From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Sun Sep  1 19:35:36 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 01 Sep 1996 19:35:36
Subject: Mainstream News On Barzani/Saddam T
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609011806.OAA22517@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>
Subject: Mainstream News On Barzani/Saddam Terror In South Kurdistan

Iraqi Troops Capture Kurdish City 

By WAIEL FALEH 
Associated Press Writer 
Sunday, September 1, 1996 7:47 am EDT 

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi forces and an allied Kurdish faction appeared to
be in full control of Irbil, the main Kurdish city in northern Iraq, and the
government warned the United States on Sunday not to intervene in the region. 

The official Iraqi News Agency said another northern city, Sulaymaniya, was
calm. There were widespread, unconfirmed reports it was being shelled. 

President Saddam Hussein's forces stormed Saturday into Irbil, part of the
Kurdish "safe haven", to dislodge one Kurdish faction, the Patriotic Union
of Kurdish, and allow a second, the Kurdish Democratic Party, to move in. 

It was the largest military attack by Saddam's army in five years and it
immediately set off alarm bells in the United States, where President
Clinton put U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf on high alert. 

Iraq said it planned to withdraw quickly, but U.S. officials and Kurdish
opposition forces said they were skeptical. 

There were sketchy reports of scattered fighting in Irbil on Sunday, but
most accounts suggested it was no more than a mopping up operation by Iraqi
forces. Even the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan acknowledged that it had
lost control of the city. 

PUK spokesman Latif Rashid said Iraqi "intelligence and security people are
actively working in Irbil, searching houses and writing down names of PUK
activists and sympathizers."

Rashid, speaking from London, said there were reports that Saddam's forces
were "storming houses and stealing property the same way Saddam's army did
in Kuwait" following a 1990 invasion. 

Iraqi forces were not supposed to go near Irbil, which is 12 miles inside
the Kurdish safe haven carved out by the U.S.-led forces after the 1991 Gulf
War. 

Iraq said it launched the attack because the PUK had been cooperating with
Iraq's longtime enemy, Iran. 

Iraq said its forces "would return to their former positions very soon," the
state-run Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified government spokesman as
saying late Saturday night. It did not give any timetable. 

Iraq's state-run media warned the United States and its Western allies not
to intervene on behalf of the Kurds. 

"The Iraqi people ... are ready to provide an example that will inevitably
remind the Americans of the Vietnam complex," al-Jumhouriya newspaper said
in a front-page editorial.

"The Kurdistan autonomous region, since 1991, has been an unbearable hell
because the Americans and the British with their supporters have turned the
region into a theater for fighting through the slogan of safe haven," said
Al-Qadissiya, a daily newspaper run by Iraq's military. 

There were persistent rumors Sunday of shelling in Sulaymaniya, a stronghold
of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. 

The PUK said Saturday night that Iraqi forces were shelling the town of
Chemchemal, 18 miles away, and appeared head toward Sulaymaniya, one of its
strongholds. 

However, Iraq's state-run news agency said Sulaymania was quiet Sunday. 

"The people stressed that the city has not come under any shelling," the
Iraqi News Agency said. 

Western forces have monitored the Kurdish safe haven from bases in southeast
Turkey, and there were no ground forces in place to prevent the advance by
Iraqi troops and tanks. 

In Washington, the Pentagon said it had no information on whether Iraqi
troops were showing signs of pulling back. A quick withdrawal could avert a
showdown with Western forces. 

Saddam chaired a meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council, the top
decision-making body, on Saturday, and the government said afterward that it
did not intend to retake control of northern Iraq -- at this time. 

"The (Iraqi) political leadership has not yet decided to re-establish
government administration in the (Kurdish) autonomous region and will leave
this until the circumstances mature," the statement said. 

But, it warned, "we believe our action was a clear message to those who
conspired against their homeland," a reference to the PUK and its alleged
links with Iran. 

The PUK said 450 Iraqi tanks took part in Saturday's offensive, adding that
30,000 Iraqi forces had massed in recent days in preparation for the attack. 

There were no confirmed casualty figures, but the PUK and other sources
spoke of dozens of dead and wounded. 

Iraq regards the Kurdish safe haven as a violation of its sovereignty. The
safe haven in northern Iraq covers 17,000 square miles of mountain terrain
bordering Iran, Turkey and Syria. 

The Western countries set up the safe area to protect the Kurds from
Saddam's military after a failed 1991 rebellion in which the KDP and PUK
joined forces. 

The Kurdish factions have opposed the Baghdad government for decades. But
since the safe haven was established they have mostly quarreled with each
other. 

The United States mediated a cease-fire last year between the Kurdish
factions. But it collapsed Aug. 17 when the two groups resumed fighting amid
differences over customs revenues from a road between Turkey and northern Iraq. 

----
 
Iraq's Neighbors View Assault on Kurds With Concern

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 1 1996; Page A35
The Washington Post 

JERUSALEM, Aug. 31 -- Iraq's armored assault on its rebellious Kurdish north
today raised the prospect once again of a realignment of power in a region
that has seen several in recent years.

None of Iraq's neighbors was prepared to make a public accounting on this,
the first day. But Turkey, which could be most affected by the events in
northern Iraq, made itself clear on one count: It would not tolerate a
repeat of the exodus of Iraqi Kurds into Turkey's southern mountains that
accompanied the last such Iraqi attack in 1991.

"Turkey is determined not to allow a new migratory movement to its own
borders from northern Iraq," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement from
Ankara. "It will take all necessary measures to prevent such developments."

About 2 million Kurds fled to Turkey after the Baghdad government crushed a
failed rebellion in the wake of Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War
at the hands of an American-led alliance. The allies forced an end to
President Saddam Hussein's assault on the north that year, banning flights
by Iraqi combat aircraft there and establishing a "safe haven."

Syria and Iran, which also have restive Kurdish populations and a common
interest in suppressing Iraqi power, issued no declarations tonight. Their
ultimate reaction, analysts said, is likely to turn on whether Iraqi capture
of the city of Irbil marks a restoration of Baghdad's power in the Kurdish
north or a prelude to a new setback at the hands of Western foes.

Unconfirmed reports from Irbil said Iran had dispatched troops across its
border with Iraq to defend the Iranian-backed Kurdish faction that was the
target of today's assault, but there were no reports of clashes with Iraqi
troops.

In Jordan, which has allied itself in recent months with American-led
efforts to topple Saddam, government officials said they would not allow
Jordanian soil to be used to support any intervention in the fighting.
Jordan played host to an American air expeditionary force of 30 F-16 and
F-15 strike fighters from April to June and permitted them to fly more
than 900 missions to police a "no-fly zone" declared by the United States
and its allies in southern Iraq.

Jordan has expressed discomfort for some time with what it regards as an
unstable status quo in its powerful neighbor to the east: Strict economic
sanctions weaken Iraq, and allied aircraft prevent Iraqi forces from
exerting full control over rebellious Kurds in the country's north and
Shiite Muslims in the south.

"When you leave a central government in power that has lost control of its
north and south, and when you leave an embargo in place, it's a very
dangerous recipe," said one official speaking for the Jordanian government
on condition of anonymity. "You have to expect that countries in the
region can use this power vacuum to their own advantage."

But Jordanians cautioned the United States against expecting direct support
for an effort to strike another blow against Saddam. King Hussein's dramatic
shift against Iraq -- which included his embrace last year of defector
Hussein Kamel Hassan Majeed, Saddam's son-in-law who was promptly killed
when he returned to Iraq in February -- has been unpopular among Jordan's
intelligentsia and much of the public.

The Associated Press, citing U.S. diplomatic sources, reported that
Secretary of State Warren Christopher wrote Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu
Ciller, asking her country "to persuade Iraq to stay out of northern Iraq
and to explain the `dark consequences' " of its intervention there.

Among the motivating factors for Turkey is the prospect of another long
delay in the opening of a joint oil pipeline with Iraq. Until the weekend
military assault, Iraq was poised for its first
oil sales since imposition of the U.N. embargo that followed its invasion of
Kuwait in 1990. Turkey counted on the pipeline to recoup what it says are
$23.7 billion in losses since the trade embargo against its southern
neighbor began.

Iraq was one of Turkey's major trading partners before the war, and Prime
Minister Necmettin Erbakan, who assumed power in June as head of a coalition
led by his conservative Islamic party, supports normalization of ties. A
Turkish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the AP that
the weekend offensive was "untimely and unfortunate."

Here in Israel, the government generally has supported Kurdish autonomy in
northern Iraq and has strong historical ties to the Kurdish Democratic Party
of Massoud Barzani. But Barzani's apparent invitation to Saddam to intervene
against his rival faction, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan led by Jalal
Talabani, appears to have left Israel with little appetite for either side.

"If you had one hopeful result [from the gulf war], it was the Kurdish
autonomy," said a Foreign Ministry official. "But at the end of the day it's
the Kurds who are messing things up. The rivalry between the two factions
is ending all hope of a national future." 

----

Kurdish Feuds Put U.S. In Quandary

By Jonathan C. Randal and John Mintz
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 1, 1996; Page A34 

By capturing a Kurdish city in a haven patrolled by U.S. and other
international warplanes, Saddam Hussein has challenged President Clinton to
respond. But any U.S. action risks drawing America further into a region
troubled by Kurdish rivals and bitter feuds, meddling by powerful neighbors
and countless betrayals of the Kurdish people's ancient nationalist longings. 

The 22 million Kurdish people, almost all of them Sunni Moslems, are mostly
spread across lands in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia and Azerbaijan,
and they constitute the world's largest ethnic group without a nation of
its own. The American-led air umbrella, created over Kurdish areas in
northern Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, gave the Kurds their best
shot at achieving autonomy in a half-century. 

But in December 1994 an old rivalry between the Kurdish Democratic Party
(KDP) led by Massoud Barzani, and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) led to a resumption of factional fighting that in the last
20 months has killed 4,000 of the 3.5 million
Kurds in Iraq. It was a revival of this fighting that triggered the latest
military confrontation, which culminated in this weekend's Iraqi capture of
Irbil, the unofficial Kurdish capital. 

A problem for the United States is that each Kurdish faction is now loosely
allied with a country that Washington has long despised. 

Talabani's PUK has been accused by its rivals of having recently accepted
arms and other help from neighboring Iran. The PUK has denied it, but the
charge makes it harder for the United States to intervene on the PUK's behalf. 

Meanwhile Barzani's KDP is now aligned with Saddam, having invited his
troops into the Kurdish area of Iraq. That is remarkable news because in the
1980s the Iraqi leader gassed, uprooted and assassinated Kurdish civilians
by the tens of thousands. 

Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, embarrassed Barzani yesterday by
revealing the contents of a letter the KDP leader was said to have written
to Saddam Hussein on Aug. 22, asking for his military help. According to
Aziz, Barzani addressed Saddam as "your excellency," and "pleaded" with him
to "interfere to help us to ease the foreign threat" from Iran. 

Kurdish and U.N. sources reported from Irbil that Barzani's soldiers worked
alongside Iraqi troops as they captured the city without much resistance
from Talabani's PUK, and that they
moved immediately into PUK offices there. PUK forces were said to be still
fighting in and around the city. 

Some Kurdish activists and experts on the region believe that this crisis
could have been averted if the Clinton administration had more forcefully
denounced a brief Iranian incursion into the Kurdish area of Iraq several
weeks ago, and had worked harder to broker a peace agreement between the
feuding factions. 

"This is a result of us not taking a stronger position earlier this year,"
said Kathryn Porter, president of the Human Rights Alliance, a private
Washington-based group that tries to
mediate among the Kurdish factions. "We should have worked harder to bring
the two sides to peace." 

The United States has hosted repeated talks between the two factions aimed
at a reconciliation, most recently in discussions in London mediated by a
State Department official. Porter, however, accused the State Department of
coming up short, such as in its failure to secure $1 million to establish a
mediation organization in Irbil. 

"With this action, Saddam is asserting his power, saying, 'I can't be
ignored,'" said Barham Saleh, a representative of Talabani's PUK in
Washington who has requested U.S. military help in reversing Saddam's
incursion. "Saddam's calculation is the U.S.A.'s response won't be adequate
or timely. . . He's making a challenge to the credibility of American power.
Everybody [in the U.S. leadership] realizes the consequences of a failure to
confront Saddam." 

To most Iraqi Kurds, Saddam is a butcher remembered for the gassing and
wholesale destruction of Kurdish villages in the 1980s. 

After an unsuccessful uprising against Saddam at the end of the Gulf War,
many Kurds fled north of the 36th parallel, which the United States and its
allies established as a "no-fly" zone
that Saddam's military aircraft were barred from entering. 

The United States tried to broker a Kurdish peace, but it was broken in 1994
when the PUK became enraged that the KDP was failing to share revenue from
illicit oil trade with Turkey. The PUK, which controls about 70 percent of
the Iraqi Kurdish population, took over Irbil in that year. 

Continued sporadic American mediation efforts, conducted in Ireland and in
Kurdistan itself in 1995 and early 1996, failed to do more than preserve a
fragile cease-fire. The U.S.-financed Iraqi National Congress, a
Kurdish-based opposition group designed to topple Saddam, withered as a
result of the infighting. 

Moreover, the Clinton administration never followed through with plans to
finance a small monitoring force of neutral Kurds and other opposition
forces to heal the KDP-PUK breach and reinvigorate the congress, according
to Kurdish and other critics of the U.S. role. 

Indeed, those observers note, Washington gave regional powers the impression
of washing its hands of the congress and the Kurds in favor of the
Jordan-based Iraqi National Accord, an opposition group consisting mainly of
former Iraqi intelligence agents who had defected. Iran stepped into the
virtual void in 1995, attempting to step up its influence with every passing
month. The PUK, deprived by the KDP of revenue and foreign access through
Turkey, became more dependent on Iran. 

Late last month, Iran was sufficiently emboldened to launch a major
incursion deep into Iraqi Kurdistan, ostensibly to close down the operations
of Iranian Kurdish nationalists. Diplomats and regional powers concluded
that Iran, by launching the incursion, was thumbing its nose at Washington
and was willing to promote further fighting among the Kurds. The KDP charged
that the Iranians left behind vast quantities of arms, ammunition and other
materiel with the PUK when they withdrew on July 29. 

Full-fledged fighting resumed on Aug. 17, the 50th anniversary of the
founding of the KDP by the revered nationalist leader Mullah Mustafa
Barzani, father of the current KDP leader. 

The Iraqi recapture of Irbil, in alliance with the KDP, now seems likely to
solidify the territorial carve-up between the two Kurdish factions. It would
leave the KDP in control of Irbil and most of the land to the west,
including the soon-to-be reopened oil pipeline to Turkey, and the PUK in
charge of everything to the east. 

Large numbers of Irbil residents were reported to be fleeing this weekend's
fighting in the direction of Koisanjak, a PUK-controlled area almost due
east. Whether the new exodus assumes the proportion of the mass flight in
1991, when 2 million Kurds fled to Iran and the Turkish border, remains
unclear. What is sure is that many Kurds are genuinely fed up with both the
KDP and PUK. 

Last winter, for example, a Kurd told a visiting American friend, "I dream
that Saddam Hussein comes back, gets rid of both Barzani and Talabani, and
then goes back to Baghdad." 

Neutral Kurds and Iraqi opposition sources took note of Aziz's statement
that Iraq's military operations were "on a limited scale," but said that
even if Iraq eventually withdrew, Baghdad
could come and go pretty much at will. 

If past performance is any yardstick, the PUK can be expected to fight hard
to retake Irbil. Iran has every reason to back the PUK in hopes of
embarrassing the United States and Iraq, which it fought in the 1980-1988
Iran-Iraq war. 

Any U.S. policy involving the Kurds must take into account the reaction of
Turkey, a key American ally that borders Iraq's Kurdish areas and is
reconsidering its relations with Washington. 

Last month a new Turkish government, led by Necmettin Erbakan, modern
Turkey's first Islamic conservative prime minister, defied U.S. efforts to
isolate Iran by signing a $23 billion deal to buy Iranian natural gas.
Mideast experts believe Iran is eager to expand its influence both in Turkey
and in Kurdish Iraq. 

"If the United States doesn't do something right away" to get Saddam to back
off, Porter said, "Iran is likely to enter the picture. . . We should make a
strong show of force, saying to both Iraq and Iran, . . . 'Stop it, or
we'll slap you hard.'" 

----

Kurd Talks in London Break Up

Saturday, August 31, 1996; 6:49 p.m. EDT 

LONDON (AP) -- U.S.-brokered talks in London between two rival Kurdish
factions in northern Iraq broke up Saturday after Saddam Hussein launched an
offensive with the backing of one of the factions. 

"It's a little difficult to go ahead when Saddam Hussein is beating up on
the Kurds," said State Department spokesman Glyn Davies in Washington. He
confirmed that arbitrator Robert F. Deutsch, the State Department's expert
on Iraqi Kurds, was on his way home from London. 

Saddam Hussein launched his biggest military offensive in five years,
sending tanks, troops and helicopters into northern Iraq on Saturday to
capture a key city inside the Kurdish "safe haven" protected by U.S.-led
forces. The move came despite strong U.S. warnings. 

The Iraqi forces, allied with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, had by
Saturday night taken most or all of Irbil, the main Kurdish city in the
north, according to various reports. But the rival Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan said it was resisting the onslaught and still held at least part
of the city. 

The two Kurdish groups control a safe haven in northern Iraq carved out for
them by the United States and its allies following the Gulf War in 1991. 

The dispute between the two factions centers on control of customs revenues
from the road between Turkey and northern Iraq. Patriotic Union officials
say the Kurdistan Democratic Party leaders have used custom revenues to
increase their own power rather than fund the region's government. 

Britain and Turkey had sent observers to the talks, which were to have
lasted through the weekend. 



 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

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From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Mon Sep  2 02:06:25 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 02 Sep 1996 02:06:25
Subject: Analysing the hungerstrike of POW's
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609011705.TAA00876@o>

From: DHKC Informationbureau Amsterdam <tabe at ozgurluk.xs4all.nl>
Subject: Analysing the hungerstrike of POW's in Turkey

69 DAYS, FULL OF EVENTS

When the prisoners started the hunger strike till death, they weren't
taken seriously by the bourgeois parties, the petite bourgeois
intellectuals and parts of the left. While the bourgeois, Mehmet Agar
and the police continued the attacks inside and outside the prisons to
demonstrate their determination, some groups claimed this kind of
action would not lead to success. The reformist left, which thinks and
acts within the limited framework of the system with regards to the
questions of the revolution, always rejected the determined struggle,
"a tooth for a tooth, against the rulers. When it became obvious that
the rulers governed the country with continuing attacks and bans, the
reformist left developed their analysis of the "government of the
transition phase" and the "junta" and they ended their only form of
struggle, publicity work. This was exactly what the bourgeoisie-
wanted to achieve. The bourgeoisie is able to anticipate exactly what
results they would achieve with their measures. The tactics of the
rulers are apparent. The revolutionary prisoners inside the prisons
never surrendered, on the contrary, they changed the prisons into
schools of the movement. The rulers knew very well that they had to
destroy these schools of the revolution. At least they had to render
these schools useless. They perfectly knew that the prisoners would
resist any attack. While they continued their attacks against the
prisoners, they also attacked, with all their strength, the people who
supported the prisoners outside the prisons and who wanted to
intensify the struggle. They attacked them to crush any
resistance. Against these tactics of the oligarchy, it is the
revolutionary tactic to increase the struggle, inside as well as
outside. By spreading the struggle to the whole country, the plans of
fascism are crossed with a powerful counter attack as an answer. The
reformists, on the other hand, withdrew at this point once again with
their theory of the "government of the transition phase". By worrying
about elections and "legality", they showed the oligarchy once again
that they don't belong to the revolutionaries, on the contrary, they
keep their distance.

On the one hand, the crisis of the oligarchy deepened, on the other
hand the attacks against the people increased.  Despite the collapse
of the coalition between the DYP and ANAP, the attacks were continued,
in a hitherto unknown dimension, under minister of Justice Mehmet
Agar. These attacks were continued, without any interruption under the
government of the REFAYOL coalition. After the collapse of the
coalition between DYP and ANAP, there was virtually no other
alternative left as a government of the Refah party, even though this
wasn't exactly the kind of government the imperialists and the
monopoly bourgeois desired most. After the Refah party promised the
US-imperialists, the monopolies and the military they would do
anything in their power to maintain order, the imperialists and the
federation of major industrialists - including Sabanci - gave the
green light for a Refah party government. This government didn't
hesitate for one moment to fulfil its promise and they started to move
immediately. The main point of its activities was to put into practice
the program of repression, taken over from the ANAYOL government, and
trying to crush the revolutionary movement. Although the government
changed, it continued, without any changes, the policy of repression
of the police and the general staff. Those who assert different
objectives from every change of government and who, for "tactical"
reasons, waited and hoped, soon realised they had been wrong. We have
said before that in this phase of the revolution and the
contra-revolution no civilian government is capable of withdrawing
itself from the control by the contra-guerrilla. On the contrary,
without basing itself on these force, no civilian government could
possibly exist. This was shown once again.

The Refah party gave themselves the appearance of being different than
the other civilian parties. They took over the protests of the
people's masses against the governing parties and the system in their
ideology and they presented themselves as an opponent of the
regime. Although this was obviously just a manoeuvre to become the
governing party, the mechanical and dogmatic application of the
principle that every party represents the interests of a certain class
or grouping, led to the belief that the Refah party was different from
the other civilian parties.

That the Refah party is not an opponent of the imperialists, the
monopolists and capitalism, but supports these as best as it can
instead, was not only clear after several months; it was obvious after
a couple of days. The Refah party became a force of the imperialists
and the monopolies which, especially in the phase of the coup of
September 12, 1980, work at spreading religious motives and which was
available whenever imperialism and the monopolies would need her. The
Refah party became the governing party to fulfil the needs of the
bourgeois and from the very first day she did all she could and the
attacks, started under the previous government were even increased
under the maxim "What the other governments didn't achieve, we
will". In this way they wanted to proof the imperialists and
monopolies that Refah constituted their best possible defence. As a
proof they wanted to deliver a decisive blow against the prisoners,
and at the same time destroy the mass movements outside of the
prisons. While the Refah party on the one hand for the time being kept
the masses appeased with economic promises and increasing the wages,
on the other hand they prepared for the decisive blow against the
revolutionary prisoners to show themselves trustworthy in the eyes of
the bourgeois. We were able to cross this plans with extraordinary
measures. We had to show the people that the Refah party had nothing
to do with the people, nor with justice, human rights or equality,
instead they exploited the religious feelings of the people, and that
they just were working to fulfil the wishes of imperialism, the
collaborating bourgeois and the contra-guerrilla. We had to show this
as possible, without hesitation and without allowing that our message
would be falsified. The prisoners increased their resistance to the
hunger strike till death and the struggle outside the prisons was
intensified and broadened. This was meant to wake all those who had
put their hopes on the civilian parties and on the Refah party as some
kind of new blood. A strong barricade was to be build against the
attacks.

The resistance of the prisoners was not only aimed at improving the
conditions in jail or for the achievement of certain rights. It was
rather a struggle to deal with the new REFAHYOL government, to take
away the mask of the fascist Refah party. The people defended
themselves against the attacks by the REFAHYOL government with a
counterattack.

As the events of the hunger strike have shown, Marxists-Leninists do
not let themselves constrained in the struggle. It has been shown that
when we, Marxist-Leninists, analyse the concrete conditions of
struggle in all areas of life, when we look at the particularities of
our country and develop our struggle with the utmost creativity, that
we can achieve positive results, no one reckoned with. From this
perspective, the Marxist-Leninists have acted and by connecting the
creativity of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete conditions, they
created the weapon of the hunger strike till death.

