3
March 2004
2. "Some Kurds Feel Less Connected to Baghdad", The few U.S. troops here are more likely to be seen lounging among diners in restaurants than patrolling the street. The normalcy of people's lives is not shattered by the daily thuds and bloody explosions that keep Baghdad on edge. Women in tight jeans and lovers, holding hands, are unafraid to casually stroll past lit-up storefronts at night.
3. "Kurdish question sidestepped", Kurds make up some 20 percent of Iraq's population and have lived outside the control of the country's central government since 1991. They enjoy an autonomous government, their own armed forces, and other attributes of an independent state.
4. "European parliament chief hails Turkish moves toward democracy", The president of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, Tuesday hailed the progress Turkey is making toward democracy as it seeks to join the European Union, but said reforms must be put into effect rather than remain on paper.
5. "Efforts pay off to protect Kurdish women", Number of 'honor killings' recorded in northern Iraq drops after law defines this tribal custom as straightforward murder.
6. "No Plan B on Cyprus, Says Straw", There is no Plan B in place if talks on the reunification of Cyprus fail before the island joins the European Union on May 1, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned today.
1. - HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH - "Turkey: Rights Progress Marred in Key Year for EU Bid":
EU Ministers to Discuss Turkey’s Candidacy in Ankara Next Week
New York / March 3, 2004
Turkey’s progress on human rights reforms was marred by blunders
and lapses in the first two months of a critical year in its bid for
European Union membership, Human Rights Watch said today. On March
8, EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in Ankara to discuss
Turkey’s progress toward meeting membership requirements.
In December, the European Union is due to decide whether Turkey has
fulfilled the so-called “Copenhagen criteria” on human rights,
democracy and the rule of law. Turkey’s progress in meeting these
standards will be a key factor in the European Union’s decision
on whether to open formal negotiations on Turkey’s membership
bid.
“Turkey has until the end of the year to show the European Union
that it is meeting the European Union’s expectations on human
rights,” said Rachel Denber, acting executive director of Human
Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division. “The reform
process is genuine, but the government needs to keep a much firmer
grip on what’s actually happening. It shouldn’t just stand
by and watch while police and courts blot the record.”
The first two months of the year yielded a mixed record in freedom
of expression and assembly. Despite strong opposition from university
authorities, the Supreme Court in January affirmed that students had
a right to petition for optional courses in Kurdish. But in the same
month, another chamber of the high court confirmed a one-year prison
sentence imposed on radio broadcaster Sabri Ozic for expressing the
view that the parliament had committed a “terrorist” act
by authorizing deployment of troops to Iraq. Ozic was convicted and
sentenced to one year in prison under article 159 of the Turkish criminal
code, which punishes insults against state institutions.
“Ozic was exercising his right to free speech. His conviction
confounds common sense and violates Turkey’s obligations under
the European Convention on Human Rights,” said Denber.
In January, courts in Turkey also continued the trial against the
Turkish Human Rights Foundation, accused of breaching the Law on Foundations
by passing information to the European Parliament and the United Nations.
The courts handed down a 10-month prison sentence—later converted
to a fine—to Sefika Gurbuz, director of an organization addressing
the plight of internally displaced persons, for publishing a report
on the issue.
The state security court in Ankara again refused to release four Kurdish
members of parliament who are serving their tenth year in prison for
non-violent political activities. They are now being retried after
the European Court of Human Rights found that their initial trial
was unfair. The European Parliament has repeatedly called for their
release.
Police continue to keep a tight rein on freedom of assembly. In January
alone, police broke up at least 11 peaceful demonstrations, using
clearly unwarranted force in several cases.
“The reform process is certainly moving forward,” said Denber.
“But Turkish citizens will not experience real reform until they
are free to assemble without fear of being beaten, tear-gassed and
arrested.”
Some opponents of reform in Turkey fear that recognizing Kurdish language
rights will encourage violent secessionism. Some also fear that other
liberalizing measures are part of a hidden agenda by the ruling Justice
and Development party, which has a strong Islamic identity, to reduce
military control and impose a theocracy. Other opponents discount
the stabilizing benefits of EU membership because they are still not
convinced that Europe will reward the reforms with accession, even
if Turkey meets the established criteria for its membership bid.
In other areas, legislative progress toward EU criteria has been undermined
by grudging and uneven implementation. Amendments to the Turkish criminal
procedure code to guarantee detainees access to legal counsel have
reduced previously commonplace allegations of severe torture. But
a persistent trickle of alarming reports indicates that police continue
to subject suspects to beatings and mock executions before bringing
them to the police station.
Access to legal counsel has improved considerably, but bar associations
report that police are experimenting with ways to circumvent the new
protections by means that include failing to inform detainees of their
right to see a lawyer free of charge, or telling lawyers that their
clients do not want to speak to them.
Last month, a group of 13 minors, detained in connection with a demonstration
in Siirt on February 14, spent nine hours in incommunicado detention.
Police breached rules on access to legal counsel, provision of medical
reports and protection of minors in custody. The minors subsequently
made credible allegations of torture and ill-treatment, but the Turkish
government has failed to launch an investigation into the incident.
Also in February, the Turkish government publicly signaled its readiness
to cooperate with the United Nations on the return of the more than
quarter of a million people internally displaced from Turkey’s
south-east. The government’s moves toward genuine collaboration
with international agencies would be a welcome change from the previously
ineffective return policies, and would constitute progress on a key
EU accession requirement.
Instead of ensuring implementation of reforms at home, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül
spent much of the first month of this critical year abroad, promoting
Turkey’s EU candidacy and refreshing diplomatic contacts with
allies who might support their EU bid.
“The government should skip its rhetoric about Turkey’s
role as a bridge between East and West, and remember that this is
a test of real performance in protecting human rights and democracy,”
said Denber. “The ten best arguments for a positive EU decision
in December would be ten months without torture, ill-treatment, or
citizens tried and sentenced for expressing their opinions.”
Human Rights Watch said the key to successful reform is more and closer
supervision by the national government and independent bodies. The
Interior Ministry should open a major internal investigation into
each and every allegation of ill-treatment, and make the results of
these investigations public. The Turkish government should also closely
monitor its security forces, through a concerted program of visits
to places of detention by official agencies and high-ranking police
officers, as well as by bar associations and nongovernmental organizations.
The prosecution and the judiciary should cease their pursuit of cases
based on legal provisions that are in flagrant violation of regional
and international human rights standards, including the European Convention
on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, which are applicable law within Turkey. 
2.
- The Associated Press - "Some Kurds Feel Less Connected to
Baghdad":
SULAIMANIYAH (Iraq) / By MARIAM FAM / 2 March 2004
Sulaimaniyah hardly feels like Iraq
The few U.S. troops here are more likely to be seen lounging among diners in restaurants than patrolling the street. The normalcy of people's lives is not shattered by the daily thuds and bloody explosions that keep Baghdad on edge. Women in tight jeans and lovers, holding hands, are unafraid to casually stroll past lit-up storefronts at night.
For more than a decade, the Kurdish-run area in the north has born little resemblance to the rest of the country. With a new Iraq in the works, many Kurds — empowered by years of semiautonomy and alienated by a bloody history with the Baghdad governments — feel as close as they've ever been to achieving their national aspirations.
At the moment, the answer to just how much they will have is on hold. Members of Iraq's Governing Council drafting the interim constitution were unable to agree on the terms and size of the Kurdish self-rule region and, according to officials, put off some of the other Kurdish demands for later.
With a language and culture of their own, Kurds, ethnically distinct from Arabs, have proven one of the hardest groups to integrate into Iraq's ethnic and religious mosaic. Many Kurds say they have even less reason to want to do so now.
"Many of the ordinary people have suffered under the Iraqi governments. There's nothing that connects them to Iraq," argued Baset Gharib, an official with the Referendum Movement in Kurdistan, which calls for holding a referendum on the future of Kurdistan.
"If someone is a Kurd, he's been raised as a Kurd, has studied Kurdish, has a language and a nation, geography, history and a Kurdish government. He's free to feel Kurd and not Iraqi," he said.
Some ordinary Kurds want independence, but the major Kurdish parties are seeking what they think are the more realistic demands of federalism and constitutional rights — including the right to keep their peshmerga fighters as a distinct armed force, control resources in their region and add districts to the autonomous area.
Although rival Kurdish parties fought a civil war in the 1990s and many Kurds recognize that their democracy is not perfect, Kurds are proud of what they achieved since they set up their semiautonomous state under U.S. and British aerial protection in 1991.
