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London 28th October 2002
Open letter
to all Kurdish people and their friends all over the world
These days I would like to send best congratulations to all
Kurdish people for two important historical events that
constitute an encouraging beginning to establish a Kurdistan
state. First of those is the proximity of mercy killing of what
is left from the Iraqi authority in Kurdistan, which had been
effectively nonexistent since 1991. However, this time it will
be forever as the coming American strike would coincide with the
meeting of the united Kurdistan Parliament on 4/10/2002. The
most important thing in this historical meeting was its holding
under the sacred flag of Kurdistan for the first time, so many
congratulations and for that reason the Kurdistan National
Congress is intensifying activities and communications in this
sensitive circumstances to follow the events and latest
developments. To contact all major powers in the world,
governments, organisations and personalities as well as holding
meetings, conferences, seminars and interviews on radio and TV.
On 24/8/2002, the KNC organised an exceptional conference of its
UK branch. The conference received hundreds of letters of
support and congratulations, among which, from such
personalities as the symbol figure of liberty in the world Mr
Nelson Mandela, and from the head of British government Mr Tony
Blair. Mr Ghassan Karian, the Mayor of Hammersmith & Fulham (where
the conference was held), officially opened the conference. Dr
Jemal Nebez and Bruska Ibrahim (engineer) attended the
conference from Germany, and Dr Abdulrazaq Nimatullah from Italy,
there were also representatives of many parties and
organisations among them Mrs Bayan Salih representing the
Kurdistan Democratic Party, Mr Muhammad Qaradaghi representing
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Mr Abbas Rostam
representing the Communist Party of Kurdistan. In addition, the
committees of the KNC organised four public meetings during one
week and participated in a fifth meeting organised by Mr. Jalal
Barzani for Dr. Jemal Nebez in the city of Hannover in Germany
on 22/9. The other four were in the city of Dortmund in Germany
organised by Mr. Risgar Kasem and Mr. Marwan Ali on 23/9, in the
city of Mannheim in Germany organised by Ing. Swara Arif and Dr.
Shirwan Mohidien on 25/9, in the city of Zurich in Switzerland
organised by Mr. Hamid Suri and Dr. Fauzi Kaddur on 27/9 and in
the city of Milan in Italy organised by Mr. Dr. Azzat Saydo on
28/9. I also had two interviews on the Kurdish Radios in
Hannover and Zurich. The KNC also is gathering signatures from
Kurdistan and friendly foreign personalities and parties. Up to
now, we have received 1500 signatures demanding a Kurdish
representative in the UN. Anyone who wishes to receive the
letter addressed to Mr Kofi Annan, the General Secretary of the
UN in order to sign it, can print it from the internet from our
website on www.knc.org.uk, or from offices of the KNC all over
the world. And return it to us after signing as the KNC intends
to send all those signatures to Mr Kofi Annan soon.
Before getting to the point of this article I would like to
mention a short historical background. After the Ottoman Empire
was defeated at the end of World War I, the British and French
winners acquired the right to divide and share the previous
possessions of the losers such as the Turks and Germans.
Kurdistan was a part of the Ottoman Empire, and as according to
several treaties and agreements such as Sykes-Picot, Lausanne
and Saint Remo, the Arabs were divided into several states, the
Kurdish homeland, Kurdistan, was divided into parts, but without
forming any Kurdish states. Parts of Kurdistan were awarded as
an international colony to such artificially created states as
Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, and to the previous Soviet Union
as presents. Not even one inch of Kurdistan was left under
Kurdish administration. All this was carried out in such an evil
and disgraceful manner that no other people previously had been
subjected to such an unjust division. The situation became even
more complicated as since then i.e. during the cold war and
prior to it, the loyalties of those states sharing Kurdistan
were divided between those friendly to the United States of
America and those against her. As the world itself since was
divided in such manner, and the states occupying Kurdistan were
of both kinds, the whole world ended up against the
establishment of a Kurdish independent state in order to satisfy
those occupiers of Kurdistan one way or the other.
