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[casi] News, 02-09/04/03 (5)



News, 02-09/04/03 (5)

SHI'I WHO MUST BE OBEYED

*  Clerics' blessing sought for Shia uprising
*  Main Shiite Opposition Vows to Stay Neutral Until Regime Toppled
*  Iraqi Shiite leader calls for immediate end to war and UN to rule Iraq
*  US hopes exile's return will sow seeds of new order

KURDS WHO MUST BE RESTRAINED

*  Kurdish Leader Freed From Norway Jail
*  Iraqi missile kills 17 Kurds: report
*  Saddam's army retreats to Mosul with heavy losses
*  Turkey denies shelling Kurdish villages
* A message to the Iraqi people from Tony Blair
*  Denied Entry Into Iran, Ansar Fighters Surrender
*  Kurds get lucky, but not out of the woods yet
*  We lost everything!
*  Kurds joyful, Arabs wary after town changes hands
*  Iraqi Communists in North Dream of Brighter Future
*  Atop Mountain, Rebel Kurds Cling to Radical Dream


SHI'I WHO MUST BE OBEYED

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1048313457447&p=1031119383196

*  CLERICS' BLESSING SOUGHT FOR SHIA UPRISING
by Charles Clover in Najaf
Financial Times, 3rd April

US-backed Iraqi forces entered the holy city of Najaf on Thursday to assume
control, as negotiations continued with Shia Muslim clerics to secure their
blessing for an uprising by the Shia against President Saddam Hussein.

US military spokesmen in Qatar said the Najaf-based Grand Ayatollah Sistani,
the highest Shia authority in Iraq, had issued an official proclamation
ordering the local population to remain calm and not interfere with
coalition forces.

Brigadier-General Vincent Brooks, the US military spokesman, hailed the move
as an important shift in the attitude of local people. "We believe that this
is a significant turning point and a further sign that the regime is
reaching its end."

But in Najaf, Colonel Ben Hodges of the 101st Airborne Division said the
Grand Ayatollah had issued an edict asking the Shia to refrain from looting,
and that if the present conditions continued for a few more days, the Shia
could begin to co-operate with US forces.

The Grand Ayatollah, who was recently reported by Baghdad to have issued a
fatwa against the US-led invasion, refused to meet US forces, and a company
of US troops sent to protect him at his home turned back after a crowd
turned hostile.

"They have come to take over the tomb!" shouted several young men in the
crowd, warning that entering the shrine was prohibited to non-Muslims. The
city of Najaf is the main Shia learning centre and houses the burial place
of Imam Ali, cousin and son- in-law of the Prophet Mohammad.

"There is pressure on [Sistani] from Saddam Hussein," said Hassan Mussawi, a
Shia cleric who is a member of the US-backed Iraqi force that numbers about
60.

The group rode around the city on top of US special forces Humvees followed
by a speaker truck which blared messages announcing the beginning of the
intifada, or uprising, against Mr Hussein's regime.

Their leader, who refused to identify himself, said his group belonged to
the Iraqi Coalition of National Unity, which was set up in 1991 as an
opposition group, and said it had no ties to Iraqi exile opposition groups.

He and others in the group insisted they had joined the ICNU "a long time
ago" and had been working in secret for the past decade. He described the
group as self-financing and said it had no ties to the US government.

"For the time being, we, the ICNU, are taking responsibility for the town,"
he said, describing himself as the head of the ICNU's regional command in
the Najaf area.

He also announced bold plans for the future. "The ICNU, God willing, will
form a central government which will contain all other national forces."

The Shia have been hesitant to support US forces in an uprising against the
Iraqi regime for fear of being left out on a limb, as they were in 1991 when
a similar uprising failed disastrously after Iraqi forces brutally crushed
the revolt. In Najaf, crowds followed US forces shouting praise and clapping
when a monument of Mr Hussein in a central square was blown up by engineers.

Ali Ghalib Salih, a 22-year-old student, enthused that now that the regime
was gone, "We can all have satellite TV! And mobile phones!"

But Ali Mohammed Jarallah, a resident of Najaf, said the population feared
what would happen when the US troops left for Baghdad. He said he had just
come back from Diwaniya, a neighbouring city captured by US forces, who left
the town again on their way north. Once they left, Iraqi paramilitaries
returned and declared they had driven the Americans out. "The Fedayeen now
control Diwaniya again," he said.

Abu Ali, who owns a shop next to the tomb of Imam Ali, said: "We will only
support the Americans as long as we have a guarantee that they will not
desert us. So far we have no guarantees."


http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24768

*  MAIN SHIITE OPPOSITION VOWS TO STAY NEUTRAL UNTIL REGIME TOPPLED
Arab News (Saudi Arabia), 5th April

TEHRAN, 5 April 2003, Agence France Presse: The main Iraqi opposition group
yesterday vowed that Shiites in Baghdad would stay out of the conflict, as
US-led troops were closing in on the Iraqi capital.

"They will try to remain on the sidelines to suffer the least possible
damage, until they are certain that the Iraqi regime's repressive machine
has been annihilated," an official from the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI) said.

"When this point is reached, they will start organizing themselves," Mohsen
Hakim said.

Troops of the US-UK coalition were nearing Baghdad yesterday and controlled
much of Saddam International Airport, 20 kilometers from the city center.

The Pentagon is betting on the collaboration of the Shiite half of the
population in the five million-strong capital.

"Given Shiites are half the population ... you probably have people ready to
help out, you have to be patient," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Gen. Richard Myers said.

At the beginning of the war two weeks ago, SAIRI chief Mohammed Baqer Hakim
urged Shiites to remain neutral, blaming both the Americans and Saddam for
the war.

According to press reports, SAIRI and Iranian conservative scholars have
been unsettled by the sudden surfacing in the holy city of Najaf of a
prominent opposition Shiite leader, who has been based in London since the
crushed 1991 Shiite uprising in southern Iraq.

There was speculation that Sayyed Abdelmajid al-Khoei, a scholar who has
repeatedly called for Shiite cooperation with the United States, was brought
into the central city of Najaf by US forces and that his return signaled a
US attempt to promote a "pro-American" current.

But SAIRI's London office nevertheless insisted it was not being isolated by
Washington and that it was still a likely player in post-Saddam Iraq.

London SAIRI representative Hamed Al-Bayati said if Washington "tries to
exclude us, we will see what our position will be. So far this is not the
case."

The United States has decided not to include the Shiites in its war effort,
unlike the Kurds in the north who are advancing on government-controlled
cities with the help of US forces and coalition airstrikes.

The Shiite religious leader in Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Mirza Ali Sistani,
denied a US military report that he had issued a fatwa calling on the
populace not to impede coalition military forces, Arab news channel
Al-Jazeera reported yesterday.

On the contrary, Iraqi television said Sistani and four other top Shiite
scholars at Najaf had called on Iraqis of all beliefs and ethnic groups to
unite in the defense of their country against "the enemies of God and
humanity."

The television showed an aged scholar, who was not identified, reading the
fatwa to this effect.

Murtadha Al-Kashmiri, a London representative of Sistani, said Sistani had
asked followers not to take sides in the fighting. He denied earlier reports
he had issued a fatwa, or formal religious edict.

"According to the information we received, there is no fatwa referring to
Americans or Iraq, but he has asked people to remain neutral and not get
involved," Kashmiri said.

For his part, Sheikh Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual leader of Lebanon's
Islamist Shiites, called on all Muslims to resist the US-British forces in
their drive to Baghdad.

"We urge US-British forces not to attack holy sites (in Najaf and Karbala)
and we call on Muslims and free men around the world to resist the
invaders," he told worshipers after Friday prayers in Beirut.

Meanwhile, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former Iranian president and still an
influential figure in Iran, warned of the fury any damage inflicted by
coalition forces on holy sites could trigger.

"I am warning the White House and Britain: let not your vanity or your
fervor harm Shiite Islam's holy sites because Shiites will never forgive you
and they, as well as God, will avenge it in due time," he said.

Rafsanjani, who heads the Expediency Council that arbitrates disputes
between branches of the regime, temporarily set Iran's historical
differences with Iraq aside and argued that the United States was a greater
common enemy.

"The United States has become an ignominious monster and the most abhorred
figure in the world," he said. "The American danger is greater than Saddam
and his Baath Party."

The central Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala, which have been the scene of
intense fighting between US-UK troops and Iraqi forces, are the holiest in
Shiite Islam after Makkah, Madinah and Jerusalem.


http://www.haveeru.com.mv/english/news_show.phtml?id=1268&search=&find=

*  IRAQI SHIITE LEADER CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE END TO WAR AND UN TO RULE IRAQ

TEHRAN, April 5 (AFP) - Iraq's main Shiite opposition leader has proposed an
immediate end to war and the establishment of UN rule in Iraq after the
overthrow of President Saddam Hussein, he said in a letter to UN and Arab
leaders.

Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir Hakim, who heads the Supreme Assembly of Islamic
Revolution in Iraq, put forward a five-point plan to bring an end to the
war.

The proposals included in the letter, addressed to UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan, the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Conference, were:

- "an immediate end to hostilities",

- "the departure of Saddam Hussein",

- "the UN entry in Iraq to take over Iraq administration",

- "the departure of coalition forces based on a fixed schedule by the UN"
and

- "arranging for free general elections under UN auspices to form a
government that represents all Iraqi people".

In his letter, Hakim said: "The implementation of the plan will serve the
interest of Iraqis, people of the region and the world".


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1048313518304&p=1012571727172

*  US HOPES EXILE'S RETURN WILL SOW SEEDS OF NEW ORDER
by Charles Clover in Najaf
Financial Times, 7th April

It has been 13 years since Abdelmajid al-Khoi has prayed at the Shrine of
Imam Ali, the holiest spot for Iraq's Shia Muslims. On Saturday, he
returned, and was mobbed by wellwishers and old friends.

Wearing his clerical garb and a green scarf, he disdained the bullet proof
vests carried by many of his entourage and US special forces soldiers
accompanying him to the heart of Najaf. "I have never felt so safe as I do
here," he says of the city, taken last week by US forces after a four-day
battle.

The Khoi name carries almost unlimited cachet in Shia Iraq: Ayatollah Sayed
Abdul-Qasim al-Khoi, Abdelmajid's father, was leader of much of the Shia
world until his death while under house arrest in Najaf in 1992.

US military strategists are clearly hoping that by facilitating his return
from London, along with a number of other exiles, they can plant the seeds
of a new post-Saddam Hussein order in Iraq.

Mr al-Khoi, who recently spoke to the FT in London about his hopes for the
US-led invasion, has been camped out with a group of baseball cap-wearing US
special forces soldiers in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Najaf.

US officials hope he can handle delicate negotiations with high ranking Shia
clergy in Najaf, as well as facilitate the creation of a city government to
take the place of the Ba'athist administration.

On Saturday, he tried to meet Iraq's Grand Ayatollah, Ali Sistani, who was a
student of his father's and succeeded him following his death in 1992, but
the elderly cleric has been refusing all visitors this week. He met the
Ayatollah's son instead.

The meeting was partly an attempt to clarify the Grand Ayatollah's position
on the presence of US forces in Iraq. On Thursday, US military officials
said the cleric had issued a fatwa, or edict, declaring that Iraqi Shia
should not interfere with US forces. The son, however, denied this, saying
the fatwa said only that citizens should refrain from looting.

"There was nothing about American military in the fatwa," says Mr al-Khoi.
"This he might have said to someone just in a conversation, but it wasn't a
fatwa," which carries greater religious authority.

Distrust of the US nevertheless runs deep in Najaf as a result of what Iraqi
Shia see as their betrayal in 1991 after US President George Bush exhorted
Iraq's citizens to "take matters into their own hands".

Once they revolted, US military stood by while first the Shia in the south
and then the Kurds in the north were slaughtered by the Iraqi army. "You
should have seen the end of this revolt. These streets were covered with
bodies and the dogs were eating them," says Abu Hussein, a cleric drinking
tea next to the shrine.

The immediate challenge in Najaf is to fill the power vacuum in the areas
taken by US forces. Police are required to curb looting, water and
electricity have to be turned back on, people have to be convinced that it
is safe to come back to work.

"I asked some government employees if they received their wages for this
month. They said yes. So we have 25 days' free ride until we figure this
out," Mr al-Khoi jokes.

US forces have also been backing a little-known group called the Iraqi
Coalition for National Unity (ICNU), a group of 60-odd militiamen who drive
around on US special forces vehicles, but appear to be doing little else.

Mr al-Khoi says he is not familiar with the ICNU, but has organised a
meeting of local wijaha or notables, to deal with the problem of local
administration, citing the Loya Jirga held in Afghanistan last year - a
meeting of tribal elders that elected Hamid Karzai as president - as an
example to be followed before free elections can be organised. "What we need
here is exactly like the Loya Jirga for Najaf," he says.

Over the long term, the Shia will be looking to the US to rectify the
numerous injustices done to them by Saddam Hussein's mainly Sunni Arab
regime. But Mr al-Khoi says no one should fear democracy. "If there are
democratic elections, the Shia will support a Sunni president, and I think
the Sunnis will support a Shia president.

"Even if the Americans temporarily appoint one of their generals to be
president of Iraq, then the Shia will be fine with that," he says.

