Kurds living in countries such as
Syria,Turkey and Iran now dare to dream as they
observe the new-found privileges their brothers in
Iraq now enjoy. But theirs is a much harder
battle.
It took an American invasion of
Iraq to open the door to the freedoms now enjoyed
by Kurds in that country. Their fellow Kurds face
other unique obstacles and circumstances in the
countries they live in. And though they see Iraqi
Kurds as their benchmark to greater freedom, they
all have different views of how their futures
might look. Whatever autonomy they envision in the
short term, most see such freedoms as a stepping
stone to a real Kurdistan.
The Kurds of
Syria have long complained that many of them were
deprived of their citizenship in a controversial
census conducted
by the pre-Ba'ath regime of
president Nazim al-Qudsi in 1962. Since then,
Syrian Kurds have been demanding citizenship,
rather than autonomy like their brothers in Iraq.
In March 2004, wanting to make their voice heard,
they rioted throughout Syria, vandalizing private
and public property.
Weeks after the
Kurdish unrest, the political play, The Day
that Baghdad Fell, was shown in Damascus. In
one scene, a Syrian Kurd and a Syrian Arab discuss
politics (in a comical way) while waiting at the
doctor's clinic. The Kurd praises the US, saying
he will stand by and watch if the US military
attacks Syria. It was the US, after all, that had
secured autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991 and
maintained it since 2003. It was the US that
brought international attention to the Kurdish
problem after the first Gulf War in 1991. The
reason for his negative attitude, he says, is
discrimination against the Kurds and their
maltreatment in Syria. The two men quarrel, then
eventually make up in high drama, and the Kurd
turns into a Syrian nationalist saying that he too
will fight for Syria if the US tries to invade. He
recounts a long list of famous Kurds who assumed
senior office in Syria, including the late
moderate cleric, Mufti Ahmad Kaftaro (who had
called on worshipers during the Iraq War in 1991
to take up arms against the invading US).
True, in real life the Syrian Kurds might
fight for Syria. But there are Kurds in Syria who
simply do not feel Syrian. This also applies to
Kurds in Turkey and Iran, who feel neither Turkish
nor Iranian but simply "Kurdish". All of them have
been looking at their brothers in Iraq and seeing
what kinds of privileges they are getting in Iraqi
Kurdistan. The Iraqi Kurds emerged victorious in
the January elections, secured continued autonomy
for Iraqi Kurdistan, propped up their leader Jalal
Talbani as president in Baghdad and made the
Kurdish language official in Iraq. This has
triggered the imagination and aspirations of the
25 million Kurds in the Middle East and the
Persian Gulf, mainly Syria, Iran, and Turkey. They
now wish that they too can secure autonomy for
themselves, a stepping stone toward creating the
real Kurdistan.
Kurdish unrest in
Turkey
The Kurds are the dominant
minority in Turkey, comprising nine million of
Turkey's 60 million population. Turkey alone
contains more than 50% of what the Kurds demand as
the real Kurdistan. Many of the Turkish Kurds feel
more Kurdish than Turkish. Some have taken on a
Turkish identity to avoid persecution, to
assimilate in society or to attain senior posts in
government or private sector. The Turkish
government has banned the use of Kurdish in
schools and on radio and TV, as well as prevented
Kurds from giving their children Kurdish names.
Violation of these laws results in up to five
years' imprisonment. Kurdish political parties in
Turkey are officially banned and their leaders
have been arrested, exiled or killed. The Kurds
have been a nightmare for every Turkish leader
since the break-down of the Ottoman Empire at the
end of World War I. Turkish governments crushed
Kurdish rebellions in 1925, 1930 and 1937-1938.
Neighboring countries such as Iran, Iraq
and Syria have exploited the Kurdish problem in
Turkey, mainly to pressure consecutive regimes in
Ankara, and to keep the Kurdish wolf away from
their own doorsteps. Even neighboring Greece has
exploited the Kurdish problem and assisted the
Kurds, to weaken Turkey in the fight over Cyprus.
