17 August 2004

2. "Turkey calls on Iraq to take action against Kurdish rebels", Turkey on Monday called on Iraq to clamp down on armed Turkish Kurd rebels who have sought refuge across the border, while visiting Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar warned Ankara against interfering in his country's internal affairs.

3. "Turkey appoints civilian to head top security council", Turkey for the first time has appointed a civilian to head the country's influential national security council in line with reforms to boost its drive to join the European Union.

4. "Village Evacuation After Three Years", Human Rights Association states that a village was evacuated for the first time since 2001, in Sirnak's Beytussebap district. Ilicak villagers said that early July, the regiment commander came to the village and forced the people to evacuate the village.

5. "Celebrating Feast, Iraq's Yezidis Say They Fear For Future", The Yezidis are a Kurdish religious community who number around 750,000 in Iraq and about 1.5 million worldwide, according to Tassim, with members found in places including Syria, Turkey and Russia.

6. "Kurdistan, Federalism and Iranian National Sentiments", the topic of federalism may seem not to be much of an issue in a country like the U.S. but viewing the world as a huge federation has come up again and again in science fiction, as a possible global structure of future politics.

1. - DIHA - "30.600 petitions to governorship calling for resolution of Kurdish question":

DIYARBAKIR / 16 August 2004

Stating Kurdish National Leader, Abdullah Ocalan was the addressee of a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish Question, Free Citizens' Movement has submitted over 30 thousand petitions including solution proposals to Diyarbakýr Governor. 14 persons submitting the petitions representing the group were manhandled after they submitted the petitions and taken into custody while police also raided the group waiting outside.

30.600 petitions collected within the scope of "Freedom for Ocalan" campaign started by Free Citizens' Movement were submitted to the government. Hundreds of persons gathered in Kosuyolu Park and rallied to the Guests House of Metropolitan Mayoralty. Police wanted the crowd to leave the area since it was prohibited to hold press release there

On that the group began to wait behind the guest house.

The mass began chanting "Long live Leader Apo" as police said the placards they carried during the press release reading, "Woman is nature, nature is freedom and freedom is Ocalan", "Long live Leader Apo" were illegal.

'15 August is the beginning of a new period in the Middle East'

Later representing Free Citizens' Movement, Suleyman Kisa read the statement and said 15 August stated a new period in the Middle East. "Tens of thousand of guerillas and soldiers have died in that period. Thousands are jailed. Thousands of villages were evacuated and hundred billions dollars material loss occurred" said the statement. Pointing that the reply given to call for a peaceful resolution by forces who hate peace was kidnapping of Kurdish National Leader, Kýsa said, "The aim was to start a Kurd-Turk war. However, those attempts were frustrated sensitive attitude of Mr. Ocalan".

'Addressee of Kurdish question is Ocalan'

The statement further read, "There is a question in this country. That is the Kurdish Question. And the primary addressee in the resolution is Mr.Abdullah Ocalan."

'Authorities must support the efforts'

Recalling that all petitions more or less stressed the same point Kýsa continued saying, "Kurdish question can't be resolved through annihilation and denial policies. Gates of EU won't open. We love this country. We want to create a fraternity atmosphere that will be a model for all people of the world. Therefore Free Citizens' Movement should be seen as a chance. Free Citizens' Movement is not a requirement for only Kurds but also for Turks. State authorities should not try to hinder this movement but support it."

Following the press statement petitions were submitted to the governor by a group of 14 representatives. The 14 persons including a small child were manhandled and taken into custody while walking out of the governor's office. Police later wanted the group waiting outside to disperse claiming they exceeded 1-hour limit allowed for press release. The group resisted police for a short while and later dispersed.

2. - AFP - "Turkey calls on Iraq to take action against Kurdish rebels":

ANKARA / 16 August 2004

Turkey on Monday called on Iraq to clamp down on armed Turkish Kurd rebels who have sought refuge across the border, while visiting Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar warned Ankara against interfering in his country's internal affairs.

Turkey says thousands of rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), recently renamed KONGRA-GEL, have found refuge in mountainous northern Iraq since 1999 when the group announced a unilateral truce in its bloody campaign for self-rule in southeastern Turkey.

The rebels are now believed to be infiltrating back into Turkey after the PKK/KONGRA GEL called off the truce in June, warning foreigners and investors to stay away from the country.

"I told President Yawar that we expected (Iraqi officials) to end the presence of PKK/KONGRA-GEL in Iraq at once and to ensure that the new Iraq does not give shelter to terrorist organizations," Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer told a press conference after talks with the Iraqi leader.