"But if they appoint a Sunni, then I guarantee there will be a revolt. I
will have to leave, because I promised them justice and it didn't come."


KURDS WHO MUST BE RESTRAINED

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-eur/2003/apr/02/040207191.html

*  KURDISH LEADER FREED FROM NORWAY JAIL
Las Vegas Sun, 2nd April

OSLO, Norway (AP) - A Kurdish guerrilla leader with suspected ties to
al-Qaida was released from jail Wednesday after a court ruled there wasn't
enough evidence to hold him on charges of terrorism.

Mullah Krekar had been in jail since March 20 while prosecutors investigated
charges he transferred more than $135,000 to Ansar al-Islam guerillas in
Iraq and developed a military organization in a foreign country.

Krekar, the leader of Ansar al-Islam, has repeatedly denied the allegations.
He has refugee status in Norway.

The United Nations has labeled Ansar al-Islam a terrorist organization and
Washington believes some members of al-Qaida fleeing Afghanistan joined the
500-strong group, which has been active in the mountains of northern Iraq.

Erling Grimstad of Norway's financial crimes unit said they would appeal the
court's decision to the Supreme Court.

Krekar also faces charges of kidnapping and has been barred from leaving
Norway.

Krekar has denied any links to Saddam or al-Qaida, but acknowledged that he
considers Osama bin Laden a "good Muslim."


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-04/02/content_812852.htm

*  IRAQI MISSILE KILLS 17 KURDS: REPORT
Xinhuanet, 2nd April

CAIRO: Seventeen Kurds were killed and four others injured Wednesday when an
Iraqi missile was fired at a Kurdish village in northern Iraq, Egypt's
official MENA news agency reported.

The missile slammed into the village of Kafri in northern Iraq, the report
quoted Kurdish sources in Irbil as saying.

No further details were given in the MENA report. But the incident came
after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein issued a stern warning to Kurdish
leaders against allying with the US-led invading forces.

Saddam's warning was issued in a letter sent to Jalal Talabani, leader of
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), announced Iraqi Information Minister
Mohammad Said Al-Sahaf on Iraqi television.

A copy of the letter was also sent to Massoud Mustapha Barzani, head of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Sahaf said.

"I advise you not to rush toward anything that you will regret, as you know
that this leadership and the state leading the confrontation against the
invaders are staying," Saddam said in theletter.

The PUK and KDP have enjoyed de facto autonomy in northern Iraq since the
1991 Gulf war thanks to the protection of US and British warplanes imposing
a no-fly zone in their area.

Saddam expressed his anger at the Kurdish leaders for "flirting with America
and the Zionists," adding that such flirting "has entered a dangerous phase
now" by opening a northern front against Iraqi people and army.

"It is my moral, basic and constitutional duty to warn you of the dangers of
this game, if you have surrendered to it," he said.

Kurdish forces are currently pushing toward the strategic oil center of
Kirkuk and another major northern city of Mosul by taking over major
positions abandoned by Iraqi troops forced to flee by heavy coalition aerial
bombardments.

Kurdish troops on Wednesday took an Iraqi position near the townof Kalak,
which is some 40 kms from Mosul, on the demarcation line between
Kurdish-controlled area and the government-controlled territories.

Thousands of US troops have parachuted in the Kurdish-controllednorth since
last week to set up a northern front to encircle the Iraqi capital of
Baghdad in the coming days.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=393457

*  SADDAM'S ARMY RETREATS TO MOSUL WITH HEAVY LOSSES
by Patrick Cockburn near Mosul, northern Iraq
The Independent, 3rd April

The Iraqi army's northern front began to collapse yesterday as troops pulled
back in confusion to the city of Mosul after suffering heavy losses from US
air strikes and fighting with Kurdish militia.

Sarbast Babiri, a Kurdish commander, smiled triumphantly as his men, many
wearing captured Iraqi helmets, milled around him. "The Iraqi army has
withdrawn to positions nine kilometres north of Mosul. They left behind
heavy machine-guns, rocket launchers, food and many dead bodies," he said.

The crumbling of the northern front, quiescent since the start of the war,
is a serious blow to Saddam Hussein, because he will face attacks from the
north as well as the south. It may, however, increase the possibility of a
Turkish invasion of northern Iraq which Colin Powell, the US Secretary of
State, tried to head off yesterday.

Mr Powell, in Ankara for a one-day visit, said he was addressing Turkish
concerns over "the extension of control out of Kurdish areas towards the
south". As he spoke there were signs that Kurdish peshmerga (soldiers) were
doing just that. But, conscious of the danger from Turkey, they portrayed
their advance as unplanned, saying it was the result of a mistake by the
Iraqis.

The Iraqi front line in northern Iraq was, until yesterday, 60km north of
Mosul. It ran along the top of steep green hills, crowned with sandbagged
bunkers, just outside the Kurdish village of Bardarash.

Commander Babiri said the Iraqi army had been relieving one of its units
with another ­ a standard tactic apparently designed to prevent desertions
and to limit the time its troops spend under air attack in their exposed
hill-top positions. "The soldiers in the newly arrived unit did not know
where our peshmerga front line was," he said. "They started firing at our
men and we shot back."

At this point a US Special Forces detachment with the peshmerga called in
air strikes on the Iraqi troops. "The Americans were with us and they were
co-ordinating the plane attacks," Commander Babiri said. Over the past month
US special forces have been secretly operating with peshmerga units.

Villagers in the Kurdish settlement of Kanilan, previously under Iraqi army
control, confirmed that the Iraqi regiment stationed at Mandan bridge, a
concrete structure spanning a small stream nearby, had suffered heavy
casualties.

Hoshyar Ahmed, a villager, said: "We saw the American aircraft bomb them.
Their vehicles brought away many dead and wounded. They pulled out so fast
they did not even have time to blow up the bridge, although they had mined
it."

Iraqi army retreats last week back to Kirkuk city were purely tactical, with
no weapons left behind in the their abandoned barracks. But, as we stood
outside the tiny village shop, with its assortment of cheap biscuits, in
Kanilan, two peshmerga drove up in a captured Iraqi army truck and proudly
opened the back flap to display a rifle they had taken.

Commander Babiri was wary of saying anything that might foster Turkish
suspicions that the Kurds were deliberately moving into Mosul province. "We
did not leave our positions during the fighting," he said, although it was
difficult to see, if this were true, as he and his men were now six miles
down the road towards Mosul.

He added: "We will only go as far as there are Kurdish lands," referring to
the Kurdish territories from which they were driven over the last 30 years
by the Iraqi government's systematic ethnic cleansing.

The peshmerga suffered only five dead while villagers said that as many as
200 Iraqi soldiers were killed or wounded by the air strikes. This
underlines the fact that the Iraqi army in open country cannot withstand
even lightly armed Kurdish infantry supported by US air power.