The main threat to the Turks is the infamous
Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK - Partia Kakaren
Kurdistan), founded in 1978, and its leader,
Abdullah Ocalan. According to Robert Olson's book
Turkey's Relations with Iran, Syria, Israel,
and Russia, 1991-2000, Turkey spends an
estimated US$8 billion a year to combat the PKK
insurgency. An estimated 200,000 troops have been
commissioned to fight the Kurds. The BBC reports
that more than 30,000 have been killed in Turkey
due to the Kurdish-Turkish War that has been going
on since 1984. Dozens of villages have been
bulldozed and thousands of Kurds uprooted. This
huge military spending has caused public outcry
among Turkish politicians who claim this money
could be spent on education, health, social
development and industry, rather than on the
military.
The argument in Turkey says that
if the government allows limited educational and
social freedoms to the Kurds, then they will
demand more, as is the case in Iraq. The Turks do
not want to face a situation where the Kurds are
officially bargaining for autonomy or complete
independence. After coming to office in 1989,
president Turgu Ozal (of Kurdish origin) tried to
solve the problem peacefully by engaging in
dialogue with the Kurds. He lifted some of the
restrictions on language and allowed its limited
use in conversation and music, abolishing the ban
on Kurdish in 1991. He died suddenly while in
office in 1993 before solving the Kurdish crisis.
Former prime minister Tansu Ciller also tried to
solve the problem peacefully after coming to power
in 1993, by trying to permit the Kurdish language
in schools and on TV. Her proposal was turned down
by the government and by her own True Path Party.
The country trying to exploit the Kurdish
problem in Turkey the most is Syria, which never
imagined that one day it too would face a similar
Kurdish problem. Along with Iraq, it allowed the
PKK to set up a base and launch attacks inside
Turkey. Damascus, Tehran and Baghdad supported PKK
leader Ocalan, who lived for many years in Syria
and had bases in Rezhan and Ziveh in Iran. Ocalan
did not call for autonomy - he wanted an
independent Kurdistan. With 5,000-10,000 fighters,
he attacked government property in Turkey and
slaughtered Turkish officials, in addition to
ordinary Turkish citizens living in Kurdish
districts. Whenever pressure became too strong
from the Turkish government, the PKK would flee
into neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan. At two points,
the Turks raided the Kurdish parts of Iraq, once
in 1992 with 20,000 troops, and once in 1995 with
35,000. They even promised to defend the Iraqi
Kurds against now-deposed Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein if the Kurds allowed them to enter Iraqi
Kurdistan and hunt down fighters of the PKK.
Naturally, the Iraqi Kurds refused. Defeated, the
Turks were forced to grant cultural concessions to
the Kurds in 1991 but refused to recognize Kurdish
political parties.
In many ways, this Arab
alliance with the Kurds in the 1980s and 1990s
explains why Turkey today enjoys such a strong
friendship with Israel. The Jewish state is the
only country in the Middle East without a Kurdish
population. Israel has generously supported
Turkey's war on the PKK, hoping that by doing so,
it would secure for itself a new friend in the
Middle East. In fact, the alliance between Tel
Aviv and Ankara came at the height of PKK
operations, when the countries signed a "Military
and Training Cooperation Agreement" in
February-August 1996. This alliance has been
strongly criticized by Iran and Syria, who have
failed to realize that it resulted directly from
their exploitation of the Kurdish problem in
Turkey.
Today, like no time in recent
history, anti-Americanism is soaring in Turkey.
The Turks supported the US war on Iraq in 1991 and
allowed the US to use military bases in Turkey. In
exchange, at the time, the US extended a defense
agreement between Washington and Ankara, and
increased financial and military aid to the Turks.
Many attribute the current animosity to the
legality of the war on Iraq, which many Turks saw
as unjustified. This may be a prime reason, but as
well, many Turks are enraged that the US has done
nothing to crack down on the PKK since it launched
its war on terror in 2001. To the Turks, the PKK
is no different from al-Qaeda and Ocalan is no
different from Osama bin Laden. The Turks have
drawn parallels between Kurds rioting in front of
Turkish embassies worldwide after Ocalan's arrest
in 1999, and possible riots today in front of US
embassies worldwide if bin Laden is captured.
Although they have different ideologies
and different objectives, the PKK and al-Qaeda are
two terrorist organizations that have done nothing
but terrorize civilians and kill innocents. To the
Turks, PKK activities since 1983 are no less
horrendous than the September 11, 2001 attacks in
New York, the March 11, 2004 train bombings in
Madrid and the July 7 subway attacks in London.
Not only has the US not lifted a finger to help
Turkey fight the PKK, it unintentionally
encouraged Kurdish separatism in Turkey by
maintaining autonomy of the Kurds in Iraq after
the downfall of Saddam in 2003.
The reason
for the gap between many Turks and the US is that
some Turkish officials and politicians support
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist paramilitary
organization, thereby destroying any international
or US support they may have elicited against the
PKK. Yet the Turks do not understand that the US
cannot, and will not, ever go to war against the
PKK. Why should they stick their necks out for the
Turks, if this would jeopardize their already
shaky standing in Iraq? The Kurds, after all, are
the US's prime ally in post-Saddam Iraq.
The current leaders of Iraq and Iraqi
Kurdistan, Jalal Talbani and Masoud Barzani, were
one-time allies of Ocalan. Although they
disapproved of Ocalan's willingness to kill so
many innocent Turkish civilians, they nevertheless
shared a common objective in creating Kurdistan
and cooperated extensively at certain times in the
1980s. They are the ones maintaining the status
quo in Iraq in favor of America. They have a
tremendous affection for the US, crediting George
W Bush and his father for their autonomy and for
ridding them of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.
This is the same reason why the US will never push
too far against the Shi'ite Hezbollah in Lebanon
or the Shi'ite regime in Iran. The Shi'ites of
Iraq are also prime allies of the Americans.
Fighting the Shi'ites of Lebanon or the mullahs of
Tehran would enrage the Shi'ites of Iraq.
Overnight, they could withdraw their allegiance to
the Americans and join the Sunni-led insurrection.
The US would never fight a Shiite-Kurdish-Sunni
insurgency in Iraq.
Since the fall of
Baghdad in 2003, the Iraqi Kurds have said they
fear a Turkish military attack in Kurdistan. The
Turkish Army did threaten the Iraqi Kurds when
they began demanding control over Kirkuk, the
oil-rich city in northern Iraq that the Kurds want
as a new capital instead of Arbil. Below Kirkuk
sits more than 10 billion barrels of oil, which
the Kurds are now claiming as their property. In
October-November 2004, it was reported that the
Turkish army had began planning for an invasion of
Iraq in 2005, with no less than 20,000 troops, to
bring a halt to Kurdish demands.
The plan,
however, never got past the drawing board. One
sign, however, that the Turks are now dealing with
the Kurdish problem in a more rational and
civilized manner is a visit recently made by
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to
Diyarbakir, the principal Kurdish town in Turkey.
From there he declared, "the Kurdish problem could
not be solved through purely military means". He
added that "the Kurdish problem is everybody's
problem, but above all mine!" He was appealing to
the Kurds, in a historic statement, effectively
saying that the Kurdish plight is a national
plight for all Turks. If one reads between the
lines, however, his statement means that the
problem is a Turkish problem and will be solved by
the Turkish government.
Secession for the
Kurds is still not an option for the Turks. This
shows that Ankara is starting to have second
thoughts about the Kurdish problem and how to deal
with it. Diyarbakir, underdeveloped compared to
the rest of Turkey, is the only place in Turkey
where the prime minister needs at least 4,000
security personnel to guard him.
Kurdish
regions in general are neglected by the central
government, receiving no more than 10% of state
industrial investment and only 2% of commercial
investment. Unemployment is high and so is
neglect, simply because the region is Kurdish.
While the prime minister was there, demonstrations
took place praising Ocalan. Violence did not break
out because a senior PKK official had ordered his
followers not to disrupt Erdogan's visit. Part of
Erdogan's policy is to make regional friends with
former enemies who are suffering from the same
Kurdish problem. This explains Turkey's newfound
friendship with Syria and Iran.