Yawar for his part expressed Baghdad's readiness to combat the rebels. "We cannot ... turn a blind eye to a formation which endangers the security of our neighbours," the Iraqi president said.

But he added that Baghdad would like to develop its ties with Turkey in the framewok of "good neighbourly relations without any intervention in internal affairs".

Yawar was speaking after Sezer had also called on Baghdad to prevent Iraqi Kurds from taking sole control of the ethnically volatile northern city of Kirkuk, saying unrest in the oil-rich region would harm stability.

"I told President Yawar that an attempt by an ethnic group living in Kirkuk -- Turkmens, Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians and other Iraqis -- to claim the city would jeopardize the stability and order in Kirkuk and Iraq," the Turkish leader said.

Iraqi Kurds claim Kirkuk for themselves. They argue that the city used to be verwhelmingly Kurdish in the 1950s before Baghdad started a deliberate campaign of settling thousands of Arabs in the city as part of its policy of Arabization.

The city, which also has a large population of Turkmen, a minority of Turkish origin backed by Ankara, is a hotbed of ethnic tension and plagued by frequent violence as Kurds force out Arabs.

Ankara fears that Kurdish control of the area's oil resources could further strengthen the Iraqi Kurds whom it suspects of plotting to break away from Baghdad.

Turkey is worried that such a prospect could fan separatist sentiment among its own restive Kurdish population in its southeastern corner, adjacent to northern Iraq.

Another issue dominating the talks was increased security measures for Turkish truck drivers and workers following the killing of a Turkish driver by hostage-takers and the abduction of several truckers delivering goods to the US army in Iraq.

"I conveyed in our meeting the importance of implementing effective measures in the shortest time possible to prevent such attacks from harming our economic and commercial ties," Sezer said, without elaborating.

Turkish officials had earlier said they are working on a series of measures to ensure a safe working environment in the country, which was one of Ankara's principal trade partners before the 1991 Gulf War.

Among the envisaged measures is a plan for Turkish drivers to ferry goods to areas between the northern towns of Zakhu and Mosul, considered relatively safe, where they would hand over the goods to Iraqi authorities for transfer to their ultimate destinations.

Yawar is scheduled to leave Turkey on Tuesday after a meeting with businessmen.

3. - AFP - "Turkey appoints civilian to head top security council":

ANKARA / 17 August 2004

Turkey for the first time has appointed a civilian to head the country's influential national security council in line with reforms to boost its drive to join the European Union.

The appointment of Turkey's current ambassador to Greece, Yigit Alpogan, to the post of secretary general of the council, or MGK, was announced officially on Tuesday. The council was previously headed by a top general and was long the forum through which the military influenced key decisions on important domestic and foreign policy issues such as the fight against Kurdish separatism and Islamic extremism, as well as Iraq and Cyprus.

Recent reforms have meant that the council, which includes top generals and government ministers, now has only an advisory role to the government. The EU has strongly criticized the MGK, calling on civil authorities to curb the powers of the powerful military which has carried out three "hard" and one "soft" coup since 1960.

Last year, Erdogan's Islamist-rooted government passed a package of reforms through parliament limiting the powers of the council and allowing for the appointment of a civilian as the council's secretary-general.

The reforms were particularly difficult for Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party to push through because both are viewed by suspicion by the army, the self-appointed guardians of the secular system, for their ties to a now-defunct Islamist party.

Turkey has been a candidate for EU membership since 1999 but is the only country that has so far failed to begin negotiations on joining. In October the European Commission is due to give its opinion on democratic progress made by the mainly Muslim country, and EU leaders will decide in December whether to open accession negotiations with Ankara.

4. - BiaNet - "Village Evacuation After Three Years":

Human Rights Association states that a village was evacuated for the first time since 2001, in Sirnak's Beytussebap district. Ilicak villagers said that early July, the regiment commander came to the village and forced the people to evacuate the village.

DIYARBAKIR / 17 August 2004

The Human Rights Association (IHD) stated that after the evacuation of Asat and Ortakli villages of Beytussebap district due to security reasons for the first time since 2001, Beytussebap's Ilicak village is partly evacuated.

IHD Diyarbakir branch chair Selahattin Demirtas said "It has been reported to us that there was an intense pressure of the military in that area for a long time, however, we received the information about the village's evacuation only last week."

IHD officials got the information through phone calls made from the village and they are planning to visit the village to investigate the allegations.

They indicated further actions will urgently be taken to start the judicial and administrative process about the responsible parties.

The villagers told the Diyarbakir IHD branch that the regiment commander came to the village in late July and gathered everyone at the village's square and threatening them not to enter their houses.