The Kurdish cause during the past hundred years has passed
various stages of difficulties, depending on the international
circumstances or the level of efficiency of the Kurdish
leadership. However, the Kurdish people in those years did not
have the national awakening, so while the Kurds were fighting
and showing their defiance, offering huge sacrifices in order to
carry out the will of the leaders or the international and
regional politics. We find that as soon as the leader of that
particular revolution is martyred or imprisoned, or decided to
stop leading the revolution, it is inevitable that what follows
is the collapse of the revolution until some other leader comes
and declares a new revolution. Thus because of lacking prior
planning and a clear programming from the start, the revolution
remained as something depending on chaotic circumstances.
The Kurdish people are courageous, generous people, who are
capable of unlimited sacrifices, but they have not put these
good attributes into a national frame considering the highest
national interest and national security of the Kurdish nation.
Had they put those aims into their prospective, they would have
set a program to end the persecution, extermination and
displacement imposed to the Kurdish people for ages. The
fulfilment of these aims has to be by establishing an
independent Kurdish state, and such Kurdish state will not be
reached by carrying arms against the occupiers as a reaction to
their killing, burning and distraction policies, and cooling
down or stopping the revolution whenever, for some reasons, the
occupiers stop their actions. The Kurdish people have not yet
started carrying the full national responsibility to plan for
the establishment of the independent state of Kurdistan.
Our homeland Kurdistan has a civilisation going back to
thousands of years. It is rich with resources and minerals as
well as its strategic position. These characteristics made
Kurdistan a target for regional and international ambitions.
Every Kurd should have his own share of this homeland. No one
should have larger or smaller share. Every Kurd for the homeland
Kurdistan and the homeland for every Kurd. A Kurd should not
decline his share and part of the homeland, and not to let
others think for him in finding solutions for Kurdistan's future.
It is time that Kurds have their say in what is right for
Kurdistan in its future to emphasize their position in the world
as a people with 40 million population still seeking national
independence and getting rid of colonialism and partition, and
make it clear that we are not a minority that lives in states
here and there begging for miser rights.
It is only because of the constant psychological war declared on
the Kurdish people by states and regimes that occupy Kurdistan
that since the World Word II, the Kurds are just asking for such
miser rights. Those regimes try their best to deform the Kurdish
identity and break their will by turning them into week and
wobbly personalities with no willpower in all aspects. That is
why some Kurdish organisations and personalities came to the
point that they mock the word independence and any mention of a
Kurdish state.
I stress that the powers that occupied Kurdistan had
succeeded largely in their psychological warfare against the
Kurdish people. In order to explain this I would like to bring
sum examples:
1-The Kurdish Prince Badirkhan Pasha defeated the Ottoman
Empire militarily 150 years ago and gained the independence for
his state for more than ten years, and issued Kurdish currency.
Also Prince Muhammad Al-Rawandozi who established a factory to
produce Kurdish cannons. And the King of Kurdistan Sheikh
Mahmood Al-Hafeed who declared the Kurdistan kingdom under the
bombing by British planes. All this and today we are under the
protection of the British and American planes without having
been able to declare such a state as Sheikh Mahmood did in the
beginning of the last century or issue Kurdish currency, or
produce cannons as our ancestors did centuries ago.
2-In 1912 a Turkish military division kidnapped Prince
Abdulrazzaq Badirkhan from the town of Tabriz, which is situated
in Iran. He was taken as a prisoner to Turkey, which was the
Ottoman Empire at the time. As soon as the renowned Kurdish
leader Ismail Agha Shikak heard this news, he rose to the rescue
of the Kurdish prince, although he was not related to him in any
way, tribally, regionally or politically. Simko Agha, as he was
popularly called, was not a head of state but he was a tribal
leader whose tribe Shikak, compared with other Kurdish tribes
may not have been among the biggest, however, the national duty
pushed him to enter Turkey leading a force of heroic Shikaki
musketeers to challenge the Ottoman Empire and ambush the
Turkish force, which surrendered. Simko Agha was about to kill
all the members of the Turkish force, if it was not for the
intervention by Prince Abdulrazzaq himself who asked him not to
do so. The prince was returned to Tabriz safe and free. This
incident has been documented in the tsarian Russia's documents
released recently. After one hundred years from that we see that
the Turks carried out a similar operation against the leader of
the Kurdistan Workers Party, Mr Abdullah Ocallan, however
instead of trying to free Ocallan, the Kurds torched themselves.
3-The founder of the Kurdish diplomacy, General Sharif Pasha
who was the only Kurd in Europe a hundred years ago, managed to
use his high ranked diplomacy to convince the peace conference
of 1919 in Paris, by writing his famous memorandum accompanied
by the flag and map of greater Kurdistan. His diplomatic actions
lead the allied forces to sign the famous international treaty
"Sevres Treaty" in 1920, which stated clearly the right for the
Kurdish people to establish their own independent state. Now
there are more than one million Kurds in Europe, but have not
managed anything like what was managed by General Sherif Pasha.
Thus if we want our state we have to identify the enemies of
the Kurdish people. In addition, they are those who occupy any
part of Kurdistan, however little that part. This way we can
also identify the friends of Kurdish people as those who are
outside this circle. We have also to prepare professional
nationalist force inside Kurdistan, and a Kurdish lobby
internationally to support the independence of Kurdistan.
However, the most important thing is to forbid killing any Kurd
by making it the basic principle as a sin that could not be
forgiven and to punish anyone who carries it out no matter how
long the time passes. Another point is the respect for free
speech. All these things are part of the national security of
the Kurds and the nationalistic ideology of the Kurds
established by all ancient writers and thinkers, first of whom
was the famous philosopher Ahmad Khani, and all the Kurdish
leaders who practised the Kurdish ideology in their everyday
life. There was a wonderful and true patriotic respect between
them, such as between the two glorious leaders, the martyr Qazi
Muhammad and Sheikh Mahmood Hafeed. Also as between the Barzani
sheikhs and Nehri sheikhs. Moreover, the national congress held
by Sheikh Ubaidullah Nehri, and Khoebun party that was
established after a general conference between all Kurdistan
personalities and organisations. This was a background for the
two parties J.K. and KAJYK. KAJYK put the nationalist ideology
into its philosophical frame. Although these organisations are
no longer active, their ideological momentum is still there and
strong. Because they were expressing the things that are in
conscience and soul of the Kurdish people. I would like here to
mention what the deceased leader Mella Mustafa Barzani said when
he received a complaint against the martyr Fatah Agha, commander
of Khabat forces (with about 6000 Kurdish freedom fighters, it
was one of the main military divisions of the Kurdish Revolution
1961-1975) that Fatah Agha and the leadership of Khabat forces
have turned all their members into KAJYK. Barzani asked the
complainer about what KAJYK is. He answered that: "KAJYK is
aiming to unite all parts of Kurdistan and establish a Kurdish
state". Barzani said: "How many are in the leadership of Khabat
forces". He was told: "Six." Barzani said: "From now on make
them seven." When asked who would be the seventh, he said:"Put
down my name with them, because what is better than uniting
Kurdistan and having our own state? This was the way the
glorious Barzani was responding to those sick people with bad
intentions trying to smear the symbols of faithfulness to the
nationalist ideology. It is worth to mention that during a half
century of its activities never happened that KAJYK collaborated
with any occupying countries of Kurdistan. I was honoured to be
a member of KAJYK until its activities were frozen in 1975.
Glorious Barzani was as a personality acting as a nationalist
umbrella covering the Kurdish people from all parts, and all
ideologies and political currents. This what I felt and saw when
I met Barzani himself on several occasions in the beginning of
seventies. However, the Kurdish liberation movement since
glorious Barzani lost its unity and dispersed into many parties
and power centres with no cooperation and fighting sometimes.
