An Appeal to Kurdish Leaders, Parties and Kurdish People Everywhere:

By: Dr Kamal Mirawdeli

Feb 3, 2004

The Arbil massacre was very painful. It revived the horrors of genocide in the hearts of all Kurds. These people, our enemies, want to kill us. It does not matter if we are Muslims and behaving as Muslims. It doesn’t matter if we call them brothers and after 80 years of enslavement and thirty years of genocide we ask for reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. They just want us to be either slaves or dead. They want to kill us not one or two the way they kill the Americans but in tens, in hundreds, in tens of thousands as they used to do. Yesterday they used our own oil resources to buy bombs everywhere to massacre us and dump our little children alive in mass graves. Today they us their own bodies of hatred to eliminate us while we stretch the hands of friendship and reconciliation to them.

Now more painful than the Arbil massacre is the attitude of our American allies and in particular the statements made by Paul Bremer to Asharq Al-Awsat in an interview published on 31 January 2004.

If the content of Paul Bremer’s interview with Asharq Al-Awsat is true, and it sounds to be, then in addition to serious contradictions in Bremer’s statements, we now have a clear picture of what Bremer thinks about the people and cause of Kurdistan. In short, as far as the people of Kurdistan are concerned, Paul Bremer wants to be and is beginning to act as a new Henry Kissinger!

It seems that Mr Bremer sees his, and ultimately America’s, mission in Iraq, not as working to fulfill the liberation message which President Bush promised not just the peoples of Iraq but all the peoples of Middle East. He seems to be opting for a much easier, sinister but cowardly and immoral Kissingerite option: to betray and sacrifice the Kurds who have welcomed him and his fellow Americans as liberators with flowers on Kurdish streets and with Kurdish blood mixing with the blood of American soldiers in Kurdistan mountains and fields. And now the same way as the Americans are targeted and killed by terrorists and suicide bombers the Kurdish leaders and civilians are attacked and massacred in Arbil. The same as the Muslim fanatics demonstrated in South with slogans "La Ilaha Ila Allah, America is the Adu Allah" (No God but Allah, America is the enemy of Allah"., they demonstrated in Kirkuk with slogans "La Ilaha Illa Allah, Kurdistan is the enemy of Allah."

Yet Mr Paul Kissinger has that unusual moral courage to say to Asharq Al-Awsat that " We only support the demands of Kurds for some local authority. We will not support any law which will be an initiative to separate a part of Iraq!"

Bremer talks with highest regard about Ayatullah Sistani saying, " I have the highest respect for the views of Ayatullah Sistani. I think he has the same vision of President Bush for the future of Iraqi people." But he talks almost with contempt of Kurdish demands. Regarding the Kurdish leaders’ paper for limited federalism, which is any way not acceptable to the Kurdish people who demand no less than the right of self-determination, he has said to Asharq Al-Awsat, " We do not support ethnic federalism."

But Paul Bremer wants to go much further than Kissinger and even Saddam in denying any right of self-determination and liberation to Kurdish people. Saddam had accepted Kurdish self-rule for the last 12 years as a de facto situation. During these 12 years none of Iraqi laws and constitutional matters were applied to the Kurdish people in the three governorates controlled and run by Kurdish people. Iraqi National Assembly elections did not apply to Kurdistan. Referendum to re-elect Saddam as President did not apply to Kurdish region. Saddam’s only concern during that period was to complete Anfal (Kurdish genocide) aims. To Arabise Kirkuk, Mandali, Sinjar, Khanaqin and other areas of Kurdistan under his control.

Now Paul Kissinger does not want the Kurds to reverse Arabization. Kurdish displaced people from Kirkuk are still in tents. Their children are till dying of cold and lack of shelter. Arab Ba’athists who initially left for fear of Kurdish retribution are returning to Kirkuk and are protected by Bremer although it is they who are ambushing American soldiers, Iraqi policemen and killing Kurdish civilians and Americans alike indiscriminately. Yet the Kurds patiently and naively, if not with criminal stupidity, listened to Bremer, the voice of civilised behaviour, democratic values and liberation mission, to apply the superior law of American values and return the Kurds to their homes and lands through legal means!

But now Kissinger Mark II, in spite of his claims in his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, that he wants the Iraqis themselves and the Governing Council to take decisions about the future of Iraq, he speaks about the Kurdish people in the language of suicide bombers and fascists who want to give us only the option of chemical genocide, mass graves or forced coercive coexistence within an Iraq we have never wanted and never want to be part of in spite of the criminal cowardice displayed by so-called Kurdish leaders who always betray us and sell cheap our blood, sacrifices and dignity.

Yes, Bremer wants to go much further than Saddam. It seems that the soul of Ataturk has possessed him. He wants the Kurds to give up their independent entity and go to Iraqi! elections with other Iraqis and on the same day! He even wants to disband the Kurdish army which he contemptuously calls militias!! He says, "We want to dissolve all militias in Iraq. If it was not possible to do this in Kurdistan in a short period this does not we won’t do it."

He says all this because he knows that Asharq Al-Awsat is read by those Arab fascists and Middle East dictators who fear Kurdistan liberation ands elf-determination.

I do not believe that people like Bremer represent American people. These are the people who want to defeat America by defeating its values of liberation and freedom. They want to defeat American values in action. They want to defeat American soldiers in action. They want to squander American blood for the interests of powerful foreign lobbies who want to sacrifice the Kurds and Americans for their satanic aims.

It is 21^st century. We are in the age of technological globalisation and information revolution. People like Bremer cannot betray humanity, American values, American blood and the debt of honour to Kurdistani people and get away with it. They respect the Turks who are oppressing 20 million of our people and who betrayed America and humiliated American army in the time of its greatest need. They respect people like Sistani who want to impose a regime of darkness on Iraq in which the Shia will become masters, enslavers of women and committers of genocide. They respect Arab regimes and reactionary forces who support suicide bombers. Bremer has found the easiest, least honourable, most cowardly way to make a deal with all these forces of fascism, reaction and darkness: Follow Kissinger’s steps. Sacrifice the Kurds. Force them to remain as slaves inside Iraq. Consolidate and legitimise Saddam’s Arabizattion policies and don’t let the Kurds return to their homes in Kirkuk and use their heart of Kurdistan as their capital.

I call upon Kurdish leaders to convene Kurdistan parliament immediately and invite representatives of all Kurdish parties, forces and Kurdish intellectuals inside and outside Kurdistan for an emergency meeting to debate Arbil massacre and Bremer’s statements and make historical decisions about the destiny of Kurdistani people. Kurdistan parliament should call for demonstrations all over Kurdistan, for "March of Millions for an Independent Kurdistan." These marches should start immediately and continue every day and reach climax on 21 March the day of Nawroz, Kurdish national day. On that day the Kurdistani parliament should convene again to declare the independence of South Kurdistan with Kirkuk as its capital. I have had several meetings and seminars for Kurdish communities in London, Birmingham, Liecster, Coventry, Stockholm and Uppsala and all our people wholeheartedly support this course of action.

This is what the Kurdish leaders, parties, intellectuals and ordinary Kurds should demand and do now before it is too late. And let Bremer, if he wishes so, stay in Baghdad as a new more powerful Saddam and make his own Halbjas by indulging in our genocide using this time the sophisticated powerful American chemical and biological weapons against us our children more openly, directly and cowardly.

After the massacre of Arbil and Bremer’s treacherous statements, no medium and half-way solutions have been left to us. We are human beings. We are a nation. We must express our will to freedom and assert our right to self-determination through peaceful civilised means. Bremer wants to make us suicide bombers. But we must show him that we are more principled, honourable and civilised than him. We will never choose cowardly actions and we will never betray those whom we consider as our allies and friends. But we will never accept less than freedom.

Let us act now together. Kurdish leaders and parties don’t be afraid, don’t hesitate. Don’t listen to the likes of Bremer/Kissinger again. Act now. Six million Kurds in South Kurdistan and 40 million Kurds in Kurdistan are with you. International law, human rights and all the principles of human and national freedom are with you.. And all the freedom loving people of the world including the American people will be with you.

Let Hushyar Zebari speak as a Kurd and ask the UN to send a delegation in March to supervise and respond to the Kurdish people’s united demand and united action for independence the way it dealt with Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor.

Act now. Start Millions’ March For Independence. Let 21 March 2004 our Day of National Liberation.

You will lose nothing but get everything. Don’t hesitate. ACT NOW,

kamalmirawdeli@yahoo.co.uk