In the statement, the villagers said that they had to leave their homes due to the compelling pressure they were under to evacuate the houses and move to the houses across the creek where 30-40 houses were also evacuated due the security regulations.

"Because there weren't enough tents, we had to live in nylon barracks and on open areas," said a villager.

After a land mine explosion on Beytussebap road last week, it was reported that five villagers were taken under custody.

5. - Reuters - "Celebrating Feast, Iraq's Yezidis Say They Fear For Future":

SHEIKH ADI / 17 August 2004 / by Seb Walker

Worshippers sacrifice fowl and offer dawn prayers to the angel Malak Taus as hundreds of members Iraq's obscure Yezidi sect gather at their Lalish temple to celebrate the summer feast.

Families walk barefoot through the streets of Sheikh Adi — a Yezidi religious site about 450 kilometres north of Baghdad — paying their respects at numerous shrines and tying knots in holy cloth hung in the temple to ensure male offspring.

Yezidis are one of Iraq's oldest and most unusual religious sects and this festival — the biggest of their year — usually attracts around 15,000 people in August, with some families travelling from abroad to make the pilgrimage.

This year things are different. Even before car bombs exploded outside five Christian churches in Iraq this month — raising fears of attacks on religious minorities — the Yezidi political leader, or “prince,” had ordered official celebrations to be cancelled because of security concerns.

This year, the pilgrims numbered in the hundreds, rather than thousands. “I didn't even expect this many people to come,” said Sheikh Tassim, the 71-year-old prince, as he received well-wishers in one of the temple's halls.

The Yezidis are a Kurdish religious community who number around 750,000 in Iraq and about 1.5 million worldwide, according to Tassim, with members found in places including Syria, Turkey and Russia.

Tassim, who was forced to flee Iraq after supporting a Kurdish uprising and spent several years in exile in London in the 1970s, said Yezidis were potential targets for militants.

“We have the same problem as everybody else in Iraq — terrorism,” he said. “It's very upsetting that any religious place would be exposed to bomb attacks.”

Fallen angel

Yezidi beliefs are a confusing mix of Islamic and even Zoroastrian elements, but in Iraq they have gained a reputation as “devil-worshippers” since they revere all of God's angels — including the “fallen angel” known in some faiths as Satan.

According to Yezidis, “Malak Taus” was God's favourite angel, brought to earth as a prophet of peace — but this belief and some unusual customs have provoked mistrust from others.

In fact, many Yezidis believe they are more likely than most to face persecution in Iraq — because they belong to the Kurdish minority and because of their religion.

“In this country we feel we are always discriminated against twice ... but our traditions will stay,” said Sheikh Al Yass Oudi, a distant relative of Sheikh Adi, the faith's historic founder.

Yezidis have no religious marriage ceremony — the tradition is to kidnap one's intended bride from her family's house and hold her for a year before making a dowry arrangement.

It is also customary for Yezidis not to cut their moustaches, and to avoid eating lettuce or wearing blue.

“We don't like to mix with Arab people — they consider us unclean because they are uneducated,” said Oudi.

Hundreds of Yezidi villages were destroyed during former President Saddam Hussein's campaigns against Iraqi Kurds, and although Yezidis now count one of their number as a minister of state in Baghdad, there is concern among the community that they are being marginalised in postwar Iraq.

“Yezidi families are still living in tents in my district and the government has given us no help,” said Qasim Shursha, a Yezidi local government representative in Sinjar, which lies between the northern city of Mosul and the Syrian border.

Shursha said the area contained many Yezidis before Saddam forced them out during the late 1980s — those who have returned are now facing discrimination by Arabs.

“Nobody is attacking us yet — but Arabs are trying to remove Yezidi members from the police force.”

Shrinking population

Most of the families attending this year's toned-down summer festival seemed unworried by the threat of the attacks.

But as they ate picnics in the hills around their temple — many wearing colourful traditional robes — some Yezidis admitted to fears for the community's survival.

“We don't worry about those terrorists,” said 32-year-old English teacher Sabah Haji. “But our population is getting smaller since we can't marry outside our religion and we don't accept people to enter Yezidism.”

Haji said there was a debate among Iraqi Yezidis about whether to relax traditions to stop the community shrinking and ensure it does not become isolated from modern society.

For Haji, upholding the traditions of the “most ancient religion on earth” was paramount, even if they jeopardise the community's existence.

“If God wants us to disappear we will disappear,” he said.

6. - Iranscope - "Kurdistan, Federalism and Iranian National Sentiments":

17 August 2004 / by Sam Ghandchi

The topic of federalism may seem not to be much of an issue in a country like the U.S. but viewing the world as a huge federation has come up again and again in science fiction, as a possible global structure of future politics.