When I was in southern Kurdistan in 1982-1984, as a member of
the political bureau of PASOK party, and member of leadership of
the JUD Front, and when I arrived in Europe I became convinced
that it is impossible to put all the Kurdish people into one
party and no party could be ignored. That is why there was the
idea for a new nationalist umbrella organisation. In 1985, the
Kurdistan National Congress was established to unify the Kurdish
powers, with only one condition to join which is belief and
action for an independent Kurdish state. The KNC has a
characteristic of being managed and led by free independent
patriotic persons. Thus, it is completely forbidden that any
particular party might control the KNC, especially when there is
animosity between that party and other parties. As such a
Congress would inevitably fail because it would turn into a
party institution and not a national congress. However, the
Kurdistan parties would maintain their role and status in the
congress according to the constitution, which was published as a
book by the KNC along with several other books such as my
book:"Kurdistan and Kurds, a divided homeland and a nation with
no state" And the books of the founder of the Kurdish
nationalist ideology Dr. Jemal Nebez such as: "National Ideology"
and "The Identity and the Cause of the Kurdish Nation", and also
the book "Modernisation and Liberation" by Sheikh Omar Gharib
who explains Islam in a Kurdish way, saying among other things:
"it is not allowed to pray in an occupied land as Kurdistan".
And several other valuable books printed by the KNC or soon to
be printed to become text books in institutions for nationalist
cadres to be opened in all European countries.
The Western Kurdistan Association in London is one of the
organisations members of the KNC. It produced a number of
Kurdish films. One of those was "Asylum" in cooperation with a
British company about the situation of Kurdish refugees in
Europe. The director of the film, Mr Nigel Barker, asked me:"Can
you describe a Kurdish refugee?" I told him: "Here in Europe
there are refugees from all over the world all of whom have
their passports with their nationality indicated in them, except
for the Kurds who had no Kurdish passports and no independent
state. Even dogs and cats in Britain have necklaces indicating
their kind, but the Kurdish people with population of 40 million
have no document stating that they are Kurds. Therefore, we
Kurds have not reached the status of dogs and cats in your
country." Mr Nigel was impressed with this and said: "It is a
wonderful image, and I will use it in the film, because it would
raise the feelings of the Europeans in favour of the Kurdistan
cause." The film will be shown soon on the British TV and
European and other international movie festivals.
I did not hesitate to say the above regarding Kurdish
refugees because the Arabisation, Turkisation and Iranisation,
as well as actions such as burning 380 Kurdish children in
Amouda city and killing Kurdish people of Halabja city, using
chemicals used to exterminate rats. In addition, destroying
Kurdish villages while displacing their population to no
particular place are all methods, which are no longer used even
against wild or domesticated animals. I have contacted animal
rights organisations in Europe several times to mention that
Kurds as humans are facing extermination as many animal species.
I was told that is right, however, we are specialised in
defending animals only. I would say which one is more important
and they answer of course the human being but we defend the
animals because they have no tongues to defend themselves and
express their suffering. Thank God, we are humans and have
tongues to express our tragedy and demand our Kurdish state. I
am sure if 40 million Kurds they say what is in their mind it
would be enough to gain our independence. At the same time we
need the great powers in the world to support our demand.
This is what the KNC is aiming for to find a common language
in expressing the aspirations of the Kurds and Kurdistan. The
events after the September 11 catastrophe are accelerating, and
the Kurdish people have the chance because the USA are
determined to strike at the axis of evil represented by Iraq
Syria and Iran. Recently Turkey has been partially isolated from
the American plans and little by little approaching the axis of
evil. Therefore, it is time that the Kurds stand in one front
and show the Americans that they are an axis of good. Moreover,
the axis of evil has been using the resources of Kurdistan to
empower themselves, so, the best way to weaken them is by
establishing the greater Kurdistan state.
In these circumstances, I would expect that soon America and
the UN would ask the Kurdish people the following questions:
1-What do you want? The answers will come in dozens of forms,
starting by democratic rights or cultural rights, or social
rights, to decentralisation or autonomy, or federalism, or co
federalism, up to a Kurdish state. Some would say that the
countries occupying Kurdistan are artificial states and
aggressors, others would regard those aggressors as brothers of
the Kurdish people and the problems between them are merely
internal, therefore those stand against any foreign
intervention.