The bourgeois showed their egoism and disbelief by letting minister of
Justice Sevket Kazan declare that the prisoners would not die. Many
reformist as well didn't take the problem seriously until the moment
the prisoners began to die, one after the other. When the first hunger
strikers till death fell, they said: "Why did they die, this is not
necessary, we must live and fight outside." Thus they showed an
attitude which was very remote of answering the attacks by the powers
that be with a counter attack, an attitude which had nothing to do
with revolutionary determination and conviction. This attitude of the
"left" is exactly the attitude of the petite bourgeois intellectuals
of not supporting the resistance, but ending it. The revolutionary
movement had to intensify the struggle against the attacks by the
bourgeois, as well as against the reformists and petite bourgeois
intellectuals, with determination and the willingness to pay the
price. The bourgeois wanted to spread pessimism and uncertainty by
calling the deaths superfluous. A broad front of petite bourgeois
intellectuals, many democratic groups and individuals didn't believe
that the revolutionary movement was prepared to give martyrs in this
struggle. Because of the foresight of the Marxist-Leninist it was
possible to enhance the unity of the revolutionary forces in many
fields. There still remain some problems, but they have started to
look for solutions. The Central Co-ordination Committee of the
prisoners, the prisoners solidarity platform DETUDAP, and Mayday 1996
are the best examples of this unity. The resistance of the hunger
strike till death constituted the first real test for this unity and
it must be evaluated according to this aspect. Important is too that
the revolutionary movement in Turkey created a tradition under the
most difficult circumstances (the years after the coup), in a time
when nothing moved anymore, a tradition of delivering blows against
the enemy, leaving the heritage of the hunger strike till death. The
prisoners refused to be treated like "inmates", fought for their
identity as Free Prisoners, and they combined their struggle with the
struggle outside the prisons, forming one inseparable unity. The ideas
like "A political struggle is impossible in prison" and "One can only
fight for certain rights there", spread by the reformists, were
smashed by the prisoners and thrown away as garbage. The prisoners
transformed their imprisonment into a nightmare for the oligarchy who
fear that all those in prison will become militants. The resistance of
the prisoners, waged under these circumstances, looking death into the
eyes, met a large echo throughout the land and the whole world. And so
we were able to reveal the fascist face of the Refah party in just a
couple of days, a task which would otherwise have taken months, maybe
even years.

The dynamics of the revolutionary movement in Turkey have always been
strong. The shortcomings were with the inadequate leadership of the
movement which acted dogmatically and which didn't go beyond the
framework of already known forms of struggle, which came under the
influence of the reformists, developed no belief in the own strength
and which kept aloof of developing unison. One can look at the hunger
strike till death as the joint action of several political groups who
approached death together, groups which, be it slowly, surpass their
dogmatism and self interests.

The hunger strike till death created a large gap in the oligarchy and
especially in the Refah party and its "Islamic" ideology. The Refah
party and the oligarchy were dealt a great blow at a time they didn't
expect and in a field they didn't expect. This struggle not just
created a barricade against the attacks of the Refah party and the
bourgeois and achieved certain rights for the prisoners, foremost it
took away the mask from the fascist face of the Refah party and it
dealt a great blow against the bourgeois which was spreading pessimism
and disbelief. The real gain of this resistance was taking victory and
moral superiority in the ideological struggle against the bourgeois.

The reformists, the bourgeois, the petite bourgeois intellectuals
etc., who kept repeating that there was nobody in the world anymore
who was prepared to give his life for his cause, were very surprised
when hundreds of revolutionaries announced they were prepared to
die. Even the mediocre bourgeois authors had to admit they were
surprised. But it is nothing new that Marxist-Leninists,
revolutionaries, are prepared to face death for their conviction, that
they receive death without hesitation. We have had hundreds of leading
cadres and fighters who for years affirmed their conviction with their
last breath, who never surrendered when they were surrounded, who died
fighting, who even in their last moments wrote their conviction on the
walls with their own blood. But in this struggle, a tooth for a tooth,
with all these martyrs, certain parts of the people, democrats,
petite-bourgeois intellectuals, and even the bourgeois, were shocked
as never before. However, the hunger strike till death was not an
event which suddenly occurred. During the period of the military junta
there were almost no struggles outside of the prisons, due to the
circumstances. The prisoners resisted to maintain their political
identity and their dignity. But this resistance, which took
sacrifices, was not isolated from the outside and the people. The
resistance took in every step the development of the movement and the
future of the people as a starting point. Those who in the past, under
the circumstances of the time, had said that "the prisons are not the
centre of the struggle", "a political struggle can not be waged inside
the prisons", "actions like a hunger strike till death are suicide,
murder" etc., now participated in the hunger strike till death. This
shows that the long struggle, armed and unarmed, in all areas, in the
cities and in the mountains, which demanded sacrifices, had a strong
influence on the people, and on the left. The struggle had caused the
people and the left to develop in the right direction. No sacrifice is
ever in vain, it always has some effect. No matter how much the truth
is denied, or ignored, it always forces itself into the open.

The revolutionary forces have shown that they, if they succeed in
uniting, and despite the huge price, are a force that has to be
reckoned with and that, if they realise the adequate policy, will
achieve important and successful results. The ongoing war has thought
that the revolutionary forces can not achieve serious and positive
results without paying the price, without waging the war with the
bourgeois on all levels. All know that revolutionaries do not wish
death. But they have shown the determination time and time again to
die if necessary. And it is this determination which scares the enemy
the most. It is often said that there is no force which can defeat
people who are prepared to die. For the bourgeois the most dangerous
and most feared force are those people who take death into
account. The bourgeois has seen this dreaded force once again during
the hunger strike till death. And when the oligarchy saw that the
revolutionaries jointly went into death, they panicked. A struggle,
waged together and where ones shares death, can clear the road to the
beginning of a new process of the revolutionary moment in Turkey. The
hunger strike till death, with all its aspects, with the unification
of the left forces, its determination, its brilliance, could be a the
beginning of a new chapter of the revolutionary movement in
Turkey. The bourgeois is aware of this danger and they will plan new
attacks to avoid this danger.

The hunger strike till death is more than just an ideological struggle
with the bourgeois for socialism or capitalism. It has shocked the
non-socialist intellectuals, the democrats who put their hope in the
regime, the egoists, the discouraged, the tired, and even the
islamists, who were betrayed with words of a just regime, justice and
equality, in other words the whole people, very deeply. Behind this
shock is the selfless, sacrificing new human, who puts a new morality
against the immorality of the bourgeois, against the degeneration,
individualism, loss of identity, against egoism, who puts his own
interests behind for his people and his country. This new human could
be witnessed in the hunger strike till death. In the quagmire, created
by the imperialists and its collaborators, the revolutionaries who
gave their lives created a new and strong hope for a new world, for a
dignified life and a dignified future. The people discussed the
difference between the bourgeois parties and the
revolutionaries. Death crossed the demagogy and the lies of the
bourgeois. Those who fell spoke to the conscience of the people. The
longing for justice, honour and dignity was evident. This longing
materialised on the streets. Many of those who were under the
influence of the regime, took sides with the revolutionaries. The
hunger strike till death, jointly organised by several organisations,
has its foundation in the many armed and unarmed actions and the
hundreds of martyrs. Therefore the hunger strike had great
influence. This influence arised from the characteristics of the
hunger strike till death. This can not be explained with a dogmatic
theory, it has to be explained with the quality and development of the
revolution. These results were achieved by applying the right methods
in the struggle and by the will to pay the price.

In the beginning the police, the military and the bourgeois parties of
the oligarchy thought "they will not die..." When the hunger strikers
till death died, the one after the other, the military thought "let
them die inside, we will kill them outside" and they believed they
could continue the oppression and destroy the resistance. When the
bourgeois parties, who didn't believe that the prisoners would die,
saw that they did die, one by one, and when they saw that mass
activities increased despite the repression, that the world public
opinion stood up, that the prisoners continued their resistance with
determination despite the fallen, they made concessions. They were
forced to their knees and had to promise to fulfil the demands of the
prisoners in order to stop the mass potential of the resistance and to
end the resistance at all costs. In this phase, while the police
chiefs threatened everybody, including intellectuals and artists, and
pledged revenge, the bourgeois parties surrendered to the hunger
strikers till death who gave their lives. In this phase those who
cried "there may be no more deaths, stop the resistance" met with the
bourgeois. The revolutionaries do not love death, neither do they love
to kill. But if its advances the revolution, they are not afraid to
die. Those who fear death, do not want the revolution.

The days when two or three prisoners died were a nightmare for the
oligarchy. Despite their shown uncompromising attitude and toughness,
they experienced the moments of their greatest weakness. If it would
have been necessary, the prisoners from the Party-Front would have
paid an even higher price.

Some democratic organisations panicked and feared a police operation
in the prisons. With their showed toughness, this panic was exactly
what the government wanted to achieve. Furthermore some prisoners, who
did not participate in the hunger strike till death, nor in the
unlimited hunger strike, tried to use the resistance for their own
purposes. In the name of the hunger strikers till death, without them
knowing it, they negotiated with representatives of the government and
thus caused a lot of misunderstandings and wrong developments. Those
who negotiate with the government in the name of the prisoners without
knowing what the prisoners think have to think very carefully who and
what they can represent. They act without mandate when they speak and
negotiate in the name of the prisoners without permission and
authorisation. When they keep on speaking in the name of the prisoners
and even demand "amnesty" for the prisoners, they embarrass themselves
for the public. When they want to act for the rights of the prisoners
and their human rights, they first have to develop a line which is not
in contradiction to the line of the prisoners themselves.

Although the resistance of the prisoners won victory, neither the
attacks by the oligarchy nor the resistance ended. The resistance will
continue in several forms and it will, from dynamics from its own,
unite with the struggle outside the prisons and develop further. Now
it is the most urgent task to beat back the attacks of the oligarchy,
or even better, to go over to the attack from the defence. Therefore
the central co-ordination of the prisoners has to develop further, it
has to induce the organisations who did not yet participate to do so,
to evaluate the resistance, learn the necessary lessons and thus
prepare an even bigger resistance. Outside of the prisons the
prisoners solidarity organisations must be enlarged and
institutionalised so they won't neglect the long term tasks. To
reflect the achieved positive results inside the prisons outside of
the prisons as well, the present disorganisation must be transformed
into organisation, the fragmentation of the struggle must be overcome,
and the struggle must be centralised and structured. During the time
of the resistance it wasn't achieved on the outside give the
resistance a central structure. For that reason the mass resistance
outside remained weak and without effect and it only achieved
relevance because of the rising number of dead prisoners. But despite
the 12 martyrs, the dozens of wounded and the hundreds who were at the
brink of death, the resistance outside the prisons remained far behind
the expectations. Although the resistance caused an earthquake inside
the heads of the reformists, the petite bourgeois intellectuals and
the democrats, the lack of a strong and trustworthy central democratic
organisation prevented an adequate broadening of the resistance. When
we do not centralise and organise the democratic opposition of the
people, the reformists will try to split the struggle and bring it
under their control. Some organisation will claim full and arbitrary
freedom of movement by proposing "coalitions of strength and
action". The broad segments of the people will not trust such a
situation and in stead of tens- and hundreds of thousands, only a very
few will remain in the squares.

The Refah party and the other bourgeois parties, who do not want to
lose their source of votes, could propose a partial amnesty in order
not to keep the mass potential which is dissatisfied with the
regime. We can already now see the beginning of this debate. We have
to deepen this debate and lift it on all levels to the demand "Freedom
for the Prisoners". It is not impossible to crown the victory of the
hunger strike till death with the freedom of the prisoners. It is
possible to achieve successes with the political structures, the broad
participation of the democrats and the intellectuals.

By showing their willingness to die together, if necessary, the
prisoners made everybody conscious of the need for unity. Those who,
with a thousand of pretexts, withdrew from their responsibility for
the unity and who represent their own egoistic group interests under
the mask of unity, should look back once more how our martyrs went
into death together and they should think about it.

The fighters in the hunger strike till death wrote the history of
honour and heroism of our people. This history is so strong in
tradition and legitimate that she brought hope and created trust in a
world of immorality, lies, degeneration, egoism and despair, created
by the bourgeois.

The revolutionary movement gained an even larger legitimacy among the
people's masses and dealt the bourgeois a heavy ideological blow. The
masses took side with the prisoners. Those who under these
circumstances still do not support the resistance of the hunger strike
till death, who try to besmirch the results, are not for justice and
human dignity and they are not on the side of the people, no matter
which view they represent. One should ask them what they mean with
honour and conscience and one should verify whether they possess such
qualities at all. The most valuable children of our people and the
revolution are those who gave their lives without hesitation. We know
those who act as if nothing happened, who didn't even care for the
lives as the prisoners as the bourgeois defenders of human rights
did. It will become more difficult to remain in the back, creating an
artificial agenda, insulting the revolutionaries, but claiming to be
representatives of the working class and pretending to have good
relations with the people. Sooner or later the people will hold them
accountable. They say "The working class will solve the problems, we
have to address the working class", while they look down at all the
actions, and in reality they have nothing to do with the working
class. All their deceitful acts are done in the name of the working
class. The struggle intensifies and the attacks by the oligarchy grow
stronger. In this process the distance between the reformists and the
revolutionaries will increase and the reformists will draw up plans,
like Aydinlik (1), to save themselves. These groups will develop a
steadily increasing reactionism. They already began to write against
the revolutionaries in the literature of the bourgeois. When they
proceed on this way, they will not be able to save themselves from
condemnation, like Aydinlik. The revolutionary movement is stronger
than ever before and it will defeat the provocations of the oligarchy,
as well as those who drool around the bourgeois.

This is the time for us to be even more courageous, to learn from the
events, and to promote unity between the revolutionaries
everywhere. In that way we will create even more complex forms of
organisation and even bigger actions.

(1) Reference to a party from the 70's, which still exists today under
several names. This party betrayed revolutionaries to the oligarchy by
denouncing them and publishing their names and photographs in their
paper. This paper was called Aydinlik and the successor parties kept
this name as well. Nowadays the party is called Isci Partisi (Workers
Party).

-- 
------------------------------------------
Visit http://www.xs4all.nl/~ozgurluk
For news and information
about the classwar in Turkey and Kurdistan
email: ozgurluk at xs4all.nl


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Mon Sep  2 16:53:53 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 02 Sep 1996 16:53:53
Subject: PUK/Talabani Wait In Vain For U.S.
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609021417.KAA02208@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>
Subject: PUK/Talabani Wait In Vain For U.S. Aid Against Barzani/Saddam

Iraqi Opposition Describes Mass Execution Near Irbil

By Jonathan C. Randal
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 2 1996; Page A20
The Washington Post

ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 1 -- Iraqi opposition officials painted a grim
picture of retribution in northern Iraq today, involving summary
execution of their cadres and mass arrests of followers of Jalal Talabani's
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan caught in the Iraqi army's capture of Irbil on
Saturday.

Officials of the Iraqi National Congress said Iraqi troops executed 96 Iraqi
soldiers who had defected to the U.S.-financed umbrella opposition group
when they overran one of its camps south of Irbil, capital of the Kurdish
autonomous region. The group's officials also said that men of the other
major Kurdish faction, Massoud Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party,
had captured Talabani's wife, Hero, as well as the Kurdish regional 
government's first prime minister, Fuad Mazloum, and other leading members
of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

The renewed presence in Irbil of the Iraqi secret police risked becoming
permanent even if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were to withdraw his
troops eventually from north of the 36th parallel as he has promised, the
opposition officials said from London in a telephone interview. Such a
police presence, they said, meant that U.S. and other Western
intelligence-gathering in the areas of Iraqi Kurdistan under Barzani's
control effectively had ended. The opposition group's records, computers
and other equipment used in the effort to topple Saddam were looted, its
officials said.

In a throwback to the days before the Kurds gained control of northern Iraq
after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraqi secret police armed with lists of
names rounded up suspects in systematic, house-by-house searches, the
opposition sources said. The secret police were reported to have set up
headquarters in Irbil in the parliament building of the Kurdish autonomous
region, underlining Saddam's steadfast refusal to recognize the closest
thing to Kurdish self-rule in more than a generation.

Trucks loaded with loot stripped from Patriotic Union of Kurdistan houses
and offices were headed north to Kurdish Democratic Party headquarters in
the mountain town of Salahuddin, a 45-minute drive from Irbil, the
opposition officials said. The soldiers executed Saturday were monitors of
the ill-fated cease-fire between the two Kurdish groups organized by the
umbrella group. Another group of 32 monitors escaped.

----

Iraqi Troops Pull Out Of Irbil

AP Wire Report
Monday, September 2, 1996 4:44 a.m. EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. troops were on high alert in the
Persian Gulf today, as word came that Saddam Hussein's troops were
withdrawing from the Kurdish city they captured in a surprise move
over the weekend.

Iraqi troops backed by tanks stormed the northern Iraqi city of
Irbil on Saturday in Saddam's largest military foray in five years.
The move prompted President Clinton to put the 20,000 American
soldiers in the region on high alert.

U.N. guards in Irbil said Iraqi tanks had cleared out of the
city by this morning, but could still be seen on its outskirts. The
city is just 12 miles inside of the southern edge of the
allied-protected Kurdish ``safe haven.''

After a Cabinet meeting in Baghdad late Sunday, the Iraqi
defense minister, Lt. Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmed, said Saddam had
ordered him to withdraw all his troops from Irbil.

Gisper Nielsen, of the U.N. Guard Contingency in Iraq stationed
in Irbil, said Iraqi troops began withdrawing Sunday afternoon and
continued today.

``The tanks stationed outside Irbil are moving out as we
speak,'' he told The Associated Press by telephone from the
embattled city.

Saddam's forces stormed Irbil to dislodge one Kurdish group, the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and allow their rival, the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, to move in.

Nielsen said Iraqi troops who captured the city had been backed
by 50 tanks. After their withdrawal, guerrillas from the Kurdistan
Democratic Party were seen patrolling the streets of Irbil.

Another U.N. guard, who refused to give his name, said it was
not clear if the Iraqis planned to pull back entirely from the
region or just leave the city itself.

``We do not know if they are going to go or if they are going to
stay,'' the official said.

During the nearly 36-hour occupation of Irbil, Iraqi troops
conducted house-to-house searches in apparent pursuit of anti-Iraq
activists, which Baghdad claims are backed by Iran, Nielsen said.

He did not know if any arrests were made. He also could not
confirm reports by Iraqi opposition groups that scores of people
had been executed by the Iraqi army.

Nielsen said there were large numbers of casualties during the
operation but exact numbers could not be confirmed.

Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said Iraqi forces
also captured Sulaymaniya, the area's second-largest city. The
report, which quoted ``sources close to Iraqi Kurds,'' could not be
confirmed.

On Sunday, Iraq's state-run media had warned the United States
and its Western allies not to intervene on behalf of the Kurds.

``The Iraqi people ... are ready to provide an example that will
inevitably remind the Americans of the Vietnam complex,'' the
newspaper al-Jumhouriya said.

In the wake of the fighting, the United Nations said it would
delay sending personnel to implement a deal letting Iraq sell oil
to raise $2 billion for needed food and medicine. Iraq has been
under U.N. sanctions since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Speaking from the Kurdish region, Patriotic Union leader Jalal
Talabani told ABC television Sunday that ``hundreds of people were
killed or injured'' during Saturday's 12-hour onslaught of
artillery, missiles and tank fire.

Separately, his faction claimed Sunday that Iraqi forces
``summarily executed'' 96 members of the opposition Iraqi National
Congress at a base near Irbil.

Iraq said its offensive was intended as a ``grave lesson'' to
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and to Iran, whose troops it
claims crossed into the Kurdish area last month. Iran denies its
forces were involved.



 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Mon Sep  2 21:37:20 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 02 Sep 1996 21:37:20
Subject: Abdullah Ocalan Comments On South K
Message-ID: <bac1c849&v01540b01ae50e7e8d742@[>

From: akin at kurdish.org (AKIN)
Subject: Abdullah Ocalan Comments On South Kurdistan

American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
September 2, 1996
Press Release # 13
Telephone: (202) 483-6444

PKK President Abdullah Ocalan Comments
On The Situation In South Kurdistan

The following are excerpts from a statement issued by Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) President Abdullah Ocalan. The statement was broadcast on the
Kurdish satellite station MED-TV in Europe on September 1, 1996:

        "This move by Saddam challenges the balance of power in the region;
it will pave the way for new developments. Jalal Talabani [head of the
beleaguered Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK] has said, 'If America does
not help us, we will of course reserve the right to turn to parties who are
willing to help us.' But why call on the West for help? What have the Kurds
gained by relying on others? We are following the developments on the
ground very closely.
        "We feel that the policies which Mr. Talabani has pursued were
wrong. We also expect Mr. Barzani [head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party,
KDP] not to harm the imprisoned leading members of the PUK. If these
persons - Dr. Fuat Mahsum, Kemal Fuat, Omer Fatah, Adil Murat, Sadun Fehli,
Mamoste Ceto, and Kafhiye Suleyman - are murdered, we will take the
necessary steps to respond.
        "This KDP collaboration with Iraq must come to an end. If the war
escalates, we are ready for it. We want a peaceful and democratic solution
for the Kurds. For our part, we have done our share to achieve this result.
We will continue to do so.
        "This incursion by Iraq poses new challenges to Mr. Talabani, Mr.
Barzani, and to the neighboring countries in the region. As the Kurdish
people in South Kurdistan become increasingly disillusioned with their
traditional leaders, our party will continue to gain in strength and
influence in the region.
        "We hear that there is talk of autonomy for the Kurds in northern
Iraq [South Kurdistan], but this brings to mind the 1974 negotiations
between the KDP and the regime in Baghdad. Those talks resulted in the
inglorious end of Mullah Mustafa Barzani [founder of the KDP]. If his son,
Mesut Barzani, plays the same game, he will meet the same end.
        "Turkey will use this autonomous region like a puppet, and I wonder
if Mr. Barzani is willing to play that game. If he opts for it, we will be
forced to respond. We will not accept it. We will redouble our efforts for
the liberation front, broaden our war front, and expand our efforts at
creating a broad democratic front."



----
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://burn.ucsd.edu/~akin
----

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




From stk at schism.antenna.nl  Tue Sep  3 04:24:00 1996
From: stk at schism.antenna.nl (stk at schism.antenna.nl)
Date: 03 Sep 1996 04:24:00
Subject: Abdullah Ocalan Comments On South K
References: <bac1c849&v01540b01ae50e7e8d742@[>
Message-ID: <090396012420Rnf0.77b9@schism.antenna.nl>

------------------------------ forwarded message -----------------------------
akin at kurdish.org (AKIN) writes:

American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
September 2, 1996
Press Release # 13
Telephone: (202) 483-6444

PKK President Abdullah Ocalan Comments
On The Situation In South Kurdistan

The following are excerpts from a statement issued by Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) President Abdullah Ocalan. The statement was broadcast on the
Kurdish satellite station MED-TV in Europe on September 1, 1996:

        "This move by Saddam challenges the balance of power in the region;
it will pave the way for new developments. Jalal Talabani [head of the
beleaguered Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK] has said, 'If America does
not help us, we will of course reserve the right to turn to parties who are
willing to help us.' But why call on the West for help? What have the Kurds
gained by relying on others? We are following the developments on the
ground very closely.
        "We feel that the policies which Mr. Talabani has pursued were
wrong. We also expect Mr. Barzani [head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party,
KDP] not to harm the imprisoned leading members of the PUK. If these
persons - Dr. Fuat Mahsum, Kemal Fuat, Omer Fatah, Adil Murat, Sadun Fehli,
Mamoste Ceto, and Kafhiye Suleyman - are murdered, we will take the
necessary steps to respond.
        "This KDP collaboration with Iraq must come to an end. If the war
escalates, we are ready for it. We want a peaceful and democratic solution
for the Kurds. For our part, we have done our share to achieve this result.
We will continue to do so.
        "This incursion by Iraq poses new challenges to Mr. Talabani, Mr.
Barzani, and to the neighboring countries in the region. As the Kurdish
people in South Kurdistan become increasingly disillusioned with their
traditional leaders, our party will continue to gain in strength and
influence in the region.
        "We hear that there is talk of autonomy for the Kurds in northern
Iraq [South Kurdistan], but this brings to mind the 1974 negotiations
between the KDP and the regime in Baghdad. Those talks resulted in the
inglorious end of Mullah Mustafa Barzani [founder of the KDP]. If his son,
Mesut Barzani, plays the same game, he will meet the same end.
        "Turkey will use this autonomous region like a puppet, and I wonder
if Mr. Barzani is willing to play that game. If he opts for it, we will be
forced to respond. We will not accept it. We will redouble our efforts for
the liberation front, broaden our war front, and expand our efforts at
creating a broad democratic front."