While other Iraqis were being smothered by Saddam Hussein's tight grip on power and his long lists of banned items, Kurds in their region were forming parliaments and regional governments, browsing the Internet and watching satellite channels.
Now, Kurdistan flags are more common than Iraqi ones. Many signs and store names are written in Kurdish and English, not in Arabic, a language that not everyone here speaks. And a generation has grown up with hardly any links to the Arab parts of Iraq.
"People are holding tightly onto these gains and can never give them up," said Hikmat Karim, a parliament member and an official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which controls Sulaimaniyah. "The wounds between our people and the Iraqi regimes are deep, very deep."
The closest modern Kurds came to a homeland was in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, which liquidated Turkish Ottoman Empire and called for creation of a Kurdish state.
But the British, French and Turks blocked the state's creation once oil was discovered in the region, and the Kurds were divided among Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and some republics of the former Soviet Union.
In Iraq, Kurds were persecuted — displaced, tortured and killed — over their persistent demands for autonomy and their suspected links with neighboring Iran, which fought the 1980-88 war with Iraq.
"We've always been second-class citizens. We've seen nothing good from the consecutive Iraqi governments," said Omar Abdullah, a 45-year-old barber. "I want independence even if my children have to die for it ... But if it cannot happen then I want federalism."
Officials of the Referendum Movement in Kurdistan say they have gathered 1.7 million signatures in support of a referendum on the future of Kurdistan.
Many, however, recognize that independence — though a legitimate dream in their eyes — is difficult to attain now.
Neighboring Turkey, Syria and Iran fear that an Iraqi Kurdish enclave could incite separatist sentiments among Kurdish minorities within their own borders. The United States also opposes independence, saying it wants a unified Iraq.
Noshirwan Mustafa, another PUK official, said the rest of Iraq needs to grant Kurdish rights so Kurds will see the benefit of staying part of the country.
It's in the Kurds' best interests to stay part of Iraq, he said. "We have the prerequisites of a state but it will be a weak state."
Karim said now was the time to push Kurdish demands.
"This historic moment is like a European train — it waits
for only one minute and then leaves, so we have to get in and seize
the opportunity."
3. - Asia Times - "Kurdish question sidestepped"
By Valentinas Mite / 3 March 2004
Kurds make up some 20 percent of Iraq's population and have lived outside the control of the country's central government since 1991. They enjoy an autonomous government, their own armed forces, and other attributes of an independent state.
Though Iraq's new interim constitution - to be signed into law on Wednesday - recognizes the continued right of the country's Kurds to autonomy, decisions on the region's final status have been postponed for the future. The main stumbling blocks that prevented a final decision from being reached include the question of the region's borders and the future of the Kurdish armed forces - the peshmergas, or paramilitaries.
Mahmud Uthman is an independent Kurdish member of the United States-appointed 25-member Iraqi Governing Council which, with US mediation, hammered out the interim constitution. He says that these problems cannot be solved in the present situation. However, he says he is optimistic and satisfied with the agreement reached in the early hours of Monday morning local time.
"These two points - mainly the peshmerga and the territory's borders - [remain] because these are the security points [and cannot be solved]. You know, security totally lies with the American coalition forces. They have their own policy. They can't change it for us. That's why these things will remain. There will be more discussions about them, and in the future they will be settled. I am happy about the document, about the agreement," Uthman said.
Uthman says the Kurds retained the right to keep their militia until a final solution is reached. He says the peshmergas are "not just a militia but a force of the whole nation. They are like an army of the Kurdish people. These forces exist already for 50 years, and they cannot just be disbanded and sent home."
Uthman thinks the peshmergas might be transformed into regular Iraqi forces. Some of them could become part of a police force. Others might become border guards or national guards in the Kurdish region or join the New Iraqi Army.
The question of the region's borders is more difficult. The Kurds would like to have the oil-rich region around Kirkuk included in its autonomous region, but Turkomans and Arabs living in Kirkuk object. Kurdish activists say that they have collected 1.7 million signatures on a petition demanding a referendum on the future status of Iraqi Kurdistan. Organizers want the Kurds to be given the opportunity to decide whether the region should declare its independence or become a part of a federal Iraq.