2-Who is your leader? There would be a long list of names.
3-What are the colours of your flag? There would be several
flags. Some saying it is the same historical flag used by
General Sharif Pasha, General Ihsan Noori, Prince Jaladat
Badirkhan and Qazi Muhammad. This is the same flag used by Mr
Masood Barzani in the Kurdistan parliament and all over
Kurdistan. However, some would use it without a sun in the
middle or put a red star instead. There are also some who put a
sickle and a hammer as the Kurdistan flag..
4-What are the geographical features of Kurdistan? There are
different maps such as the one issued by the Kurdish Institution
in Paris or Kurdish Institution in Berlin, or geographers in
other countries who published dozens of maps. Unfortunately,
none of them is like the other as some of them make Kurdistan
very small and others make it big etc.
5-What is the population of the Kurds? Some would say 25
millions or 30, or 40 millions and others like Mr Bashir Mushir
would say the number of Kurds is 80 millions and if you do not
believe me go and count them!
Thus, such kind of things cannot be settled without a
national organisation such as the KNC to re-establish the
national umbrella that covers the entire Kurdish people, so that
the Kurdish people would have a central point of reference.
We should have one program and one political language to
communicate with the international community. We should carry
out a general referendum under the monitoring of the UN. In
order to get our state, we have to prepare for it by forming a
government in exile to represent 40 million Kurds and use the
opportunity to move into Kurdistan. The intended government in
exile would not contradict the government in Southern Kurdistan
but a complementary one. We are also working towards convincing
the UN that the Kurds should have representatives as monitors
such as the Palestinian people and Polisario who also have no
state. Up to now the members of the UN rely on the enemies of
the Kurdish people, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey to give them
information regarding the Kurds, which is an unnatural
situation.
Certainly, no one thinks that Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran
are stronger and larger than the Soviet Union, and it is time
that they should be abolished, and by establishing a Kurdish
state, they would return to their normal sizes.
Using dialogue, diplomacy, unity of the Kurds and
international law we shall gain our independence.
What is giving optimism is the relief of the tension between
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Democratic Party of
Kurdistan, and the united meeting of the Kurdistan Parliament,
which gives us a hope to take advantage from the international
situation. I congratulated the united Parliament in my interview
with Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 2/10/02, when I asked to add to
the unity of Parliament the unity of the armed forces by
creating a national Kurdistan army. I agree with Mr Jalal
Talabani when he said: "If the Iraqis or others come to
Kurdistan for trading or visiting we welcome them, but for
occupation we don't". Moreover, with Mr Masood Barzani saying: "If
the Turkish army enters Kurdistan, we would turn Kurdistan into
a graveyard for the Turks". Our independence is bound to our
unity.
The stage covered by the writing of the US Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger is part of that era and namely the time of
September Revolution 1961-1975 under the leadership of Mella
Mustapha Barzani in Southern Kurdistan.
Southern Kurdistan was annexed to the Iraqi state after bloody
battles between the British forces and Iraqi forces on the one
hand and the Kurdish forces led by the King of Kurdistan Sheikh
Mahmood Al-Hafid, who was injured in one of those battles and
captured. He was then exiled to India, while Iraq itself had no
king and the English were forced to bring a prince from Hijaz,
Prince Faisal Bin Sharif Hussein, and appoint him as a King in
Iraq and that part of Kurdistan.
Since 1918, the allied forces had admitted the national
aspirations of those minorities of Ottoman Empire as they were
mentioned in President Wilson's peace program: "The non-Turkish
minorities within the Ottoman Empire should be given a real
opportunity to practise their own independence away from any
intervention or influence." Also the article 22 of the League of
Nations states: "The method to achieve these principles is
through creating the mandate system." Those directions in
addition to efforts from General Sharif Pasha resulted in Sevres
Treaty, which was enforced on the Ottoman Sultan in 1920 to
recognise a Kurdish state. However, Mustafa Kamal managed in
1923 to use his manoeuvres and deception to replace the Sevres
Treaty with Lausanne Treaty, which did not mention anything
about a Kurdish state. But the Mosul Wilayet was not included in
this treaty and was left to negotiations between Turkey and
Britain as the country with the mandate on Iraq, to decide its
fate. Those negotiations failed to get a result and the case of
Mosul Wilayet was referred back to the League of Nations, which
in turn gave it to Iraq on the following condition:
"The rights of Kurds should be considered to appoint
administrators of Kurdish ethnicity to manage the affairs of
their country and carrying out judicial affairs and education in
schools, and Kurdish language should be an official language."