In reality, the peshmerga do not have to advance into Kirkuk or Mosul. Once
the Iraqi army retreats or breaks up, about 300,000 Kurdish refugees from
the two provinces ­ many of them armed ­ have said they intend to return
home as soon as possible. And it is becoming increasingly difficult for
Turkey to invade because of the growing number of US troops in northern
Iraq.

US aircraft repeatedly raided the Iraqi front line in Mosul and Kirkuk
provinces over the past week. High over Mosul yesterday were the vapour
trails of B-52 bombers, and plumes of smoke rose from the general direction
of the city.

On the ridge opposite the town of Kalakh, south-east of Mosul ­ probably the
most-filmed military position in Iraq because many television companies have
rented houses in the town ­ Iraqi soldiers were still visible yesterday,
moving about around their frequently bombed bunkers.

Yet the soldiers appear to be under orders not to do anything to ignite the
northern front by opening fire, even under provocation. One of the main
roads linking the Kurdish capital Arbil with the western city of Dohuk goes
through Kalakh across a bridge over the Zaab river and then runs along one
of the banks of the river, overlooked by an Iraqi machine-gun post on a hill
100 yards away.

Although the Kurdish leaders say they are now part of the US-led coalition,
the Iraqi gunners have never opened fire on the road. Yesterday, cars were
passing there freely.

But with the Iraqi army retreat from Bardarash back to Kirkuk, the forces in
Kalakh are vulnerable to being cut off from the rear.

It is difficult to see how they can stay in their present positions. There
is also an increased flow of deserters, trying to avoid the relentless
bombardment, to the Kurds.

Patrick Cockburn is co-author, with Andrew Cockburn, of 'Saddam Hussein: An
American Obsession'


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1048313484716&p=1012571727166

*  TURKEY DENIES SHELLING KURDISH VILLAGES
by Harvey Morris in Zakho, northern Iraq
Financial Times, 4th April

Kurdish military officials on Friday accused Turkish forces of shelling
villages and farmland just inside the Iraqi border near  Zakho, northern
Iraq, in a sign of renewed tension between Turkey and the autonomous Kurdish
zone.

Foreign ministry officials in Ankara denied the accusations saying there had
been no shelling on any part of the border.

Faisal Rostiki, a Kurdish military officer, said  23 shells had been fired
towards farm and grazing land two miles north of  Zakho last Saturday, 
Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tension on the border  had appeared to ease after Washington made clear it
would oppose any Turkish incursion into northern Iraq.

Earlier this week, a convoy of 25 Turkish civilian trucks brought a
consignment of jeeps into northern Iraq for US forces stationed there. It
was the first indication that Turkey was fulfilling its agreement to ease a
ban on coalition forces using its territory as a land bridge for the
offensive against the Baghdad regime.

However, the US's Kurdish peshmerga allies on Friday pointed to two
apparently fresh shell craters in wheatfields close to the hills that mark
the frontier with Turkey. Turkish forces are stationed just beyond the hills
while  Iraqi government lines are several miles further southwest on the
Iraqi side of the border.

Kurdish villagers said they had heard shelling and machine-gun fire on
several days in the past week and took it to be directed from the Turkish
lines. Jihad Taher, a 19-year-old shepherd, said: "We are scared to go up
into the hills now."

Despite the official Turkish denials, Kurdish officials said members of a
Turkish joint liaison committee based in Zakho had been brought to the scene
and were themselves caught in shelling as they inspected the site. The
Turkish officials were not available for comment.

Turkey is opposed to a larger Kurdish military role in the coalition
campaign, fearing Kurdish forces might seize the oil city of Kirkuk, a move
Ankara believes could trigger demands for Kurdish independence.

General Babakir Zebari, commander of  Kurdish forces in the Dohuk region,
said this week: "The US message is that they don't want friction between us
and the Turks and that is why they want a bigger US presence here before
deciding to move on Kirkuk and Mosul."


http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,929932,00.html

* A MESSAGE TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE FROM TONY BLAIR
The Guardian, 4th April

"As soon as Saddam Hussein's regime falls, the work to build a new free and
united Iraq will begin. A peaceful, prosperous Iraq which will be run by and
for the Iraqi people. Not by America, not by Britain, not by the UN - though
all of us will help - but by you the people of Iraq.

"For the first time in 25 years you will be free from the shadow of Saddam
and can look forward to a new beginning for your families and your country.

"That is already starting to happen in those parts of your country that have
been liberated. But you want to know that we will stay to get the job done.
You want to know that Saddam will be gone.

"I assure you: he will be. Then, coalition forces will make the country
safe, and will work with the United Nations to help Iraq get back on its
feet. We will continue to provide immediate humanitarian aid, and we will
help with longer-term projects.

"Our troops will leave as soon as they can. They will not stay a day longer
than necessary.

"We will make sure deliveries of vital aid such as food, medicine and
drinking water get through.

"Our aim is to move as soon as possible to an interim authority run by
Iraqis. This will pave the way for a truly representative Iraqi government,
which respects human rights and the rule of law; develops public services;
and spends Iraq's wealth not on palaces and weapons of mass destruction, but
on schools and hospitals.

"The money from Iraqi oil will be yours. It will no longer be used by Saddam
Hussein for his own benefit and that of his regime. It will be used to build
prosperity for you and your families.

"You should be free to travel, free to have access to independent media,
free to express your views.

"As we made clear from the start, this is not a war of conquest. This is a
campaign that will end dictatorship, remove the weapons of mass destruction
and liberate the Iraqi people so you can determine your own future - a
better future. This is not a war on Iraq. This is a campaign against Saddam
Hussein's regime.

"For too long the world ignored the plight of the Iraqi people. That was
wrong. We know and understand that many of you live in fear of Saddam. We
promise that the events of 1991 will not happen again. We have pledged to
remove Saddam. And we will deliver. Once he is gone, we will help Iraq
rebuild itself, and become once more a member of the international family of
nations.

"In the spirit of true friendship and goodwill, we will do our utmost to
help."


http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24882

*  DENIED ENTRY INTO IRAN, ANSAR FIGHTERS SURRENDER
by Jeffrey Fleishman
Arab News (Saudi Arabia), from Los Angeles Times, 8th April

QAYARFARY, Iraq, 8 April 2003 ‹ Denied entry into neighboring Iran, scores
of Islamic militants who had retreated into the mountains during recent
attacks by US forces are trudging through snow and across fields to
surrender to Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq.

The Ansar Al-Islam guerrillas are considered terrorists, would-be suicide
bombers with ties to Al-Qaeda. But as 15 of them sat in the dimness of a
cinder-block house here Sunday, some with frostbitten toes, they seemed more
misguided and scared than dangerous.