----
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://burn.ucsd.edu/~akin
----

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




----------------------------- end forwarded message --------------------------
**********************************************************
Solidaritygroup Turkey-Kurdistan
Memberorganisation of Foundation Initiativegroup Kurdistan
P.O. Box 85306
3508 AH Utrecht
The Netherlands
stk at schism.antenna.nl
**********************************************************

From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Sep  4 00:03:42 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 04 Sep 1996 00:03:42
Subject: PKK Trial No Laughing Matter
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.960903182..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>

PKK Trial No Laughing Matter

By Rita O'Reilly

     A political show trial is serious business, as you will
know. Nowhere more so than Hamburg, Germany, where three Kurdish
political prisoners are on trial on charges of organising PKK
units in Western Europe.
     The prosecution claims the three are indirectly linked to an
attack some years ago on a man in Bremen. The injured man was
subsequently imprisoned on drugs charges but has now emerged as a
key witness to the claim that the PKK was responsible for the
attack.
     Since its opening sessions in March, the trial has been busy
showing itself to be a farce. Witness after witness has refused
to say what the prosecution and judges want them to, despite
repeated courtroom interrogation and oblique but timely
references to their insecure status as `auslanders' in Germany.
Even the trial translation has been an issue, with one of the
first translators exposed by defence lawyers as a Turkish secret
service agent.
     As things have got worse for the prosecution, the six trial
judges have stepped in to instil their own sense of sobriety into
the process. In July, the lead judge demanded that the Kurdish
defendants stand up when witnesses are being sworn in. On August
6, when one of the defendants, Azime Yilmaz explained why they
wouldn't do this, the judge interrupted her to tell the public
gallery he did not want to hear any clapping or slogans at the
end of her statement. A German woman who dared to laugh at this
was sentenced to a day in jail.
     Then, on August 13 the judge read a police statement
accusing one of the defence lawyers of using a hand signal to
initiate shouting from the public gallery the previous week.
Funnily enough, the lawyer in question was the only one who had
tried to defend the woman who laughed and trial observers say he
is the best of the six defence lawyers in the case.
     As the farce continues, so too do attempts to extradite the
Kurdish political representative, Kani Yilmaz to the German
trial. His defence lawyers have lodged a final appeal with the
House of Lords to prevent his extradition from British to German
injustice.
     And the motive behind these trial and tribulations? Both
Britain and Germany have been keen to keep their military and
economic links with Turkey safe from the political and human
rights demands of the Kurdish people. Such is the state of
justice, Euro style.

(Source: An Phoblacht/Republican News - Thursday, August 22, 1996)

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------


From FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org  Wed Sep  4 02:03:00 1996
From: FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org (FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 04 Sep 1996 02:03:00
Subject: GAMA: Iraq-Analysis
Message-ID: <6GFHPWz3GIB@oln-205.oln.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

        GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ASSOCIATION - GAMA - PRESENTS:
        -------------------------------------------------------
                news provided via our member "infoPool"
                --------------------------------------

SOURCE: infoPool
HEAD:   Iraq Intervene in the Kurdish Fighting                              
AUTHOR: S. Suwellam

>>>Reports and News Analysis From London , UK 002 : 31/8/96

The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein military intervention on the
side of Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP,
against  Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK,
who is reported to be  getting support from Iran is a clear signal
that the main Kurdish movement has been divided seriously .

The Iraqi military intervention and the Iraqi forces advance to the
city of Arbil on August 30 which was held by PUK have shown beyond
doubt that there is a strong alliance of interests between  KDP and
the Iraqi regime . The division of the Kurdish movement will lead
to the Kurdish people pay a high prices as their main political
parties PUK allied with Iran and KDP allied with Iraq  .

The USA efforts to settle the differences between the two main
parties in an emergency talks in London held (end of August 96) in
the US Embassy has failed to reach a cease fire among the fighting
factions belonging to the two main parties .
It is no secret that the PUK has got from Iran military  assistanceto  
launch attacks against KDP positions and that Iran was arming
and training Mr. Talabani's forces.

The dilemma facing the Western countries who are managing the
operation Provide Comfort which aim at protecting the Kurds from
possible attack by Saddam Hussein forces is that Saddam Hussein 's
military intervention  to take over Arpil was in response of a call
from one of the major Kurdish movements the KDP .
This call for help from the KDP which led to the Iraqi forces to
take control of Arpil , has put the USA and the major Western
countries managing Operation Comfort in a dilemma as one major
faction of  Kurdish people themselves have invited the Iraqis for
intervention .

Saddam Hussein have shown in his military intervention that he
broke no rules of the Kurdish game being played in the Northern Part
of Iraq where every Kurdish faction has fallen under the influence
of other major Players in the region : Iran , Turkey , Syria
, Iraq .

The dilemma facing the USA and the West who are managing the
Operation Provide Comfort is to which side they will side so long
as the Kurds themselves are divided   .
The fighting among the Kurds will continue and may threaten to bring
in a wider conflict as there are foreign elements playing from behind
the scene . The clear victim of all this conflict is the Kurdish
people themselves who are paying a heavy price for their leaders
division .

           -------------------------------------
A E Mail Journal.............Editor Mr S Suwellam.London.U.K
Middle  East  and International  Affairs  uncensored JournalE-Mail  
address:rambo at sam.win-uk.net......Phone :0181 7158641Live Uncensored  
Magazine:http://www.ibmpcug.co.uk/~ajournal/
Join Journal Mailing List For Mideast/International Affairs
Writers with Views--VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE OF THE AUTHORS ONLY

## CrossPoint v3.1 ##

From FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org  Wed Sep  4 14:15:00 1996
From: FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org (FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 04 Sep 1996 14:15:00
Subject: GAMA: turkey-iraq
Message-ID: <6GFI9YyZGIB@oln-205.oln.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

        GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ASSOCIATION - GAMA - PRESENTS:
        -------------------------------------------------------
                news provided via our member "infoPool"
                --------------------------------------

SOURCE: TANJUG
HEAD:   tansu ciller puts off visit to jordan

     ankara, sept. 3 (tanjug) - turkish vice prime minister and
 foreign minister tansu ciller has decided to postpone her visit to
 jordan in the light of latest developments in iraq.

     after this morning's meeting with u.s. ambassador in ankara, mark
 grossmann, ciller said that she had to remain in turkey at a time
 when important decisions may be made.

     turkey has not officially reacted to this morning's u.s. attack
 on iraq.

     the turkish forces positioned at the border with iraq are on full
 alert and have received important reinforcemeents over the past few
 days, unofficial sources said.
     [end] mss-dd/dr

## CrossPoint v3.1 ##

From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Sep  5 22:01:13 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 05 Sep 1996 22:01:13
Subject: RADIKAL Mirror Site @ ATS: Against
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609041531.LAA28053@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>
Subject: RADIKAL Mirror Site @ ATS: Against Germany's Internet Repression!

Dear cyberspace comrades,

Responding to a call from the Solidaritygroup Political Prisoners
(http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank) in The Netherlands, Arm The Spirit has just
established a mirror site for the banned German resistance magazine
"Radikal". According to SPG, the German authorities are planning to block
all access by German Internet subscribers to the Dutch provider xs4all.nl
because of the fact that a web page for Radikal had been established there.
Both zipped and tar compressed versions of the Radikal page can be
downloaded there, so if you or your group would also like to set up a
Radikal mirror site, please do so! We must show the German authorities that
any attempts by them to crack down on left-wing communications structures,
including those on the Internet, will be met with redoubled efforts on our
part to propagate the free flow of left-wing news and information.

Whether or not the German authorities are actually able to block all access
to the Amsterdam site remains to be seen, but we decided to act right away
and establish a mirror site. It can be found at our web site at
http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/RADIKAL/index.htm. 

In brief, Radikal is a paper "by and for the autonomous left" which has been
consistently published in Germany since the 1970s. Since being banned under
Germany's repressive anti-leftist laws, the magazine has been published
cladestinely. Topics in the magazine include political prisoners,
communiques and discussions from and about armed struggle organizations,
historical analyses of patriarchy and fascism, updates on anti-fascist
activity in Germany, critiques of and solidarity with the PKK and the
Kurdish national liberation struggle...and usually some "practical" tips,
such as how to safely use computers for political work and what devices can
best hinder the rail transport of nuclear waste, etc.

Arm The Spirit are proud to have translated and distributed several articles
from Radikal in the past, and we look forward to doing so in the future. At
present, some of these can be found at our ftp site in the Autonomous.Left
directory; we hope to covert some of them to HTML format in the near future.

For an uncontrollable resistance media!
Create one, two, many Radikal Mirror Sites!!

Arm The Spirit, September 3/96


==================================================================
Subject: Radikal: German State tries to forbid left-wing newspaper. 

Urgent action needed.

Today 2-9-1996, our ISP XS4ALL got a phonecall that the German
Authorities are planning to force German Internet Providers to
shutdown all traffic from and to XS4ALL. This because of the
Radikal-pages on the xs4all WWW-server.

We are calling for people to mirror this site. Our goal is that in
the shortest possible time Germany will cut off all IP-traffic
comming from and going to all other countries (We aim to make
Germany cut off all IP-traffic in the shortest possible time), so that
they will isolate and senzor their own "digital highway". Help
germany to isolate itself. Download a copy of this site
and make a mirror.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~radikal

We, Solidaritygroup with Political Prisoners, have started this site
after the attack from the german goverment in summer'95 in solidarity
with the people who were jailed after a brutal raid then, and because
we find it important that the Radikal can be distributed without
(german) governement interverance.

Attached is a letter of Felipe, chairman of XS4ALL, and a short
text taken of a statement by some Radikal groups where they tell 
what the Radikal is.

SPG-Amsterdam (2nd september 1996)

=====================================================================

First reaction of Felipe, chairman of XS4ALL:
Date: Monday, 02-Sep-96 01:15 PM 
From: Felipe Rodriquez 
Subject: Radikal website(http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal/index.htm)
forbidden in Germany

Hello, 

Today XS4ALL heard from a colleague provider in Germany that soon the
access to XS4ALL will be closed for german internet users. This is
because of the webpages of the magazine 'Radikal' that are on XS4ALL. 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal/index.htm 

This magazine is illegal in Germany because so-called TERRORISTS are
said to be part of the organisation and because the magazine is said to be
calling for radical actions against the german government. 

The only way for them to block access to this site, is to block out
XS4ALL completely, we expect this to take place shortly. 

Xs4all is not planning to ask Radikal to find another provider, neither
from the Dutch gouvernment nor from the German government have there
been formal requests towards Xs4all.

People who feel the need to donate webspace to Radikal can contact
tank at xs4all.nl, spreading the information makes it harder to block
specific sites such as xs4all.

Felipe 

This is a E-mail from the db-nl mailing list, sent by Felipe Rodriguez,
chairman of xs4all.nl 

======================================================================




 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Sep  5 22:01:33 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 05 Sep 1996 22:01:33
Subject: About RADIKAL
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609041529.LAA28014@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>

Stay Radikal!

"It was never about illegality as such, rather the promotion of
free communication and the conveyance of radical political
content."
     - Interview With A Radikal Group, 1989

Statement From Radikal

     On June 13, 1995, federal police in Germany carried out a
major coup against left-radical structures. At six in the
morning, around 50 homes and leftist projects all across Germany
were stormed. The mainstream media praised the action as a "blow
to terrorist groups", spewing forth the cops' line that the raids
were directed against the Anti-Imperialist Cell (AIZ), the group
K.O.M.I.T.E.E., and the illegal magazine 'Radikal'. The usual
stigma of "terrorist group" was attached, justified with
Paragraphs 129 and 129a. Standard pig procedure. It's a part of
German reality to have homes being stormed, children rousted from
their beds by masked cops with guns, weapons pointed at the heads
of individuals whose "only" crime was their work on a
left-radical newspaper. Even on the suspicion of simply
distributing Radikal, people were terrorized all over the
country, from Berlin to Hamburg to Cologne. This was the biggest
raid on the German left in years - the Kurds, of course, have
been subjected to such treatment on several occasions recently.
     That night on the TV, there was little mention any more
about the AIZ or the K.O.M.I.T.E.E. Hell, we haven't enjoyed so
much publicity in a long time, as images were flashed of the
cops' Radikal archives, followed by a report of the arrest of 4
people for "membership in a criminal organization", Radikal.
Investigations are continuing against 21 other individuals on the
same charge. So we felt this was reason enough for people to hear
from us between issues. Sorry it took so long for this to happen,
but these things take time, as anyone familiar with
inter-regional structures knows.
     We won't try to make the intensity of this repression or our
status in the left-radical scene seem any greater than it really
is. We always knew such a raid would happen at some point. But it
is surprising that such a hard action against a publishing
project could be carried out without so much as a peep from the
"left- liberal public". It's characteristic of the continuity of
the repression against leftist structures, even in times when the
radical-left is weak. The BAW [federal prosecutor's office] had
just finished in their failed attempt to criminalize Gottingen's
Autonome Antifa (M) under Paragraph 129, and let's not forget the
cop raids and the banning of the Kurdistan Information Bureau in
Cologne because it published "pro-PKK" paper 'Kurdistan
Rundbrief', so now they decided to go against other organized
structures of the radical-left in Germany - on the same day as a
Nazi letterbomb terror attack on an SPD politician in Lubeck.
     It's clear that these raids weren't just aimed at us. We
were just a convenient excuse. "The action was an aimed
preventive measure designed to deter the left-radical scene",
said interior minister and deportation specialist Kanther that
same evening. While right-wing terror grows worse and the
consensus of social democrats/greens/conservatives in Great
Germany is ready to send the Bundeswehr on its first foreign
mission, it seems clear that the real threat is still the left.
The message being sent is clear, and by lumping together the AIZ,
K.O.M.I.T.E.E., and Radikal, it is that much easier to
criminalize the entire left.

Who We Are

     We produce and distribute a magazine. A magazine which, in a
time of state control and self-censorship, is a forum for a
discussion of street militancy and armed struggle. Of course, we
aren't "neutral" in this discussion. We fundamentally reject the
notion that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of
force. The existing social conditions can only be changed if
left-radical groups and associations build up their abilities and
structures so as to be able to counter some of these effects even
today. This, of course, includes militant and armed intervention,
but these would be empty gestures if there wasn't also some sort
of linkage or means of conveying their message. Of course, we are
very happy when militant anti-fascist initiatives disrupt Nazi
meetings. So we also see one of our functions as exposing fascist
structures so as to make both old and new Nazis attackable, and
we think this is one very important aspect of anti-fascist work.
     Of course, it would have been awesome if the cover of our
next issue had had a big picture of the new deportation prison in
Berlin-Grunau reduced to rubble. All people who seek to intervene
and oppose Germany's refugee policies would have been overjoyed
at this disruption of the state's deportation machinery. A
radical-left which takes the past 25 years of its history
seriously must discuss the successes and failures of the various
armed and militant groups, such as the RAF, the 2nd of June
Movement, the Revolutionary Cells, and militant autonomist
groups, and it must draw consequences for the future from this
discussion.
     In order that we don't just keep looking back at our
history, but rather so that we keep up to date with actual
developments, it's important that we be active in current
anti-fascist initiatives or, for example, discuss the politics of
the AIZ, of whom we are very critical. We must continually fight
for the necessary space to carry out such discussions and defend
ourselves from state attacks. Radikal tries to do jut that, no
more, no less. We try to make it possible for various structures
to have a means of being heard on a regular basis. It's seem like
we're stating the obvious when we say that the cop attacks on
Radikal are, at the same time, a criminalization of other leftist
structures which provide this necessary space, like infoshops and
other magazines for example.
     The present attacks on us, however, are qualitatively
different than past repressive campaigns for two fundamental
reasons. Firstly, we have now been declared a "criminal
organization", and secondly, it has now been stated that Radikal
has "entirely criminal content". A look back at the last few
issues, therefore, will reveal what criminal means: new
anti-racist street names in Braunschweig, articles on nationalism
and the liberation struggle in Kurdistan, an analysis of the
history of patriarchal gender divisions, an appeal from
non-commercial radio stations, debates about leftist campaigns
surrounding the May 8th commemorations...that's criminal content?
Before, the authorities used to point out specific articles which
"supported a terrorist organization" so as to criminalize them,.
Now the cops don't want to go through all that trouble so they
have just called the entire project a "criminal organization",
therefore the content must be criminal, too. But it's the mixture
of theory and actual attacks, discussion and practical tips,
which makes Radikal so interesting to read for so many people.
And we value this mixture. Radikal aims to mobilize people to
oppose Nazis and to stop the Castor nuclear waste shipments,
while at the same time giving information about debates on
anti-nationalism or the background of the origins of capitalist
and patriarchal social structures. What's more, it should offer
space for people from even the most remote corners of Germany to
discuss their actions or their difficulties, things which have
been ignored for far too long by a jaded left fixated on the
metropoles. The federal police have called this mixture criminal.
     If you listen to what the cops say about all of this, it
sounds like some sort of cheesy novel. We are supposedly
organized in a "highly conspiratorial manner" with "fixed
organizational structures". It seems that really banal things are
actually dangerous. Anyone who produces a magazine needs "fixed
organizational structures", they need to sit down together and
talk about what should go into the next issue and how to
distribute the magazine, mail out subscriptions, write articles,
answer letters from readers, and so on and so forth. The only
difference between us and normal, legal magazines is the fact
that we have removed ourselves from state control, out of the
reach of the censorship authorities. Over the years, we have
built up an organizational structure which allows us to
distribute a relatively high number of magazines nation-wide, by
radical-left standards that is. As with other groups who seek to
build up open or hidden structures, we are subject to state
repression. From their point of view, the BAW had good reason to
act now, since all their previous actions against us had been
fruitless. Radikal kept being published, and there was nothing
they could do about it.
     In 1982, about 20 homes, bookstores, and printing shops were
raided in an attempt to prosecute Radikal for "supporting a
terrorist organization". In 1984, 2 supposed editors of the paper
were sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison, but they avoided going
to the slammer by getting elected to the European Parliament for
the Greens. In 1991, the federal prosecutor exchanged the jail
terms for a fine. The next step came in 1986, when Radikal was
already organized underground. Now, 100 homes and shops were
raided by the cops. Nearly 200 court cases were opened, and in
the end 5 people were given suspended sentences of 4-10 months.
The wave of repression in 1986 - in addition to the obvious aims
of scaring people and just being repressive - had one major aim,
namely to drive Radikal out of the public realm and to lessen its
effectiveness. But that didn't succeed. Despite the fact that
several book stores, most of which dated back to Radikal's legal
days, backed out on us and left us with heavy debts, work on
Radikal and its distribution became much more decentralized. A
network of groups and individuals took up responsibility for the
magazine, based on their conditions. In 1989, the state
authorities went into action one more time after ID-Verlag in
Amsterdam published an interview with us as a brochure.
     The latest moves by the BAW have again made it clear that
claims by the mainstream media and left-liberals concerning armed
groups - "Your attacks make it possible for the state to turn the
screws of repression even tighter!" - are total crap. Even the
cease-fire from the guerrilla did not open up any "new levels of
social debate". The defenders of law and order are continuing to
act against left-radical groups, who are all equally defined as
dangerous, and these are attacked at the same high level.
     4 people are now in prison! We can't just forget that fact.
In any case, that's why we'd like to call for exchange and
communication with the solidarity groups. The charges against the
4 are as follows: They produced and distributed Radikal. But who
actually "produces" Radikal? Those people who send in reports of
antifa actions, or is it those people that take 10 copies and
give them to their friends to read, or maybe it's those people
that write a few articles and do some lay-out, or maybe it's the
people that see to it that a few copies get into the prisons? Or
maybe the BAW thinks it's those people that discuss for weeks on
end which articles should go in the next issue of Radikal? Or is
the ones who stand for long hours behind the printing presses?
     We're not really sure who exactly the cops are referring to
when they talk about Radikal, but we know they really mean all of
us! All people who see the continued need for radical-left
structures for discussion and communication, away from state
control and the apparatus of repression. And all people who
recognize the need for women and men to become organized to avoid
being swallowed up by capitalist and patriarchal reality. That's
why it's the task for all of us to not accept this attack nor to
let it go unanswered.

We need an uncontrollable resistance media!
Read, use, distribute, and stay Radikal!
Powerful greetings to Rainer, Ralf, Werner, and Andreas!
Free the prisoners!
The teeth will show whose mouth is open!

some Radikal groups - Summer 1995

(Translated by Arm The Spirit)


 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------


From stk at schism.antenna.nl  Sun Sep  8 13:52:00 1996
From: stk at schism.antenna.nl (stk at schism.antenna.nl)
Date: 08 Sep 1996 13:52:00
Subject: Occupation of Arbil
Message-ID: <090896105240Rnf0.77b9@schism.antenna.nl>

------------------------------ forwarded message -----------------------------
M.MERLIN at TBX.berlinet.de writes:

## Nachricht zur Information/Dokumentation weitergeleitet
## Orig.-Empf.: /SOC/CULTURE/KURDISH
## Orig.-Abs. : hallo2 at airmail.net (Hallo)



House of Lords
Parliamentary Human Rights Group
Press Statement by the Chairman, Lord Avebury
September 2, 1996


The treachery of KDP leader Massoud Barzani had given the Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussain an excuse for reoccupying part of the Kurdish
enclave, Not content with killing fellow Kurds himself, Mr Barzani has
called in their arch- enemy to slaughter his political opponents,
install the hated Mukhabarat secret police in the capital, Arbil, and
seize property belonging to anyone who is not a KDP supporter.

The Iraqis have sumularily executed 96 officers and men of the Iraqi
National Congress in front of the local people at Quashtapa, 22 km
south of Arbil, over the weekend. The hated Iraqi secret police have
occupied the Parliament building. Many people have been detained,
including the following:

Dr Fuad Ma'souum		ex Prime Minister
Dr Kamal Fuad 		        President, PUK group in the Parliament
Mr Adil Murad 		        Head of Kurdish radio and TV
Mrs Kafiya suleiman 		Minister of Local Government and Tourism
Mr sa'doun Feyli 		Member of PUK leadership
Mr Hakim Kadir         		Judge, chief of security in Arbil
Mr Mamosta Chato     		Member of PUK leadership
Mr Najim Omar Khidir al-sourchi Deputy leader, Kurdish Conservative
Party

The Americans had said they would not allow Saddam to occupy Arbil.
They had plenty of warnings from the INC about the Iraqi preparations
for these acts of aggression, and must have noted the massing of
troops and vehicles from satellite images. They should have sent
General John Shalikashvifi to Saudi Arabia to ask their permission to
use air bases, and consulted Americas allies about the use of air
strikes beforehand, instead of waiting until after the event. If that
had been done, the US might have deterred Saddam from this dangerous
adventure.

The allies must now demand that Iraqi forces be withdrawn, and that
the KDP also return to the positions they occupied before. It Would be
unthinkable that the traitor Barzani should profit from Saddam's
violation of the safe haven estublished by the allies in the three
northern governorates of Dohuk, Arbil and Suleimaniyeh after Desert
Storm. The KDP should be required to pay reparations to those detained
by the Iraqis, to the familes of the persons summarily executed, and
to those whose property has been seized or damaged in these operation.
The persons detained by the Iraqis should be freed immediately. The
Security Council should meet, and should extend the no-fly zone to
cover the movement of armoured vehicles and artillery.

The main Iraqi forces are camped outside Arbil, and could be attacked
by air-launched missiles or cruise missiles, without risking civilian
lives. The US should launch an attack on their positions at the same
time as their withdrawal is demanded.

If Saddam and his Quisling allies in the KDP are allowed to get away
with this aggression, the credibility of the US and of the UN Security
Council will be severely damaged in the region. It is now clear that
the failure of the international community to respond to the frequent
armed incursions by Turkey into the region, and then also to the
Iranian incursions, has made the Iraqi Kurdish region into a free fire
zone for all the neighbouring oppresssors of the Kurdish people. As so
often in the history of the Kwrds, it was one of their own chiefs in
collaboration with the enemy who may have brought to an end another
brief experiment in self-rule. Only by the firmest possible action can
the UN now reassert its authority, and rescue the Kurdish people from
a return to enslavement under a dictator who tried to exterminate them
all in the Anfal of 1988, and his puppet Massoud Barzani


Note to editors: Lord Avebury has been to northern Iraq twice, in 1994
and 1995, in attempts to secure peace between the KDP and the PUK.

Further information: Lord Avebury, 0171-274 4617


----------------------------- end forwarded message --------------------------
**********************************************************
Solidaritygroup Turkey-Kurdistan
Memberorganisation of Foundation Initiativegroup Kurdistan
P.O. Box 85306
3508 AH Utrecht
The Netherlands
stk at schism.antenna.nl
**********************************************************

From stk at schism.antenna.nl  Sun Sep  8 13:53:00 1996
From: stk at schism.antenna.nl (stk at schism.antenna.nl)
Date: 08 Sep 1996 13:53:00
Subject: Sarbast Hussein (PUK) from OutThere
Message-ID: <090896105310Rnf0.77b9@schism.antenna.nl>

------------------------------ forwarded message -----------------------------
M.MERLIN at TBX.berlinet.de writes:

## Nachricht zur Information/Dokumentation weitergeleitet
## Orig.-Empf.: /SOC/CULTURE/KURDISH
## Orig.-Abs. : kendal at nucst9.neep.wisc.edu (Kendal)


Here is an edited transcript of OutThere's live discussion with
Sarbast Hussein, London spokesman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK), on Tuesday September 3, 1996.

Paul Eedle, OutThere news service: Welcome to OutThere's live
discussion. OutThere news service's guest today is Sarbast Hussain,
London spokesman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the
two main Kurdish groups which have controlled much of northern Iraq
since the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

PUK forces were driven out of the city of Arbil on Saturday (August
31) by Iraqi government forces supporting the rival Kurdish Democratic
Party (KDP), sparking an international crisis. The United States
launched cruise missiles against Iraqi military targets to punish
Baghdad for intervening in the Kurdish area, which is protected by a
UN-sponsored "no fly zone".