In 1931 when Iraq was trying to join the League of Nations, and
to show good intentions, a law was introduced regarding the
local languages. In 1932 after the end of the British mandate
and acceptance of Iraq as a member of the League of Nations,
Iraq announced these principles again in an official statement,
which was given the power of constitution and forwarded to the
League of Nations to be considered as an international document.
Perhaps one of the most important documents of that era was the
joined statement of Iraq and Britain of December 1922, on the
eve of the negotiations regarding the Lausanne Treaty, which
stated:
Her Majesty's government and the government of Iraq admit and
recognise that the Kurds have the right of coexistence within
the Iraqi borders and have the right of establishing a Kurdish
government within these borders. The two governments hope that
the Kurdish sides concerned come to agreement among themselves
in regard to the form of this government and the borders they
want it to cover, and to send their negotiating representatives
to Baghdad to discuss their economical and political relations
with Her Majesty's government and the Iraqi government".
The founding of the Iraqi Republic in 1958 was also a large
quality step in this regard, as the Article Three of Iraqi
constitution stated that: "Arabs and Kurds are partners in this
homeland"
Obviously, partnership means in reality a state, because a
real partner, whose interests are not satisfied, can dissolve
the partnership so that each partner may be free in his own
land.
With regard to the historic document known as the
announcement of 11 March 1970, we can confirm that it was a big
achievement for the September revolution and all Kurdish people
in general.
However, all those treaties and announcements became
worthless after the crimes of mass extermination, which were
committed by the Iraqi government against the Kurdish people.
Such crimes include especially the chemical attack on the town
of Halabja on 16/3/1988 and the Anfal operations of autumn 1988
during which 182,000 Kurds were exterminated.
On this basis Iraq violated the conditions by which Kurdistan
was affiliated to it, which was to allow a Kurdish government
and respect the national rights of the Kurdish people. Instead,
the government of Iraq had committed, intended, and planned
crimes of mass murder against the Kurdish people and thus Iraq
has lost its right to rule Kurdistan both on legal or
humanitarian purposes. It was not only Iraq that opposed the
aspirations of the Kurdish nation, but also Turkey, Syria and
Iran were and still share and support Iraq in this regard. Even
during the Iraq - Iran war, the two countries were exchanging
information about the activities of Kurdish organisations. All
those countries that occupy a part of Kurdistan are against each
other almost in everything, but they always agree on one thing,
which is not to allow the Kurdish people to obtain any ethnic
rights.
Unfortunately, many other neighbouring countries support those
anti-Kurdish tendencies without any consideration to the fact
that the Kurdish people are demanding only their just right of
having their own state and identity, which will eventually be
achieved for sure, as it happened to Algeria against France or
the United States against Britain in their struggle for
independence.
I must here point to the fact that there are many honest
Arabs, Turks and Iranians who believe in an independent Kurdish
state, among them first of all is the Libyan leader Moamar
Al-Qaddafi, who has been advocating for more than a quarter
century to: "let the Kurds to establish their own state". The
Turkish academic Dr. Ismael Besikci has spent many years of his
life in Turkish prisons because of his supporting stand with the
Kurds and his book entitled: "Kurdistan - an international
colony". There is also the Arab thinker Dr. Abdulhussein Shaban,
who stated in an article of the newspaper Media, the organ of
the National Democratic Union of Kurdistan, that: 'any Kurd that
does not believe in a Kurdish state is an idiot person". The
Iraqi opposition activist Mr Mishan Al-Jibury stated in an
interview with Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel, with evidence
and arguments that: "I support a Kurdish state because it is not
against the Arabs." The Iraqi Islamic scholar Dr. Muhammad
Al-Mahdi wrote an article in Al-Tayyar Al-Jadid newspaper,
issued by Mr. Sami Faraj Ali in London during the eighties of
the last century entitled "A smaller Iraq is a stronger Iraq".
