Human Rights Watch on Kurds

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sun Oct 20 20:35:27 PDT 2002



>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>>My own charge against Human Rights Watch is not that it
>>is "_neglecting repression_ of the Kurds in Turkey" but that it
>>actually went so far as to help persecute them, for instance by
> >pressuring the Italian and other governments to prosecute Abdullah
>>Ocalan for "crimes against humanity,"
><http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/jan/tur0120.htm>).
>
>Umm-- Yoshie, that statement was made in the context of also having opposed
>extradicting Ocalan to Turkey where he faced the death penalty. Ocalan is
>not equivalent to the Kurdish people-- he is a murderer and admits as much.
>Trying him as an individual under international law is hardly helping to
>"presecute" the Kurdish people.
>
>--Nathan Newman

If Abdullah Ocalan is a murderer, so was George Washington, Toussaint L'Overture, or any other independence leader who led an armed struggle. What made HRW refuse to call for indictments of any Turkish political leader, any other Kurdish leader of any other faction, or any US president, while calling for prosecution of Ocalan by the Italian government, rather than demanding that Italy give him asylum (as Italian center-left politicians argued)?

You may not have noticed, but Ocalan's arrest sparked militant "demonstrations by Kurds all over Europe," duly noted by BBC, CNN, and other hard-to-miss sources: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/214527.stm> & <http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9902/16/ocalan.protest.01/>.

Kani Xulam of the American Kurdish Information Network issued the following statement then:

***** KANI XULAM, akin at kurdish.org, www.kurdistan.org Director of the American Kurdish Information Network, Mr. Xulam said: "There's a war against the Kurdish people in Turkey. Turkey gets its helicopters and jet fighters from the U.S. and Europe. If it didn't get these weapons, it would have made peace. But as it is, Ocalan's repeated offers for dialogue and cease-fires were ignored. When you don't have talks, more violence ensues. Kurdish fighters -- thousands of them -- may fight to the bitter end."

<http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR021799.htm> *****

Here's a list of relevant articles from AKIN: <http://kurdistan.org/Articles/>.

What Kurds in Turkey and diaspora wanted and what HRW wanted concerning Ocalan, the PKK, etc. were in stark contrast. While the latter was arguing for prosecution of Ocalan, the former were protesting his arrest. -- 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/>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list