Mr Hussain, thank you for being with us today. First of all, we would
like to ask what are your personal feelings are about this renewed
conflict in Kurdistan?

Sarbast Hussain: My personal feeling is that we are facing great human
suffering which is hard to tolerate in modern life. By this I mean the
suffering of nearly 28 million Kurds worldwide. I feel that the
Kurdish people are now living a historic moment - the safe haven is
challenged, the United Nations resolution 688 is being violated, and I
believe something should be done about it.

Starr Baroth: Why in your opinion do you believe Saddam has made this
move against the Kurds?

Sarbast Hussain: Mainly for two reasons. First, he is testing now and
then the Western appetite to protect the Kurdish people in Iraq.
Secondly, it is of his character to be in the news and be seen that he
is doing something, no matter what it is. He wants to be seen in
charge at least in the eyes of his own oppressed people in Iraq.

Peter Thompson, contributing writer to "Kurdish Life" in New York:
What was the quid pro quo for Talabani to act as the go-between
between Washington and Tehran over the past year?

Sarbast Hussain: I'm not clear about the question.

Paul Eedle: I think Peter is suggesting that the PUK has been acting
as a messenger between the United States and the Iranian government.

Sarbast Hussain: What's wrong with that?

Paul Eedle: If it is true that the PUK has been playing this role,
what is the benefit to the PUK of doing so?

Sarbast Hussain: I asked you to rephrase and explain your question
more. But if you are suggesting that Mr Talabani is acting as a
messenger between Washington and Tehran, I'd like you to explain what
sort of messenger do you mean? Do you mean a negotiating third party
between them? If that's what you mean, I don't see anything wrong with
that. Iran is a neighbouring country to Kurdistan. It has an important
role in the area, this cannot be denied. We need friendly relations
with all our neighbouring countries, apart from the Iraqi regime. I
say apart from the Iraqi regime because he is guilty of killing a
quarter of a million Kurds using the nastiest weapons and methods and
because we are directly affected by his oppression.

Peter Thomson: Mr Hussain, you have suggested that the Iraqi people
should be protected in Northern Iraq but Talabani (PUK leader) has
worked with Tehran to shell and attack the Iranian DPIK in northern
Iraq.

Sarbast Hussain: There have been limited acts of violation by Iran
inside the Kurdish area. We condemned it, we still do, but this has
never been approved or orchestrated by the PUK.

Starr Baroth: Do you agree with how President Clinton has reacted to
this crisis by having the US bomb them?

Sarbast Hussain: As one step a a series of steps, yes. But I believe
there are other measures to follow. First is to expand the no-fly zone
in the north southwards to the 34th parallel to cover the province of
Sulaimaniya with nearly a million population. Secondly, there has to
be a clear definition of the safe haven and its borders so that Saddam
Hussein will not exploit any ambiguity about it

Paul Eedle: The PUK's leader, Jalal Talabani, warned that the PUK
would seek help from Iran if the US did not intervene against the
Iraqi government. Now that the US has intervened militarily, will the
PUK stop any dealings with Iran?

Sarbast Hussain: We are not only after a token intervention. Our aim
is a secure reassurance to the Kurdish people to lead a normal life.
We basically demand arrangements that will make the Kurdish people
believe again that a safe haven really means SAFE HAVEN... I have to
say that this latest event has made a large number of Kurds suspicious
and worried about the West and their promise of protection to the
Kurds. Their confidence has to be regained again.

Paul Eedle: What arrangements would satisfy you?

Sarbast Hussain: A good question.

Paul Eedle: But what would be required - Western ground troops?

Sarbast Hussain: Ultimately, something that would reassure us that
Saddam would not find it possible to decide at night and send his
troops the day after to terrorise millions of people. This demands
creating some kind of balance of power. Kurdistan needs defence
weapons against tanks and armoured vehicles, not necessarily Western
personnel, but hardware, or a more determined signal to Saddam - such
as expanding the no-fly zone further south, lifting the sanctions
against the Kurdish people to allow them to import the tools that let
them rebuild the infrastructure in the country. It is very ironic to
find that while the Kurdish people are victims of Saddam Hussein, they
are now being punished by these sanctions for a reason that is of
Saddam Hussein's making.

Mark Lynas, News Editor of OneWorld Online: How can the Kurds ever
succeed in establishing an independent homeland if they can never sort
out their differences?

Sarbast Hussain: There ARE differences and there have been differences
in every nation. These differences do not make us inferior to any
other sovereign nation However it might be bad luck to have a faction,
and a corrupt ruling family of that faction, that have chosen to
prefer Saddam over another rival faction from their own people. To me,
this is the same as asking Hitler to protect the Jews from Hitler
himself. What the KDP leaders have done is an act of treason. They
represent themselves only and the Kurdish people, including their
ordinary members, have nothing to do with them. This does not mean
that the Kurdish people do not deserve sovereignty. I would like to
add something here. You can read of many peoples' revolutions that had
to fight against an occupier as well as an internal mercenary force -
for example Vietnam, China, Algeria etc.

Paul Eedle: In the past, the PUK also had dealings with the Baghdad
government. Why is what the KDP is doing different?

Sarbast Hussain: It is very, very different. First, we have ALWAYS
negotiated with Baghdad by sending delegates to them or receiving
their delegates and TALKING. We believe in negotiations. We prefer it
to killing.. What makes this act of treason by the KDP so different is
not the negotiation, it's the fact that they have APPEALED to Saddam
Hussein to come and 'liberate' Arbil for them. They have shown no
agreement, there have been no talks, no assurance for the Kurdish
people. All they have done is to bring back, with no return at all,
the tyrant against whom the Kurdish people have been fighting for 23
years.

Paul Eedle: Richard Trafton has a question about the Assyrians in
Kurdistan. What is the PUK's position on the Assyrians? Richard has a
report that a rocket fired from a PUK position hit a church in or near
the village of Diana and killed two clergymen yesterday.

Sarbast Hussain: Assyrians are the genuine original people of
Mesopotamia along with Kurds, long before Arabs came. They have
contributed to the civilisation of Mesopotamia. They have every right
to be safe and proud of their country. However, as a minority,
regrettably, they have become victim of the big fire in the area. The
tragic incident you mention should not have occurred, but civilians,
clergy, mosques and churches are destroyed in wars and this is the
nasty part of the tragedy of every war.

Paul Eedle: Would the PUK be prepared to negotiate with the Baghdad
government at present?

Sarbast Hussain: NO. He has scarred UN resolution 688. He has up to
this moment got away with violating international law.

Peter Thompson: Is there an agreement between the PUK and Tehran in
assisting the destroying of the DPIK HQ in northern Iraq? And what
role does Washington play?

Sarbast Hussain: There is no agreement between the PUK and Iran. The
PUK has never and will not interfere or facilitate interference of
neighbouring countries. But we plead to our brothers in the other
parts of Kurdistan, not to exploit the safe haven as a base to launch
an attack against their own regimes.

Mark Lynas: I don't think Mr Hussain answered my question about the
possibility of eventual unity among the Kurdish people. Just calling
the opposing faction 'traitors' isn't going to end the differences
surely?

Sarbast Hussain: We have no problem with KDP members and supporters,
the problem is with the heads. We are prepared to solve the problems
with the KDP after the heads are punished.

Starr Baroth: Other than being uplifted in the eyes of his followers,
what other benefit does Saddam have to gain by these current acts of
brutality?

Sarbast Hussain: It's part of Saddam's personality to have different
definitions to the terms 'gain' and 'loss' to what ordinary people
like me and you have for these words. There was nothing to be gained
by invading Kuwait and losing the sovereignty and revenue of Iraq for
years to come, but he did it. There are personal drives for him that
are different from ordinary civilised leaders of nations.

Peter Thompson: Mr Hussain, do you know the precise formula of the
recent UN oil deal in splitting the proceedings between PUK and KDP
(if it goes ahead)?

Sarbast Hussain: I do not have this exact detail, but the United
Nations signed with Iraqi delegates in New York to sell $2 billion
worth of oil over six months. It was meant that the Kurds should have
their share. I have no more details than that, unfortunately.

Paul Eedle: Selim Guncer asked, so I presume the PUK is against the
operation of the PKK for example?

Sarbast Hussain: We are against making the safe haven a base for
military actions against any of the neighbouring countries. The area
simply cannot risk it. We ask all the faithful Kurds in Kurdistan to
understand the sensitivity.

Starr Baroth: And what would that risk be? If you could clarify?

Sarbast Hussain: Last year, for example, the PKK gave Turkey the
excuse to overrun villages in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Selim Guncer: Mr Hussain, there is a big outcry in the Turkish
community against Operation Provide Comfort, because it is basically
allowing a "safe haven" for the PKK. The PUK should demonstrate that
PKK's actions can not be tolerated.

Sarbast Hussain: At this very moment, there is no member or base of
the PKK in the safe haven and we have asked them to respect this
demand.

Peter Thompson: Mr Hussain, did you sit in the recent meetings in
London with the US? And what was resolved in that meeting between the
KDP and the PUK?

Sarbast Hussain: These meetings were interrupted suddenly by Saddam's
onslaught on Arbil. That was at the introductory meetings, before any
serious matter was discussed. These talks were encouraged by the US.
However, it appeared that while responding to it, the KDP had another
agenda. They simply walked out.

Peter Thompson: Are you receiving custom tax from the Turkey-Iraqi
border controlled by Barzani; what percentage; and is this the basis
for disagreement with the KDP, excluding recent events.

Sarbast Hussain: No we do not get any percentage, because the area has
been controlled by the KDP for over three years. I have to admit that
this is part of the problems between the KDP and the PUK simply
because the revenue of these customs is nearly $20 million per month,
which we believe would help substantially for the reconstruction of
Kurdistan. However, the KDP have confiscated it since, and didn't hand
it over to the democratically elected parliament, in which they had
half the seats.

Richard Trafton: If the PUK were to receive American assistance as you
desire it (troops equipment, etc) would you attempt to create a
separate state from Iraq? Reestablish Kurdistan?

Sarbast Hussain: Our aim at this moment is a federal Iraq in which we
are treated equally. If this is too much for successive governments in
Iraq, a separate Kurdish state will be inevitable. We are not proud to
be part of a country in which we haven't seen anything but oppression,
discrimination, and destruction of the culture, language and Kurdish
heritage. We are, however, happy to live with our brothers in Iraq as
equal citizens, no less.

Selim Guncer: How can you achieve this goal when even the US is
refraining from toppling Saddam? A weak Iraq ruled by a madman seems
to serve U.S. interests better.

Sarbast Hussain: You are right in the scenario you quote, but peoples
have GAINED sovereignty not offered to them. We believe there will be
a day that the world community finds it unacceptable to turn a blind
eye on millions of people who are so willing to be free.

Peter Thompson: Mr Hussain, does the INC exist any longer given recent
events?

Sarbast Hussain: Yes, the INC is an elected organisation. But sadly,
they encountered huge losses in numbers after the treason of KDP
leadership in Arbil these past few days. But as a political
organisation, the INC is still a hope for the Iraqi people. They have
to take sides in this conflict and they have condemned the KDP
bitterly and made sacrifices towards a democratic Iraq.

Paul Eedle: Thank you very much, Mr Hussein, for joining us this
evening. This crisis looks far from over. Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein has ordered his armed forces to shoot at Western planes
enforcing the "no-fly zones" and there are reports of fighting
continuing in Kurdistan itself. We're hoping to have a session with a
KDP representative tomorrow at the same time - check on our Web page
at http://www.oneworld.org/outthere/ot_debate.html tomorrow for
details.

Sarbast Hussain: I JUST HAVE ONE THING TO SAY. I want to meet the KDP
representative tomorrow and I will certainly do my best.

(Ends)


----------------------------- end forwarded message --------------------------
**********************************************************
Solidaritygroup Turkey-Kurdistan
Memberorganisation of Foundation Initiativegroup Kurdistan
P.O. Box 85306
3508 AH Utrecht
The Netherlands
stk at schism.antenna.nl
**********************************************************

From stk at schism.antenna.nl  Sun Sep  8 13:54:00 1996
From: stk at schism.antenna.nl (stk at schism.antenna.nl)
Date: 08 Sep 1996 13:54:00
Subject: Burhan Jaf (KDP) from  OutThere
Message-ID: <090896105437Rnf0.77b9@schism.antenna.nl>

------------------------------ forwarded message -----------------------------
M.MERLIN at TBX.berlinet.de writes:

## Nachricht zur Information/Dokumentation weitergeleitet
## Orig.-Empf.: /SOC/CULTURE/KURDISH
## Orig.-Abs. : kendal at nucst9.neep.wisc.edu (Kendal)


This is an edited transcript of OutThere's live discussion with Burhan
Jaf, a London-based official of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), on
Wednesday September 4, 1996.

Paul Eedle, OutThere news service: OutThere's guest today is Burhan
Jaf, a London-based official of the Kurdish Democratic Party, one of
the two main Kurdish groups which have controlled much of northern
Iraq since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Fighting between the two
groups has sparked an international crisis. Iraqi government forces
invited by the KDP drove the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)
out of the city of Arbil on Saturday. The United States responded by
launching cruise missiles against Iraqi military targets to punish
Baghdad for intervening in the Kurdish area, which is protected by a
UN-sponsored "no fly zone".

Mr Jaf, What is the latest news from Kurdistan? Is fighting still
going on, and are Iraqi troops still involved?

Burhan Jaf: No, there is no fighting for the last 72 hours between the
KDP and the PUK. The fighting took only 10 hours and after that the
city is totally in control of the KDP. The city is normal, people are
back to work as normal. There is not a single Iraqi troop in Arbil. As
far as we know, the Iraqis have gone back to their previous line.

Paul Eedle: Outside Arbil, though, there are reports that the Iraqi
forces are shelling Chamchamal on the road to Sulaymaniyah.

Burhan Jaf: I cannot confirm this information but I wouldn't be
surprised. I would add they shell this city every year three or four
times. Since 1992, Chamchamal has been shelled several times a year.
IT'S NOTHING NEW.

Paul Eedle: But it would mean Iraqi forces are still in action inside
Kurdish territory in support of the KDP.

Burhan Jaf: There is no Iraqi support for the KDP. We don't have any
political alliance with the Iraqi regime. As far as we are concerned,
the Iraqis would be doing this for their own reasons.

Paul Eedle: So it is not true that you appealed to the Iraqi
government for help against the PUK?

Burhan Jaf: We certainly took advantage of Iraqi shelling of part of
Arbil because at the time, when the Iraqi army was shelling, the KDP
was storming the city, so indirectly, yes, we benefited. Certainly the
government did it for three reasons. First to send a message to the
PUK not to be too close to the Iranians; second, to test the ground,
how would the Western allies react; and third, to show the KDP that
they were doing us a favour, taking account that the KDP called for
help to counter the PUK and Iranian forces alliance against them

Richard Trafton: Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) President Abdullah
Ocalan stated on the Kurdish satellite station MED-TV in Europe on
September 1, 1996: "We hear that there is talk of autonomy for the
Kurds in northern Iraq [South Kurdistan], but this brings to mind the
1974 negotiations between the KDP and the regime in Baghdad. Those
talks resulted in the inglorious end of Mullah Mustafa Barzani
[founder of the KDP]. If his son, Mesut Barzani, plays the same game,
he will meet the same end."

Does Mesut Barzani fears for his life at the hands of Saddam?

Burhan Jaf: I don't think there will be at the moment any scope for
negotiation with the present regime or Iraq simply because it would
have to be approved by the parliament and the representatives of the
Kurdish people. We don't have political alignment with Baghdad. This
is a one-off indirect military cooperation and that's it. The KDP
today responded to the US State Department call and the British call
for the US to play a role to bring the two factions to continue their
talks, and Barzani today sent a reply to Warren Christopher and the
British as well that he welcomed their statement and he would like a
comprehensive peace settlement with Talabani.

Paul Eedle: Is the KDP disturbed by the way in which these events have
escalated into an international crisis?

Burhan Jaf: We are not disturbed at all by what happened. We
contributed to bringing the Kurdish situation to the world again, and
that the KDP felt that the Iranian threat has been neglected by our
Western allies, and we are tired of regional intervention in our
affairs, and yet there is no Western response to that.

Paul Eedle: What was the origin of this most recent conflict with the
PUK?

Burhan Jaf: The origin is that for the first time a regional power
like Iran invaded the territory of the KDP, supporting militarily the
PUK. This is the first time this happened.

Paul Eedle: There have been reports for some time, though, about
disputes between the PUK and KDP over money, specifically sharing the
revenue from customs dues on the border with Turkey.

Burhan Jaf: This is a naive and simple analysis to the conflict. It's
not about money, it's about power, who takes control.

Siamak Rezaei: Why don't you fight against Saddam who is/was killing
the Kurds?

Burhan Jaf: Politically, we are still fighting Saddam's dictatorship.
Militarily we cannot match his power, so we need sophisticated weapons
in order to stand any chance.

Peter Thompson: You mention Iran as "interfering', but what is your
response to claims Barzani has aided Turkey in fighting the PKK in
northern Iraq?

Burhan Jaf: Barzani and the KDP NEVER helped Turkey to fight the PKK
in the way that the PUK is helping Iran against us.

Paul Eedle: In 1992, the Kurdish people of northern Iraq held
elections and set up an autonomous administration. Protected by
Western air forces enforcing the "no fly zone", the Kurds achieved the
autonomy they had wanted for many years. Why did they allow
differences between the PUK and the KDP to put all this at risk?

Burhan Jaf: Simply - first, we wanted to run the regime by democratic
means, while the other faction wanted to run it by dictatorship. The
KDP resisted dictatorship by the PUK, who occupied the parliament
twice, in 1993 and 1994. The other thing is we have to mention the
outside powers, the Allies. There is no status for this entity, the
autonomous entity, in the international arena. There is no economic
support for it and we became dependent on NGOs and surrounded by
hostile governments, and I'm afraid the West didn't do enough to
consolidate this democratic experiment in 1992.

Peter Thompson: Mr Jaf, why do you believe Washington allowed Talabani
to win control of Arbil over a year ago in fighting. And, do you
believe Washington favours Talabani?

Burhan Jaf: No, I don't believe Washington favours Talabani. I don't
think they allowed them or anything like that. It was just a coup
d'etat, never expected to be executed by a partner in government, and
the KDP at the time didn't wish to bring the conflict into the cities.

Siamak Rezaei: What is the position of KDP towards Democratic Party of
Iranian Kurdistan? What has happened to those Iranian Kurdish refugees
in this conflict?

Burhan Jaf: Our position about the Iranian Kurds is that we condemn
the Iranian government offensive against the DPIK in Koysenjaq. This
was under the PUK control. Most of the refugees fled to Arbil. Some of
them fled to Salahuddin, where they were welcomed by the KDP. We have
a good relationship with them and we support their struggle in Iranian
Kurdistan. There were over 3,000 refugees in that camp.

Paul Eedle: When and where do you expect the KDP-PUK peace talks
organised by the US to take place?

Burhan Jaf: We hope the PUK will respond as soon as possible. It
depends on them.

Selim Guncer: Latest news is that Turkish troops are getting ready to
strike PKK positions in northern Iraq, which is controlled by KDP.
What is the relation of KDP with the PKK?

Burhan Jaf: We have no conflict with the PKK and we hope that will
remain for the future, although they have attacked us in the past.

Paul Eedle: What should the main points of a peace agreement be?

Burhan Jaf: It would be a return to the Drogheda agreement,
establishing a new government and resuming parliament, and all the
customs agreements would be back to the hands of the government. We
would have a common policy towards our neighbours and the central
government of Iraq.

Siamak Rezaei: What is the relation of your party with the party
headed by Adham Barzani. Isn't it supported by Iran?

Burhan Jaf: They are another political party. We have normal relations
with them.

Pushdaree: Mr Jaf, you mentioned that the fight is a case of one party
being in control. Since KDP took over Howlar, is Sulaymaniyah the next
target?

Burhan Jaf: We have no intention to expand the fight beyond Arbil and
we hope that we could come to a peace settlement.

Selim Guncer: What is your position on the actions of the PKK? By
saying you have no conflict with them, do you support the PKK? Since
they can live in KDP-controlled areas, I am curious of your position.

Burhan Jaf: I support the right of the Kurdish people in their
struggle in Turkey for their national and democratic rights and we
support all the political parties in Turkey which struggle to achieve
this peacefully.

Paul Eedle: How could a peace agreement on the lines you described be
guaranteed or enforced? Would it require outside monitors - if so, who
would pay for them?

Burhan Jaf: It would absolutely require outside monitors.

Peter Thompson: Does Barzani and the KDP feel 'abandoned' by
Washington?

Burhan Jaf: That is our feeling, yes.

Siamak Rezaei: What is your relationship with Iran? PUK claims that
you have many centers in Iran and KDP representative was in Iran for
the anniversary of Khomeini's death.

Burhan Jaf: We have an office in Tehran, certainly, but the other
offices have been all closed don by the Iranian authorities.

Paul Eedle: Who do you think the outside monitors of a peace agreement
should be?

Burhan Jaf: Ideally it should be the United States, France, Britain,
and certainly the U.N.

Paul Eedle: Do you agree with the PUK's call for the no-fly zone to be
extended south to the 34th parallel and for the UN sanctions on Iraq
to be lifted for the Kurds?

Burhan Jaf: Yes, I agree. I would add that we agree on many points,
it's just unfortunate that we fight each other.

Peter Thompson: In today's Jerusalem Post, it suggested Talabani was
the "winner". But, it also recalled Mustafa's close ties with Israel
and asked how could "Hebrew-speaking" Barzani associated with Saddam.
Do you agree that Talabani was a "winner"?

Burhan Jaf: Never, he's a short-sighted politician thinking of himself
first and the Kurdish people second.

Peter Thompson: Is the KDP still involved with the INC?

Burhan Jaf: Yes, Peter, we are still a member of the INC.

Siamak Rezaei: What has happened to the PUK officials arrested by PDK
in the conflict?

Burhan Jaf: There are about 60, they are being well treated and have
been visited by the Red Cross. But I add it's difficult to know
exactly who they are and it's very confusing. For example, Talabani's
wife was reported by the PUK to have been captured by us and they
campaigned for her release, and after two days she turned out to be in
Sulaymaniyah with her husband.

Paul Eedle: Our time's up. Thank you very much, Mr Jaf, for joining
us. We heard the PUK side of events last night so it was important
that we had the chance to hear the KDP's position.

Burhan Jaf: Thank you, goodnight.

(Ends)



----------------------------- end forwarded message --------------------------
**********************************************************
Solidaritygroup Turkey-Kurdistan
Memberorganisation of Foundation Initiativegroup Kurdistan
P.O. Box 85306
3508 AH Utrecht
The Netherlands
stk at schism.antenna.nl
**********************************************************

From stk at schism.antenna.nl  Mon Sep  9 01:35:00 1996
From: stk at schism.antenna.nl (stk at schism.antenna.nl)
Date: 09 Sep 1996 01:35:00
Subject: Interview with Kopietz about N-Irak
Message-ID: <090896223527Rnf0.77b9@schism.antenna.nl>

This is an edited transcript of OutThere news service's live interview 
with Hans-Heino Kopietz, an independent security consultant and expert 
on Kurdish affairs, on Thursday September 5, 1996.

Paul Eedle, OutThere news service: Welcome to OutThere's
third live Net discussion on the crisis in Kurdistan. Today's guest
is Hans-Heino Kopietz, one of the world's leading experts on Kurdish
affairs.

Mr Kopietz is an independent international and security
consultant. He has had a long career as an academic and analyst. He
has lectured at the American University of Beirut, Ahmadu Bello
University in Nigeria and the School of Oriental and African Studies
in London. He has worked as a researcher and analyst at the
International Institute of Strategic Studies in London and as an
international affairs and security consultant at Control Risk Group.

Mr Kopietz's work and study have involved him closely in Kurdistan
for the last 15 years. He knows the key players personally and met
them all earlier this year during a visit to Iraqi Kurdistan when he
was reporting for German television.

Mr Kopietz, why do you think the Kurdish Democratic Party took the
risk of appealing for military help from the Iraqi government, which
it has been fighting on and off for nearly 30 years?

Heino Kopietz: This was not a risk. The KDP had negotiated
since August September 1995 with the central government of Iraq and
Mr Massoud Barzani's principle intention always has been to eliminate
the stronghold of the PUK led by Jalal Talabani. Without Iraqi
military assistance he could not do it. Further, Mr Barzani was well
aware of the US policy. He had advised the United States nine days
before the Iraqis came into Arbil, and he was told that he would not
in any way be bombarded by American aircraft. Instead the United
States would give comfort to him and to Baghdad.