The Egyptian Islamic scholar Dr. Fahmi Al-Shinawi has stressed
in his articles and letters the rights of the Kurds as an
Islamic duty. One of his letters was to the Second Kurdistan
National Congress in 1991 in London in which he said: "There is
no Islamic unity without a Kurdish unity", and many other honest
and courageous people.
During these international circumstances there have been many
historical leaders such as the late Mella Mustapha Barzani, who
is a legendary figure and one of those classic Kurdish leaders
of the Kurdish people, who stands side by side with such greats
of the Kurdish nation as Sheikh Saeed Peeran 1925, Sheikh
Mahmood Al-Hafid 1919, Qazi Muhammad 1946, General Ihsan Nouri
Pasha 1927, General Sharif Pasha Khandan 1919, Prince Bedirkhan
the Great 1842, Ismael Shikak (Simko Agha) 1930, Prince Muhammad
Rawanduzi 1826, Sayed Raza 1939, and others, as well as Apo
Osman Sabri 1905-1993, the founder of the political struggle
school, Prince Jeladet Bedirkhan 1951, who founded the Kurdish
alphabet, and Dr. Jemal Nebez, who put the philosophical frame
to the Kurdish nationalist thinking, and many others who were
activists for the independence of Kurdistan.
The late Barzani asked the United States for support for the
independence of Kurdistan, as he asked all the super powers in
the world whenever he had the opportunity. Although he was the
leader of Democratic Party of Kurdistan that was demanding only
autonomy for Kurdistan, he was in reality not only that or a
leader of the Kurds in Southern Kurdistan; he was in fact a
national leader of all Kurdish people. Barzani was indeed a
representative of the Kurdish nation's conscience, as he
participated in 1946 in establishing the Republic of Kurdistan
in Eastern Kurdistan; and led several Kurdish uprisings in
Southern Kurdistan; mainly and the longest standing was the
September Revolution of 1961. His national practice was always
an expression of what was his feeling, for example: he appointed
Prince Kamiran Bedirkhan, who was from Northern Kurdistan as a
first representative of the September Revolution; Dr. Ismat
Sharif Wanli as a second representative who was from Western
Kurdistan. In addition, the most confidant and favourite writer
and poet of the late Barzani was Hazhar Mukriani, who was from
Eastern Kurdistan.
Indeed Barzani was a national leader and represented the
aspirations of the Kurdish people for independence. This is
exactly what is stated in the memoirs of Henry Kissinger on page
23. The fact that the independence of Kurdistan was not achieved
was not at all a fault of Barzani, but the international
circumstances prevented it, especially the cold war between the
Soviet Union and the USA, which escalated to divide their
influence in the areas such as Vietnam, Algeria, Palestine,
Congo, Cuba etc.
The fate intervened to prevent the fulfilment of Barzani's
dreams, when the American president Richard Nixon was impeached
in 1974 after the Watergate scandal, as President Richard Nixon
was concerned with the Kurdish file more than any other previous
president of the USA.
It is clear that the memoirs of Mr Henry Kissinger throw
lights on many angles and positions regarding the September
revolution and its international and regional relations, many
parts of which remain unknown. It is our duty to uncover all the
details in order to benefit from that rich experience in the
future to fulfil the dreams of the late Barzani for the
independence of Kurdistan. In order to achieve the independence
for Kurdistan we have to know all strong or weak points in our
history of uprisings. It is only through the weapon of science
and knowledge, and by creating honest, courageous and
knowledgeable national cadres, we can achieve a Kurdish state.
For the loyalty to Kurdistan is achieved through knowledge of
Kurdistan itself.
Jawad Mella
President
Kurdistan National Congress
|
17:34
, 14 May 2006]
