Letters from the public

[kurds at gn.apc.org]

I've been looking through some of the replies to our appeal and
thought I'd share a few with you.

"You won't have time to read long letters but I just want to say that
this small cheque comes with my love, thoughts and prayers.  I am so
heartbroken to see what is happening to your people and countrymen in
Iraq, you are the victims of such terrible injustice and unbelievable
neglect.  
I really pray for you all that you will find peace, safety and security
soon and that your tears and sadness will be turned to joy.  As I am a
Christian, I believe in a God who has suffered already Himself and one
who defends the weak and persecuted.
I pray that through this time the Kurdish people will find that you have
many friends - not just the mountains - and I want to be one of them.
And I pray you will find your dignity as a people again soon, or rather,
that you will MAINTAIN your dignity as you are not the ones who have
lost it."  (Katie Short, Edinburgh)

"I cannot watch the plight of the Kurdish people on television or read
the newspapers without weeping at the anguish and suffering of the Kurds."
(Mrs J Roberts, Melton Mowbray)

"I am so sorry and share your anguish and anger.  Like most people
everywhere I have very little power but will write to our leading
politicians."  (Unsigned)

"I send you another cheque given to me by my friend.  I do hope you
are getting some help sent to you. - I feel so helpless when I see
what is happening to those sad refugees.  IT IS A DISGRACE TO HUMANITY."
(Mrs L Swiatek, Wembley)

"I write to express my heartfelt horror at what is happening to your
people in Iraq.  As I watch the tragedy unfold, I can only ask, Where
is the moral outrage, Where is the shame, Where is the guilt?
The Western Governments bear a direct moral responsibility for what is
now happening in Iraq - they called for the Iraqi people to rise up
against Saddam  - and yet now they hide behind excuses and time delaying
tactics which I find repugnant.

Whilst I supported the eviction of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, I can
feel no sense of victory now, only shame that we have done nothing to
support you in your fight."
(Valerie Newman, Cornwall)

"for the children  love from charlotte  4 years"
(from Charlotte, 4 years)

"I like many other people am horrified at the plight of the Kurds.
Hopefully something will be done to help them live peaceful lives
permanently very soon".
(Joyce Jones, Wirral)

"I feel terrible about what is happening to the Kurdish people".
(David Breen, St Helens)

"I have been very moved by the reports and pictures showing the
plight of the Kurdish people...Please know that British people are
thinking of you and praying for you.  God bless you."
(Elaine Roberts)

"Please accept this small donation in the hope that it will help
to bring some comfort to the thousands of Kurdish refugees.  It
saddens us to see all those suffering such cruelty and desperate
conditions.  We pray that things will get better."
(B Jones, Blaenau Ffestiniog)

"Having but little money and a limited amount of time, I thought
the very least I might to is to write with a message of sympathy,
support and heart-felt wishes for all your people in this time of
such tragedy and deep suffering in the mountains and high passes
of Kurdistan.  For your people gathered in this country, it must
be a time of great anxiety, strain and sorrow that your sisters
and brothers in Kurdistan, old, young and middle-aged, have to
endure further hardship, loss and death, so soon following on a
brief euphoria when there appeared the possibility of a successful
path to free self-determination both for yourselves, and for the
wider progress of a civilisation truly worthy of Iraq's long-born
historical heritage, free from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein's
brutal iniquities.
May peace be upon you in your sufferings...
As a British citizen, I have long felt some shame at the part
our colonial policies played in the historical developments leading
to modern-day tragedies in the Middle East - by political betrayals
of Arab peoples following the First World War and, more recently,
by the tame acquiescence of the British government to the overriding
neo-imperialist concerns of the United States in the Gulf War.  Oil
was/is the key, and the chain of violence unleashed, both upon the
peoples of Iraq in Operation Desert Storm, and now in the heightened
repression being exercised by the Republican Guard against any who
dared resist or are suspected of involvement with resistance, your
people bear the brunt of the suffering.  If there is any small way
in which you think I may be able to help, please let me know and I
will do what I can.  It seems that international relief agencies
are operating at last, let us hope it is not too little, too late.
Most important is the long-term political future of the Kurdish (and
Iraqi) people."
(B Mackenzie, London)

"I am sorry I can only send thirty pounds.  I know it is a drop in
the ocean but I send it with love for you all.  I consider that you
have been betrayed: your babies, your little children, your pregnant
mothers, your grandparents -- all betrayed.
I'm an Englishwoman born and bred, married to a Hungarian husband.
The west betrayed Hungary too.  Of course I am more than grateful
that I live in a country in which I can say what I truly think, but
that doesn't buy milk for Kurdish babies, does it?  As usual, governments
do too little too late and I feel guilty when I lie in my warm bed
every night.  I feel ashamed to be English."
(Marjorie Gabsi)


"Please accept this as a small token of our love for the Kurdish people.
We continue to pray for their survival and ultimate happiness as befits
every human being who has a right to live in dignity and peace."
(George and Rosamund Bray, Kent)

"Please find enclosed a cheque to help the Kurdish people in some way.
I wish I could have sent more, but I am a pensioner and over 80 years
of age.  I do pray that God will help these poor people and send food
and shelter to them from other countries, who are better provided for.
May God bless and care for the Kurdish people."
(Mrs J Wright, Bradford)

"It seems to me that the Kurds have been rather forgotten by the world
and so I have decided to send a large part of my savings to help them.
...I am 84 and registered blind."
(Mrs K Fairbanks, Sussex)

"I have had some small experience of suffering wartime upheavals by
escaping from the Japanese invasion of Malaya and landing eventually
in South Africa, 6 months pregnant and penniless in the clothes I
stood up in.  My late husband spent 3 1/2 years being persecuted by
the Japanese whilst building the notorious Siamese Railway and my
father suffered internment in Singapore.  There was no mass media
coverage for us way back in 1942.  It is for this reason that I feel
for your people and pray that something will soon be done to help
those who survive the agonising times that they are experiencing."
(Mrs R Hough, London)

"I write to you with a deep sense of shame for what my country has
done, not only to you as a people but also to Iraq as a nation that
has already suffered terribly under Saddam.
My small contribution is personal and pathetically inadequate, but I
wish you every success in your magnificent attitude to keep your
heads high while those around you have theirs in the sand."
(Alastair Sawday, Bristol)

"As a British officer I served in Iraq at Habbaniya between 1948 and
1950.  I well remember Ali Askar, my Kurdish bearer, and I spent two
memorable holidays at the leave centre at Armadiya.
I consider that stability will not come to the Middle East until two
new independent sovereign states are created - Kurdistan and Palestine."
(Douglas Bliss, Andover)

"I enclose a cheque to be used to help alleviate some of the
misery being inflicted on your country's refugees.
I would also like to express my sense of shame that this solution has
been allowed to develop while the western powers have done nothing.
Please God your day will come and your nation will be recognised as
a separate, free, political entity."
(Gerard and Siobhan McConnell, London)


These are extracts from just a few of the handfuls of letters which
I picked out of the cardboard boxes in which they're stacked in the
Kurdish Cultural Centre, London.  (We've tried to reply thanking
each donor, except where they have specifically asked us not to.)

To each and every one of them, our heartfelt thanks.  You're
magnificent.