Some are boys. Others said they had never fired at an enemy.

Upon surrendering Sunday, their weapons were seized, their watches and combs
confiscated. And in their cracked and muddy shoes, they were put on a bus
and shipped to jail.

More than 300 Ansar guerrillas have agreed to surrender in the coming days
to the Kurdish government, according to Abdullah Haji Mahmood, a commander
in the Kurdish Socialist Party who negotiated the deal. Among them are Ansar
leaders, including Abdullah Shafee, Mohammad Hassan, and a man identified as
Dr. Omer.

Ansar was defeated in a two-day battle last month when US Special Forces and
6,000 Kurdish fighters attacked their strongholds along the Iranian border.
About 250 of Ansar's 700 fighters were killed; others fled over the
mountains and sought refuge in Iran.

But Kurdish officials said Iran has played a critical role in squeezing
Ansar militants by preventing them from crossing the border, even for
medical treatment. Although the Kurds have been asking Tehran to help
isolate Ansar for months, Iran acted only after quiet US intervention,
through both secret talks and diplomatic messages via Swiss diplomats, a
ranking Kurdish official said Sunday.

"Iran is pushing back Kurdish members of Ansar,'' the official said. "Iran
even refused to help the wounded. Perhaps the Iranians understand English
better than Kurdish.''

Other Kurdish officials, however, said the Iranians are still holding a
number of Ansar's leaders, including bombmaker Ayub Afghani and Hemin
Benishari, who allegedly specialized in military tactics and assassinations.

And Kurdish authorities are investigating whether Iran gave Arabs who
belonged to Ansar safe passage to a third country.

Although made up largely of radical Kurds, Ansar had an estimated 120
hard-core Arab fighters from Yemen, Morocco, Israel, Tunisia and other
countries.

A number of them trained in Al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan, and Washington
claims Ansar manufactured chemical agents and was a terrorist bridge between
the Middle East and Europe.

Many of the Ansar fighters who have surrendered, however, "are different
from Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda,'' said Mahmood, whose men guarded and fed
the guerrillas until they were taken to prison.

"Most of them are brainwashed youths,'' he said. "We believe they have been
cheated and deceived and don't really believe what Ansar teaches...We have
two options: to forgive them, or kill them. If we kill them, we will be no
better than them.''

Younger fighters not involved in killings will be released to their families
following "elaborate security checks,'' said Barham Salih, prime minister of
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which governs the eastern half of the
Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. "We will investigate. This is not about
vengeance. It's about justice.''


http://www.dawn.com/2003/04/08/int16.htm

*  KURDS GET LUCKY, BUT NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET
by Nick Cohen
Dawn, probably from Observer, 8th April

LONDON: In a memo to the League of Nations in 1930, an astonished Foreign
Office official said that the idea the great powers should be made to keep
their promises was 'a conception which is almost fantastic'.

The Kurds appeared to have been promised their own state in the Treaty of
Sevres after the First World War. But there was a catch. Buried in the small
print was the requirement that the League must be convinced that they were
'capable' of independence.

Our men at the FO implied that the Kurds were Kipling's 'White Man's Burden'
- 'fluttered folk and wild/Your new-caught sullen peoples/Half devil and
half child'. It was preposterous to think that they might be capable of
governing themselves.

"Although they admittedly possess many sterling qualities, the Kurds of Iraq
are entirely lacking in those characteristics of political cohesion which
are essential to self-government. Their organization and outlook are
essentially tribal. They are without traditions of self government or
self-governing institutions. Their mode of life is primitive, and for the
most part they are illiterate and untutored, resentful of authority and
lacking in any sense of discipline or responsibility. In these circumstances
it would be unkind to the Kurds themselves to do anything which would lend
encouragement to the sterile idea of Kurdish independence."

Being cruel to be kind to Kurds has become a habit since. They are the
largest people on earth without a state of their own. Spread across Iraq,
Iran, Syria and Turkey - and oppressed in all four countries - their fate in
the twentieth century was to be played with and persecuted.

In the early 1970s, the Iraqi Baathist regime was getting too close to the
Soviet Union for America's liking and threatening the Shah of Iran, a US
client.

Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon encouraged the Iraqi Kurds to revolt.
Saddam Hussein responded to the pressure and came to terms with Washington.
American, Israeli and Iranian advisers pulled out of Iraqi Kurdistan. Saddam
sealed the borders and slaughtered. The standards of the Cold War were lax,
but America's betrayal of an ally was still shocking.

The Congressional select committee on intelligence said that "the President,
Dr Kissinger and the Shah hoped that (the Kurds) would not prevail. They
preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities
sufficient to sap the resources of (Iraq). The policy was not imparted to
our clients, who were encouraged to continue to fight. Even in the context
of covert operations, ours was a cynical exercise."

In 1988 Saddam killed somewhere around 100,000 Kurds in the 'Anzal' campaign
to Arabize northern Iraq. The scale of the killing was such that no one
knows the precise death toll, but for once, the overused word 'genocidal'
was an accurate description of his policy.

After the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurds along with the rest of Iraq took George
Bush (senior) at his word and rose up when he called on the 'Iraqi military
and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands'. They were
massacred again. In 1996, they fought among themselves. Kurds being wiped
out was a staple of international relations. The truth of the Kurdish
proverb, 'we've no friends but the mountains', was indisputable.

The change in the Iraqi Kurds' fortunes since 1996 has been remarkable. It's
foolish to make predictions in such fluid times, but it does look as if
history is at last being kind to the Kurds. Consider their position. Despite
the enmity of Turkey, Saddam, Iran and fundamentalists, they managed to
build a reasonably decent autonomous government in the no-fly zone of
northern Iraq.

At the start of the war, it looked as if the Turks would occupy their
mini-state to stop its own Kurds getting the idea in their heads that they
might govern themselves. But because Ankara refused to cut a deal with
Washington, the threat has receded and American troops have become the
Kurds' protectors. The clever Kurdish leadership has put its guerrillas
under US control to emphasize that the Kurds at least are an ally America
can rely on. Fear that they will be attacked with poison gas again is
receding as the Iraqi regime weakens. Every day last week, there were small
reports of the Kurds retaking villages which had been ethnically cleansed by
Saddam.

It's as if the Palestinians were to wake up and find that the world's only
superpower was on their side and land they thought they had lost forever was
back in their possession. The comparison isn't meant frivolously. What
Baathism has created in northern Iraq is a West Bank, and even friends of
the Kurds are worried about what will happen when the regime falls and the
ethnically cleansed go home.

Human Rights Watch and the Kurdish authorities estimate that 120,000 people
have been driven from the Kirkuk area since 1991. The government confiscated
documents proving the ownership of property. As far as the paperwork is
concerned they never lived in Kirkuk and have no rights. It seems a matter
of basic justice to allow the exiles to return, but their houses have been
taken by Arab families, some of whom have been in Kirkuk for two or three
generations and know no other home.