Paul Eedle: Are you suggesting that the US connived in
Barzani's action against the PUK, then?

Heino Kopietz: Absolutely, absolutely.

Paul Eedle: Why - because the PUK had invited Iranian
support?

Heino Kopietz: The Iranian political and military presence
is minimal. Ideologically and religiously, the Iranians have never
made a big impact into Kurdistan because nearly 90 percent of
Kurdistan is Sunni, but four or six percent are Christians and
related faiths,and Iran doesn't have a chance of ever getting a
religious foothold in Kurdistan. It's a question of the Iranians
wanting to use political influence, which has nothing to do with
religion. It's a question of the PUK being identified as being
supported by Iran. So I would say yes, that's why the American
connived at Barzani's action. But there are other reasons too. It's
better for America to have ONE leader of Kurdistan and they have
decided to nominate Barzani because the Barzani family has an old
name in the 20th century as leaders of Kurdistan. The Americans are
more comfortable with traditions and traditional authority. Talabani
is so-called 'progressive'. He originally was a communist, a radical.
He's taciturn, unpredictable and vociferous. It's very difficult to
negotiate with Jalal and I have known him for many years. For any
government in the world it would be difficult to deal with him
because he's a radical.

Paul Eedle: So the KDP's action in Arbil had been prepared
over many months, and the KDP appeal to Iraq was not a sudden act of
desperation?

Heino Kopietz: Indeed, it was not a sudden act of
desperation. Barzani had an agreement with Mr Talabani since 1992 and
the proof of the pudding is that Mr Barzani agreed for the Iraqi oil
minister to cross KDP-held territory in January 1996 for the express
purpose to reopen the pipelines between Baghdad and Turkey. In return
for this permission, Mr Barzani received at the minimum 18 armoured
personnel carriers, unknown quantities of ammunition and some
intelligent military personnel. I do not know what else he obtained.

Paul Eedle: And the Americans knew about these contacts
between the KDP and Baghdad?

Heino Kopietz: Yes. The Americans had known for AT LEAST
the last year, that is the summer of 1995 until now, and I stress AT
LEAST, about the contacts between Mr Barzani and Mr Tareq Aziz. I
know personally the go-between in this. His meeting took place in
February 1996. And considering there is a station of some 50 CIA
agents in Salahuddin, it would be almost criminal if they had not
known - a station that is 100 metres from Mr Barzani's compound.

Paul Eedle: What was the benefit to the Iraqi government of
the agreement with the KDP?

Heino Kopietz: The benefit was very simple. It gave a
licence under the cover of the KDP to reenter legitimately northern
Iraq above the 36th parallel.

Paul Eedle: What sort of a person is Massoud Barzani?

Heino Kopietz: Massoud Barzani, it must be remembered, is
the head and senior son of the legendary Mullah Barzani. He himself
is very quiet, a non-drinker, non-smoker. That is his outward
appearance. What he is in public is essentially a conspirator in the
tradition of Kurdish politics. He himself had lived in Iran until
1991. .. and he himself had to learn what he is leading. He was a man
who did not know his own people but had to learn very fast. He is a
very shy man, a very elegant man in Kurdish terms, and importantly,
he wears always traditional clothes, unlike Jalal Talabani. He always
presents himself as the leader of the traditional families of
Kurdistan. His brother died at the end of the 80s and he inherited
the mantle of Mullah Barzani. There are other sons from other women,
but his mother is the one that counts and he inherited the mantle
when his brother died.

Paul Eedle: After the Gulf War ended in 1991 the Kurds were
enabled by the West to set up an autonomous administration with an
elected parliament. Why do you think this experiment collapsed?</P>

Heino Kopietz: The Kurds are their own worst enemies.
Indeed, the Kurds were given the chance to present themselves as a
so-called democratic experiment and I was one of the advisers from
1990 before the war in that experiment. There are deep-seated
conflicts within Kurdish society, you may call it tribal, religious,
ideological differences, but the basic contest between Jalal Talabani
and Massoud Barzani is over money and power. It is very sad for me to
say that as one of those involved but the families of the leaders are
nepotistic. Every single adviser to each leader are relatives and it
is sad they could not produce a consensus. The basic problem is a
lack of institutions and that is the fault of the Iraqi political
system.

Paul Eedle: The KDP's Burhan Jaf said last night his party
wanted a peace agreement with the PUK and a return to the
parliamentary democracy set up after the Gulf War. Do you think this
can be achieved, and if so, how?

Heino Kopietz: Unfortunately the leaders persist in living
in a never-never land and have not yet been able to come out of their
misperception of international politics. So there can be no return to
democracy. In fact democracy never really existed.

Paul Eedle: The Turkish government said today that it would
like to establish a 'security zone' inside northern Iraq to prevent
cross-border attacks by the Turkish Kurds of the PKK. What is the
relationship between the PKK and the Iraqi Kurdish groups?

Heino Kopietz: The Turkish Kurdish problem is far removed
from the Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian Kurds. The PKK under Mr Ocalan has
taken a very different route to autonomy, independence or whatever
you may want to call it. He has decided to take a violent course...
Turkey looks at all Kurds as interrelated, as one ethnic
group,therefore they see Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Syria as the same as
the PKK. The PKK's ties to Iraqi groups vary from time to time.
Sometimes they're close to the PUK, sometimes to the KDP but they all
fight each other. There are tactical alliances. It all depends on the
regional political constellation at any one time.

Paul Eedle: How will the Iraqi oil-for-food deal affect the
Kurds in northern Iraq? Which groups stand to benefit from it?

Heino Kopietz: I will be very cynical. No group in Iraq
will benefit because all oil for food contracts will be delivered to
Tikrit. That's why the United States, Britain and many others are
holding back. About 70 percent of all past humanitarian aid to Iraq
always ended up in the city of Tikrit, from where Saddam comes.

Paul Eedle: Could you already see this crisis brewing when
you visited Kurdistan earlier this year? What were the signs on the
ground then?

Heino Kopietz: It became very clear to me as far back as
January 1995 when the PUK decided unilaterally to invade and adopt
Arbil. Later the fighting between these groups, be it for tribal
reasons or ideological reasons, was a very clear sign. In January
1996 it also became clear that the American confrontation with Iran
was heading towards a crescendo. We knew that the Kurds have been and
will be the football of Middle Eastern power struggles.
Unfortunately, the Kurds permit themselves to be in that role.

Paul Eedle: Now that Saddam's forces have been able to
enter the Kurdish areas, do you think they will stay permanently? For
instance, do you believe reports that Iraqi intelligence agents are
still in Arbil in force and likely to remain there?

Heino Kopietz: First, Iraqi Arab intelligence agents always
have been in north Iraq. Second, if one has a division of uniform
military personnel of whatever number and size, then half of them
will be intelligence services. When the tanks and the uniform
regiments return they will leave behind half of their men and
equipment. There's no doubt that half of those who came in were left
behind as intelligence. These men have very specific tasks, to root
out the opposition to the KDP, say PUK supporters, and in my
knowledge there will be at least 2-5,000 intelligence officers in the
KDP's regions in order to finish the PUK. The whole purpose of the
exercise was to eliminate Jalal Talabani and his PUK and that they
will do now with a vengeance and great ruthlessness.

Paul Eedle: How do you predict that the situation will
develop over the next three to six months?

Heino Kopietz: Kurdistan is a political vacuum right now
and it has been a vacuum for at least five years if not before. I'm
not a prophet, I cannot say what will happen. I can only say what
could happen. Turkey and Iran both have strategic reasons to be in
the region. Iraq will resist this, and as a member of the United
Nations, Saddam Hussein has every right to defend the territorial
integrity of Iraq. Yet it is very possible that Turkey and Iran will
interfere with this because they see the oil and gas advantages. The
game is all about money and power in this region.

Paul Eedle: Do you think there is a risk of a refugee
crisis like that of 1991 caused by the present conflict in Kurdistan?

Heino Kopietz: The Kurdish population is so frightened and
so insecure, the answer to your question is definitely yes. We will
have another crisis, human rights crisis, if the Americans will push
the confrontation with Arab Iraq further... The Kurds will flee again
and the Kurds will yet again suffer but this will not only be due to
Western powers but to Kurdish leaders.

Paul Eedle: Thank you very much indeed, Mr Kopietz, for
joining OutThere today for this live interview.

(Ends)




**********************************************************
Solidaritygroup Turkey-Kurdistan
Memberorganisation of Foundation Initiativegroup Kurdistan
P.O. Box 85306
3508 AH Utrecht
The Netherlands
stk at schism.antenna.nl
**********************************************************

From FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org  Mon Sep  9 04:06:00 1996
From: FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org (FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 09 Sep 1996 04:06:00
Subject: GAMA: iraq-usa
Message-ID: <6GZMH8sZGIB@oln-205.oln.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

        GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ASSOCIATION - GAMA - PRESENTS:
        -------------------------------------------------------
                news provided via our member "infoPool"
                --------------------------------------

SOURCE: INA
HEAD:   iraq confirms launching missile attack against u.s. planes

     baghdad, sep 8 (ina-pool) iraq on sunday confirmed that its air
 defense fired surface-to-air missiles against u.s. planes patrolling
 the no-fly zones in southern iraq although the targets were missed.

     an iraqi military spokesman did not mention where the firing of the    
 missiles occurred nor the number of missiles launched.

     however, the official warned that iraqi air defense would combat
 enemy planes in the future.

     "our american enemies continued to violate (on saturday) iraqi
 air space", the spokesman said.

     "our air defense troops fired at enemy planes that left the saudi
 territory with surface-to-air missiles although this time they were
 able to escape punishment," the military spokesman added.

     [end] mi


From FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org  Mon Sep  9 04:06:00 1996
From: FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org (FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 09 Sep 1996 04:06:00
Subject: GAMA: russia-turkey-kurds
Message-ID: <6GZMHLYoGIB@oln-205.oln.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

        GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ASSOCIATION - GAMA - PRESENTS:
        -------------------------------------------------------
                news provided via our member "infoPool"
                --------------------------------------

SOURCE: XINHUA
HEAD:   russia concerned over turkey-planned "buffer zone" in iraq

    moscow, august 7 (xinhua) -- russia is very concerned with a
 "buffer zone" planned by turkey to be established in iraq's
 northern kurdish region.

    the move will seriously damage the territorial integrity of a
 sovereign state and cause further instability in the region,
 itar-tass reported today, quoting a statement of the russian foreign
 ministry.

    russia urged turkey to give up such a plan which threatens the
 security not only of iraq, but also of other countries around the
 region, the ministry said.

    it added stopping war and restoring dialogues between rival
 kurdish factions and between kurds and the iraqi government are
 ways to normalize the situation in northern iraq.

    however, turkish foreign minister tanyu ciller friday said the
 planned buffer zone will deter infiltration from iraq by the army
 of the kurdistan workers party (pkk), fighting for self-rule in
 turkey's kurdish southeast.

    the turkish troops reportedly have been massing on the border
 with iraq to create the planned security zone up to 10 kilometers
 deep in iraq.

    meanwhile, u.s. secretary of state warren christopher has said
 in london that the united states understands turkey's reasons for
 establishing such a zone and has been assured it would be
 temporary and involve no permanent troops.

    but france and syria have opposed the plan while iraq has said
 it "unacceptable."
    [end]


From IHD-ANK at INFO-IST.comlink.apc.org  Fri Sep  6 11:56:00 1996
From: IHD-ANK at INFO-IST.comlink.apc.org (IHD-ANK at INFO-IST.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 06 Sep 1996 11:56:00
Subject: ATTENTION!
Message-ID: <6GK6sCdoqoB@xp-ihdan.info-ist.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

ATTENTION!

DISCLAIMER

Dear friends,

You may have heard about or seen some information and brochures concerning  
a " Women and Peace Conference " announced to have been organized by Human  
Rights Association Turkey for early November in Istanbul. The e-mails,  
brochures, any other type of documentation to this effect that you may  
have come across are COMPLETELY UNFOUNDED.

The names Nebahat Akkoc and the Human Rights Association Turkey appeared  
in these e-mail messages and brochures without any knowledge or consent of  
these parties. We don't have anything to do with the conference being  
announced and the individuals / organizations circulating this  
information.

We are thinking of such a conference for 1997, but at the moment nothing  
is decided. We haven't made any type of announcement concerning this  
conference this conference yet.

Nebahat Akkoc
HRA Board of Directors

Human Rights Association
Tel / Fax : +90-312-425 9547 - 432 0957

## CrossPoint v3.02 ##

From FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org  Tue Sep 10 04:39:00 1996
From: FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org (FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 10 Sep 1996 04:39:00
Subject: GAMA: gcc-iraq
Message-ID: <6GcOnbfoGIB@oln-205.oln.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

        GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ASSOCIATION - GAMA - PRESENTS:
        -------------------------------------------------------
                news provided via our member "infoPool"
                --------------------------------------

SOURCE: XINHUA
HEAD:   gcc calls for respecting iraqi sovereignty

    belgrade, sep 9 (tanjug-pool) foreign ministers of the gulf
 cooperation council (gcc) sunday wrapped up their 60th meeting in
 riyadh, capital of saudi arabia, with a final communique stressing
 the necessity of respecting the sovereignty of iraq.

    the xinhua news agency quotes reports from riyadh as saying that
 the gcc states, including saudi arabia, kuwait, the united arab
 emirates (uae), qatar, bahrain and oman, also reaffirmed their
 commitment to the unity of the u.s.-led international alliance.

    in a press statement, gcc secretary general ibrahim
 al-hujeilan expressed the gcc'c deep anxiety to the situation in the
 region and its threat to the international peace and security.

    the statement said the ministerial council 'condemned strongly'
 the interference of some neighboring countries in northern iraq and
 called on these states to stop 'immediately and completely'
 interference in iraq's internal affairs.
    [end] ag


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Sep 12 10:51:49 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 12 Sep 1996 10:51:49
Subject: Mainstream News On The Conflict In
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.960912050..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Mainstream News On The Conflict In South Kurdistan

PKK Kurds Protest In Greece

Athens, Greece (UPI - September 10, 1996) Scores of Kurds took to
the streets Tuesday in the Greek capital to protest against plans
by Turkey to set up a security zone in northern Iraq.
     Shouting slogans and carrying banners, protesters marched to
the U.S. and Turkish embassies in a demonstration organized by
the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a separatist group distinct
from the two Iraqi Kurdish factions clashing in northern Iraq,
the PUK and the KDP.
     "The ongoing clashes in Kurdistan reinforce Turkey's plan
for a genocide of the Kurds", said Antar Sekkete, the PKK's
representative in Greece.
     Together with protesters he handed a petition to the Turkish
Embassy, denouncing the "fascist regime of Turkey" for setting up
a 9-mile (15-km) security zone in northern Iraq.
     Protesters set ablaze a poster showing Turkish Foreign
Minister Tansu Ciller leading a cowboy-garbed U.S. President Bill
Clinton and a donkey-shaped sketching of Turkish Prime Minister
Necmetin Erbakan. Sketched beneath them was a blood-blotched
carictature of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
     Greece also opposes the Turkish buffer zone, warning that
Turkey would set a dangerous precedent for randomly changing
existing borders.
     For years, Greece has strongly supported safeguarding human
rights for Kurds in Turkey. Its open support has prompted
frequent accusations by Ankara that special training camps have
been set up for Kurdish rebels in Greece and southern Cyprus.

Troops Hunt Rebel Kurds In Eastern Turkey

By Ferit Demir

Tunceli, Turkey (Reuter - September 8, 1996) Turkish security
forces stepped up land and air operations against Kurdish
separatists Sunday after the rebels shot nine government troops
to death in an ambush.
     Security officials said up to 20,000 troops, backed by
helicopters, were involved in the latest move against Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas, waging a 12-year fight for
self-rule. More than 20,000 people have died in the insurgency.
     "Heavy clashes are continuing since last night and we
suspect the death toll and casualties may mount", said a military
official who asked not to be identified.
     The theater of operations included a triangle formed by the
provinces of Tunceli, Erzincan and Bingol, the security sources
said.
     The state-run Anatolian news agency said two Turkish troops
and two PKK guerrillas were killed in a clash Sunday in Genc
township, Bingol province. Three soldiers were also injured.
     In Yusekova, near the Iranian border in Hakkari province,
police carried out house-to-house searches for PKK rebels after
slapping a curfew on the district and cutting telephone service,
Anatolian said. The restrictions were lifted later Sunday.
     Earlier, about 40 PKK gunmen ambushed a Turkish unit near
Kemaliye township, also in Bingol province, military sources told
Reuters.
     Nine members of the security forces were killed. Government
troops killed two rebels after sending helicopter-backed support
to the region.
     The incident occurred about 5.30 p.m. Saturday when the
Turkish troops were returning from a military operation. The
sources said they believed the PKK militants behind the attack
were cornered in the region.
     The separatist PKK, which often uses bases inside Iraq to
launch attacks on Turkish targets, remains strong in the almost
inaccessible mountains and valleys of eastern Turkey.
     The attack was the biggest PKK action inside Turkey since
the Kurdish faction's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, declared a renewed
war last week in response to Turkey's saying it might impose a
six-mile-deep security zone inside Iraq to repel the Kurds.
     Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller reiterated that
Turkey's plans for the zone were "temporary", a promise essential
to securing U.S. understanding.
     "All we are trying to do is to make sure that the terrorists
don't infiltrate. And for that we are talking about a very thin
zone next to our border which will help us defend this border so
that the terrorists do not infiltrate", Ciller said.
     She said her government ultimately planned to monitor
Kurdish rebel activity in northern Iraq with an electronic
system, eliminating any need to keep troops there.
     Iran said Sunday that Turkey's proposed security zone was a
territorial violation that would escalate regional tensions.
     Foreign Ministry spokesman Mahmoud Mohammadi criticized the
decision and said Iran believed such a zone violated Iraqi
territorial integrity.
     Mohammadi said the Turkish move was "contrary to the good
intentions of a neighboring nation, in violation of international
codes of practice and a measure not acceptable to the Islamic
Republic of Iran."
     He added that "such a measure would be the cause of an
escalation of tension in the region", IRNA reported.
     Iran earlier rejected accusations that its forces had
intervened in fighting between Kurdish factions in northern Iraq.
Iranian television reported Sunday that Tehran wanted a peaceful
solution to the region's problems.
     U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said in London
over the weekend the United States understood Turkey's reasons
for establishing the security zone in Iraq and had been assured
it would be temporary and involve no permanent troops.
     Iraqi Kurdish villagers in the border region did not wait to
see if the Turks would impose the security cordon along the
volatile, mountainous region.
     Scores of refugees left from the area around Banek, about 20
miles from the main Iraqi border town of Zakho. They shuttled
their belongings to a valley further south, leaving behind their
fruit and vegetable harvests.
     Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister Sayyed Qassem el-Masri
rejected Turkey's explanations of its need to set up the security
zone.
     "This position reminds us of a similar position when Israel
announced the creation of a security zone in southern Lebanon,
with technical differences", Masri told reporters.
     He said Egypt would request an official discussion of the
matter at the U.N. Security Council.

Kurdish Group Asks U.S. Aid Against Fresh Iraqi-Kurd Assault

Irbil, Iraq (AP - September 8, 1996) A Kurdish rebel group said
it was under fierce attack by Saddam Hussein's forces and a rival
Kurdish faction on Sunday. It called for intervention by the
United States.
     United Nations officers in Irbil, at least 18 miles from the
reported battle, confirmed a new Iraqi infantry drive was
underway. One U.N. officer, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said fighting was preventing the U.N. forces from going to the
scene.
     The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, whose guerrillas were
ousted from Irbil a week ago by Iraqi troops and rival Kurds,
said fierce fighting erupted at 8 a.m. local time Sunday.
     A PUK statement and the U.N. officers' comments placed the
action in a triangle between Irbil on the west, Dokan Lake on the
east and the Little Zab River.
     This area, along with the city of Sulaymaniya southeast of
the embattled triangle, form the last main strongholds for the
PUK in Iraq.
     Until Aug. 31, the PUK was in control of Irbil, the de facto
Kurdish capital in northern Iraq. Then, Saddam's land forces
punched into the city with the PUK's rival, the Kurdistan
Democratic Party. The KDP has now supplanted the PUK in Irbil,
the largest city in what was supposed to be a "safe haven" that
protected the Kurds from Saddam's wrath.
     "We call on the U.S. and its coalition partners to intervene
urgently to halt the Iraqi aggression and end this onslaught
against the Kurdish people", the PUK said in a fax sent to The
Associated Press in Nicosia, Cyprus, from its office in a
Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C.
     The United States launched cruise missiles at Iraq last
Tuesday and Wednesday after Saddam defied the Western allies'
decree that northern Iraq was a "safe haven" for Kurds.
     Nearly half of Iraq, comprising wide swaths of "no-fly"
zones in both northern and southern Iraq, are also off-limits to
Saddam's aircraft. These measures were taken after a U.S.-led
military coalition drove Saddam's occupation forces out of Kuwait
in the 1991 Gulf War.
     The KDP is headed by Massoud Barzani, once an ally of PUK
leader Jalal Talabani in the campaign for Kurdish independence.
     "At 8:00 a.m. today (Sunday), Iraq-Barzani forces, supported
by tanks and heavy artillery, attacked Kurdish positions at the
junction of Degala, southeast of Irbil", the PUK said. "Fierce
fighting is reported in the area."
     The PUK said Iraqi and KDP forces were trying to break
through their lines to capture Kuysanjaq, which it said has a
population of 80,000.
     Kuysanjaq is about 30 miles southeast of Irbil.
     The U.N. officer said Iraqi infantry were pushing southeast
on a different axis toward Taqtaq, 70 kilometers southeast of
Irbil, near the Little Zab River.
     He said a force made up mainly of KDP fighters, but aided by
some Iraqi government troops, have pushed the PUK out of Degala,
about 18 miles east of Irbil.

Rival Kurdish Factions Hold Fire In Northern Iraq

Irbil, Iraq (AP - September 6, 1996) Two rival Kurdish factions
held their fire outside this northern town today after a day of
heavy clashes left tension in the air and Iraqi tanks positioned
nearby.
     For the first time in almost a week, no fighting was
reported anywhere in Iraq. However, the United States and its
allies planned to continue their flights over "no-fly" zones in
northern and southern Iraq, and President Saddam Hussein has
vowed to target the aircraft.
     U.S. intelligence reports Thursday indicated Saddam's troops
and tanks were withdrawing from the Kurdish enclave in northern
Iraq. But he was leaving behind spies and other secret agents to
reassert his power in the region, The New York Times reported
today from Washington.
     In Irbil, U.N. official Paul Dahl said that fighting had
stopped between the Iranian-backed Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the two groups that battled
Thursday in Bestana, about 19 miles southeast of Irbil.
     "But who knows what will happen in an hour's time", he said.
"The area is still very tense."
     He said Iraqi troops and tanks were entrenched about 10
miles southeast of Irbil, though have not taken part in the most
recent skirmishes.
     "They seem to be digging in and it does not look as though
they are about to leave", Dahl said after visiting the area.
"They are not hiding at all, anyone can see them."
     The Iraqi troops, who have been supporting the KDP, were
near the 36th parallel, the northern no-fly zone. It was not
clear whether they were just north or south of the line.
     President Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks on Iraqi
radar and command sites Tuesday and Wednesday in response to a
weekend offensive by Iraq on the protected Kurdish area in its
north. He also ordered an expansion of the no-fly zone in
southern Iraq. The allies imposed two zones after the 1991
Persian Gulf War to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims
in the south.
     Still, Iraq's leadership remained defiant, with the ruling
Revolution Command Council chaired by Saddam saying late Thursday
it would fight allied warplanes' "violation" of Iraqi airspace.
"We will continue resisting it according to the legitimate right
of self-defense and in defense of national sovereignty", the
council said.
     Iraq denounced the attacks as a "war crime" and urged the
United Nations to condemn them.
     And in the Iraqi capital Thursday, hundreds of people burned
President Clinton in effigy, shouted anti-American slogans and
pledged support for Saddam.
     Secretary of State Warren Christopher was in Bonn, Germany,
today in an effort to win support from Washington's European
allies for the U.S. action against Saddam.
     A German government statement said Chancellor Helmut Kohl
and Christopher discussed "all current international issues" and
had a "large degree of agreement." Officials refused to
elaborate.
     Christopher won some support from France on Thursday. The
French will resume patrols Monday in the north and broaden their
patrols in the south, though they will not cover as wide an area
as patrols by the United States and Britain.
     The U.N. Security Council was trying to forge a common stand
against Iraq's incursion into Kurdistan. Chinese, Russian, French
and Egyptian diplomats have opposed measures that may threaten
Iraq's sovereignty.
     In Washington, State Department spokesman Glyn Davies said
that while the Iraqis have pulled back most of their mechanized
infantry from the Irbil area, they retain an ability to intervene
in the region.
     Saddam has "reintroduced a massive security presence in the
area under cover of these deployments", Davies said. "This gives
him a new and, we think, troubling ability to intimidate Kurds
and others in the north." He did not elaborate.
     The New York Times said it was unclear how many secret
agents Saddam was leaving behind, but that there were enough to
intimidate those who oppose his leadership.
     In Irbil on Thursday, KDP fighters screamed victory slogans
and sang marching songs as they traveled toward the battle zone
in any vehicle they could find.
     Irbil residents interviewed by The Associated Press said
Iraqi troops rounded up dozens of anti-Saddam activists after
capturing the city Saturday. The city of 1 million people tried
to resume a normal life five days after the battles broke out.
Most stores had reopened.
     Iraq's Kurdish factions have opposed Baghdad for decades.
Since the safe haven was established they mostly have quarreled
with each other. On Thursday, their fighting was centered near
Bestana, just south of Irbil.
     A new regional problem has arisen this week, with Turkey
saying it will send troops into northern Iraq to prevent Kurdish
rebels fleeing the fighting from crossing its border.
     Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf summoned the top
Turkish diplomat in Baghdad on Thursday to protest Turkey's
military preparations as "unjustified conduct", the Iraqi News
Agency reported.

Key Kurd Says Deal With Iraq Is Stopgap

By Stephen Kinzer

Dohuk, Iraq (New York Times - September 5, 1996) A leader of the
Kurdish faction backed by Saddam Hussein insisted Wednesday that
the alliance was just a tactical and temporary partnership of the
kind that have sustained the beleaguered Kurds for centuries.
     In an interview here, a powerful member of the Kurdistan
Democratic Party said short-term necessity had driven his group
into a military alliance with the Iraqi dictator, who once gassed
Kurds with chemical weapons, to seize control of Erbil from a
rival Kurdish group.
     The group turned to Saddam only after Western governments
refused to defend the city against rivals cooperating with Iran,
said Tayib Ahmad, the Kurd leader.
     "We don't have any alliance with the Iraqi regime", he said.
"It is just a temporary arrangement. There is no formal agreement
between us and the Iraqi government. We made an appeal and the
Iraqi government responded. When it is over, they will pull out
their troops. Already there are no more Iraqi troops in the
center of Erbil."
     Ahmad, a 42-year-old former guerrilla, is a senior member of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party's 32-member central committee. He
has served as governor of Dohuk province since 1991, when the
United States and its allies made the province part of a
protected zone for Kurds in northern Iraq.
     There were signs Wednesday that the partnership of
convenience would not prove of universal benefit to the Kurds
living in northern Iraq. Aid workers said that in the hours after
Iraqi soldiers stormed into Erbil, security forces systematically
rounded up Kurds allied with the party most vehemently opposed to
Saddam.
     In some of the first reports from Erbil since the fall of
the city, aid workers who witnessed this weekend's Iraqi assault
said Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish guerrillas allied with Saddam
arrested scores, perhaps hundreds of people. Their fate is
unknown.
     Five years of protection by the United States has
undoubtedly saved the lives of many Kurds in northern Iraq, but
it has not made this a pleasant place to live. People here are
effectively prisoners in a land of treeless plateaus and rugged
mountains, unable to travel to other parts of Iraq and unwelcome
in neighboring countries.
     Dohuk is today a forlorn place, and the border town of Zahko
is even less appealing. For a brief period after 1991, Zahko
enjoyed an economic boom because hundreds of U.S. soldiers were
stationed here. It has long since slipped back into sun-baked
sleepiness.
     At midday Wednesday the only movement on the dusty streets
was from a handful of Kurdish guerrillas driving about in
Mercedes-Benz sedans and three youths trying without success to
push a cart laden with sacks of Turkish detergent up a steep
hill.
     A sign at the border crossing that reads "Welcome to
Kurdistan" seems a cruel joke. All the Kurds have to show for
generations of struggle is a parched parcel of land surrounded by
enemies and dependent for survival on the charity of increasingly
frustrated Americans and other foreigners.
     In the interview Wednesday, Ahmad brushed aside reminders
that Saddam's regime brutally suppressed Kurds in the past.
     "If someone can help solve our problems, we have no
objection", he said.
     The United States has refused to be drawn into the
increasingly bitter conflict between the Kurdistan Democratic
Party and northern Iraq's other Kurdish faction, the Democratic
Union of Kurdistan, which has forged ties to Iran.
     Senior American officials said this week that Ahmad's party
had seriously blundered. "They think they can manipulate the
Iraqis and they'll find that they are too powerful and too
ruthless to be manipulated", said Defense Secretary William Perry
on Tuesday in an interview with "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer"
on PBS.
     Ahmad asserted that U.S. forces should have stepped in after
the Democratic Union launched a joint operation with Iranian
troops inside Iraq earlier this summer.
     "We wanted the United States and other powers to do their
job and protect us", he said. "When there was no reaction from
the United States, the allies, or the European countries, we
asked Iraq to protect us."
     A statement issued Wednesday by the Kurdistan Democratic
Party suggested that it was not simply the Democratic Union's
recent cooperation with Iran, but also classic power rivalries
that prompted it to turn to Saddam's for help.
     The statement, issued in the name of Massoud Barzani, the
top party leader, charged that the Patriotic Union had been using
"violence and terror" against Democratic Party members in Erbil
for more than two years. It accused the Patriotic Union of
"filthy play" and of launching "aggressive actions and dangerous
plots against us."
     "The party made use of its legal right to self-defense and
asked for limited legal support from anybody anywhere", Barzani's
statement said. "The Iraqi government, gracefully, responded."
     Aid workers said Wednesday that the Iraqi army's role was
anything but graceful.
     "Iraqi forces were going through our neighborhood and taking
people away", one aid worker said. "I was watching them. There
were people who were against Saddam or his party in one way or
another, or people who might have said something negative about
the KDP.
     "A lot of people were getting dragged out of houses. They
went systematically house to house. I know people who said
something five years ago, and since then not a single word, not a
single action. They got their doors knocked on and were taken
away. These people don't forget."
     Another aid worker said he doubted that Iraqi soldiers had
withdrawn from Erbil.
     "The security forces are still there, some of them
undercover", he said. "A lot of local people who work for aid
agencies are very, very, very frightened."
     Jeremy Anderson, an Australian architect who was working in
Erbil for the Wisconsin-based aid group Shelter Now, said he had
heard from Kurdish associates in Erbil that his office had been
ransacked.
     "Five minutes after we left", he said, Iraqi forces "came
rolling through our office door."

Saddam's Allies Solidify Control Of Kurdish City

By Jonathan C. Randal

Irbil, Iraq (Washington Post - September 5, 1996) Militia units
of the Kurdish Democratic Party wielded Kalashnikov automatic
rifles as they patrolled this conquered city today, cruising the
empty boulevards in pickup trucks. Shops were closed, and not
many residents had summoned the courage to venture out.
     The Iraqi troops whose intervention on the side of the
militiamen won the battle for Irbil - and sparked the latest
crisis between the United States and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
- were nowhere to be seen. The few Irbil residents willing to
talk about the Iraqi soldiers said they had left town on Tuesday;
nobody seemed to know where they had gone.
     The buildings that housed the provisional government in the
Kurdish "safe haven" of northern Iraq were pocked with shell
holes and strewn with broken glass and debris. Otherwise,
however, this city of 750,000 looked remarkably intact just days
after a massive Iraqi military offensive ousted one Kurdish
faction - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal
Talabani - in favor of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and its
leader, Massoud Barzani.
     But it was clear that a change had taken place. At
Talabani's former headquarters, which had been painted his
trademark green, a Kurdish Democratic Party guerrilla was busy
applying thick coats of yellow paint - Barzani's color.
     Factional infighting has long been a fact of life among the
Kurds of northern Iraq and the five neighboring countries they
populate, and Irbil's residents know that today's winners may be
tomorrow's losers.
     They also know that careless words can prove deadly. No one
here was willing to volunteer a description of the fighting in
which Irbil changed hands, and few were willing to attach their
names to an opinion of whether the change was good or bad.
     "If the PUK is here, we like the PUK; if the KDP is here, we
like the KDP", said Sardar Mustafa, who tended one of the few
stores open for business, a shop near Irbil's historic citadel
that offered a meager selection of cheap belts and pants.
     Over the years, Saddam has sought to enforce his rule in the
north by razing hundreds of Kurdish villages and killing tens of
thousands of Kurds - many with the wholesale use of poison gas.
The specter of Barzani's party - formerly Saddam's bitter enemy
-- fighting as an ally of the Iraqi army seems to have deeply
shocked the people of Irbil, and interviews today reflected their
confusion. Some people said they were more devoted than ever to
one or the other Kurdish faction; others said they were convinced
that the future of the Kurds lay within the Iraqi state.
     There was no water or electricity in the city; Talabani's
defeated forces, which control the power plant at the Dukan Dam
south of Irbil, apparently cut off both in retaliation for their
defeat. A local service industry of hand-made water carts has
grown up overnight, and women could be seen walking miles to
fetch water.
     U.N. representatives were shuttling between the opposing
factions in an effort to restore power, and an Iraqi engineer
appeared in mid-morning to study the possibility of linking Irbil
to the Iraqi power grid. Barzani threatened unspecified military
action unless Talabani's forces agreed to restore electricity.
     Iraqi opposition sources in London and elsewhere in the West
have relayed allegations of atrocities by the the Iraqi army in
its seizure of Irbil, including what they say were scores of
executions. No evidence of such executions was apparent here
today, as Barzani's militiamen seemed determined to put their
best foot forward with the populace. At one point, militiamen
manning a checkpoint at an entrance to the city trained their
automatic weapons on fellow guerrillas seeking to pass; they said
they would not allow anyone else bearing arms to enter the city
for fear of generalized looting.
     Sami Aburrahman, a senior Kurdish Democratic Party official,
described his party's military campaign as a "very limited
operation" that so far had created only "very tolerable
consequences." Still, he and his colleagues were obviously
delighted by their achievement. Aburrahman, in a mocking tone,
kept repeating Talabani's familiar taunt that the "only way the
KDP would see Irbil was through very big binoculars."
     While most of the city was spared serious damage in the
fighting, the same could not be said of many Patriotic Union
offices or the homes of its leaders, which appeared to have been
systematically looted. At Talabani's once carefully appointed
two-story villa on Irbil's northern outskirts, the only furniture
still visible consisted of three tables and three sofas, all
parked on the lawn. Flowers and grass previously tended by
Talabani's wife, Hero, were withered from lack of water. A heavy
steel safe, its open doors riddled with bullet marks, lay on its
side.
     Inside, broken glass littered the floors. So thorough had
been the looters' frenzy that the library, computer room, kitchen
and bedrooms were all stripped bare. In Talabani's office, once
lined with photographs of him posing with generations of Middle
Eastern leaders, sat a bathtub that someone had ripped from an
adjoining bathroom but apparently found too heavy to cart off.
     The parliament and government buildings had suffered much
the same fate, with a refrigerator abandoned in one entrance, a
heavy air conditioner in another. Upstairs in the government
building - where Saddam's police worked during his army's brief
occupation of the city - a stale odor of unflushed toilets wafted
through the halls.

Iraqi Kurdish Factions Clash Near Key Bridge

Arbil, Iraq (Reuter - September 5, 1996) Rival Kurdish factions
clashed near a strategic bridge at the village of Degala as Iraqi
government troops stood by, U.N. guards and foreign aid workers
said Thursday.
     Their radio reports from the field, monitored in the
northern Iraqi city of Arbil, said fighting was heavy between
forces of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
     Iraqi troops, backed by armor, were in place nearby but did
not intervene, the reports said. Last weekend Baghdad's forces
helped the KDP eject PUK fighters from Arbil.
     "There has been big resistance", Shazad Saib, a PUK
spokesman in Turkey, told Reuters. He said Iraqi forces were
taking part in the KDP operation.
     U.N. guards also reported scattered fighting around Halabja
near the Iranian border, where a small band of KDP peshmerga
guerrillas were reported to be surrounded by PUK units. The area
is generally under the control of a Kurdish Islamist militia.
     Degala is on the road south to Koi Sanjak, which protects
the approaches to the PUK stronghold of Sulaimaniya, 100 miles
southeast of Arbil.
     It is also on the road to the Dukan Dam, held by PUK
guerrillas who have cut the flow of water and power into Arbil.
     KDP leader Massoud Barzani told reporters Wednesday his
forces were prepared to take the dam if utilities were not
restored soon.

Turkey Seeks Security Zone In North Iraq
Border Strip Would Curb Kurdish Guerrilla Raids

By Kelly Couturier

Ankara, Turkey (Washington Post - September 4, 1996) Turkey seeks
to set up a security zone in northern Iraq to stop Kurdish
separatists from launching attacks across the border into Turkey,
U.S. and Turkish officials said today.
     The planned zone has become particularly necessary, Turkish
sources explained, because of instability in the Kurdish region
of northern Iraq caused by fighting between rival factions of
Iraqi Kurds and intervention by Iranian and Iraqi troops.
     The security zone - in effect, a border strip of Iraqi
territory controlled by the Turkish army - would extend from
three to six miles inside northern Iraq, the Reuter news agency
quoted a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
     U.S. officials in Washington said Turkey has raised the plan
with the United States and that no formal response has been
given. But one administration official said that in initial
discussions the United States did not oppose Ankara's plan. A
State Department spokesman, Glyn Davies, said Washington will
assess the plan "in the broader framework of regional stability",
Reuter reported.
     The administration official said Washington's partial green
light to Turkey reflects its policy of granting latitude to
Ankara in its fight against the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK,
which has been waging guerrilla war against it for 12 years.
     Turkish Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller told reporters that
PKK guerrillas are massing along the 150-mile border and could
infiltrate into Turkey. "We have to stop these infiltrations",
Ciller said, adding that Turkey will take the "necessary
measures." Ankara will "evaluate what measures it will take with
neighboring countries", she said.
     In recent years, the PKK frequently has used northern Iraq's
rugged terrain as a staging base for attacks across the border,
benefiting from the breakdown of authority in the
Kurdish-controlled "no-fly zone." Iraqi authority has been absent
from the northern region since after the 1991 Persian Gulf War,
when the United States and its allies started Operation Provide
Comfort to protect the rebellious Kurds from Baghdad's forces.
     Turkey was faced with an influx of Kurdish refugees after
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein cracked down on the Iraqi Kurds
after their rebellion at the close of the gulf war. But it agreed
to allow Operation Provide Comfort to be based at its Incirlik
air base. Since then, however, opposition to the
U.S.-British-French mission that patrols the no-fly zone has
increased, with opponents arguing that the lack of central
authority in northern Iraq hampers Turkey's fight against the
PKK.
     The recent fighting between Iraqi Kurdish factions has
enabled to PKK even more freedom to operate, Turkish sources
said.
     "Each time there's fighting between the Iraqi Kurds, the PKK
benefits", one Turkish source said, adding that Ankara has failed
in its efforts to enlist any of the Iraqi Kurdish groups to help
fight the PKK.
     Frequent incursions by the Turkish military into northern
Iraq, including a 35,000-troop operation in March 1995, have
failed to flush out the guerrillas. 

Turkish Troops Ready Northern Iraq Strike

Diyarbakir, Turkey (Reuter - September 5, 1996) Turkish troops,
backed by air power, could launch an attack against Kurdish
separatist rebels in northern Iraq at any time, a high-ranking
military official said Thursday.
     Witnesses said heavy military preparations were under way
near Turkey's porous border with Iraq.
     "There is the possibility of a sudden air-backed assault
into nothern Iraq. We are thinking of hitting the enemy
(Kurdistan Workers Party rebels) all of a sudden without giving
it the chance of protection", the military official, who declined
to be identified, told Reuters by telephone.
     The army official would not say when the operation could
take place as he did not want the PKK to prepare itself.
     "We know that two-thirds of PKK power and its training
centres are established in northern Iraq", he said.
     Any Turkish drive into Iraq would further complicate the
already tangled politics of the Kurdish-populated region, which
stretches through southeastern Turkey, northeast Syria, northern
Iraq and western Iran.
     At the weekend, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sent troops
into Arbil, the main Kurdish city in northern Iraq, in support of
one of two Iraqi Kurdish factions.
     The United States responded with a pair of cruise missile
attacks on targets in southern Iraq.
     The stepped-up activity in Turkey follows Ankara's
announcement it was preparing to set up a security cordon inside
northern Iraq to halt Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
infiltration.
     A foreign ministry spokesman said the zone would be five or
10 km (three to six miles) deep.
     Turkey sent 35,000 troops 40 km (25 miles) into northern
Iraq in March 1995 for a six-week operation to hit PKK targets.
     A ministry spokesman said Turkey would use "all necessary
measures" to protect its borders: "But there is no operation (in
Iraq) at the moment", he said.
     President Suleyman Demirel was scheduled to meet Chief of
Staff Ismail Hakki Karadayi and Interior Minister Mehmet Agar
later Thursday, the president's office said.
     Witnesses said busloads of troops headed for the region from
the regional center of Diyarbakir and jets patrolled the skies.
     "I have not seen tanks but soldiers have been carried out in
buses all day, and I heard the sounds of patrolling jets
overhead", said one resident.
     So far there were no indications that Turkish forces had
crossed the border, an increasingly frequent tactic in Turkey's
12-year-old battle with the PKK.
     PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called his supporters to war
against the Turkish state.
     "The fascist Turkish colonialists have decided to invade
southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq). They could invade at any
moment", he told the Germany-based pro-Kurdish news agency.
     "All our freedom fighters must be on the highest state of
alert for the sacred war", Ocalan said in a statement.
     "We don't have any information about anything like that",
said a spokesman for the General Staff, asked about the prospects
for a Turkish operation into northern Iraq.
     "If we had planned such an operation, we would not be
announcing it to the whole world."
     Turkish media, however, were not so cautious.
     "The armed forces will enter northern Iraq and stay there",
proclaimed the leading daily Sabah in a frontpage headline.
     "Ankara is gearing up for a radical solution", Sabah said.
     The Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which now holds
Arbil, said it had informed Ankara of its worries about increased
PKK activity in the area. The PKK and the KDP have clashed
periodically in northern Iraq as the PKK tries to establish
itself as a power.
     "We feel very much concerned about that. I would say that
(Turkey) would be justified in eliminating the troubles", Faik
Nerweyi, a KDP Turkey representative, told Reuters.
     But he refused to say whether an operation by the Turks was
to take place or whether the KDP would condone it.



From FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org  Mon Sep 16 05:12:00 1996
From: FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org (FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 16 Sep 1996 05:12:00
Subject: GAMA: IRAQ: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?
Message-ID: <6G.SxKF3GIB@oln-205.oln.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

        GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ASSOCIATION - GAMA - PRESENTS:
        -------------------------------------------------------
                news provided via our member "infoPool"
                --------------------------------------

SOURCE: Voices in the Wilderness
HEAD:   Mission Accomplished?


  "To care, you have to know.  To understand, you have to
witness.  To help, you have to feel part of a shared condition."
   Robert Preston, The Guardian (Aug. 31, 1996)


Imagine that you live in a desert climate during one of the
hottest summers on record with mid-August temperatures reaching
130 F for the past several days.  Because the region's electrical
system shuts down at least five times a day, even air-conditioned
buildings are stiflingly hot.  You know that you should drink at
least a gallon of water each day.  Yet even the bottled water
(which costs 500 times the price of gasoline) isn't potable.Your city's  
sewage and sanitation system needs repair, the water
mains are corroded, and the water supply is contaminated.  The
U.S. and the U.N. know that your city desperately needs spare
parts and chlorine to purify your water.  They know that  over
half a million children have died in your country, many from
water borne diseases.  They know, but they apparently don't care.

They maintain the harshest U.N. embargo ever imposed on a
country.

Imagine further that you have several children who are always
hungry, always thirsty.  You give them water, poisoned water, and
your family generally shares a mixture of tomatoes and oil which
you eat with bread twice a day.  The children take turns eating
breakfast, rotating once every three days.  You're horrified at
the prospect of ever hospitalizing one of your children, even
though they frequently suffer serious maladies.  Conditions in
the ill-equipped, understaffed and unsanitary hospitals are
gruesome.  Although the medical personnel are dedicated, they
lack medicines and even the most basic medical supplies.

A Voices in the Wilderness delegation encountered these appalling
conditions during an August 6 - 15, 1996 visit to Iraq.  In an
August 24 letter to the New York Times, delegation member Brad
Lyttle wrote:  "...the current sanctions against Iraq are slowly
destroying an entire generation of Iraqi children, and killing
countless thousands of old, and otherwise weakened people."Lyttle  
concluded that "the sanctions should be lifted at once,
and a massive food and medical relief effort initiated that could
save the children, and old and sick people of Iraq, and give the
Iraqi people some hope for the future."

Several weeks later, the Iraqi government sent troops into
northern Iraq, responding to a Kurdish Democratic Party request
for assistance to defeat rival Peoples Kurdish Union fighters
whom Iran supports.   The U.S. government then opted to "protect
human rights"  through two days of cruise missile attacks on
southern Iraq.

Cruise missile attacks on southern Iraq do nothing to protect
Kurds in northern Iraq.  So-called U.S. intent to defend autonomy
and lives of Kurds is absurd and hypocritical.  By arming Turkey,
which severely oppresses its Kurdish population, we do just as
much to harm and attack Kurds as Saddam Hussein is doing.
It's reasonable to infer that the real purpose of the cruise
missile attacks was to protect Bill Clinton from Bob Dole, and
that the missiles targeted southern Iraq in order to weaken Iraqi
capabilities in the vicinity of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
The major violation of human rights in Iraq stems from the U.S. /
UN imposed sanctions against Iraq which prevent Iraqi people from
meeting their most basic human rights, the rights to food, water
and decent shelter.

Bill and Hilary Clinton point out that it takes a village to
raise a child.  That village needs to have clean water, a
functioning sewage system, effective medical care and adequate
food if its children are to survive and be healthy.  The economic
embargo against Iraq, pushed and enforced by the United States,
deprives millions of Iraqi children, in every village and town,
of these necessities for survival.

                                *  *    *

The Voices in the Wilderness campaign will continue to openly
violate the U.S/UN sanctions by delivering two more shipments of
medical relief supplies to Iraqi hospitals before the end of this
year.    To learn more about the campaign, host a speaker, and/or
contribute toward medical relief supplies and organizing efforts,
please contact:   Voices in the Wilderness, 1460 West Carmen
Avenue, Chicago, IL  60640  312-784-8065  kkelly at igc.apc.org

From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Sep 18 14:56:48 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 18 Sep 1996 14:56:48
Subject: Saddam's Jash To Meet U.S. Official
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.960918011..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>

Saddam's Kurdish ally to meet with U.S. official

September 17, 1996
                                                      
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a possible sign of a rift
within the Iraqi camp, the Kurdish leader who
invited Saddam Hussein's forces into northern Iraq
will meet this week with a high-ranking U.S.
official.

A meeting is planned Thursday between Massoud
Barzani and Robert Pelletreau, the U.S. assistant
secretary of state for near eastern affairs, the
State Department said.

It is hoped talks with rival Kurdish leader Jalal
Talabani can also be arranged in the future, the
State Department said Tuesday.

"Our objective is to have Mr. Barzani
and Mr. Talabani agree to talk about
their differences peacefully and across from one
another at the negotiating table," State
Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said.

Washington moved to resume its diplomatic activity
after receiving a letter from Barzani more than a
week ago, Burns said. The U.S. had been working
for years to bring the two main Kurdish factions
in northern Iraq into political reconciliation.
Those talks broke down last month, and the two
sides resumed fighting.

Pelletreau "will certainly repeat the advice
privately that we have tried to give Mr. Barzani
and Mr. Talabani in public and that is that Mr.
Barzani's relationship with Saddam Hussein cannot
be in the long term interest of his people or
himself," Burns added.

Iraqi opposition sources say Washington intends to
tell Barzani to renounce any political deal with
Saddam Hussein, in order to continue receiving
U.S. military, economic and humanitarian aid.

For his part, Barzani plans to tell the 
United States he is not interested in
further deals with Iraq, a spokesman for Barzani's
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said Tuesday.

Barzani would also ask that the U.S.-led allied
air operation to protect northern Iraq from
Baghdad's troops be continued, according to
London-based spokesman Dilshad Miran.

"It was a one-off deal with the Iraqi government,"
Miran said.

The State Department did not say where Thursday's
meeting would be held, but the Iraqi opposition
sources said it most likely would be held in the
Turkish capital Ankara.

The Kurdish opposition sources have
met repeatedly with U.S. officials
since the Pentagon sent cruise missiles against
Iraqi military installations earlier this month.
The U.S. took action when Barzani's forces, backed
by Baghdad, seized control of northern Iraq.

Within northern Iraq, it appears unclear just who
is in charge. Kurdish authorities display some
autonomy, but Baghdad can reward or chastise them
by playing with the supply and price of
electricity and fuel.

An Iraqi government-organized press trip from
Baghdad was turned back Sunday from the Kurds'
chosen capital Irbil, with notebooks empty and
cameras untouched.

But fear of Iraqi secret agents have made refugees
out of the Kurdish region's elite. Local employees
of the U.S. have been following the American
staff, fleeing Iraq with their families.

Some international aid workers leaving under
orders from home are angry at U.S. policy. They
say the ones who will be left will be the
helpless, those who most need the services of the
aid workers who are gone.



 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

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From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Sep 18 20:46:30 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 18 Sep 1996 20:46:30
Subject: Abdullah Ocalan: The New Saladin?
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609180216.WAA04305@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>

Kurdish Leader Is Key Player

Abdullah Ocalan heads guerrillas in Turkey, whose power is spreading

Analysis

By Franz Schurmann
Pacific News Service/San Francisco Examiner
September 5, 1996

His name is barely mentioned in officials accounts of why the United States
launched cruise missile attacks on Saddam Hussein's military bases. But
Abdullah Ocalan is creating waves that are destabilizing the Middle East
far more than the Iraqi dictator.

Ocalan is the leader of the Maoist-inspired [sic] Kurdistan Workers Party -
called the PKK - which has waged a decade-long guerrilla war in Turkey and
is now viewed by many observers as the rising power in Kurdish-dominated
northern Iraq.

Roughly 20 million Kurds inhabit the region stretching from eastern Turkey
through northern Iraq into Iran, Syria, and the Caucasus. Rarely throughout
their 3000-years history have they been able to form a state of their own.
Yet they have fiercely resisted every attempt to destroy or assimilate
them.

At the same time, Kurds have long believed that they are destined for
greatness. The greatest Kurd in history - Saladin - destroyed the crusader
states in the Holy Land, unified Arabs, Turks, and Kurds, and paved the way
for the Ottoman Empire's 500-year rule.

Could Ocalan become a modern-day Saladin? Expectations are rising rapidly
in the region even as popular disdain deepens for the two quarreling
Kurdish leaders - Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani - on whom the Clinton
administration has pinned its hopes for stabilizing Kurdistan.

A year ago, the United States sponsored a summit between Barzani and Talabani
in Dublin, but it flopped. A second summit, scheduled for last month,
never got off the ground. In fact, U.S. policy was doomed from the start
because it assumed that far too much power was in the hands of these two
factions, while underestimating that of the PKK.

Attacks by PKK

Today Ocalan holds together the biggest guerrilla insurgency in the world.
His influence reaches far beyond Turkey.

Last month the PKK demolished 24 of Barzani's military outpost in northern
Iraq. Seeing his power seep away, Barzani turned to the only other leader
able to help him: Saddam Hussein. Hussein obliged by attacking Talabani's
stronghold, Irbil, a move that led to this week's U.S. retaliatory missile
attacks.

Even the Iranian mullahs who preached an Islamic message similar to Mao's
early on in their revolution are now fearful that Ocalan's message could
spill over into Iran.

At the core of Ocalan's appeal is the fact that he alone among Kurdish
leaders understands that a social revolution is going on in Kurdish
society everywhere. 

Kurds feel oppressed not only by their alien rulers, but also
by one of the most rigid feudal social systems still in existence. The
message of Maoism has always been to empower the poor and fight their
oppressors. Like Mao, the PKK teaches it followers gender equality and
willingness to sacrifice one's life for the cause.

Communism with religion

Ocalan also accepts the devout religious beliefs of the Kurds, in contrast
to classic Marxist movements that have denounced religion as an opiate of
the people.

Muslims preach that their common faith crosses all boundaries of
nationality, race, and class. The Maoist's agree on the first two but not
the third. Marxist ideas of class struggle have given them an organized
militancy that the Islamic movements sweeping the Middle East generally
lack.

If these two forces - Islam and Maoist ideology - should coalesce, the
region is likely to see a new transnational empire arising that no amount
of high-tech weaponry from the West can thwart, and Ocalan will go down in
the history books as the Saladin of the late 20th century.



 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------



From BUERO_ROTH at LINK-LEV.dinoco.de  Fri Sep 20 07:26:00 1996
From: BUERO_ROTH at LINK-LEV.dinoco.de (BUERO_ROTH at LINK-LEV.dinoco.de)
Date: 20 Sep 1996 07:26:00
Subject: Entschliessung des EP zur Sperrung der Gelder im Rahmen der Zolluni
Message-ID: <6HCvnme31DB@poroth.link-lev.dinoco.de>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Entschlie?ung des Europ?ischen Parlaments vom 19.9.1996


*Entschlie?ung zur politischen Lage in der T?rkei*

Das Europ?ische Parlament

- unter Hinweis auf seine fr?heren Entschlie?ungen zur T?rkei,

A. unter Hinweis insbesondere auf seine Entschlie?ung vom 13. Dezember 1995
zur Lage der Menschenrecht in der T?rkei im Zusammenhang mit seiner Zustimmung
zur Zollunion EU/T?rkei, in welcher die von der damaligen Ministerpr?sidentin
Tansu Ciller versprochenen Verbesserungen im Bereich der Demokratisierung und
der Menschenrechte sowie Fortschritte in der Zypernfrage und eine friedliche
L?sung des Kurdenproblems als die festen Erwarungen von der neuen vertrag-
lichen Beziehung EU-T?rkei festgehalten wurden,

B. unter Hinweis auf das j?ngste Urteil des Europ?ischen Gerichtshofs f?r
Menschenrechtslage in der T?rkei,

C. unter Hinweis darauf, da? die Situation der Menschenrechte in der T?rkei
seit der Einrichtung der Zollunion sich sichtbar verschlechtert hat und keine
nennensewrten Fortschritte in der Demokratisierung zu verzeichnen sind, w?hrend
die externen Spannungen wie die Provokationen in der ?g?is und auf Zypern und
die ?bergriffe im Norden Iraks zugenommen haben,

D. besorgt dar?ber, da? Leyla Zana, die Sacharow-Preistr?gerin, sowie drei
weitere ehemalige DEP-Abgeordnete kurdischer Herkunft trotz Appellen des EP
und aus der ganzen Welt immer noch im Gef?ngnis sitzen,

E. in tiefer Sorge angesichts der neuesten Milit?roperationen der t?rkischen
Streitkr?fte im Osten der T?rkei sowie angesichts der Weigerung, nach Wegen
einer friedlichen Beilegung des Konfliktes in Kurdistan zu suchen,

F. in der Erw?gung, da? sich die T?rkei durch Unterzeichnung mehrerer
internationaler ?bereinkommen, darunter die Menschenrechtskonvention des
Europarates, verpflichtet hat, die Menschenrechte und den demokratischen
Pluralismus zu gew?hrleisten,

G. im Hinblick darauf, da? die Beitrittsverhandlungen mit Zypern sechs
Monate nach Abschlu? der Regierungskonferenz aufgenommen werden,

H. best?rzt ?ber den kaltbl?tigen und brutalen Mord, der von t?rkischen
Soldaten an der Demarkationslinie zum besetzten Teil der Insel mit
Unterst?tzung paramilit?rischer Streitkr?fte an zwei unbewaffneten
jungen Zyprioten ver?bt wurde,

I. im Bedauern ?ber die zahlreichen Vorf?lle im Niemansland,
die beiderseits der Demarkationslinie mehrere Opfer gefunden haben,

J. besorgt ?ber den Plan der t?rkischen Beh?rden, im Norden Iraks
unter Verletzung internationaler Abkommen eine Sicherheitszone einzurichten,

1. fordert die t?rkische Regierung dringend auf, ihre Halutung deutlich und
eindeutig gegen?er der Europ?ischen Union in den vier Bereichen
- Menschenrechte, Demokratisierung, Zypernfrage und Kurdenproblem - zu erkl?ren,
die es in seiner obengenannten Entschlie?ung vom 13. Dezember 1995, die im
wesentlichen die Grundlage f?r seine Zustimmung zur Zollunion war, erw?hnt hat;

2. erwartet von der t?rkischen Regierung, da? sie ihre Verpflichtungen
bekr?ftig, die mit der Unterzeichnung des Abkommens ?ber die Zollunion
einhergehen;

3. erkl?rt, da? die Menschenrechtsverletzungen, die weiterhin in der T?rkei
ver?bt werden, dem Buchstaben und dem Geist des Abkommens ?ber die Zollunion
EU-T?rkei widersprechen und mit den spezifischen Instrumenten f?r den
Finanzbestand und dem MEDA-Programm unvereinbar sind;

4. beschlie?t demnach, das Verfahren zur Einsetzung der Mittel f?r die
Finanzregelung EU-T?rkei in die Reserve zu er?ffnen;

5. fordert aus dem gleichen Grund die Kommission auf, mit sofortiger Wirkung
alle im Rahmen des MEDA-Programms zur Verwirklichung von Projekten in der
T?rkei vorgesehenen Mittel zu sperren, mit Ausnahme der Mittel f?r die F?rderung
der Demokratie, der Menschenrechte und der b?rgerlichen Gesellschaft, bis die
noch offenen Fragen gekl?rt sind und in den obengenannten Bereichen Ver-
besserungen durchgef?hrt wurden;

6. verurteilt nachdr?cklich die Morde an Anastasios Isaac und Solomon Solomou
durch t?rkische Soldaten udn Paramilit?reinheiten und fordert die Verhaftung
und Verurteilung all derer, die an diesen Morden beteiligt waren;

7. fordert die t?rkische Regierung auf, die UNO-Resolutionen zu akzeptieren
und anzuwenden, in denen vor allem der R?ckzug der Besatzungsstreitkr?fte und
eine gerechte und dauerhafte L?sung des Zypern-Problems gefordert wird, und
appeliert an die Regierung Zyperns und an die F?hrung der t?rkisch-zyprischen
Volksgruppe, weiterhin eine friedliche L?sung des Zypern-Problems entsprechend
den Resolutionen des UN-Sicherheitsrats anzustreben;

8. ist davon ?berzeugt, da? es mehr denn je erforderlich ist, sechs Monate
nach Abschlu? der Regierungskonferenz mit den Verhandlungen ?ber den Beitritt
Zyperns zur EU zu beginnen, um eine explosive Situation zu vermeiden, und
unterstreicht, da? die Sicherheit beider Volksgruppen auf Zypern h?chste
Priorit?t genie?en mu?;

9. verurteilt mit gr??ter Entschlossenheit die Absicht der T?rkei, eine Sicher-
heitszone im Norden Iraks einzurichten, was eine schwere Verletzung des V?lker-
rechts darstellen wurde, und fordert den Rat auf, die T?rkeit zu bewegen, auf
ihren Plan zur Errichtung einer Sicherheitszone im Nordirak zu verzichten;

10. beauftragt seinen Pr?sidenten, diese Entschlie?ung dem Europ?ischen Rat,
dem Rat, der Kommission, dem Generalsekret?r der Vereinten Nationen sowie der
t?rkischen, der zyprischen und der irakischen REgierung zu ?bermitteln.


From BUERO_ROTH at LINK-LEV.comlink.apc.org  Fri Sep 20 07:42:00 1996
From: BUERO_ROTH at LINK-LEV.comlink.apc.org (BUERO_ROTH at LINK-LEV.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 20 Sep 1996 07:42:00
Subject: Pressemitteilung von Cl. Roth zur Sperrung der Gelder fuer die Tuerk
Message-ID: <6HCvq0mo1DB@poroth.link-lev.dino>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Pressemitteilung


"Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit mit der T?rkei zu Recht
eingefroren"


In seiner gestrigen Sitzung hat das Europ?ische Parlament
beschlossen, die Mittel, die f?r die finanzielle Zusammenarbeit
mit der T?rkei im Rahmen der Zollunion in den EU-Haushalt
aufgenommen wurde, in einen Reservefonds zu ?bertragen und damit
zun?chst zu sperren. Von der Sperre ausgenommen sollen nach
Ansicht des EU-Parlaments nur die Mittel sein, die f?r die
F?rderung der Demokratisierung und der Durchsetzung der
Menschenrechte vorgesehen sind.

Dazu erkl?rt Claudia Roth, Fraktionsvorsitzende der GR?NEN im
Europ?ischen Parlament und stellv. Vorsitzende des gemischten
parlamentarischen Ausschusses EU-T?rkei:
"Die Demokratisierung und die Freilassung der kurdischen
Parlamentarierinnen und Parlamentarier, die das Europ?ische
Parlament zun?chst vollmundig als Bedingung f?r seine Zustimmung
zur Zollunion verlangt hatte, wurden im vergangenen Herbst mit dem
Schreckgespenst Erbakan zur Nebensache erkl?rt. Nun, nach der
Genehmigung der Zollunion hat das Europ?ische Parlament begriffen,
da? den Erkl?rungen von Frau Ciller und Herrn Erbakan kein Glauben
zu schenken ist. Vielmehr geht der Krieg in der T?rkei weiter und
eskaliert, Pufferzonen im S?dosten, gewaltt?tige
Auseinandersetzungen in Zypern, Prozesse gegen demokratische
Parteien wie der in der letzten Woche gegen den Vorstand der HEP-
Partei.
Das Stra?burger Parlament hat seine Verantwortung f?r den Frieden
und die Durchsetzung der Menschenrechte in der T?rkei angenommen
und Konsequenzen gezogen. Neben der in der Entschlie?ung
geforderten Anerkennung der UNO-Resolutionen zur L?sung des
Zypern-Problems und des v?lkerrechtlichen Verbots der Einrichtung
einer Sicherheitszone mu? die T?rkei aber auch weitere H?rden
nehmen, um als demokratischer und friedlicher Staat gelten zu
k?nnen. Die T?rkei mu? endlich die angek?ndigten Reformen der
Strafgesetzgebung und des Justizwesens verwirklichen, damit die
Verfolgung von K?nstlern, Politikern, Schriftstellern und
Menschenrechtlern ein Ende hat. Wirtschaftliche Kooperation darf
es nur mit einer T?rkei geben, die ihre Zusagen auch einh?lt und
die die Rechte der kurdischen Minderheit anerkennt und Initiativen
f?r eine friedliche L?sung des Konflikts ergreift."

From FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org  Sat Sep 21 14:03:00 1996
From: FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org (FIC at OLN.comlink.apc.org)
Date: 21 Sep 1996 14:03:00
Subject: GAMA: Kriminalisierung von MED-TV (text in German)
Message-ID: <6HJayGzJGIB@oln-205.oln.comlink.apc.org>

Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

        GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ASSOCIATION - GAMA - PRESENTS:
        -------------------------------------------------------
                news provided via our member "infoPool"
                --------------------------------------

SOURCE: MED-TV
        Linen Hall
        162-168 Regent Street
        London WIR 5AT
        Tel. 0272 494 2523
        Fax: 0171494 2528
HEAD:   Versuche der Kriminalisierung von MED-TV

PRESSEMITTEILUNG

Versuche der Kriminalisierung von MED-TV

   Europaweit wurden am 18. September 1996 die B?ros von Med-TV-Fernsehen
von der politischen Polizei der jeweiligen L?nder durchsucht. Damit wurde die
europa- und nahostweite Ausstrahlung von MED-TV verhindert.

   In London nahm die politische Abteilung von Scotland Yard unter dem Vorwand
des Anti-Terror-Gesetzes die Untersuchung vor. MED-TV hat keinerlei und  
bestreitet auch jegliche Verbindung zu gewaltt?tigen politischen
Organisationen.

   Menschenrechtsverletzungen in der T?rkei, wie sie letzte Woche
im europ?ischen Parlament diskutiert und festgestellt wurden, und weiter das
gro?e europ?ische kurdische Kulturfest, das diese Woche stattfinden wird,
stehen vielmehr im Mittelpunkt. Die T?rkei, gr??ter Gegner der Verbreitung von
Nachrichten ?ber ihr Handeln in Kurdistan und der Verbreitung kurdischer
Kultur setzt alles daran, MED-TV zum Schweigen zu bringen.

   Dazu sagte der Direktor von Med-TV, Hikmet Tabak,
"Diese Kriminalisierung des Rundfunksenders einer Sprachminderheit zeigt
den enormen Druck, der auf jeden Ausdruck kurdischer Kultur ausge?bt wird.
MED-TV sieht in den Versuchen, den Sender zum Schweigen zu bringen,
eine v?llige Mi?achtung des Artikels 10 der europ?ischen  
Menschenrechtskonvention, in denen die Freiheit der Berichterstattung und  
der Information niedergelegt sind.

   Med-TV verspricht, bald wieder auf Sendung zu sein, sagte Hikmet Tabak
heute.

Ansprechpartner:  Hikmet Tabak - Med-TV        0044 171 494 2523
Louis Charalambous-Stephens Innocent  0044 171 353 2000
   [END]                                                                    
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                                                                            
                             Die Grenzen verlaufen nicht zwischen den  
V?lkern, sondern zwischen Oben und
Unten.


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Sep 20 06:52:02 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 20 Sep 1996 06:52:02
Subject: Support 'Kurdistan-Rundbrief'!
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609200517.BAA16019@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>

The bi-weekly German-language solidarity bulletin 'Kurdistan-Rundbrief'
needs 13,000 DM to continue publishing! This publication is a vital source
of news and information on the Kurdish liberation struggle. Subsribers to
kurd-l in Europe who would like to help can contibute to
Kurdistan-Rundbrief at the following account:

GNN-Verlag Sachsen/Berlin GmbH (Kontoinhaber)
Postbank Berlin
Konto-Nr. 415031-105
BLZ 100 100 10

Stichwort: Spende fuer den Kurdistan-Rundbrief.

Visit Kurdistan-Rundbrief on the Internet at http://www.berlinet.de/kurdistan



 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Sep 20 06:52:26 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 20 Sep 1996 06:52:26
Subject: Iraqi Jash To Meet U.S. Official
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609200517.BAA16011@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>

Saddam's Kurdish ally to meet with U.S. official

September 17, 1996
                                                      
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a possible sign of a rift
within the Iraqi camp, the Kurdish leader who
invited Saddam Hussein's forces into northern Iraq
will meet this week with a high-ranking U.S.
official.

A meeting is planned Thursday between Massoud
Barzani and Robert Pelletreau, the U.S. assistant
secretary of state for near eastern affairs, the
State Department said.

It is hoped talks with rival Kurdish leader Jalal
Talabani can also be arranged in the future, the
State Department said Tuesday.

"Our objective is to have Mr. Barzani
and Mr. Talabani agree to talk about
their differences peacefully and across from one
another at the negotiating table," State
Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said.

Washington moved to resume its diplomatic activity
after receiving a letter from Barzani more than a
week ago, Burns said. The U.S. had been working
for years to bring the two main Kurdish factions
in northern Iraq into political reconciliation.
Those talks broke down last month, and the two
sides resumed fighting.

Pelletreau "will certainly repeat the advice
privately that we have tried to give Mr. Barzani
and Mr. Talabani in public and that is that Mr.
Barzani's relationship with Saddam Hussein cannot
be in the long term interest of his people or
himself," Burns added.

Iraqi opposition sources say Washington intends to
tell Barzani to renounce any political deal with
Saddam Hussein, in order to continue receiving
U.S. military, economic and humanitarian aid.

For his part, Barzani plans to tell the 
United States he is not interested in
further deals with Iraq, a spokesman for Barzani's
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said Tuesday.

Barzani would also ask that the U.S.-led allied
air operation to protect northern Iraq from
Baghdad's troops be continued, according to
London-based spokesman Dilshad Miran.

"It was a one-off deal with the Iraqi government,"
Miran said.

The State Department did not say where Thursday's
meeting would be held, but the Iraqi opposition
sources said it most likely would be held in the
Turkish capital Ankara.

The Kurdish opposition sources have
met repeatedly with U.S. officials
since the Pentagon sent cruise missiles against
Iraqi military installations earlier this month.
The U.S. took action when Barzani's forces, backed
by Baghdad, seized control of northern Iraq.

Within northern Iraq, it appears unclear just who
is in charge. Kurdish authorities display some
autonomy, but Baghdad can reward or chastise them
by playing with the supply and price of
electricity and fuel.

An Iraqi government-organized press trip from
Baghdad was turned back Sunday from the Kurds'
chosen capital Irbil, with notebooks empty and
cameras untouched.

But fear of Iraqi secret agents have made refugees
out of the Kurdish region's elite. Local employees
of the U.S. have been following the American
staff, fleeing Iraq with their families.

Some international aid workers leaving under
orders from home are angry at U.S. policy. They
say the ones who will be left will be the
helpless, those who most need the services of the
aid workers who are gone.



 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Sep 20 08:52:20 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 20 Sep 1996 08:52:20
Subject: MED-TV Raided By Police In London A
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.960920025..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: MED-TV Raided By Police In London And Brussels

Belgian Police Stage Major Anti-PKK Raid - Television

Brussels, Belgium (Reuter - September 18, 1996) Hundreds of
Belgian police on Wednesday raided houses of Kurds and Kurdish
organisations allegedly linked to the banned PKK party, Belgian
VTM television said.
     It said more than 200 police searched about 20 houses in
Brussels and northern Belgium following the seizure in Luxembourg
of 350 million francs which belonged to a Kurdish television
network based in Denderleeuw near Brussels.
     VTM said police believed the television network possibly had
links with the PKK and that the money allegedly came from trade
of arms, drugs and humans.
     It said similar police actions were staged in Britain and
Germany earlier today.
     Police were not available for comment.

British Police Raid Kurdish TV Station

London, England (Reuter - September 19, 1996) British police said
on Thursday they had raided a Kurdish television station in
central London as part of a money laundering investigation.
     A police spokesman said documents were removed from the
Med-TV station on Wednesday after a search warrant was issued in
connection with money laundering activities.
     Med-TV director Hikmet Tabak said the raids halted
programmes and accused police of harassment.
     Britain's Press Association news agency said Med-TV had been
a constant critic of Turkey's treatment of Kurds.


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Sun Sep 22 01:22:05 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 22 Sep 1996 01:22:05
Subject: American Kurdish Information Networ
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.960921195..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) Press Release #14

American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) Press Release #14

September 20, 1996

The Kurdish "Temple" Has Been Ransacked

(We received the following Press Release from the desk of Yasar
Kaya, the President of Kurdish Parliament in Exile. It is a
deeply felt indignation. We ask that you validate it. Letters of
protest to the Belgium and British authorities would be greatly
appreciated. A sample letter follows for your perusal.)

     "On Wednesday, September 18, 1996, the Belgium police raided
the various Kurdish institutions. We later found out that the
same search was also undertaken in London, England. The Kurdish
Parliament in Exile, the Kurdish satellite television, MED-TV and
the homes of Kurdish families were among the places that were
searched.
     The Kurdish parliament is a "temple" of the Kurdish people.
It has been destroyed rather than searched. When the police came
to my house, I made it clear to them that if they want to silence
the parliament, they would have to kill us.
     The Belgian and the British authorities are trying to
criminalize and humiliate the Kurdish people and their national
cause. This is linked to the Turkish government's continuation of
the war against our people. We categorically reject the charges
that have been leveled against us. We do not deal with drugs,
bribes or abductions!
     The Turkish government has silenced the Kurdish dissent in
Turkey proper and now wishes to do the same abroad. I warn, the
Belgian authorities as well as all the western governments, not
to be accomplices in this coordinated Turkish act of subjecting
Kurds to a silent genocide. To do that with impunity, the Kurdish
institutions have been the target of intimidation and closure in
Turkey. We ask the West not to be the tools of this policy
abroad.
     Our struggle will continue to the last of us. If this is the
path left open to us; we will take it. It is not our aim to live
dishonorably in this world.
     It should be known that everyone will have to pay a price
for such an eventuality. Those who have endorsed the
dismemberment of our country have now taken upon themselves to be
tools of the Turkish government. Our calls for peace have been
disregarded; the course of war is shown to us as an alternative.
Everybody must face the consequences of their actions. We will
not bow before anyone. Those who are after creating enmity
between us and our host nations must think twice. We, therefore,
respectfully ask the Belgian and the British authorities to
correct their respective mistakes."