Some people think of bureaucracy of federal institutions in the U.S. as a reason to think of federalism, as a factor hampering post-industrial development, rather than acknowledging the significant role federalism has played, in creating the necessary checks and balances in the U.S.

In fact, dropping federalism in favor of centralism, because of issues of bureaucracy, is a grave error. The bureaucracy is the problem that needs to be fixed, and not the checks and balances. The inertia of state institutions is worse in centralized capitalist countries, in contrast to the federal states, although not as bad as the socialist countries.

To eradicate bureaucracy, post-industrial information efficiency and technologies is needed, to streamline the obsolete government procedures, that are the cause of bureaucracy and not the federal redundancies that ensure checks and balances, and do not have to be bureaucratic.

The issue of federalism is of paramount importance to the Futurist Iran. This is why I wrote a detailed paper about the history of development of central government in Iran and the role of Kurdistan. Kurdistan highlights the need for federalism better than any other area of Iran.

Although my paper on Kurdistan, reviews Iran's history, it was not written as a history text, and I wrote it to show why federalism is the only way to avoid a breakup like Yugoslavia, in Iran, and to spearhead Iran, to participate in the global development as a federation. Federalism could have saved Yugoslavia from getting torn apart, following its liberation.

We are not living in the 1940's, and the main fear from centralist states, is not that they can rule for decades after decades. On the contrary, the main fear from centralist states, is that they cause breakup of the regions they rule, by pushing people to the edge to choose secession. We are not in a world that national minorities would put up with dictatorship.

We are living in a world that minorities actually do *separate* their ways, and can easily enter a direct relation with the global economy without a need to go true a bigger nation state, and calling national minorities as "separatist", or similar remarks, only makes them more determined to secede, rather than scaring them away from proclaiming their rights.

For example, if Kurdistan of Iraq, which has oil, creates an independent state, and if Iranian regime remains a dictatorship like the Islamic Republic of Iran, I have no doubt that Iranian Kurds will feel attracted to the new Kurdish state, although historically, Iranian Kurdistan has developed as part of Iran, and not as part of other four sections of the Ottoman Kurdistan and Iranian Kurds share the market of Iran with the other citizens of Iran, and Kurdistan of Iran is *not* like Khuzestan that has oil.

In other words, even though it will *not* be to the advantage of Iranian Kurdistan to join a state of Greater Kurdistan, but dictatorship of the Iranian centralized state can force the Kurdish people to choose separation.

I should note that even Iranian Persian Empire's Satraps were more like a federalist system, than like a centralist state of France, and many of the authors, monarchist, leftist, and nationalist who still cannot come to terms with federalism, misunderstand Iran's history, and are not helping Iran's future. I have noted this in my papers on federalism.

I have reviewed the astute works of Madison on this topic, which are excellent studies on the subject matter. The protection in Madison’s federalist papers is mainly against monarchy (British Monarchy). This is why he is so specific about nobility and even sees this criteria as the measure to call his respective system a republic.

There is no attempt by Madison to prove legitimacy for a federal system. The Confederacy is the reality, and the attempt is to show that this federalism is not *absolute*, and that it is also a *national* government. Thus the focus of Madison's paper is on how to implement the federal and state governments in a way to ensure the cohesiveness of the national government.

The issue that Madison is dealing with is the *implementation* of federal organs and state organs, and showing them *both* as necessary institutions, and rebuts claims that these organs of checks and balances are not needed because of being redundant, and he tries to show their existence as a guarantee against tyranny. For him the issue is implementation and not legitimacy, as federation is how the Union is, when it is formed, a conglomeration of separate states.

Now in our case for Iran, the legitimacy of a federal system is not a given. In other words, except for Kurdistan, we are not seeing separate states coming forward with their own aspirations for statehood, at least not at this time. This is why I have tried to substantiate Why Federalism for Kurdistan and Rest of Iran, from a theoretical standpoint.

Basically from the pre-Islamic shAhanshAhi system, which meant satraps each ruled by a king and all kings ruled by king of the kings (shah of the shahs), to the post-Islamic continuation of satraps in new forms, even thru the changes of Moghols era, we see a semi-federal development in Iran.

Even though in Iran, we never had such acceptance of legitimacy of federalism established, and although after mashrootia't, in Iran's 1906 Constitution, the French centralized model was adopted, I think a study like that of Madison's work on *implementation* issues, can still be done about Iran. From the first day of majles-e shorAy-e melli of mashrootia't to the present, the interaction of local and national organs can be reviewed.

Instead of looking at the states, one can review the anjomanhAy-e iiyAlati and velAyati, which were more of a French version of distribution of power in a central state (like the mayor elections in Europe), than federalism as one sees in the U.S. However, I think such review of distributed power in Iran, can help us to come up with constitutional guidelines for federalist local and national organs in Iran.

The work of Madison is a legal work about the structures of checks and balances. We need Iranian lawyers to do this kind of work about implementation issues of federalism in Iran. Unfortunately I have not seen any work of this kind in the Iranian political circles.

I think mostly, even those who claim to be OK with federalism, are content with electoral structures of France for Iran, which is a democratic election system in a centralized government, and is *not* a real federal system. In my opinion, theoretically two areas need to be tackled, with reference to the issue of federalism in Iran:

1. To continue to argue for federalism in the Iranian political circles, and groups, similar to what I have done in my papers noted above, and to add similar studies about various provinces of Iran, and not just provinces like Azerbaijan and Baluchestan, meaning specific studies of provinces like Khorasan, Mazandaran, Gilan, Khoozestan, Hormozgan, and others.

2. To do serious study of legal codes of Iran's past constitutions, and other civil laws, and implementation details of laws, as relates to the branches of government, and their interaction at local, city, provincial, and national levels.

I may differ with many people on details of Iranian history, which is fine. Even centuries after the French Revolution, the French historians and politicians hardly agree on detailed analysis of the French Revolution. But being able to come to terms with calling for a federal state for future Iran, is not an argument about history, and it is a practical issue.

Missing to stress on the important issue of federalism, in any political platform for future Iran, can cause what its opponents fear most, and that is the breakup of Iran, like what happened in Yugoslavia. It is important to create the consensus on federalism among Iranian political thinkers, before it is too late, to avoid the fate of Yugoslavia, in many parts of Iran that are populated by the Iranian national minorities.

The issue of Kurds and federalism is one of those issues that touches on the region, and IRI wants to broadcast a view that non-Kurd Iranian political groups do not want federalism, and tries to depict the proponents of federalism as separatists, whereas the majority of Iranian opposition today is beginning to side with federalism, and the Fars ultranationalists are a very small minority.

As I have explained on numerous times, those acting as nationalists calling the federalist programs as separatist, are more Islamic Republic proponents rather than being Iranian nationalists, and their fear is that accepting federalism, would open the way for asking for more democratic rights for the whole of Iran by all Iranians.

It is IRI misusing ultranationalist facade, just as they did during the Iraq War, to justify the IRI despotism. Ultranationalist slogans are a preposterous flag for Islamists, when they have had no respect for national demands of all Iranians all these years, and when they have been pushing Islamism on Iran trying to eliminate even Norouz from Iran, a New Year celebration that Kurds celebrate, as much as any other part Iranians, if not more.

Recently in Iran, the Islamic Republic agents issued a fake communiqué, against the rights of Iranian nationalities in education, forging the signature of Jebhe Melli leaders . The forged document has been condemned by Jebhe Melli leadership inside Iran. Thus it is important to know how IRI is trying to attack the Kurdish movement with such despicable ultra-nationalist fabrications.

As I have explained in the chapter on globalization, nationalism in this day and age, is as obsolete as Communism. Of course this does not mean that national sentiments will die away or are undesired. As I have explained in a paper on Iranian National Sentiments, national sentiments will continue to exist the same way that love of family has continued to exists although the political power of family and tribe has faded in human civilization. National sentiment is not the same as nationalism, which is a phenomena of Modern Times symbolized by the Napoleonic Wars.

The reality is that the slaughter of leftists by IRI in 1981 and 1988, and the murder of leftists by the Shah's regime, were because the left had been the most ardent part of the opposition to monarchy in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, and to IRI in 80's and 90's. This is why they killed even the activists who only had one year jail terms, and were inside the IRI prisons in 1988, by Khomeini's decree.

IRI despondently accepted the peace with Saddam, on Saddam's terms. Khomeini committed a mass murder of the leftists and others in September 1988 to ensure to keep the society silent after signing the peace accord. And IRI did not stop at killing the leftists, and even slaughtered Foruhars and others later, people who were never leftists.

Let me note that my own disagreement with the left is not because of their struggle against IRI and Shah's despotism. In fact, in that regard, I support them fully, and I think they have given the most number of sacrifices in Iran's movement for democracy, both during the Shah and during IRI, and this is why the intelligence agents of Shah and IRI have the most hatred for the leftists.

My disagreement with the left is because I think their program is obsolete at the time of post-industrial development and globalization. I have written my views about the left in the past, in details and do not need to repeat. Nonetheless I should note that one of the main forces in Iranian pro-democracy movement that has worked hard for federalism has been Komala, which I explained in Komala and Kurdistan.