The USA's plans for a post-Saddam Iraq includes a US run military government in Baghdad, and a Turkish occupation of South Kurdistan. SARAH PARKER reports
In 26 February it was announced • that the uS a reached on it.
Sic and military agreement with the Turkish cabinet, under which US troops could be stationed in Turkey and Turkey will receive £20 billion in 'aid'. The quid pro quo was that Turkey would be permitted to occupy more of South Kurdistan to establish a 'security arc' as far as 170 miles into Iraq. This would take Turkish troops almost halfway to Baghdad. Turkey claims that it is simply trying to prevent a 'flood of refugees trying to flee into
However what seemed to be a done deal was astonishingly overturned on March 1 by the Turkish Parliament, to the delight of anti-war campaigners. It remains to be seen whether embarrassed Turkish ministers can revive the plan, which follows the strategic line adopted by previous Turkish regimes.
it hadbeen planned that at the end of the war the Kurds in South Kurdistan will be disarmed, and that there would be no autonomy or independence for the Kurds. There was no guarantee (naturally) of how long the Turkish army would stay in South Kurdistan: the Turkish troops would be under Turkish command.
As the details became clear, the Kurds in the region and in the diaspora were stunned and very angry. Widespread armed resistance is predicted, even from the KDP and PUK (whose leadership might lose all their privileges under full Turkish occupation). Probably if the invasion happens, many people both men and women will go back to fight. Demonstrations and protests are already being organised in Europe (and no doubt elsewhere) under the slogan of "No Turkish invasion".
It goes without saying that this is a very dangerous development for the Kurds, since the Turkish state has been engaged in a project of genocide against the Kurds since 1925.
One trend amongst the Kurds is to ask for non-Turkish occupation/protection for South Kurdistan.
The practical answer to this is the trend which is in favour of self-defence and resistance. Of course many (not all) Southern Kurds have so far supported the US /British project of 'regime change, because they have suffered so much at the hands of Saddam Hussein; these events will make more people question this approach.
Any protest the Kurds make in the next - Syria (Top) Kurdish refugees make do in tents: Turkish tanks ready to move in couple of weeks will put more pressure on the US and Britain, strengthen the antiwar movement and make everything harder for Bush and Blair. Much of the anti-war public will support "No Turkish invasion".
The spin-doctors wanted the public to believe that the whole population of Iraq will welcome the invaders joyfully. For some months the news has tended to show the political leaders of the Iraqi Opposition cautiously going along with US suggestions for regime change, and putting forward scenarios in which the post-war Iraq will be a federation with autonomy for (roughly) Kurdish and Shia zones in south and north.
The impression was given that most people from South Kurdistan and Central Iraq would go along with this, and any opposition was played down.
But things are not so simple, and as on other fronts in the propaganda war, much of it is now unravelling. Some people have never conceded the right of the US and Britain to interfere again, given their past record of supporting Saddam Hussein and betraying (to give just one example the Kurdish and Shia uprisings at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Halabja Last week Rupert Murdoch's Times carried an excellent set of interviews with people in Halabja, who made it very clear that they do not trust the Americans and British, since they not only supported Baghdad at the time, but have done nothing to provide medical help to the 10,000 people still there who now have very serious long-term illnesses as a result of being gassed.
"Where have they been for 15 years?" they asked, remarking that the current fake concern for the sufferings of the inhabitants of Iraq is very recent. And across the world Kurds were present on the anti-war demonstrations, including 5000 in London,, even if the mainstream media did not choose to mention the fact.
Even before the announcement of the US/Turkey military agreement it had become clear that the KDP leadership were panicking because they thought the US would:
• give Turkey the green light to extend its occupation of South Kurdistan to include a big border zone and the oil centres of Kirkuk and Mosul;
• brush aside the Iraqi Opposition leadership in favour of Rumsfeld's personal friend Chalabi as president surrounded by US military and civilian administrators
• only remove the top layer of the Ba'ath Party, and actually allow the whole apparatus from the second tier down to stay in place and "maintain order"
The KDP leadership is protesting publicly about this including to foreign journalists who are on the spot, and predicting popular resistance. The KDP and the rest of the Iraqi Opposition have been discussing the prospects, including with their US minders; it is of course not yet clear exactly what will happen.
Word from the region suggests that the population are predictably terrified of a much-extended Turkish occupation. Events are moving fast. Even before the announcement of the US/Turkey agreement, in an Extraordinary session the Kurdistan Regional Parliament passed a resolution by
an overwhelming majority rejecting the entry of foreign troops in Kurdistan, following a resolution of the Turkish Parliament sanctioning the stationing of Turkish troops abroad and American troops in Turkey. In Sulaimaniyah on the same day most of the University students demonstrated and burned a Turkish flag. Worryingly one of the student leaders of the demonstration has now been arrested by the PUK security apparatus.
But, the KDP and PUK have also sent a letter to President Bush requesting 'US protection' from Turkish troops, and Barzani has issued a statement saying he believes the US will protect the Kurds from the Turkish army! North Kurdistan and KADEK In North Kurdistan the situation is worrying. 90 percent of Turkey's population is against the war, because they know it will bring only more grief and misery to the people of the
However the army and the AK party seem merely to be arguing with the US over the size of the bribe and how much of a free hand they will be allowed to crush the Kurdish movement in the South.
Imprisoned KADEK leader Abdullah Ocalan has not been allowed to see family or lawyers for nearly four months, in an open provocation; there is talk of reimposing recently lifted emergency rules in most of the Kurdish area and activists are still subject to repression.
KADEK, formerly the PKK, has recently stated that it will fight a defensive war if need be, alongside promoting continued peaceful mass struggle methods, as the Turkish official policy continues to be one o denial and repression, including the inten tion (if the US lets them) to sweep away the limited autonomy of the Southern Kurds.
The Kurdistan National Congress, ar umbrella organisation of about 30 politica organisations including KADEK has called or Kurds everywhere to oppose the occupa tion of South Kurdistan.
People in the anti-war movement need to think urgently about how they can relate t the resistance movement in Kurdistan. • See Kurdish Media website www.kurdmedia.com for news, views and discussion, including information from the region. • Public Meeting organised by London members of Kurdistan National Congress "Remember Halabja! No to War!" 7 pm Monday 17 March Grand Committee Room, Houses of Parliament. For more information contact [email protected]. • Contact Rebwar Fatah [email protected] for information about the activities of the Committee for Protection of Kurdish People which aims to assist with civil defence measures in South Kurdistan and also opposes the threatened Turkish invasion. • Kurdish sources claim that Turkey wants to take over the oil rich cities of Kirkuk and Mosul which produces one third of Iraq's oil • Turkey is expected to flood 60-80,000 troops into the territory upon the outbreak of war. • 10-15,000 of Turkeys troops would not be under any international command • The US has agreed to give Turkey $6 billion in grants and $24 billion in loan guarantees • Turkey claims that its troops will be in the Kurdish region to prevent a 'flood of refugees trying to flee into Turkey' • Kurdish leaders were not told of the plan, and had rejected an earlier notion of a narrow buffer zone. Sources in both Ankara and Washington agreed that it was 'pretty much a done deal". • Many Kurds believe that if they leave their homes in Kirkuk and Mosul they will not be allowed back again by Turkish troops. • The US and EU have refused Kurdish requests for gas masks and other protective equipment because they do not want to imply political recognition of Kurdistan Turkey is to receive early-warning chemical weapons defences from its NATO Dal tiCis
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18 soda stre ace March 2003