Help Needed For Atrush Camp, Kurdis

[kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu]

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Help Needed For Atrush Camp, Kurdistan

From: AKIN <akin at kurdish.org>

Dear Friends,

A humanitarian crisis is brewing in the mountains of Kurdistan.  Your help
is needed to avert this catastrophe.  Please send an e-mail or a fax to the
High Commissioner for Refugees.  Address your correspondence to Ms. Sadako
Ogata.

e-mail: ogatas at unhcr.ch
Washington UNHCR fax number: 202.296.5660
New York UNHCR fax number:212.963.0074

The article below by Kathryn Porter, a friend of the Kurds, is meant to
give you some background information.  We thank you for your timely
intervention.

Sincerely yours,

AKIN




In this season of giving, the act of withholding

By Kathryn Cameron Porter
Monday, December 23, 1996

        The United States government has rescued some 7,000 Kurds in recent
months.  These men and women and their children were saved by a series of
dramatic flights to Guam.  In this season of giving, they are the lucky
ones, receiving the protection of one of the most powerful countries in the
world.
        The unlucky ones are the Kurdish refugees of Atrush camp from
Turkey, some 15,000 elderly men, women and their young children, who
recently received a no-more-help notice from the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, the agency overlooking their welfare for the
last two years.  Who are these Kurds?  Why are they losing the protection
of a United Nations agency?
        A terrible war has been raging in the mountains of Kurdistan for
years now. Americans are familiar with the one unfolding in northern Iraq,
a.k.a. southern Kurdistan.
        The other war that few Americans know about rages in the mountains
of Kurdistan in Turkey.  These Kurds of Atrush camp are its most recent
casualties.  They were forced out of their villages beginning in March of
1994 and found refugee in the Atrush camp in northern Iraq.  The world body
overseeing these types of crisis, the UNHCR, gave them support and
protection.
        This support came to an end last weekend.  The UNHCR statement to
the press, quoted in December 22, 1996, Reuter piece, notes that they made
their "last food and kerosene deliveries to the Atrush camp."
        In this season of giving, something is seriously amiss to deny some
15,000 Kurdish refugees the support and protection of the only world body
that can help them.  The severe Kurdish winter is setting in.  Many of
these refugees and especially the children will die of the cold before
hunger.
        There is still time to avoid this humanitarian crisis.  Just
because these Kurds are the adversaries of our friend, Turkey, does not
mean that we should keep quiet and make this season of giving one of
suffering for them.
        There are three players in this drama.  The most important one in
this ill-fated decision is Turkey.  The government in Ankara has repeatedly
asked for the closure of the camp.  In its war on the Kurds, the Turkish
government is intent on denying food and shelter to the refugees in Atrush
camp.
        Fighting the Turkish army in the mountains of Kurdistan is the one
time Marxist group now seeking the democratic rights of the Kurds, the PKK.
Its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, recently participated in a Med TV panel
discussion and responded to the UNHCR statement.
        He said, "There are no PKK activists in the camp.  If there are, I
am ordering them to leave.  Go, check the camp for yourself.  If you find
one PKK fighter, then, remove your protection.  But if the children have
their brothers and sisters in our ranks and if their parents are supporting
our movement, we can not tell them to forgo their solidarity with us."
        The United Nations agency for its part asserts the activists will
not allow the refugees "to exercise their own free will on the matter of
whether or not they want to go back to Turkey."
        In Turkey, in the meantime, this dirty war continues to rage.
Torture, killings and disappearances are on the rise.  House Concurrent
Resolution 136 of the 104th Congress notes that, "... the human toll of
this conflict has been great, with the loss of more than 20,000 lives, the
destruction of more than 2,650 Kurdish villages."
        On May 16, 1994, a group of Kurdish parliamentarians from Turkey
visited Atrush camp.  They video-taped an interview with the camp residents
about their flight to Iraqi Kurdistan.  One after the other recounts the
atrocities of war and the need on their part to seek refugee in another
country.
        The United Nations should not be a tool of the Turks nor for that
matter of the Kurds.  These refugees should either be protected in where
they are or need to be placed in a third country.  Twice in these past
years, I have personally visited this camp and now recall vividly the faces
of these elderly men, women and their children.  The tragedy of their lives
is particularly poignant as we celebrate this Christmas in the safety and
security of our homes.  To send them back to Turkey would be tantamount to
entrusting sheep to wolves.

Kathryn Cameron Porter is the President of Human Rights Alliance in
Fairfax, Virginia.


----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service
to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship