25
March 2004
2. "Clandestine Kurdish teachers in Syria call for state to recognize teaching Kurdish", teachers in Syria who secretly provide instruction in Kurdish in houses to groups, primarily made up of women, want Kurdish instruction to be provided officially in schools, and for students who are successful to be given diplomas.
3. "Greece, Turkey Join Crucial Cyprus Peace Talks", old rivals Greece and Turkey locked horns Wednesday over a U.N. peace plan which aims to reunite the island of Cyprus before it joins the European Union on May 1.
4. "Factsheet: Turkey's local elections", the following are key facts about Turkey's local elections on Sunday.
5. "EU is hypocritical towards Turkey, say 62 per cent of Turks", Turks have a number of misgivings about joining the EU despite strong support for the country's accession, according to a new study by Professor Hakan Yilmaz.
6. "U.S. Calls for Sunni and Kurdish Rights After Turnover", faced with a top Shiite cleric's demands for majority rule that would dilute Sunni and Kurdish rights in an independent Iraq, the head of the American occupation, L. Paul Bremer III, delivered a strong argument on Wednesday for the American insistence on a democratic system that protects minority rights.
7. "Strains in Syria", recent deadly clashes in Syria between Kurds and the Baathist regime's security forces are not merely a curious exception to the rule of totalitarian tranquillity that normally prevails in that country. Syria may be experiencing the warning tremors of a political earthquake.
8. "Syria: Seeds Of Chance", the campaign to liberate Iraq may be on the verge of bearing more fruit: It seems some folks in next-door Syria got a whiff of the freedom taking root in their neighbor to the east and decided they wouldn't mind a little themselves.
1. - Kongra-Gel - "Festival of Newroz celebrated by millions":
24 March 2004
Every year for 2626 years on March 21 the Kurds have celebrated the festival of Newroz, the new year, symbol of the renewal of nature and of the coming of spring. In Turkey, this festival is also celebrated as an occasion to demand democracy and respect for human rights.
This year too millions of Kurds gathered for the Newroz festivities. On March 20 2004 the Kurds living in Europe mobilised to participate in the festivities and to shout "We want peace, democracy, and respect for human rights!" In Germany more than 100,000 Kurds and their friends gathered in Hanover to celebrate Newroz. Similarly in the other European countries tens of thousands of people participated.
On March 21 in Diyarbakir, a large city of one and a half million inhabitants, the heart of the Kurdish region, Newroz was celebrated by more than 500,000 Kurds. European delegations and other friends of the Kurdish people also joined the celebrations here. The sole demand of these thousands of people was for peace and the end of an "exceptional democracy" that shows the weaknesses of a state candidate for Europe.
We would like to point out that the Newroz festivities were forbidden in Dersim by the authorities because the letter "w" was used in the letter asking for permission.
For years during the period of Newroz, the friends of the Kurdish people in the different countries of Europe have traditionally organised visits in order to show their solidarity, without ever being discouraged from their aim of observing the reality of the Kurdish people on the ground in Turkey and Kurdistan. This year too a lot of delegations of European friends of the Kurdish people went to Kurdistan.
Fresh massacres in Kurdistan
We should remember that in March 1988, more than 5000 people were killed by gas in Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan by the government of Saddam Hussein. This massacre was added to a long list that punctuates this people¹s demands for recognition and for human rights. This year again the colonisers of Kurdistan have not stopped massacring the Kurds. On March 12 Syrian paramilitary forces attacked the Kurds of Syrian Kurdistan, killing more than 100 people. Throughout the Newroz festivities the massacres of Halabja and Qamishlo were condemned.
Kongra-Gel (People's Congress of Kurdistan) 
2. - MHA / Ozgur Politika / Kurdish Media - "Clandestine Kurdish teachers in Syria call for state to recognize teaching Kurdish":
Teachers in Syria who secretly provide instruction in Kurdish in houses to groups, primarily made up of women, want Kurdish instruction to be provided officially in schools, and for students who are successful to be given diplomas.
ALLEPO / 24 March 2004
Teachers in Syria who secretly provide Kurdish lessons in houses want Kurdish to be taught in state schools.
Kurdish instruction is able to be provided in secret groups in houses in Syria. In Aleppo, 30 teachers are giving Kurdish lessons to groups formed in different parts of the city.
In the courses, in which women show intense interest, unofficial certificates are provided to those students who demonstrate success in all their lessons.
The Kurdish instructors, who are working to teach under difficult conditions, want Kurdish instruction to be provided in official schools, and for students who are successful in such courses to be given diplomas that would be valid in all institutions.
Teachers Came From Makhmur
Hevi Sileyman, 40 years old, who has been giving Kurdish lessons for the past four years, learned the Latin alphabet from her father, Sileyman Sileyman, and then learned to read and write in Kurdish through her own efforts. Sileyman, who later began to provide academic instruction together with teachers who came from Makhmur [refugee camp in Iraq containing primarily Kurds from Turkey], provided the following information regarding the classes:
Currently, we are giving Kurdish lessons to various groups in different parts of Aleppo with about 30 teachers. The classes, which take place in different places in Aleppo, are given twice a week for two hours each time. We have set up6 -month terms of these classes. We give a certificate to those who successfully complete three such terms. The certificate that we provide is not official, but it does document that a person can read and write Kurdish.
Mustafa Topal Hemo, 55 years old, and known as Bave Heja [the father of Heja], is another teacher who provides instruction in Kurdish. Hemo has written a good number of research pieces, poems, and articles. Unable to publish his books due to lack of resources, Hamo reproduces his writings by photocopy and then distributes them.
Hemo, who has translated from German to Kurdish a booklet on dental health published by UNICEF, is most distressed that he has been unable toprint the book Kurdish Alphabet that he has prepared.
Stating that an extensive campaign for the Kurdish language should be conducted in all four countries where the Kurds live, Hemo says that Everyone who sees himself as being qualified to give instruction in Kurdish should take part in this campaign, and should not shirk this responsibility. Because we now want readers to read the things we have written.
Translated from Turkish by KurdishMedia.com; originally
published in Ozgur Politika newspaper, 24 March2004
3. - Reuters - "Greece, Turkey Join Crucial Cyprus Peace Talks":
BUERGENSTOCK / 24 March 2004 / by Michele Kambas and Zerin Elci
Old rivals Greece and Turkey locked horns Wednesday over a U.N. peace plan which aims to reunite the island of Cyprus before it joins the European Union on May 1.
Both countries are keen to secure a deal, but they also share some of the concerns aired by their respective proteges -- the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots -- during the past four weeks of fruitless negotiations on the divided island.
The U.N.-brokered talks have now moved to the Swiss Alpine resort of Buergenstock, where mediators hope Athens and Ankara can exert greater pressure on the feuding Cypriot sides. They end next week.
"I would say the chances (for agreement) are better than even," U.N. envoy Alvaro de Soto said in comments to U.N. television.
In their first discussion, Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul "noted the common aim is to find an agreed settlement to the Cyprus problem and expressed their decisiveness to work to this end," Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman George Koumoutsakos told reporters.
But before leaving Athens, Molyviatis had chided the Turkish side for demanding permanent restrictions on the right of Greek Cypriots to move back to homes in the Turkish Cypriot north of the island -- curbs which contravene EU rules on free movement.
"For us, any permanent divergence from the principles and values on which the EU was built is unacceptable," he said.
The Turkish Cypriots in the north fear being swamped by the more numerous, richer Greek Cypriots if the island is reunited.
Under a U.N. roadmap, four-way talks between Greece, Turkey and the two Cypriot sides had been due to start Wednesday, but Koumoutsakos said the Greek side felt this format was still "premature," signaling Athens wanted more time to prepare.
In a further complication, key players in the Swiss talks will travel to Brussels Thursday to attend an EU summit.
CONFUSION
Turkish officials complained about a lack of clarity in the program in Buergenstock, saying the Greek Cypriot side appeared to want the real bargaining to be delayed until the arrival of the Greek and Turkish prime ministers Sunday.
Diplomats said a planned meeting between Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos and Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Talat Wednesday evening had been canceled because the Greek Cypriots were worried that Talat was not authorized to make any decisions.
Talat's boss, veteran Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, has refused to attend the Swiss talks, predicting failure, but he insists he has given full authority to his prime minister.
Denktash, 80, has threatened to campaign for a 'no' vote in the referendum if the plan does not safeguard the identity and autonomy of his statelet, which is recognized only by Ankara.
Time is very short for a deal. If Greece and Turkey also fail to reach agreement, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been mandated to fill in the gaps of his peace plan which will then go to a referendum on both sides of Cyprus on April 20.
If either side votes 'no', only the internationally recognized Greek Cypriots will join the EU in May, deepening the Turkish Cypriots' isolation and damaging Turkey's own drive to join the EU. Greece is already a member of the wealthy bloc.
Asked whether there was enough time to resolve differences a Greek Cypriot official said: "Miracles can happen."
Cyprus has been split since 1974 when Turkey invaded the
north after a brief Greek Cypriot coup backed by the military junta
then ruling Greece. (Additional reporting by Athens bureau)
4. - AFP - "Factsheet: Turkey's local elections":
ANKARA / 25 March 2004
The following are key facts about Turkey's local elections on Sunday:
- About 40 million people, aged 18 and over, are eligible
to vote in the country's local elections, in which the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP) is expected to register a sweeping victory.
- The voters will elect some 90,000 local officials, including mayors,
city and provincial councils from among candidates from 20 parties,
along with village headmen who are not bound to political parties, in
81 provinces, each of which is considered an electoral area.
- Candidates are generally selected by party leaderships.
- Voters have to use four or five separate ballots -- one for the mayor,
one for the city council, one for the provincial council, one for the
headman and in some areas one for the metropolitan city mayor.
- The ballots bear the emblem of the party and the names of the candidates
for mayors and headmen. Those who garner the largest number of votes
are the winners.
- Voting begins at 6:00 am (0300 GMT) and ends at 4:00 pm (1300 GMT)
in eastern provinces. In the west of the country, polls open and close
one hour later.
- Unofficial results are expected late on Sunday.
5. - Euractiv - "EU is hypocritical towards Turkey, say 62 per cent of Turks":
24 March 2004
Turks have a number of misgivings about joining the EU
despite strong support for the country's accession, according to a new
study by Professor Hakan Yilmaz.
In Turkey, public support for the country's EU accession stands at 75
per cent, while 35 per cent of the population could be identified as
eurosceptic, said Associate Professor Hakan Yilmaz of Turkey's Bogazici
University in a presentation at the Centre for European Policy Studies
(CEPS) in Brussels on 23 March. Summing up the findings of a new study
on euroscepticism in Turkey conducted in November 2003, Mr Yilmaz said
that the archetypal Turkish eurosceptic is a working-class woman who
speaks Turkish only and is a practising religious Muslim.
According to the findings of the survey, the Turkish public considers economic benefits (rising growth rates, falling inflation and unemployment) as the most important benefits of EU membership. The relative majority (25 per cent) of the 2,123 people polled said that Turkey could join the EU within the next ten years (18 per cent said that accession could take only five years), while 22 per cent said that Turkey is unlikely to join the EU "in my lifetime".
Assessing the various anxieties that surround Turkey's EU membership bid, Mr Yilmaz said that
* 62 per cent believe that the EU has treated Turkey with
double standards (imposing conditions not applied to other candidate
countries)
* 50 per cent believe that the EU will not accept Turkey as a member
even if the country satisfies all the necessary conditions
* 53 per cent fear that EU accession will bring the Turkish state to
an end
* 59 per cent would be disturbed by the EU flag hanging next to the
Turkish flag on public buildings
* 40 per cent think of the EU as being a "Christian club"
* 66 per cent believe that the EU would support ethnic separatist organisations
in Turkey
* and 55 per cent fear that EU membership would result in the corruption
of young people's moral values
Asked to identify the specific traits of Turkish euroscepticism,
Mr Yilmaz said that while in Eastern Europe the eurosceptics tend to
contrast the EU with the notion of the nation state, in Turkey euroscepticism
also assumes marked religio-cultural and identity-related dimensions.
Mr Yilmaz added that in Turkey "euroscepticism is a cultural potential
which has not yet been politicised".
6. - The New York Times - "U.S. Calls for Sunni and Kurdish Rights After Turnover":
BAGHDADn / 25 March 2004 / by John F. Burns
Faced with a top Shiite cleric's demands for majority rule that would dilute Sunni and Kurdish rights in an independent Iraq, the head of the American occupation, L. Paul Bremer III, delivered a strong argument on Wednesday for the American insistence on a democratic system that protects minority rights.
"Democracy entails not just majority rule, but protection of minority rights," Mr. Bremer said at an outdoor ceremony to mark the 100-day countdown to the dissolution of the occupation authority and the return of sovereignty to Iraq. Attending were Iraqi leaders who have worked closely with the Americans since a United States-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's government nearly a year ago.
"For Iraq to regain its prosperity and strength it must remain united," he said. "And that unity requires that the interests of all Iraqis be accommodated. In a country as broad and diverse as Iraq it is not possible for every interest to have all it wants."
The United States has held firm to the June 30 handover date, even as attacks on Iraqis working with Westerners have increased. On Wednesday, an Iraqi translator working for Time magazine was shot and wounded in his car on his way to work in the Baghdad suburb of Mansour. A gunman who drew alongside fired a volley of bullets, striking him four times, American officials said. He was listed in critical condition at an American hospital. The attack was the latest in a series of attacks on Iraqis working for Western news organizations.
In other attacks confirmed by the American command on Wednesday, three Iraqi civilians were killed and two American soldiers were wounded when a military convoy was ambushed with roadside bombs and small-arms fire shortly after midnight Wednesday near the restive town of Falluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad. The incident followed a night of violence in the area that began with a drive-by shooting at dusk on Tuesday in which a man described by the command as a foreign security guard and a child were killed.
Troubled infrastructure also bedevils the country. In Fao, in southern Iraq, a major oil pipeline ruptured, spilling oil that caught fire and sent out vast plumes of dark smoke. The rupture was caused by poor maintenance, according to the occupation authority, the Bloomberg news agency reported.
On the political front, Mr. Bremer has worked through months of shadow-boxing with Shiite clerics who command the allegiance of millions of Iraqis, always avoiding direct confrontation, addressing the clerics only with careful deference.
In Wednesday's speech, he made no mention of the cleric he was indirectly addressing, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has emerged as Iraq's decisive power broker. From his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf, where he has refused to meet with Mr. Bremer or any American emissary, Ayatollah Sistani has issued a volley of political demands on behalf of the country's Shiite majority. The demands come in contrast to his espousal of a "quietist" school of religious thought opposed to direct clerical intervention in politics.
On Monday, Mr. Sistani's aides released a letter to the United Nations in which he spoke of "dangerous consequences" if United Nations mediators endorsed the American-sponsored interim constitution that will operate when sovereignty is transferred.
The cleric warned that the interim constitution approved by the Governing Council two weeks ago "enjoys no support among the Iraqi people." and said that it set the stage for ethnic and sectarian strife with its elaborate guarantees for the Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Shiites account for about 60 per cent of Iraq's 25 million people.
Mr. Bremer used the Wednesday ceremony for the 100-day countdown as a morale-boosting exercise, ticking off a checklist of the occupation's accomplishments.
Iraq has more electrical power, he said, a new currency that has gained nearly 30 per cent in value, a vast increase in health spending, and the prospect of nearly $19 billion in reconstruction funds voted by the United States Congress last year.
"At liberation, this great country had been reduced to a shell, not by war, not by invasion, but by almost four decades of relentless greed and cruelty by its leaders," he said. "Instead of investing in Iraq's infrastructure, Saddam's regime squandered and stole the nation's wealth.
"Instead of serving his citizens, Saddam deprived them of access to essential services. When liberation came, water, electricity, sewage, schools and much more were a shambles. When liberation came, not a single policeman was on duty in Iraq, and the army had disappeared.
"What a difference a year can make in the life of the Iraqi people."
But in large part, Mr. Bremer's speech focused on rebuffing the Shiite political demands.
Calling on Iraqis to salute the Governing Council members — Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and Kurds and Turkmen and Assyrians — who hammered out the interim constitution — under American supervision — Mr. Bremer said they represented "many different traditions and communities," with "distinct desires and expectations."
"Of course, all those expectations did not match up perfectly," he said. "The great work of the Governing Council" he said, was realizing that "they could be made to fit together in a harmonious whole if they were adjusted."
"This," he said, "is the true essence of
democracy."
7. - The Boston Globe - "Strains in Syria":
25 March 2004
Recent deadly clashes in Syria between Kurds and the Baathist regime's security forces are not merely a curious exception to the rule of totalitarian tranquillity that normally prevails in that country. Syria may be experiencing the warning tremors of a political earthquake.
The disparate ruling groups in Syria, Turkey and Iran all feel threatened by stirrings of Kurdish assertiveness in Iraq. The killing of more than 30 Kurds in confrontations with Syrian police over the past week - the outcome of swiftly repressed Kurdish protests - does not compare in scale with the killing of Kurds in Saddam Hussein's Iraq or in neighboring Turkey. Nevertheless, the underlying pathology behind those crimes against humanity was also on display in the behavior of President Bashar Assad's regime in Syria.
The violent measures taken against Kurds in Damascus and Aleppo who dared to protest earlier killings of Kurds in towns along Syria's northern border with Turkey reflect the Assad regime's intolerance of free speech and political pluralism. But something else is also revealed in the response of the Syrian Baathists.
The precedent of four million Iraqi Kurds being guaranteed a high degree of cultural and political autonomy in an interim Iraqi Constitution appears to have panicked Syria's rulers, who use an Arab nationalist ideology to justify their unbending denial of any separate Kurdish identity.
At issue is not only the status of Kurds but a historic
challenge to Arab, Turkish, and Iranian societies. They must learn to
let minorities live among majorities without effacing their otherness.
8. - The New York Post - "Syria: Seeds Of Chance":
24 March 2004
The campaign to liberate Iraq may be on the verge of bearing more fruit: It seems some folks in next-door Syria got a whiff of the freedom taking root in their neighbor to the east and decided they wouldn't mind a little themselves.
To that end, many - particularly the Syrian Kurds - have taken to the streets in protest.
Which, in Syria, is unheard of.
Indeed, mere thoughts of freedom or democracy can be construed as tantamount to treason - punishable by arrest, torture and worse.
Sure enough, the Ba'athist regime took swift reprisals: At least 15 people were killed when Syrian security forces fired into a soccer-stadium crowd. The Kurdish crowd had cheered for America and President Bush in response to pro-Saddam taunts by Arab soccer fans brought in by Ba'athist authorities. The next day, regime forces attacked the victims' funeral processions.
And tanks moved into the Kurdish northeast. The numbers of Kurds killed by Syrian forces may yet reach into the hundreds.
Clearly, the Kurds have been encouraged by the freedom of their cousins in Iraq, who now enjoy full liberties and substantial autonomy in a country that's made Kurdish one of its official languages.
Even non-Kurdish Syrians yearn for a modicum of democracy - and an end to the decades-long state of emergency, which the regime uses to excuse its arrest, torture and murder of foes.
To be sure, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his thugs seem to have a firm grip on things. But then, the Communists in Moscow once looked to have control over their empire, too - yet popular uprisings brought their 70-plus-year reign to an end.
Should change come to Syria - admittedly, a big "if" - it would build on other happy spinoffs of Saddam Hussein's ouster.
Such as the remarkable turnaround in Libya, which now says it wants to rejoin the family of civilized nations after years as a global, terror-sponsoring pariah.
Yesterday, Assistant Secretary of State William Burns held talks with Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy. Burns is the highest U.S. government official to visit Libya in more than 30 years; his trip became possible when Khadafy moved in December to give up his secret weapons of mass destruction program.
Meanwhile, Assad's evil isn't limited to his own population.
* He has let foreign terrorists cross the border into Iraq in an effort to sabotage the development of a democratic state there.
* He rules Lebanon illegally - and backs the Hezbollah militia there. Hezbollah, which yesterday was again attacking Israel, is responsible for killing more than 200 Marines in Beirut in 1983.
* He refuses to close down Hamas and Islamic Jihad operations in Syria.
To put it bluntly, the United States has no particular interest in the continued rule of the Ba'ath Party in Damascus.
That's a message the Bush folks should make sharply clear
to Damascus.