The 'untutored' Kurds are no different from anyone else. If you found
someone else in your home, you would demand they left and become aggressive,
possibly violent, if they refused because they had nowhere else to go. The
Kurds may have got lucky for the first time since the First World War, but
they're not out of the woods yet.-Dawn/The Guardian News Service.


http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=48640&Sn=LETT

*  WE LOST EVERYTHING!
by Fadil Ahmed, Relief worker, England
Gulf Daily News (The Voice of Bahrain), 8th April

WHY should we support Saddam Hussein? I was born in Iraq in a city dominated
by Arabs. The rest of us were Kurdish. I went to a school where I was the
only Kurd. The Arab kids used to call me 'stupid Kurd' and whenever I
complained to my father he would simply say that not all Arabs were like
that.

In 1975 Saddam Hussein sent a letter to my father, who was chief of his
tribe, to evacuate 20 villages of 10,000 families so that they could
implement a programme of Arabisation.

A few days later, army trucks arrived. In the middle of the day, in the hot
summer, they pushed us, families, women and children into these trucks
leaving all our belongings behind, taking us to unknown destinations. I
still remember Arab families from nearby villages (the same families my
father used to give his zakah to), rushing and fighting with each other to
take control of our houses.

They took us into the desert and forced us out of the trucks in the middle
of nowhere. Women were crying and cursing the Iraqi government. Again my
father repeated that not all Arabs were like that. We lost everything and
the Iraqi government never gave us money or land to replace what they had
taken. Most of the elderly in our tribe died because they were used to the
mountains and rivers and could not deal with the harsh conditions of the
desert.

In 1988 Saddam Hussein declared an operation against the Kurds, called
'Operation Al Anfal'. The name was taken from surah (chapter) Al Anfaal in
the Holy Quran which describes rules and regulations for Muslims when they
face non-believers on the battlefield.

Saddam and his government were clearly declaring all Kurds as non-believers.
Perhaps they forgot that Salahuddin was not only an Iraqi Kurd but also a
devout Muslim who defeated Richard the lion heart and liberated Palestine
from the Crusaders.

Saddam and his military destroyed 4,000 Kurdish villages, using chemical
bombs and killing 10,000 Kurds in a single day. About 120,000 Kurds died
during the 'Al Anfal' operation.

During the 1991 Gulf War, after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam sent his
Republican Guards to the north again. Four million Kurds escaped to the
mountains. The UN called that the biggest refugee crisis in history. The
United States and its allies entered northern Iraq by land and air and
pushed the Republican Guard out of Kurdistan declaring the area a safe haven
for the Kurds.

Only then did the Kurds return from the mountains to their towns and
villages. All 4,000 villages which were destroyed under and Islamic name 'Al
Anfal' were reconstructed by aid from Christian countries.

I have been back to the safe haven many times in the past 12 years to do
relief work and for the first time during Saddam's 30 years of power Kurds
feel a little safer. However, the fear has never completely left them that
one day Saddam's army will return with chemical bombs.

Kurds are well known as a tribal people and are very committed to Islam.
Many Arabs have admitted to me their amazement that Kurds, despite the
hardships they endured, never lost faith in their religion.

During the 'Al Anfal' operation Kurdish leaders sent many delegations to
Arab countries and well-known scholars asking them to stop Saddam from
massacring the Kurdish nation. One of these Kurds told me that a well-known
Kuwaiti Islamic scholar told them that Saddam was a mujahid and protecting
the Kuwaitis and other Arabs from Iran so they would never ask him to stop
his war against the Kurds.

A few years later the same mujahid Saddam invaded Kuwait and declared it the
19th province of Iraq. As a non-Arab Muslim I find it very difficult to
understand why not a single Middle East nation or Islamic scholar spoke out
and advised Saddam that what he was doing was against Islam.

Saddam is responsible for the massacre of tens of thousands of Kurds. Saddam
is responsible for the imprisonment and murder of more than 100,000 shi'ites
in southern Iraq. Saddam invaded a Muslim nation and committed the most
heinous atrocities. Saddam attacked Iran and is responsible for the deaths
of 1m Iraqi soldiers and 3m Iranians.

I learned from Islam that Allah is just and He makes us accountable for
everything we do, even if it is the size of an atom. So my question today
is: Should the Kurds simply forget the past and allow Saddam and his
criminal Baath party to cling to power forever?


http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Artic
le_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035780647495&call_pageid=968332188854&col=9683500607
24

*  KURDS JOYFUL, ARABS WARY AFTER TOWN CHANGES HANDS
Toronto Star, 8th April

SHEHAN, Iraq‹In the first populated town to be taken by U.S. and Kurdish
forces in the north, the morning after felt like freedom for some and
invasion for others.

To the Kurdish majority in this town of 10,000 souls, seeing the backsides
of retreating Iraqi soldiers, Baath party members and Saddam Hussein's
Fedayeen militia brought instant relief.

"We can finally breathe again," said Jasem Abdi, 40, insisting yesterday
that the suspicion, arrest, or torture of Kurds was a regular feature of the
ousted, Arab-dominated regime.

Kurdish men mingled about in tea shops and on street corners. Some greeted
visiting relatives from towns that used to be on the other side of northern
Iraq's front line, which separates Kurdish-controlled areas from the rest of
the country.

Here and there, the Kurdistan Democratic Party militia raised its yellow
flag on buildings to proclaim itself the new local authority. And party
members cruised the streets in beat-up pickup trucks blaring patriotic
Kurdish folk songs through loudspeakers.

But at the southern edge of town, in the Arab quarter, the feeling was
altogether different.

"Iraqis will resist until the last man," said Unis Saleh, 38, referring to
what he called the U.S. "invasion" of his country.

With that, Saleh walked away from a reporter, leaving his neighbour to
explain the depth of anger felt by many Arabs in the town, some 40
kilometres north of the oil-rich city of Mosul.

Muhammad Obed, 38, said the 80 Arab families who live in the town have
always seen their Kurdish neighbours as "brothers," despite the Iraqi army's
brutal repression of Kurds in the 1980s and early 1990s.

He wouldn't say whether some of those families had taken over the homes of
Kurds chased out by Iraqi officials ‹ a policy Saddam used widely in the
north. Obed stressed only that his family had been there since 1939.

He said half of the town's Arabs fled to escape U.S. air strikes, although
it seems clear that some also fled because of their close association with a
local Iraqi regime in its final days.

A mild-mannered, smiling man who evacuated his wife and five children to a
nearby town, Obed refused to say if Saddam's downfall would make him happy.

Nor would he condemn Saddam's repressive rule.

"Saddam Hussein isn't finished. Iraqis will continue to resist," said Obed,
who graduated college with an art history degree but works as a day
labourer.

American "invaders" thought Iraqis would welcome them by dancing in the
street, he said, but Iraqis have never welcomed "colonizers."

"We should have been left alone to solve our own problems," he said.

"We judge Americans by the destruction of their bombs, not by their words.
Look at what they have done to this town. You call this liberation?"

The town suffered significant bomb damage during a battle of several days
that ended Sunday. Most of the buildings hit seem to have been former
government offices.

Three civilians were killed by U.S. bombs and missiles, including a father
and son from the same family.

Near the local headquarters of Saddam's Baath party, a massive crater 7
metres deep and 25 metres wide marks the spot where a U.S. bomb exploded and
a home of a Baath party member used to be.

Inside the Baath building, the walls of a meeting hall were painted with
slogans meant to inspire.

"There is no room for conspirators against Iraq."

"There can be no life without sun and no dignity without Saddam."

In a small office, files were stacked on a shelf, including an
8-centimetre-thick one marked "security." Its contents indicated Baath party
officials kept a close watch on the town's Kurds.

One handwritten document in the file listed the names of 22 Kurdish
"saboteurs" it said were in the town. The file was full of similar lists.

Another document listed the names of Kurds who joinedmilitias in the
autonomous Kurdish area of northern Iraq, protected since 1991 by patrolling
U.S. and British warplanes.

It said their families in the town should pay for their sons' treason by
having their monthly food supplies ‹ likely under the U.N. oil-for-food
program ‹ cut off.

Some documents discussed the political leanings of individuals, while others
were concerned that certain rumours were preventing people from volunteering
for the "Jerusalem army" to liberate the holy city.

On the floor of the room was a pile of "certificates for the volunteers to
liberate Palestine according to the call of President Saddam Hussein." From
the size of the pile, it looked like not many town residents had signed up
to liberate Jerusalem "from the Zionist entity."

(Saddam has given at least $10,000 U.S. to families of Palestinian suicide
bombers during the uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip.)

Across the street, at what used to be the local police station, a Kurdish
militia officer said about 50 Baath party officials were captured during the
battle for the town.

Shehan also has a Catholic minority and a church, St. Joseph's, built in
1948.

About 100 Christian refugees from Baghdad, most of them women and children,
have been living in a hall in the church compound for the past several days.

They fled the Iraqi capital just before war broke out, hoping to make their
way to Dohuk, a Kurdish town many are originally from.

But the road across the front line was blocked, so they rented homes in
Shehan.

When Iraqi soldiers and Fedayeen militia fighters began defending the town
from their rooftops, they gathered the few belongings they brought with them
from Baghdad and took refuge in the church.

"The bombing here was bad, but nothing like Baghdad," said Sami Nissan
Sawah, 35, a Baghdad dentist.

Asked if they supported the war, they showed little enthusiasm. "I want the
war to finish," said Issa Matou, 53, a father of five children. "We want to
live in peace."


http://www.mmail.com.my/Current_News/NST/Wednesday/World/20030409081745/Arti
cle/

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VSEZXQJFGETE4CRBAEOCFEY?
type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2531966

*  IRAQI COMMUNISTS IN NORTH DREAM OF BRIGHTER FUTURE
by Mike Collett-White
Reuters, 9th April

KALAR, Iraq: In this small, dusty town in northern Iraq, diehard Communists
study the works of Marx and Engels and dream of the day their party rises
from the ashes.

Once the most powerful Communist movement in the Middle East, the party was
brutally repressed by Iraq's government for 40 years, leaving just a few
thousands members to follow the creed in the Kurd-controlled north of the
country.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist system in eastern Europe
was a further blow.

"The collapse of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe for us," said Abdul
Hamid Mohammad, a 48-year-old party member, standing outside the crumbling
headquarters in Kalar, a town 100 miles northeast of Baghdad and a Communist
bastion.

"It was especially hard for the older members. Of course we saw this coming
when (former Soviet president) Mikhail Gorbachev came to power."

But with the U.S. military's noose tightening around Baghdad, there is a
glimmer of hope for the party faithful.

"As a party we have faced complete extinction at least three times," said
Subhi Mehdi Ahmed, a member of the Kurdistan Communist Party's (KCP)
politburo in northern Iraq, the only presence the party still has in the
country.

"What party has ever faced what we have faced? We are working to return to
what we had in the 1950s, but we know it won't be easy," he told Reuters in
Sulaimaniya, the second largest city in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq.

With Lenin, Engels and Marx staring down from a picture on the wall, Ahmed
estimates the KCP's membership at less than 5,000, although support in local
elections a few years ago was in the tens of thousands.

Najad Mohammadamin Hiwarash, a 41-year-old taxi driver in Sulaimaniya,
proudly brandished his Communist Party membership card, and recounted his
narrow escapes from President Saddam Hussein's government.

Shot six times during various battles, he also survived a chemical weapons
attack in 1987 and was released from death row in an Iraqi prison, where he
had been tortured, in a prisoner swap after the Kurdish uprising of 1991.

"Marxism will triumph in the end," he smiled.

In Kalar there is little to distinguish the party headquarters from other
buildings.

A small hammer and sickle is painted over the entrance and a handful of
Soviet-style posters inside depict Communist heroes martyred under Saddam's
rule.

Outside stand Communist "peshmerga" fighters, wearing traditional baggy
green trousers, belts slung with ammunition and grenades, scarves around
their necks and Kalashnikov assault rifles slung over their shoulders.

In an unlikely alliance, these and other Kurdish fighters fought alongside
U.S. special forces in a recent attack on the Ansar al-Islam group of
radical Islamists which Washington accuses of having ties with the al Qaeda
network.

Communist party leaders welcome the U.S.-led assault on Saddam and his army,
but oppose any role for Washington in Iraq if he is toppled.

This kind of ideological flexibility runs through Kurdish Communists'
thinking.

"We have all studied Marxism and Leninism, and take inspiration from them,"
said Abdul Rahman Faris, another politburo member in Kalar.

"But we are not trying to create a proletarian labor state, as this was one
of the weaknesses of the old Soviet Union. I personally do not believe in
the atheist ideology and members are free to choose to be a Muslim or not."

The rhetoric is not of revolution, power to the proletariat and the evils of
capitalism but of "social justice and democracy."

"What happened to Communist ideology is not the fault of the ideology itself
but in the way it was practiced," Faris added.

A small group of members nod enthusiastically when asked if they are
familiar with the works of Lenin, Marx and Engels.

"We go to seminars and there is a committee which deals with matters of
theory and ideology," said Peshraw Rashid, a 36-year-old baker and party
member, wearing a gray suit.

