like mushrooms."
The DPIK has not taken part in the recent peace demonstrations. "The solution to the Kurdish question is inseparable for us from condemnation of the war. If the demonstrations pose the problem of international negotiation to solve the proud support them."* region, then we 5
ALGERIA
Oil and solidarity