Welcome to this week's edition of Global Q&A. Today we are speaking with Mr. Kani Xulam, director of the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship. Mr. Kani spoke to us about the plight of the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
...FPA: How will a move against Iraq impact this part of the country?
KX: Of course you can't tell the future of war, but my hunch is that it is going to hurt the Kurds badly, that what we have gained may go up in smoke. From what I am hearing, the U.S. government is saying that even if Saddam attacks this region with chemical and biological weapons, that the U.S. government will not retaliate, but will only do so at a time of its own choosingŠ
FPA: I read that Donald Rumsfeld vowed last week that he would protect the KurdsŠ
KX: What he said was that the U.S. government will retaliate at a time of its own choosing, reminiscent of 1996 when Saddam moved in, then President Clinton attacked southern Iraq. In between, there has been 9/11, which has changed things dramatically. Call me a pessimist if you will, but the U.S. government's position is wanting in terms of what Washington says relative to protecting the Kurds. The number two-man at the D.O.D. went to Istanbul and said that the U.S. is against the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern IraqŠ
FPA: Paul WolfowitzŠ
KX: Right, which is basically saying to Turkey not to worry about it, we are not going to let the Kurds enjoy freedom. It also means that if someone amenable comes into power in Baghdad, the Kurds will be left to the mercy of the regime there. Saddam just happened to have crossed the wrong path with the current U.S. administrations, but if a new regime does what the U.S. wants it to do, the Kurds will be at his mercy. In Iraq we can't speak of a culture of tolerance, or of accommodation with the Kurds. The freedoms we enjoy now rest on very thin ice. We could lose them all. This, by the way, happened accidentally. It isn't like there was a plan to protect the Kurds. In 1991 when thousands of Kurds were fleeing to the mountains, the media covered it and the elder Bush felt compelled, because France and Britain had felt compelled, to protect the Kurds. So the present accommodation came about, and is apparently costing U.S. taxpayers roughly 1 billion per year. The Kurds are not that important to U.S. policy makers to be spending that much money on the no-fly zones. The future looks bleak. Dark clouds are gathering over the skies of Kurdistan and Iraq. My hunch is that the regime in Baghdad will be toppled, and a new regime will come in, but the Kurds will be left at its mercy.
FPA: Currently, there are two major factions in the region, the Kurdish Democratic Party, led by Mustafa Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani. What are the objectives of the two groups? How does each perceive a post-Saddam Iraq?
KX: They had a conference here in early June and both are basically saying that they want a federal solution to the situation that exists in Iraq. They want internal control over the whole area to the degree that they would have representation in foreign countries. No Kurd, if he knows he could have a secure future, would say that they want to live under an Iraqi government. So they feel constrained. Kurds feel obligated to the U.S., which is obligated to Turkey, that no Kurdish state should emerge. So they are going for the next best thing - some kind of federal system, some kind of autonomy. They are trying to have U.S guarantees that oil-rich cities, some of which used to be predominantly Kurdish and are now being Arabized by Saddam, will remain under their control. Present Kurdish leaders, despite their differences, are saying that local revenues should be used in Kurdistan, and that Kurds should have their own judges and their own constitution, and only nominally be part of Iraq since that is what the U.S. and Iraq's neighbors want. I don't know how much of that they will be able to get. Basically, they will be content with the March 11, 1970 agreement, which Saddam signed, but basically as a ploy to crush the Kurds, which he later did in 1975. There is a lot of politicking going on....
<http://kurdistan.org/Our_Views_and_Iraq/nolan.html> *****
***** The Prostitution of Freedom and the Kurds
Kani Xulam October 6, 2002
For months now, I have been waiting for someone -- either from the left or the right, from somewhere -- either from America or Europe, to rise up to the defense of freedom, which came under a merciless attack in Istanbul, Turkey. The man who engaged in this wicked act was no other than a representative of the United States. The "scholarly" hawk, as the Time Magazine described him, could not have chosen a better venue for his harangue. The assembled Turks -- who would not have recognized freedom if it hit them on the face -- gave him a rapturous applause and were especially moved to hear him utter a couple of Turkish words expressing his government's appreciation of its relationship with his hosts. Thank God, his pronunciation was grotesque; otherwise, he might have easily been hailed as a Turk. And the honor, having read most of his statements on Turkey, would have tickled him to death. And if that had happened, the Kurds would have had no tears for him, but knowing the Turks, the American representative would have been declared a martyr for the fatherland, and his statues would have gone up all over Turkey, including the place of my birth, the Turkish misruled Kurdistan. No one would have respected them though. Everyone would have jeered them. The marble or the rock that would have been used to chisel his likeness would have been a definite waste.
Paul Wolfowitz is the name of this man. He is the second in command at the Department of Defense. His staff describes him as an up and coming new star in the firmament, one whose luster -- hold your breath -- should soon match, nay, surpass the likes of Henry Kissinger. Journalists who have spent time with him describe him as an affable man. He is said to hold views that oppose the torturing of al Qaeda members in America -- the only good thing that I have read about him....
The content of his address in Istanbul makes this abundantly clear. The operative word in his lecture was expediency. He conveniently forgave the Turks for their past and ongoing sins -- the man thinks highly of himself and forgives as well as consigns entire peoples to pedestals or oblivions as he sees fit -- and hailed them as paragons of virtue, freedom, and democracy. Such pandering or begging is rare in the annals of human history. When one runs into it, it is usually in the form of a modest address from the representative of a weak nation to a great one for need out of desperation. In Istanbul, it was America that stooped before Turkey. Why it did so goes beyond Washington's need for allies in the coming war. Most of it, I suspect, has to do with Mr. Wolfowitz's own insecurities, such as his involuntary need for cringing, his subsequent penchant for domination, and his love of instant gratification. With such captains in the poop, the future bodes ill indeed for the ship called America as it now makes forays into the heart of the Middle East....
[W]hat was sounded in Istanbul was onward with the dictators, semi-dictators or anybody else who would cooperate with Washington to make the world safe for America, not freedom and liberty. Mr. Wolfowitz had the temerity to say, "A separate Kurdish state in the north [Iraq] would be destabilizing to Turkey and would be unacceptable to the United States." Freedom, if history has to serve as a guide, has only destabilized the tyrants. But in Istanbul, an American, speaking in Orwellian language, stood, defending Saddam's rule, or his successor's, over the Kurds. If I were Saddam, I would have raised a glass of champagne for the unexpected support from Mr. Wolfowitz. As a Kurd, I could not help but ask the obvious, what was the source of this paternalism? Can a man, be it the representative of the United States, really set a timetable for another people's freedom? Can anyone on the face of the earth tell the sun not to glow, or a river not to flow, or a sapling not to grow? The Yankees threw the yoke of taxation to establish the United States without taking into considerations the views of the power brokers in Paris, Vienna and Moscow. The Kurds saddled with cultural genocide in Turkey, subjected to gas attacks in Iraq, sorry Mr. Wolfowitz, are not going to look for your permission, nothing personal, or anybody else's for that matter, to secure a future of freedom and peace for their children....
<http://kurdistan.org/Our_Views_and_Iraq/wolfowitz.html> ***** -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>