[lbo-talk] US Pressures Kurdish Guerrillas To Disarm

Dwayne Monroe idoru345 at yahoo.com
Mon Oct 13 09:50:20 PDT 2003


The situation in northern Iraq between the US, Turkey and the Kurds bears careful watching.

The Kurds, at least those whose words we read in news stories, appear to have great faith in American intentions. As night follows day it is inevitable that the faithful will be disappointed by their powerful friends. Sooner or later.

The mistreated who had faith are more ferocious than those who were never fooled.

Another whirlwind in waiting.

DRM

....

Kurdish Guerrillas Dealt Another Blow U.S. now pressuring group to disarm

By James Rupert STAFF CORRESPONDENT

October 12, 2003

Maradu, Iraq - In a steep, rocky ravine high in the Qandil Mountains, hard on the border with Iran, Osman Ocalan and the disciplined fighters of the PKK guerrilla group keep alive a 30-year-old campaign: civil rights for the 15 million or so ethnic Kurds of Turkey.

Their redoubts are impressive. Defensive tunnels are bored into cliff faces, generators in the mountain streams spin electricity, and satellite dishes and computers connect the guerrillas to the outside world. The men and women shouldering Kalashnikov rifles are trained and educated.

But the revolution has gone badly. The PKK (or Kurdish Workers' Party) fought a 15-year war against the Turkish army that earned both sides reputations for brutality and turned 4,000 Kurdish farming villages into lifeless ruins.

Worse for the PKK, it seemed to sign on to losing ideas at every turn. It held to its founding Leninist ideology for nearly a decade after communism collapsed elsewhere. It tried to advance its cause by shooting or bombing tourists in Turkey and Turkish diplomats - and was condemned by the United States and others as a terrorist organization.

[...]

full at

http://tinyurl.com/qps6

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