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Do We Need Acknowledgment from Others?

By: Dr. Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany

Aug 3, 2004

There are two faces of truth, the truth as we Kurds living in southern Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan) see it, experience it, and believe in it, and the other truth seen by non-Kurds, ranging from distorting the facts as it is the case by our hostile neighbors, or deliberately ignoring Kurdish nation and its de facto government as if it’s non-existent at all as it’s the case with Americans and the British, at bests calling us the Kurds as Saddam’s own people, those whom we still insist on calling friends and allies (at least our political leaders do so), although they doesn’t bother at all to reciprocate this one sided sentiment.

The truth as we see it, is that we the Kurds, a nation distinct from other neighboring nations, like Turks, Arabs and Persians, with our own language, culture and heritage, living in our homeland which we call Kurdistan (the land of Kurds) since thousands of years, in this sense we are not a migrant nation nor we are settlers in this land, this land simply belongs only to Kurds. Unfortunately Kurdistan was divided because of its oil wealth against the will of Kurds in the aftermath of WWI by the victorious colonial powers into 4 main parts. Each of these parts were annexed to a different country, one part to Turkey ( Northern Kurdistan), one part to Iran( Eastern Kurdistan), one part to Iraq ( Iraqi or Southern Kurdistan) and one part to Syria (Western Kurdistan), the aim was to annihilate and assimilate the Kurds and to erase the name of Kurdistan from the world’s political map. Those colonial powers couldn’t have found even in their wildest calculations, nations better than Turks, Arabs and Persians to fulfill this murderous task. Since then the innocent Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan were subjected to merciless campaigns of cultural assimilation, forced deportations, chemical attacks and genocides by dominant occupying countries in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, under the
watching complicit and apathetic eyes of the international community and United Nations. To compensate us this utter disregard and historic injustice, God had bestowed upon us Kurds to be as hard as resilient as our mountains, otherwise all those efforts would have been successful, God forbid, in erasing the Kurds as a nation and forcing them into distinction or at bests assimilation into the occupying nations. The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraqi Kurdistan was established following general elections in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1992, this government, in spite of its shortcomings, managed to bring stability, security and to some extent economical progress. They managed to great extent in rebuilding the countryside of Kurdistan after it was savagely ravaged by the murderous Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein, whereby 4500 Kurdish villages and hamlets were burned down or erased and up to 182, 000 Kurds were mass murdered in the infamous Anfall genocide of 1986-1988. The Astonishing thing is that the Kurds managed to reach these accomplishments against odds, in a land locked country, under double sanctions, the international embargo against Iraq as well as the internal embargo by the regime of Saddam Hussein upon Iraqi Kurdistan. Apart from the no-fly-zone by Allies over Kurdistan there was practically no material or economical support from the international community including USA and Great Britain. Iraqi Kurdistan has flourished in the 13 years of Kurdish rule in spite of the imposed economical hardships and lack of any international recognition of this de facto state.

The Kurds were instrumental in the downfall of Saddam Hussein, and even in the capture of Saddam Hussein the Kurds played a very significant role, something which the Americans didn’t openly acknowledge and kept the credit solely for their troops. The Kurds make one of the 3 main constituents of Iraqi state besides Arab Shiites and Arab Sunnites and without their full participation, the future of Iraq as a unitary state is doubtful. The political events since the downfall of Saddam Hussein was not always in favor of Kurds, there is an unmistakable perception, that the Americans and British deliberately marginalizing and ignoring the role of Kurds, they  rejected the choice of an ethnic Kurd for the posts of interim prime minister, and interim president, they deliberately excluded any mention of Transitional Administrative Law TAL, which acknowledges Kurdish rights in the new SCR 1543, they deliberately deprived The part of Kurdistan governed by Kurds from any consular representations, and apparently concentrated them only in oil producing centers of Mosul, Kirkuk, and Basra. They are playing a very obstructive and biased role in reversal of ethnic cleansing and Arabization policies of old regime in Kirkuk, practically preventing deported Kurds from returning to their city and at the same time encouraging Arab settlers not to leave Kirkuk. The former CPA representative in Kirkuk Mr. Paul Harvey did play a very biased role against Kurds and tried to stir ethnic strife in Kirkuk, apparently the new American and British consulates are continuing to interfere in the affairs of Kirkuk trying to maintain status quo  and with it preventing Kurdish deportees from returning to their homes and lands, although this mechanism has been clearly mentioned in TAL to reverse the evil effects of ethnic cleansing and Arabization in Kirkuk.

The sequence of events in Iraq sine 9 April 2003 ,show that the Americans are in a quagmire and have failed so far to quell the mounting acts of violence in Iraq as well as failing in improving the basic infrastructure and necessities like water, electrical supply, health needs, they are looking for a way out to save their face and withdraw from Iraq. The Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan is the only secure and stable region in Iraq and to lesser extent also the southern Iraq. The Baathist Sunnite triangle on the other hand is getting more and more chaotic and is succumbing to local and foreign Islamic terrorists. The insistence of the American administration to see Iraq only as a unitary state means that the violent terrorists of Sunnite triangle will hijack the Iraqi issue and will change Iraq into a hotbed of international terrorism. Kurdistan is becoming a victim of this one sided and doomed American policy, Americans are trying to please neighboring countries like Turkey and Iran on the expense of Kurds, they are deliberately and persistently ignoring Iraqi Kurdistan as a political entity within Iraq. Iraq must be divided into 3 federal regions, the Kurdistan region of Kirkuk, Erbil, Sulaimany and Duhok, The Sunni region of Mosul, Tikrit and Ramadi, the Shiite region of southern Iraq, because each of these regions have their different characteristics which cannot be accommodated in a single state called Iraq.

The people of Kurdistan and their political representatives have been running their affairs successfully in the last 13 years, after decades of genocide and repression under successive central Iraqi governments, Kurds now recognize their legitimacy to run their affairs in a democratic way and insist on their right of self determination to decide their destiny in Iraq. Neither the Arabs of Iraq, nor the hostile intimidation and threats of countries like Turkey, Syria and Iran, nor the American and British opportunism and double standards, will dissuade the Kurds from their born right to be free and run their own affairs. The Kurds themselves do acknowledge their government and their right of self-determination and any referendum in Kurdistan now will prove this truth without any doubt. For that matter do we need to beg for acknowledgment from others, who are blind folded to the events and aspirations
of Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan?