From newsdesk at igc.apc.org  Thu Oct  3 16:49:25 1991
From: newsdesk at igc.apc.org (IGC News Desk)
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 1991 08:49:25 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: GERMANY: KURDS HOLD INTERNATIONAL M
Message-ID: <APC.1.0.54efc643.c59@igc.apc.org>

From: News Desk <newsdesk>
Subject: GERMANY: KURDS HOLD INTERNATIONAL M

/* Written  7:55 am  Oct  3, 1991 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.englibrary */
/* ---------- "GERMANY: KURDS HOLD INTERNATIONAL M" ---------- */
Copyright Inter Press Service 1991, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Area: Europe, western
Title: GERMANY: KURDS HOLD INTERNATIONAL MEET WITH OFFICIAL BACKING


bonn, sep 30 (ips/ramesh jaura) -- an international conference
here urged the united states and the soviet union to put the
''kurdish question'' on the agenda of the proposed mid east
conference.

it also asked for the inclusion of representatives of the kurds
as participants, ''in order to achieve a comprehensive peace in
the region''.

titled the ''kurdish people: no future without human rights,''
the conference was held sep 27-28 in bonn under the auspices of
minister president of the german federal state of lower saxony,
gerhard schroeder.

the meet was sponsored by the 'society for threatened peoples'
(gesellschaft fuer bedrohte voelker) based in the german town of
goettingen and 'medico international' in cologne.

the participants in the meet included johann galtung, the
norwegian professor of peace studies, and the austrian politician
peter jankowitsch, secretary of state for integration, development
and cooperation.

nearly 300 kurds from germany and german politicians,
academics, human rights activists and journalists joined the meet
inaugurated by minister president schroeder.

the declaration emerging from the meet urged the industrialised
nations to ''cease to provide any kind of military assistance to
turkey, iraq, iran and syria until such time as these countries
completely respect human rights in kurdistan''.

according to the organisers, 'kurdistan' comprises those four
countries and the number of kurdish people is said to be 25
million.

the participants of the conference demanded that the united
nations secretary general, javier perez de cuellar, appoint a
''social reporter on the situation of human rights in kurdistan
and that he submit this report to the responsible committees for
appropriate action''.

the conference warned against a renewed attack on the kurdish
people by iraq under saddam hussein and appealed for international
vigilance.

with winter on the threshold, the meet called upon the united
nations, its member states, relevant organisations and
international humanitarian associations to mobilise emergency
measures. (more/ips)

germany: kurds hold international meet with official backing(2-e)

germany: kurds (2)

aid should be sent directly to the kurdish regions in order to
prevent a repetition of the human tragedy seen last winter in
turkey and iraq, the conference urged.

the declaration will be forwarded to the united nations
secretary general, the committee of ministers of the council of
europe, the presidents of the european parliament and of national
parliaments, the organisers said.

''violation of human rights can no longer be viewed as an
internal affair of a given state,'' the declaration said.

it added: ''the current tide of change the worldwide process of
democratisation and peace, offers the kurdish people too the
possibility of solving their problems peacefully.''

the conference called upon the governments of turkey, iran,
iraq and syria to comply with the international agreements and
pacts which they had signed and to implement the rights attested
therein.

those agreements stipulated an end to deportations of the kurds
from their ancestral homeland and the destruction of their
villages and nature.

also, the ''special teams'' of police, militia and the
military, which were responsible for all the flagrant violations
of human rights and the ''collective punishment'' of the kurdish
people, should be withdrawn.

the declaration called for an immediate end to ''state
terrorism and to the dirty war against the kurdish people'' and
recognition of the existence of the kurdish people and its right
to live in dignity and autonomy.

a substantial outcome of the conference was the founding of an
'international association for human rights in kurdistan' (imk)
which is expected to be registered as a non-profit human rights
organisation with headquarters in bonn. (end/ips/rp/raj/rj)


From worldpnews at igc.apc.org  Wed Oct 16 01:10:46 1991
From: worldpnews at igc.apc.org (worldpnews at igc.apc.org)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1991 17:10:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Turkey attacks Kurds pointer
Message-ID: <APC.1.0.54efc644.2ae@igc.apc.org>


For news about Turkey attacking Kurds, please read today's 
worldp.samples



From pnmideast at igc.apc.org  Thu Oct 31 02:22:51 1991
From: pnmideast at igc.apc.org (PeaceNet Middle East Team)
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1991 18:22:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Who Speaks For The Kurds? (Re: Stil
Message-ID: <APC.1.0.54efc645.5b3@igc.apc.org>

From: <pnmideast>
Subject: Who Speaks For The Kurds? (Re: Stil

/* Written 10:25 am  Oct 30, 1991 by aziz in cdp:soc.culture.tu */
/* ---------- "Who Speaks For The Kurds? (Re: Stil" ---------- */

What compels me to write these lines is not the disgusting, sick
jokes of Yuksel Camay that I read recently; I am ashamed to be on
the same planet with him and those with similar mental (or is it
genital?) wavelength. Rather, I would like to discuss the Kurdish
question and convey to you the feelings of a Kurd.

Let me start with some personal reflections. Both my parents are
from Diyarbakir, a city known for its water-melon and its
infamous prison. They were both born away from home in the
tumultuous 1920-40 era when influential Kurds were forcefully
settled in Western Anatolia. My uncle was named "Iskan" to
engrave this injustice on his identity. My mother, who was
brought up in Aydin, still recalls the horror of her classmates'
searching for her Kurdish tail. My father was forced to resign
from his post of Minister of Health and Social Aid in 1963
merely for speaking Kurdish in a public hospital to an elderly
villager who couldn't speak any other language. Seven years
later he suffered a suspicious death at the age of 49. The
reason I am telling you all this is to try to convey the
tragedies of even a most privileged Kurdish person.

Two summers ago, I went to my village in Diyarbakir province. As
I sat among 15 or so villagers who had come to welcome me, I
noticed a sorrow, a brokenness of heart in them. This was so
atypical, normally they would be overjoyed to see a son of
theirs who had managed to break the vicious cycle of poverty,
illiteracy and despair. Upon much insistence, they revealed the
reason: The night before, a team of counter-guerilla warfare had
come to the village, beat them naked in the village square while
forcing their wives, mothers and children to watch it all. They
were accused of helping the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). I
knew it was totally false.

This is a small part of the overall picture. It vanishes in
magnitude when one hears of innocent people having to eat shit.
Or when one knows that a noble scientist, Dr. Ismail Besikci has
spent 17 of his last 24 years in prison only for studying and
writing the Kurds. Or when one reads that Vedat Aydin, the
local leader of a legal political party, is taken from his house
in Diyarbakir one ill-fated night for his body to be found, all
bones broken and full of bullets, in a sack in a train station
60 miles away. Everything vanishes. What remains is an immense
sense of hopelessness, voicelessness, and outrage. 

Yes folks, that is the story of 70 years of "the republic". It
is a story of denial of basic human rights: language, education,
freedom of expression. It is also a story of cultural
annihilation, torture and murder.

I have never told these things this openly. Never. Not even to
my best friends, who are so full of compassion to the people of
Palestine, people of South Africa, but blind to the people of
Kurdistan. I always told everybody that I am a Kurd. Not
proudly, as so many of you are of being a Turk, but
matter-of-factly because I was born a Kurd. Now I tell you what
being a Kurd is about.

Now if a privileged Kurd, who was supposed to cry from the heart
"How happy he is who says I am a Turk", feels this way, try for
a moment to imagine how a Kurdish youth in Bingol feels. What do
you offer him not to revolt against an authority that has only
shown him dislike, distrust and brute force? What do you say to
a little girl in Batman, whose oil is shipped daily to Istanbul
while she suffers epidemics every summer? It is too difficult to
bring a doctor here? What do you say to a 70 year old whose
village overlooks the Keban Dam? We couldn't bring electricity
to your home because it was too difficult, so we took it to
Izmir? What do you suggest to a 20 year old who dreads the
military service as he knows too well that he will be beaten
for his lack of Turkish? Come, we will beat you for your own
good, so that your son will speak the "right language"?

What do you say?

I would not say a thing.


Dr. Murat Azizoglu

From pnmideast at igc.apc.org  Thu Oct 31 02:28:04 1991
From: pnmideast at igc.apc.org (PeaceNet Middle East Team)
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1991 18:28:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Kurdish wisdom
Message-ID: <APC.1.0.54efc646.704@igc.apc.org>

From: <pnmideast>
Subject: Kurdish wisdom

/* Written  9:16 pm  Oct 29, 1991 by nikkhah in cdp:soc.culture.ir */
/* ---------- "Kurdish wisdom" ---------- */
Some proverbs collected in a special issue of Kurdish Times and reported
in the academic review Linga Franca:

* Don't be so sour that they spit you out; don't be so sweet that they
swallow you.

* Believe neither in the oppressor's laugh nor the pleasantness of the 
winter's weather.

* Poverty is like a shirt made out of fire.

* You can't milk a cow and eat sunflower seeds at the same time.

* Don't serve your speech until It is cooked.

* I Would rather God took my life than ask my son-in-law for clothes.

 Source: Toronto Globe & mail: Oct.29 1991/Social Studies /P. A20

Does anybody know the original Kurdish versions? What are the Farsi 
equivalents?