"We are hopeful that the Kurdistan Communist Party can regain a position of
real power in Iraq," added Mohammad. "Not through a coup or a revolution but
through democracy."

Politburo members say they have good relations with the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the two main political forces
in northern Iraq.

But they are quick to criticize them for fighting against each other in the
mid-1990s and question whether they are as influential as their leaders like
to suggest.

"The other parties are larger in number, but many of their members are not
remotely active," said Faris.

The PUK and KDP, along with the Iraqi National Congress and Shi'ite Muslims
who represent the largest group in Iraq, will play a key role in shaping
politics in post-Saddam Iraq.

The Communists, however, will struggle to make their voices heard above the
clamour for power and control of Iraq's huge oil resources.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the Iraqi Communists enjoyed considerable
power under Abdel Karim Qassem, who led an army plot to overthrow the
monarchy in 1958.

Unhappy with its cold war foe's toehold in the Middle East, several authors
have accused the United States of working to undermine Qassem, and in 1963
he surrendered to an army insurgency against him.

Saddam had participated in an attempt on his life in 1959.

What followed was a brutal crackdown by the ruling Baath party against
Communists and leftist sympathizers. Estimates of the death toll from
assassinations, executions and death by torture vary wildly from several
hundred to tens of thousands.

The leadership of the party was all but wiped out, and show trials and
executions in 1969 and 1978 forced surviving senior members to flee the
country.

Ironically, Saddam's methods of ridding himself of Communist and socialist
rivals have often been compared to those of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and
his reign of terror.

Little wonder the Communists so keenly await his demise.


http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=focusIraqNews&storyID=2532165

*  ATOP MOUNTAIN, REBEL KURDS CLING TO RADICAL DREAM
by Joseph Logan
Reuters, 9th April

IN THE QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq (Reuters) - Years ago, Teimour set out to
bring revolutionary change to the whole world, starting with the liberation
of Turkey's Kurdish southeast.

Now, their guns fallen silent, he and other veterans of the war for autonomy
for Turkey's Kurds make do with their own new society, splendidly isolated
in the mountains of north Iraq. The rest of mankind will be just as free,
they believe, eventually.

"Many things we want to achieve -- the equality of men and women, a just
kind of labor -- exist here," Teimour said, speaking from one of a string of
military camps that KADEK -- the group representing Turkey's Kurdish
separatist movement -- has in the snowy peaks of Kurdish-held northern Iraq.

"It is far from complete, but it is a beginning."

To outsiders, it may look more like an end: the thousands of fighters the
group says are spread through its rocky stronghold are the remains of the
Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which launched a campaign for Kurdish
self-rule in 1984.

Their battle with Turkish forces claimed more than 30,000 lives, led to
martial law in southeastern Turkey and the destruction of thousands of
Kurdish villages before Turkey abducted PKK head Abdullah Ocalan and
sentenced him to die in 1999.

In captivity, Ocalan called on his fighters to lay down their arms and work
for broader cultural and political rights. They heeded, fighting largely
stopped and the PKK renamed itself KADEK in 2002, saying its armed struggle
was on hold pending progress on the political front.

It has come -- Turkey eased bans on Kurdish broadcasting and education last
year to help its bid to join the European Union -- but independently of the
people once synonymous with Turkey's Kurdish question, now fighters without
a war.

Osman Ocalan, Abdullah's brother and a senior figure in both the PKK and
KADEK, insists the rebels remain a force in politics and, if they are
attacked by Turkey or anyone else, on the battlefield.

"The PKK was never as strong politically or militarily (as KADEK). The
number of guerrillas is more than the PKK had, and the political cadre is
twice as big," he told a visitor, over a dinner of roasted chicken and
foraged greens in a stone hut at one camp.

Flipping through channels on a satellite TV hook-up to settle on the group's
Europe-based outlet, he conceded, however, that Turkey's capture of its
arch-foe has cost the fighters a leader, while the turn to politics has
blurred their focus.

"The only weak point is morale. The arrest of our president has shaken
everyone very badly, and it has taken the past four years to get on our
feet."

For leaders, the new realities lead to strange places: Osman suggests a
U.S.-Turkish rift over war in Iraq may be a political windfall, and says he
seeks dialogue with Washington, which considered the PKK terrorists and
views KADEK the same way.

"They need the Kurds," he explained to a visitor, as the men and women on
guard duty milled nervously about their leader. Pointing to U.S. military
cooperation with Iraqi Kurds, he said the Kurds are poised for a role in
regional politics.

"If the Americans miss this chance, they will squander politically whatever
they have won in the war."

For the rank and file, the period of limbo in the mountains has become a
sort of monastic retreat, during which they can devote themselves to the
principles that led recruits, many of them foreigners, to join the PKK's
campaign in Turkey.

A lanky, bespectacled German who identified himself as Mardoum -- his
Kurdish nom de guerre -- has been here for about three years, having joined
the PKK around the time Turkish commandos dealt it a body blow by kidnapping
Abdullah Ocalan.

"When I became concerned with the Kurdish issue and thought seriously about
joining, what settled it for me was the social dimension, the fact that
Turkey and Kurds are really just an element of the larger question," he
said.

"Here, it is easier perhaps to concentrate, to devote yourself to the fight
without being caught up in things that have nothing to do with revolution."

Others echo the sentiment that they are cultivating the habit of
revolutionary virtue through everyday life.

Teimour, a veteran of the PKK's days of residence in Lebanon fondly welcomes
a visitor from Beirut, whom he is eager to show the vegetable garden his
comrades are weeding outside one of the group's checkpoints, under the gaze
of a hostile watchdog.

"It's going to be beautiful; all these vegetables from right here," he
beamed. "Go have a look, but be careful of the dog."

About a third of the group's members of women, who seem to do much of the
armed duty day in and day out, while many of their male colleagues cook and
clear the dishes after meals.

"We have no illusions about who should be doing what, partly because we
cannot afford to have them," said a woman who directs one of the groups of
female fighters. "Out of necessity, every one of us is a baker, a carpenter,
a cook."

They are hundreds of miles removed from the places they hope to see
liberated, but the distance, said a fighter called Firat, seems less.

"As a matter of pure geography, yes, of course we are cut off from northern
Kurdistan," he said, referring to the largely Kurdish areas of southeastern
Turkey. "But what we are doing here is intimately connected with the
struggle there."

In any case, said a member who identified himself as Hebun and has not seen
his home town of Diyarbakir -- the center of Turkey's Kurdish area -- since
1994, it is harder to long for a place you know not to be free.

"I miss it, at times," he admitted. "But one realizes that it cannot be your
home so long as this system that conspires against human beings exists and
is in place." (Reporting by Joseph Logan; Editing by Victoria Barrett)




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