These are desperate days for the world’s 20 million Kurds. Their history stretches back 4,000 years, yet they have never had a country to call their own. Today about a third of them live in southern Turkey; the rest are strewn across parts of Syria, Iraq and Iran. Over the years, foreign friends have been all too ready to stir up the Kurds against their rulers. But they have been just as ready to forsake them. No government cares to challenge Turkey’s current crackdown on its Kurdish rebels. And Saddam Hussein seems to be winning a financial and psychological war against his Kurdish enemies. In London this week, Save the Children Fund will issue a report charging that “another betrayal of the Kurds-a gradual, quiet, creeping betrayal” already is underway.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which apparently organized the assaults in Europe, has been waging a guerrilla war against the Turks for nearly a decade; more than 6,200 people have died in the struggle. Last March founder Abdullah Ocalan, who runs the Marxist organization from Lebanon, renounced his goal of establishing a separate state and offered to negotiate with the Turkish government. Ankara ignored the overture, and in June, Ocalan changed course again, declaring all-out war. The new government of Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, the first woman to hold that post, is carrying out a massive counteroffensive.
Turkey is a key Western ally; the Americans and West Europeans could not support the PKK, even if they were inclined to do so. But there is, arguably, a moral obligation to the 3.5 million Iraqi Kurds, who rebelled against Saddam in 1991 at the urging of George Bush. The Iraqi Kurds have dutifully helped the Turks fight PKK terrorism while at the same time trying to build an alternative inside Iraq to Saddam’s dictatorship. Now American and allied warplanes patrol the skies above a “safe haven” in northern Iraq, protecting Kurdish rebels against retaliation by the Iraqi dictator. So far, the air cover has kept him at bay. But Saddam has massed tanks and troops on the Kurdish border, surrounding Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, on three sides. U.S. officials in the region concede that their warplanes could not stop him from overrunning the rebels if he wanted to. He has sent hit squads to terrorize foreign relief workers, killing two of them this year. He has cut off most of the Kurds’ imported supplies of food, fuel, medicine and other essentials. Saddam has also sabotaged their economy by invalidating pre-gulf-war Iraqi 25-dinar notes, which account for about one third of the rebels’ currency.
_B_No choice:_b_For the moment, the Iraqi Kurds still have one economic asset: a bumper harvest of grain is on the way. Their government wants to buy the grain and distribute it to the population, nearly half of which has been reduced to total indigence. But that would cost about $50 million, and so far, foreign donors have provided only $6.8 million. Without more help, many Kurdish farmers will probably sell their grain to Saddam-who will pay them in currency he can render worthless whenever he wants. That leaves the Iraqi Kurds with no good options. Massoud Barzani, one of their top political leaders, warns that his people may have no choice but “to become refugees in Turkey and Iran, or to surrender to Saddam.” Surrender does not come easily to the Kurds, in Iraq or in Turkey. But, sadly, they look more and more like history’s losers.
title: " The Kurds Are Suffering " ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-24” author: “Martha Boney”
These are desperate days for the world’s 20 million Kurds. Their history stretches back 4,000 years, yet they have never had a country to call their own. Today about a third of them live in southern Turkey; the rest are strewn across parts of Syria, Iraq and Iran. Over the years, foreign friends have been all too ready to stir up the Kurds against their rulers. But they have been just as ready to forsake them. No government cares to challenge Turkey’s current crackdown on its Kurdish rebels. And Saddam Hussein seems to be winning a financial and psychological war against his Kurdish enemies. In London this week, Save the Children Fund will issue a report charging that “another betrayal of the Kurds-a gradual, quiet, creeping betrayal” already is underway.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which apparently organized the assaults in Europe, has been waging a guerrilla war against the Turks for nearly a decade; more than 6,200 people have died in the struggle. Last March founder Abdullah Ocalan, who runs the Marxist organization from Lebanon, renounced his goal of establishing a separate state and offered to negotiate with the Turkish government. Ankara ignored the overture, and in June, Ocalan changed course again, declaring all-out war. The new government of Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, the first woman to hold that post, is carrying out a massive counteroffensive.
Turkey is a key Western ally; the Americans and West Europeans could not support the PKK, even if they were inclined to do so. But there is, arguably, a moral obligation to the 3.5 million Iraqi Kurds, who rebelled against Saddam in 1991 at the urging of George Bush. The Iraqi Kurds have dutifully helped the Turks fight PKK terrorism while at the same time trying to build an alternative inside Iraq to Saddam’s dictatorship. Now American and allied warplanes patrol the skies above a “safe haven” in northern Iraq, protecting Kurdish rebels against retaliation by the Iraqi dictator. So far, the air cover has kept him at bay. But Saddam has massed tanks and troops on the Kurdish border, surrounding Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, on three sides. U.S. officials in the region concede that their warplanes could not stop him from overrunning the rebels if he wanted to. He has sent hit squads to terrorize foreign relief workers, killing two of them this year. He has cut off most of the Kurds’ imported supplies of food, fuel, medicine and other essentials. Saddam has also sabotaged their economy by invalidating pre-gulf-war Iraqi 25-dinar notes, which account for about one third of the rebels’ currency.
_B_No choice:_b_For the moment, the Iraqi Kurds still have one economic asset: a bumper harvest of grain is on the way. Their government wants to buy the grain and distribute it to the population, nearly half of which has been reduced to total indigence. But that would cost about $50 million, and so far, foreign donors have provided only $6.8 million. Without more help, many Kurdish farmers will probably sell their grain to Saddam-who will pay them in currency he can render worthless whenever he wants. That leaves the Iraqi Kurds with no good options. Massoud Barzani, one of their top political leaders, warns that his people may have no choice but “to become refugees in Turkey and Iran, or to surrender to Saddam.” Surrender does not come easily to the Kurds, in Iraq or in Turkey. But, sadly, they look more and more like history’s losers.