-----

Draft Letter To The Belgian Ambassador

     We are/I am concerned to learn of the raids by the Belgian
police on a number of offices and homes of Kurdish exiles in
Belgium, and in particular, the sequestration of the files and
enforced closure of the offices of both MED-TV and the Kurdish
Parliament in exile (KPE), thus effectively silencing this voice
of the Kurdish people.
     The Belgian authorities have the right to act against
persons and institutions engaged in criminal activities, but MED-
TV and the KPE have always kept within Belgian law. If it turns
out that any person has committed offences, then charges must be
brought accordingly, but to criminalise whole institutions on the
grounds of acts by individuals would be a very serious matter.
     Freedom of expression is severely limited in Turkey, and
this is the reason why MED-TV and the KPE operate from Belgium,
where they were able to discuss Kurdish affairs, including
constitutional reforms that would allow the Kurdish people to
manage their own affairs, without the threat of prosecution. It
is unfortunate that the Belgian authorities appear to be acting
in collusion with the Kurds' oppressors, in extending Turkish
censorship to the outside world.
     We/I would be grateful if you could let us/me know what
evidence was presented to the courts in Belgium to justify such
extensive operations of search, confiscation and detention.
Please may we/I also know what charges have now been made,
against whom, and when the property confiscated will be restored
to its owners. We/I would like to know whether any compensation
will be payable to MED-TV or to the KPE for the interruption of
their activities, and the costs they will incur in reconstituting
their files. 

----
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://burn.ucsd.edu/~akin
----

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

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
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From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Sep 25 02:23:40 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 25 Sep 1996 02:23:40
Subject: PKK Calls For General Mobilization
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609250121.VAA03741@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>

News On The Conflict In South Kurdistan
Translated By Arm The Spirit From 'Kurdistan-Rundbrief' #18/96


Bagdad And Ankara Intervene In South Kurdistan; PKK Calls For "Mobilization"

Following the march of Iraqi troops into South Kurdistan and the U.S.
rocket attacks on southern Iraq, the expected attack by Turkish troops has
begun. MED-TV has reported heavy bombardments and fighting. The Turkish
media have reported that the General Staff are planning a long-term
occupation of Kurdish territory all the way to the Mosul-Kirkuk line. The
PKK, which has condemned Talabani's cooperation with Iran and the West as
well as the KDP's collaboration with the Iraqi regime, has called for a
"mobilization" of all Kurdish forces and has appealed to all Kurdish
parties to set aside their differences.

Ocalan: "The Turkish Army Wants To Occupy South Kurdistan!"

On September 5, 1996, the Chair of the PKK Abdullah Ocalan issued a
statement in which he warned of the impending Turkish invasion:

"The colonial-fascist Turkish Republic has decided to occupy South
Kurdistan. The invasion could begin at any time. Our freedom fighters
should from now on be on a high state of alert to wage holy resistance in
the struggle for victory. I call on our people and all patriotic forces to
stand shoulder to shoulder in this struggle for victory. I wish our
resistance fighters much success and send them my greetings and respect.

"Down with the fascist and colonialist Turkish Republic!
Long live our national struggle for freedom and independence!"


Call To The KDP And PUK For National Unity

The National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK) has issued a statement
claiming that the real purpose of those supporting the fratricidal stuggle
between the KDP and the PUK is to detroy those territories which have been
liberated by the PKK. According to the statement: "Both Kurdish factions
must not fall into this trap. It is still possible for both the KDP and the
PUK to act in the interest of the Kurdish nation." The ERNK re-issued its
call for all Kurdish national forces to become united.

ERNK Supports Call For Mobilization

The ERNK has stated that the present chance will never be repeated and that
these developments represent an historical opportunity for the Kurdish
people: 

"We must carry out a general mobilization to win our independence and
freedom. We support the directive of our leader Abdullah Ocalan of
September 5th, which states that war has been declared on our people and
that our nation must observe a general mobilization. This call by our
leader is the foundation for a new phase of national liberation. In line
with this directive, our patriotic people must utilize all means at their
disposal. The leading cadre of the PKK, the fighters of the ARGK, and Kurds
of all ages are now in a phase of general mobilization following this
directive. All the forces of our people must work towards the victory of
our liberation struggle. All women and men, all of our people who are able
to fight in the mountains, must make their way to the war front. All Kurds,
no matter where they are, must support this stuggle to their utmost
ability. Anyone who wishes to help must do so. A people fighting for its
freedom must takes its responsibilities seriously, from Kurdistan to the
metropoles of Europe. Everyone must be willing to undertake every task.
Especially our people in Europe must not abandon our nation in Kurdistan,
which is currently under the gun. You must show your attention and your
willingness to make sacrifices."
 
The ERNK has called upon all Kurdish organizations, in the interest of
national unity, to support the ARGK's struggle against the Turkish army.
The ERNK warns against contrary positions: "Any other position which could
benefit the Turkish army or harm our national liberation struggle will
sooner or later be exposed as treason and be judged harshly by our people."

The ERNK has also called on all international democratic and humanitarian
institutions to pay close attention to the war. "These institution should
try to form aid delegations and send observer missions to South Kurdistan."




 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Sep 25 06:50:29 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 25 Sep 1996 06:50:29
Subject: ARGK Attacks Turkish War Criminals
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609250549.BAA25403@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>

War News From North Kurdistan
Translated By Arm The Spirit From 'Kurdistan-Rundbrief' #18/96

ARGK Attacks War Criminals In Hakkari

Following an 8-month unilatereal cease-fire, the ARGK (People's Liberation
Army of Kurdistan) has again attacked Turkish military targets.

In August, the Chair of the PKK Abdullah Ocalan gave the Turkish government
"a last chance to save the cease-fire", otherwise the Kurdish guerrilla
would again attack selected targets and thereby open the path to true
dialogue. Since December 15, 1995, the PKK and its guerrilla army the ARGK
had observed a unilateral cease-fire despite repeated operations by the
Turkish army. All attempts at starting a dialogue to bring about a peace
process in Kurdistan were foiled by the Turkish government. Even
resolutions from the European Parliament in January and June of this year
could not persuade the leading Western powers of Germany and the USA to put
pressure on Turkey to enter into negotiations. Instead, these governments
kept supplying Turkey with arms, thereby giving support to the Turkish
military to continue with its genocide in Kurdistan.

The first target selected by the ARGK was the Hakkari Brigade, a special
unit. This brigade was responsibile for horrible war crimes. In January
1996, photos from the newspaper 'Ozgur Politika' were seen around the
world. The photos depicted members of the Hakkari Brigade posing with
mutilated bodies and holding the decapitated heads of Kurdish fighters. The
headquarters of the Hakkari Brigade, located 3km outside the center of the
city of Hakkari, were attacked at 23:30 hours on August 24, 1996 by a unit
of ARGK fighters armed with rockets and mortars. In the attack, 23 members
of the Hakkari Brigade were killed and 50 were wounded. Following the
attack, the Turkish army sealed off Hakkari. Army units then marched into
Xenanis (Otlucu) village and arrested all 150 inhabitants.

A few days later, the ARGK attacked a Turkish batallion in Semdinli
(Hakkari province). During this confrontations, 9 soldiers were killed.
Near Helene, 6 military transporters carrying military provisions were
burned. A police station in Yuceldi (Hozat) was also attacked. One soldier
was killed.

If no moves are made towards negotiations, the PKK has announced that they
will increase the intensity of their attacks, even moving into the cities.



 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Sep 25 06:51:39 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 25 Sep 1996 06:51:39
Subject: Prison Riot In Turkey
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609250550.BAA25420@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Wed Sep 25 06:56:06 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 25 Sep 1996 06:56:06
Subject: Prison Riot In Turkey
References: <bac1c849.199609250550.BAA25420@l>
Message-ID: <bac1c849.199609250555.BAA25619@l>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at etext.org>

Prisoners riot in Turkish prison

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey [sic] (AP) -- A clash between rioting prisoners and
security forces left seven inmates dead and 12 injured Tuesday, reports
said. 

The riot was sparked by prisoners complaining that officials have not
followed through with pledges made during a nationwide hunger strike that
ended in July, the Anatolia news agency reported. 

Violence started when inmates refused to allow 14 fellow prisoners to be
transferred to another jail, Anatolia said. The government promises
included not transferring inmates to jails far from where their trials were
being held. 

A human rights official claimed that inmates wanted to start another hunger
strike and prison officials sent in troops.



From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Sep 26 04:46:18 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 26 Sep 1996 04:46:18
Subject: Turkey Presses Offensive Against Re
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.960925234..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turkey Presses Offensive Against Rebel Kurds

Turkey Presses Offensive Against Rebel Kurds

Tunceli (Dersim), Turkey (Reuter - September 24, 1996) Turkish
security forces, including mountain commandos, pressed an air and
land offensive on Tuesday against separatist Kurdish rebels in
the eastern mountains.
     Military officials said troops backed by helicopters and
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels were engaged in heavy
fighting at several points in the rugged province of Tunceli.
     The state-run Anatolian news agency said troops launched a
major attack on positions near the remote Iraqi border in the
morning.
     Some 20,000 soldiers, backed by aircrafts dropping bombs and
U.S.-made Super Cobra helicopters, began on Monday to close in on
some 250 rebels who the military said were cornered in a forest
in the mountains of Tunceli province.
     Around 15 rebels have been killed in Tunceli in the last two
days, security officials said. There was no word of military
casualties.
     The anti-rebel push is also aimed at denying the guerrillas
food and ammunition supplies before the harsh winter sets in.
     In an apparent bid to divert the drive against the
insurgents holed up nearby, PKK rebels attacked a police post in
the well-guarded town of Tunceli overnight.
     "They tried to enter Tunceli but came across the police
special forces", governor Atil Uzelgun told reporters. "They
fled, leaving two dead", he said.
     Two members of the elite police unit were wounded.
     The 12-year-old conflict costs Turkey an estimated $8
billion a year and damages its image, but successive governments
have refused to discuss rebel demands for self-rule. More than
20,000 people have died.
     Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller on Monday reiterated plans for
a security zone in northern Iraq to prevent PKK infiltration from
bases across the border. Baghdad and other Arab governments have
condemned the proposed zone as a violation of Iraqi territory.
     Ciller tried to calm U.S. fears that Turkey would drop the
buffer zone and instead cooperate with Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein to fight the rebels in north Iraq. His forces have been
blocked from the area since 1991 by U.S.-led protection of the
Kurdish population.
     "We are not ready to cancel the security zone because we
fear the influx of refugees and the PKK has stationed themselves
right next to our borders", she said in New York.
     A cross-border drive into northern Iraq by 35,000 Turkish
troops last year failed to budge the PKK from the region after
six weeks of fighting.
     Security officials said the rebels' feared regional
commander Semdin Sakik, also known as "Fingerless Zeki", may have
crossed from northern Iraq in the last month bound for Tunceli.
     "Operations are continuing in the whole region, not just
Tunceli", Anatolian quoted armed force's chief Ismail Hakki
Karadayi as saying.
     The agency corrected an earlier report in which it quoted
Karadayi as saying 1,000 PKK fighters had been killed in
southeast Turkey since August 15. Anatolian later put the rebel
death toll at 460 for the same period.


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Thu Sep 26 12:03:02 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 26 Sep 1996 12:03:02
Subject: Kurdish Leaders In Turkish Court Fo
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.960926065..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Kurdish Leaders In Turkish Court For Rebel Links

Kurdish Leaders In Turkish Court For Rebel Links

Ankara, Turkey (Reuter - September 25, 1996) The leadership of
Turkey's only legal Kurdish political party went on trial on
Wednesday, charged with links to separatist guerrillas battling
security forces for self-rule in the country's southeast.
     Eighteen senior figures in the People's Democracy Party
(HADEP), including leader Murat Bozlak, were accused of acting as
a front for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel group.
     They face up to 22 1/2 years in jail. Another 23, mostly
party members, could get up to 15 years under a lesser charge.
     "HADEP is active in trying to get our citizens of Kurdish
origin to join the PKK, form grassroot support for the PKK and
send militants to the mountains", prosecutor Nuh Mete Yuksel told
Ankara State Security Court.
     The Turkish armed forces stepped up operations against the
PKK this week, with airplanes and attack helicopters assaulting
the rebels' remote mountain redoubts.
     Security officials in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir
said 47 guerrillas died in the latest counter-insurgency drive.
Anatolian news agency said six from the security forces died.
     Party leader Bozlak denied any ties to the rebels. "HADEP
has no link at all with any illegal organisation", he told the
court, packed with relatives, Western diplomats and human rights
observers.
     He predicted that the stifling of non-violent Kurdish
dissent would only prolong the bloodshed.
     "It's clear that a policy of denial and assimilation has got
nowhere and will go nowhere", he said. "The problem will grow."
     Turkey has been criticised by some of its Western allies for
refusing to give separate cultural and educational rights to its
estimated 12 million Kurds.
     The European Parliament threatened last week to block
hundreds of millions of dollars of European Union aid to Turkey,
saying that previous rights promises had not been fulfilled.
     "The EU is defintely focused on this trial after last week's
decision", a European diplomat told Reuters.
     A similar trial of Kurdish MPs two years ago almost killed
off Turkey's ambitions for a customs union with Europe, granted
in late 1995.
     The HADEP defendants were detained in June after masked
youths tore down a large Turkish flag adorning a party congress
and replaced it with the banner of the rebel group and its leader
Abdullah Ocalan.
     "This looks like a pretext to ban HADEP. It's following a
particular pattern where the Kurdish parties get banned one after
the other", said Louise Christian, a British rights monitor.
     The party was formed in 1994 after another Kurdish party was
closed by the constitutional court for alleged separatism and 13
of its deputies expelled from parliament. Six Kurd MPs were later
sent to jail for links to the PKK.
     Meanwhile, eleven people died in a riot over prison
condition by PKK inmates at a jail in Diyarbakir on Tuesday.
     HADEP does not advocate violence and stops short of calling
for Kurdish self-rule. The party's platform for recognition of
Kurds as a distinct ethnic group got short shrift in court.
     "There is only one identity in Turkey and that is the
Turkish identity", prosecutor Yuksel said, reading out the
charges.
     "Requests for acknowledgement of a Kurdish cultural identity
are underhand moves aimed at splitting the country. The state is
one, the country is one, the nation is one", he said.
     The trial is expected to last several months.


From kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu  Fri Sep 27 08:27:44 1996
From: kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu (kurd-l at burn.ucsd.edu)
Date: 27 Sep 1996 08:27:44
Subject: Turks Attack Kurdish Prisoners; Mor
Message-ID: <bac1c849.Pine.NEB.3.95.960927032..@burn.ucsd.edu>

From: Arm The Spirit <ats at locust.cic.net>
Subject: Turks Attack Kurdish Prisoners; More Than A Dozen Are Killed!

American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) Press Release #15

Turks Attack Kurdish Prisoners; More Than A Dozen Are Killed!

     A statement issued, today, by the President of Human Rights
Association of Diyarbakir, Mahmut Sakar, notes that ominous
developments are taking place in Diyarbakir, the largest Kurdish
city in the Turkish-controlled Kurdistan. "13 Kurdish prisoners
have died as a result of attacks by the Turkish security forces
in the city's prison." A Reuter report filed from Diyarbakir,
today, notes that a hospital official confirmed the death of
eleven individuals. Many of the dead had suffered injuries to
their heads.
     The statement of the Human Rights of Association of
Diyarbakir notes that eight of the killed were identified as:
"Edip Donekci, Nihat Cakmak, Ekrem Perisan, Ridvan Bulut, Hakki
Tekin, Ahmet Celik, Mehmet S. Gumus, and Cemal Cam."
     Listed in critical condition were twelve other prisoners who
were taken to the hospital for treatments: "Ramazan Nazber,
Mehmet Aslan, Yasin Alevcan, Ramazan Korkar, Mehmet Batuge,
Mehmet E. Izra, Iskan Osal, Kenan Acar, Abdullah Eflatun Hakki
Bozkus, Bedri Bozkus and Emin Mizrak."
     The statement goes on to add that in the last ten days, the
dead (and often mutilated) bodies of "... nine (9) people have
been found in the city streets. These individuals were reported
missing to our office. The invariable story of their loved ones
was that the plain-clothed Turkish police officers came to the
house, arrested these individuals and later claimed that they
knew nothing of them."
     The official Ankara has made some "contradictory" remarks
about the origins of the Diyarbakir prison carnage says, Mr.
Sakar. "One version of the events is that some Kurdish prisoners
were harassing a group of inmates who were informers. The prison
officials in Diyarbakir, says the official statement, asked the
Justice Department for the transfer of these individuals.
Apparently, as this transfer was taking place, this deadly
altercation took place."
     "The missing link in this argument is that the transfers are
not automatically granted. In the past, these same requests were
often denied because of lack of funds. One can not help but ask
the question why this request was accepted so quickly and why so
much force was used to put down the altercation."
     "We feel that this is nothing but part of a larger policy to
instill fear in the population. We call on the friends of the
human family to condemn this brutality and send observers to the
region to investigate this deadly attack on the defenseless
prisoners."
     These mass killings illustrate the deterioration of the
human rights situation in Turkey. This was also noted, on
September 19, 1996, by the European Parliament's decision to
block "hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to Ankara for
reneging on promises to improve its human rights record." We ask
that you join the European parliamentarians by condemning this
particular act of brutality and the overall Turkish aggression
toward the Kurds.

September 25, 1996

----
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://burn.ucsd.edu/~akin
----

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

 ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
   ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++
     ++++ see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist information
collective based in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide 
variety of material, including political prisoners, national 
liberation struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, 
the fight against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our 
writings, research, and translation materials in our magazine and
bulletins called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:

Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada

E-mail: ats at etext.org
WWW: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats
FTP: ftp.etext.org --> /pub/Politics/Arm.The.Spirit
ATS-L Archives: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~archive/ats-l
-----------------------------------------------------------------



From ggundrey at igc.apc.org  Sat Sep 28 01:25:39 1996
From: ggundrey at igc.apc.org (George Gundrey)
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 17:25:39 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Kurdish Leader Spreads Maoism
Message-ID: <APC.1.0.54efc6fd.667@igc.apc.org>

From: George Gundrey <ggundrey at igc.apc.org>

The following is from the Pacific News Service.  

Pacific News Service -- a 25 year old network of writers, scholars, 
freelance journalists and teenagers -- explores the diverse terrain of 
private cultures emerging worldwide and their impacts on the broader 
civil realm. Each day PNS transmits a 600-1000 word article to over 100 
news media outlets.  

For more articles, see our Web site at http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/. 
For information about subscribing, contact PNS at 415-243-4364 or at
<pacificnews at pacificnews.org>. This article may be reposted or e-mailed,
but not re-printed without permission. 

COPYRIGHT PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
450 Mission Street,  Room 204
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-243-4364


COMMENTARY-825 WORDS

MORE DESTABILIZING THAN SADDAM HUSSEIN -- TURKEY'S KURDISH LEADER SPREADS 
MAOIST INSURGENCY

EDITOR'S NOTE: A Saladin-type unifier is emerging in the Kurdish Mideast 
who could prove far more destabilizing than Iraqi dictator Saddam 
Hussein. Although unknown to Americans, Ocalan is the rising force in 
northern Iraq and his influence is even frightening Iran's mullahs. PNS 
editor Franz Schurmann, a professor emeritus of history and sociology at 
the University of California, Berkeley, has lived and studied in the 
Middle East and reads widely in the Arab press.

BY FRANZ SCHURMANN, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

His name is barely mentioned in official accounts of why the U.S. 
launched cruise missile attacks on Saddam Hussein's military bases. But 
Abdullah Ocalan is creating waves that are destabilizing the Middle East 
far more than the Iraqi dictator.

Ocalan is the leader of the Maoist-inspired Kurdistan Workers Party -- 
called the PKK -- which has waged a decade-long guerrilla war in Turkey 
and is now viewed by many observers as the rising power in 
Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq. Ocalan (pronounced Oj-hah-lan) just may 
be the transnational figure the region has been looking for -- and 
fearing -- for decades.

Roughly 20 million Kurds inhabit the region stretching from eastern 
Turkey through northern Iraq into Iran, Syria and the Caucasus. Rarely 
throughout their three-thousand year history as a nation have they been 
able to form a state of their own. Yet they have fiercely resisted every 
attempt to destroy or assimilate them.

At the same time Kurds have long believed that they are destined for 
greatness as a people. Their national pride runs deep but so also does 
their sense of transnational mission. The greatest Kurd in history -- 
Saladin -- destroyed the Crusader states in the Holy Land, unified Arabs, 
Turks and Kurds, and paved the way for the Ottoman Empire's 500-year rule.

Could Ocalan become a modern-day Saladin? Expectations are rising rapidly 
in the region even as popular disdain deepens for the two quarreling 
Kurdish leaders, Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani. Yet it is these two 
factional leaders on whom the Clinton administration has pinned its hopes 
for stabilizing Kurdistan and containing Saddam Hussein through the 
no-fly zone.

A year ago the U.S. sponsored a summit between the two big Kurdish 
leaders in Dublin which flopped. A second summit, scheduled for last 
month, never got off the ground because neither factional leader would 
attend. In fact, U.S. policy was doomed from the start because it assumed 
far too much power in the hands of these two factions while 
underestimating that of the PKK.

Today Ocalan holds together the biggest guerrilla insurgency in the world 
today. Every day the Turkish press carries reports of police or military 
posts attacked by PKK units. Two months ago a young PKK woman concealing 
a bomb in her dress walked into a solemn military observance and blew up 
30 soldiers along with herself. The Turkish political prisoners who 
recently staged mass hunger strikes were PKK members.

But Ocalan's influence reaches far beyond Turkey. Last month, the PKK 
demolished 24 of Barzani's military outposts in northern Iraq. Seeing his 
power seep away, Barzani turned to the only other leader able to help him 
-- Saddam Hussein. Saddam obliged by attacking Talabani's stronghold 
Arbil, prompting U.S. retaliatory missile attacks.

Even the Iranian mullahs who preached an Islamic message similar to Mao's 
early on in their revolution are now fearful that Ocalan's message could 
spill over into Iran. Indeed, the Iranian opposition movement, 
Mujahideen-i-Khalq, "Martyrs of the People," sounds much like the PKK and 
has its base in northern Iraq.

At the core of Ocalan's appeal is the fact that he, alone among Kurdish 
leaders, understands that a social revolution is going on in Kurdish 
society everywhere. Kurds feel not only oppressed by their alien rulers 
but also by one of the most rigid feudal social systems still in 
existence. The message of Maoism has always been to empower the poor and 
fight their oppressors. Like Mao, the PKK teaches to its adherents living 
with the people, gender equality, a willingness to sacrifice one's life 
for the cause of the people.

In addition to a Maoist tilt to the poor, Ocalan also accepts the devout 
religious beliefs of the Kurds, in contrast to classic Marxist movements 
which have denounced religion as an opiate of the people. "Religion has 
always existed and it always will," he has said, describing it as a 
source of morality vital for movements like the PKK. He attributes the 
collapse of socialism to its failure to deal with the question of 
religion.

The PKK is not the only revolutionary force in the Middle East shaking 
establishments. An Islamic revival has been sweeping over Turkey 
resulting in the first Muslim prime minister since the formation of the 
modern secular Turkish republic. Muslims preach that their common faith 
crosses all boundaries of nationality, race and class. The Maoists agree 
on the first two but not the third. And Marxist ideas of class struggle 
have given them an organized militancy which the Islamic movements 
generally lack. The fact is Maoists, like other Marxist movements, know 
how to make war while Islamists don't.

If these two forces -- Islam and Maoist ideology -- should coalesce, the 
region is likely to see a new transnational empire arising which no 
amount of high-tech weaponry from the West can thwart. And Ocalan will go 
down in the history books as the Saladin of the late 20th century.

(09041996)	**** END ****	(c) COPYRIGHT PNS


/

From pcis at igc.apc.org  Mon Sep 30 03:52:19 1996
From: pcis at igc.apc.org (pcis at igc.apc.org)
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 19:52:19 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Environmental Discussion List
Message-ID: <324FFAC3.13C9@igc.apc.org>

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As part of our Middle Eastern Environmental Project, we are launching a 
new list devoted to the discussion of environmental issues in the Middle 
East, MIDEASTENVIRO. 

It is our hope to focus more attention on critical environmental issues 
in the region, including threats to marine and terrestrial biodiversity; 
desertification, and destruction of coral reef ecosystems and to increase 
the interface among researchers working for solutions.

To subscribe:

1. Send an e-mail message to listproc at envirolink.org;
2. Leave the subject line blank
3. In the body of your message, type subscribe mideastenviro YOUR NAME 
(this is your real name, not your e-mail address).

-- 
William C. Burns 						
Director, GreenLife Society - North American Chapter 
700 Cragmont Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94708 USA  	
Phone/Fax: (510) 558-0620					
WWW site: http://nceet.snre.umich.edu/greenlife/index.html		
								

GLSNA Affiliations:

Union of Concerned Scientists, Sound Science Initiative
The EarthAction Network
The Galapagos Coalition
Reseau International d'ONG sur la Desertification (RIOD)
Accredited NGO Observer, International Whaling Commission
European Social Science Fisheries Network

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"The great use of life is to spend it for something
that will outlast it."
                                   -- William James
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