Meanwhile,
Syria has cracked down on Kurdish political
parties, especially those associated with Iraqi
Kurdistan, and Iran has arrested 20 PKK terrorists
over the past 12 months. Defeated and lacking
strong leadership since the arrest of Ocalan in
1999, the PKK has greatly reduced its military
activity, concentrating instead on running the
Kurdish Parliament in Exile (KPE) in Brussels,
which was created in April 1995. It thrives on the
thousands of Kurds living in Europe. Germany alone
has about 400,000 Kurds, France has 60,000 and
Sweden has 10,000. Smaller numbers are scattered
in Belgium, Great Britain, the Netherlands and
Italy. Dominated by the PKK, which the European
Union (EU) says is a terrorist organization, the
KPE has been ineffective in promoting the Kurdish
cause in Europe or advancing it in the Middle
East. Today, the problem of the Kurds is
relatively quiet in Turkey. Much tension was
defused when Ocalan's verdict was commuted in 2002
from death to life imprisonment, the Kurdish
language was allowed and pro-PKK members of
parliament were released. The situation flared up
again when the Kurdish movement appeared
victorious in post-Saddam Iraq, threatening a very
violent re-awakening of the Kurdish movement in
Turkey.
Kurdish unrest in
Iran
The Kurds of Iran, like elsewhere
in the region, have always advocated the creation
of Kurdistan, seeing themselves as a persecuted
minority (they are 10% of Iran's 68 million).
Their demands for limited autonomy, the right to
use their language, teach Kurdish at their schools
and appoint officials have all been turned down by
successive Iranian regimes. When the Islamic
revolution took place in 1979, many Kurds
supported it, seeing it as a window of opportunity
for them to obtain concessions from the new rulers
of Tehran. When the new clerics adopted a
no-compromise attitude no different from that of
the Shah, the disappointed Kurds took up arms in
March 1979. What they couldn't gain through
dialogue they hoped to gain through war.
One faction emerged, headed by the Iranian
Kurdish leader Ahmad Muftizadeh of Sanandaj (a
Kurdish town in Iran), who was willing to settle
for limited concessions from the former Grand
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The Kurdish
Democratic Party, however, headed by Abdul-Rahman
Qasemlu and other hardliners refused to accept a
compromise, demanding a share in the national
revenue of Iran - to be used for expenditure in
Iranian Kurdistan - and administrative autonomy
for the district. They also made the ongoing
Kurdish demand for having Kurdish as an official
language and demanded that all communication
between the Tehran government and that of Iranian
Kurdistan be made in Kurdish.
Local
security would be in the hands of the Kurds, but
national defense, foreign affairs, and central
banking would remain in the hands of the Iranian
regime. Khomeini curtly refused these demands and
fighting resumed in August 1979, six months after
the revolution broke out. More talks took place
under president Bani al-Sadr in 1980-1981. He said
he would accept Kurdish demands "with
modifications", but this also failed.
The
attention and force of the Iranian military was
diverted when it went to war against Saddam
Hussein in 1980. It was then fighting on two
fronts, the Iraqis on the border and the Kurds at
home. This weakened the Iranian military, and the
Kurds became strong in the Iranian countryside,
remaining in control until the government
retaliated with force in 1983. Widescale
persecution followed, and the Kurdish Democratic
Party was forced to move to Iraq, where it was,
ironically, received with open arms by Saddam
Hussein. Temporary alliances in the Iran-Iraq War
made the Iraqis welcome Iranian Kurds wanting to
carve Kurdistan out of Iran. It also made Iranians
welcome Iraqi Kurds in Tehran for wanting to
create Kurdistan out of Iraq. Both maneuvers
backfired.
A Kurdish revolt was brewing
against Saddam Hussein, as was another Kurdish
uprising against the mullahs of Iran. Bickering
and eventually fighting broke out within the
Kurdish movement in Iran in 1985, further
weakening the separatist movement. Hopes were
raised when president Mohammad Khatami came to
office in 1997 promising a high-profile reform
agenda. But with the US war on Iraq in 2003,
Iranian authorities came to believe that the Kurds
of Iran would now try to use the US against them.
An Iranian official told Time magazine: "These
Kurdish parties hope that the US will send their
soldiers to attack Iran, and that they will then
be able to play the same sort of role as Masoud
Barzani and Jalal Talbani. They told the
Americans, 'We can arm tens of thousands of men
and liberate Kurdistan.' But the Americans do not
want to provoke Iran, they know that we can exert
a big influence on the events in Iraq." The
newfound status of the Iraqi Kurds today, after
successfully winning the January 2005 elections,
packing parliament, and imposing their will on the
constitution draft, threatens to re-awaken the
dreams and ambitions of the Kurds in Iran.
The truth that troubles Turkey, Iran and
Syria is that Iraqi Kurdistan does exist today,
ruled by the warlord Masoud al-Barzani. It has its
own democratically elected parliament, military
(the Peshmerga), constitution, president, prime
minister and national flag that differs from the
Iraqi flag. There are Kurdish TV channels and
Kurdish newspapers. The Arab world still lives by
the romance of Arab nationalism, which has
dominated Arab hearts from the 1960s onward. Arabs
cannot accept that territory historically
considered part of Iraq should today be recognized
as a totally different entity that is non-Arab,
called Kurdistan. The Arabs, and many of the Arab
Iraqis in particular, do not understand that there
is no future in wanting to unite with a people who
no longer want to unite with them. Unity or
marriage between them is impossible because it is
an act to be decided upon by both parties. And
clearly, the Kurds do not want it. After enjoying
autonomy since 1991, they simply, will not give it
away. Some have accepted it as a fact, such as the
Sunnis of Iraq who are no longer trying to
challenge Kurdistan. Yet Kurdistan has encouraged
the Shi'ites of Iraq to demand autonomy for
themselves in the south. This might encourage
other groups, mostly minorities, to make similar
demands in the Middle East, further carving up the
region. The nationalists in the Arab world could
not bear to see that.
One alarming fact
that most Arabs do not know is that Kurdistan is a
prosperous haven for investment, democracy and
security. In fact, what it has achieved since 1991
is a total embarrassment for most Arab regimes.
The Kurds achieved in 14 years, undoubtedly with
the help of the Americans, what most Arab regimes
have not achieved in more than 20. Kurdistan has
its own Arbil International Airport, which
recently received its first flights from Dubai and
Amman. It was constructed on the air force base
Saddam used to attack the Kurds in 1988. Kurdistan
is filled with professional hospitals, modern
supermarkets, lavish restaurants and factories. A
BBC correspondent noted the massive construction
work taking place there, saying: "Everywhere you
look, bulldozers are at work. Things are booming.
People have money, people are spending it, they
feel its safe to spend and to build for the
future." A lot of the construction work is being
financed by Kurdish businessmen who fled Saddam's
dragnet in the 1980s and made successful careers
in the diaspora. Those wishing to invest are
exempted from taxes during the first five years of
business operation and facilities such as free
land are given to them by the Kurdish government
as encouragement.
Today, the Kurds are
concentrating on making Kurdistan a tourist
attraction for other Iraqis. They are constructing
a 28-floor luxury hotel in Sulaymaniyya. The
economic prosperity and safety of the Kurdish
towns, compared to the hellish conditions in the
rest of Iraq, has encouraged non-Kurdish Iraqis to
migrate to Kurdistan in search of better lives. At
first, the migration was confined to laborers or
unemployed young men who wanted to work at one of
the many construction sites dotting Kurdistan, but
today many educated professionals are making the
journey as well. It has been estimated that about
25% of ophthalmologists from Basra have
established medical centers in Kurdistan. In the
last two years, since the fall of Saddam in 2003,
about 40 Arab professors have gone to Kurdistan to
teach at the University of Sulaymaniyya.
The Iraqi daily newspaper Babil has
described Kurdistan in detail: "This is supposedly
an Iraqi land, but no one utters the name Iraq.
Here they use cellular phones called Kurdistell,
they watch Kurdish TV. Kurdistan has escaped from
Baghdad's grip since the end of the 1991 war, and
is protected by the American and British no-fly
zone. There are 30 registered political parties.
Its people argue that they enjoy freedom unknown
to neighboring countries. Unbelievable changes
have taken place here. Imagine, most of the
children born after 1991 do not speak Arabic."
At this stage, the most Kurds can aspire
to is to maintain their current status, which they
will, and to modernize Iraqi Kurdistan. Nobody is
seriously thinking of creating a Turkish, Iranian
and Syrian Kurdistan. Independence for the Iraqi
Kurds is on nobody's agenda since its price might
be too costly for a nation still ripped apart by
war and US inability to bring it back together.
Even President Talbani acknowledged that
independence of Kurdistan was not feasible, saying
in an interview: "The Kurds, like all other
people, aspire to self-determination. But facing
the reality, we [Kurds] recognize that this is not
possible. An independent Kurdistan cannot
survive." The realization, apparently, came a
little too late!
Sami Moubayed
is a Syrian political analyst.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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