Uthman believes the campaign greatly strengthens the Kurdish bargaining position. "This pressure from the Kurdish street, from the Kurdish population, it is there, always it is there, including [among] the Kurdish leadership. And I think the Kurds, they have the right for self-determination, and they have the right to have a real say in what will go on in Iraq in the future. So it is within that - that question of a referendum - and obviously it creates a constant pressure on everybody who deals with the Kurdish question," Uthman said.
Uthman believes Iraq's Kurds should have the right to self-determination, but that the best solution now is to be included in a federation in a democratic Iraq, "at least for this period of time".
Fuad Hussein is a Kurdish expert and academic who is currently working as an adviser with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. He says Kurdish politicians negotiated the best agreement possible under the circumstances. "I am not calling it a victory. I am calling it a realistic solution for this period. And I think the Kurdish leaders who were there - and they were participating heavily in the discussion - [think the same], and I think they have reached good results," Hussein said.
Hussein believes the question of the status of the peshmerga will be less difficult to negotiate than the problem of borders. Hussein says the "main player in the border question is money" because the area is rich in oil. Hussein says Kirkuk is not the only disputed area. The border of the district around Mosul must also be settled, among others.
Ali Reza Nourizadeh is the director of the Center for Arab-Iranian studies, a private think tank in London. He says the interim constitution represents a historic victory for Iraqi Kurds. "I think what has happened last night, they recognized the right of the Kurds for self-determination and self-governing, and also they promised that the boundaries will be decided by the elected government. Therefore, they have sort of assurances, and I think L Paul Bremer [head of the US civil administration in Iraq] also gave them that assurance, that it is not the final [solution] and that it will be studied carefully in the future," Nourizadeh said.
However, Nourizadeh says the Kurdish drive toward autonomy and self-determination may complicate the situation in the region, especially in Iraq's neighbors Turkey, Iran and Syria, which also have large Kurdish populations. "Turkey is extremely scared about Kurdish autonomy," Nourizadeh says, "and will use all its influence and other means to put it in check."
Valentinas Mite is a correspondent for RFE/RL in Prague.
4. - AFP - "European parliament chief hails Turkish moves toward democracy":
ANKARA / March 2, 2004
The president of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, Tuesday hailed
the progress Turkey is making toward democracy as it seeks to join
the European Union, but said reforms must be put into effect rather
than remain on paper.
"I have to thank you for your impressive progress," Cox
told Turkish deputies. "Ten years ago, I would have thought such
reforms in Turkey would
have been impossible."
He added, "These reforms must not remain on paper -- they must
be put into action."
Cox, the first president of the European Parliament to visit Turkey
while in office, said the country needed to move beyond the reforms
to a change in
mentality.
"Laws can change on paper, but time and courage are needed to
change mentalities," he said in translated comments.
He raised the issue of four Kurdish former deputies sentenced to 15
years in prison in 1994 for rights activism in the Kurdish region
of eastern Turkey.
They include Leyla Zana, a recipient of the European Parliament's
Sakharov prize for defending human rights.
Cox said he did not wish to interfere in the affairs of Turkey's independent
judiciary.
He said he sensed however some resistance here to pro-European change.
"In the middle of a sea of reforms, there are perhaps some islands
of resistance," he said.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union,
will recommend to member states in October whether or not to open
negotiations for Turkey to join the EU. The decision will depend largely
on Turkey's progress in improving its human rights record.
It will be up to chiefs of state and government to decide at their
summit meeting in December whether Turkey should be admitted.
"The union will be fair to Turkey," Cox promised.
Cox met with President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul and the head of the Social-Democratic opposition, Deniz Baykal.
He was also due to hold talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
before going to Istanbul to meet the business community.
5. - The Christian Science Monitor - "Efforts pay off to protect Kurdish women":
Number of 'honor killings' recorded in northern Iraq drops after law defines this tribal custom as straightforward murder.
DOHUK AND ARBIL (IRAQ) / By Nicholas Birch / 2 March 2004
When Nazire got pregnant, her father vowed to kill her. Little matter that she was barely 15, or that the child she carried was the result of a rape by the driver of the wealthy family for which she worked.
According to tribal customs still prevalent in this conservative, tribal region in the Kurdish northwest corner of Iraq, Nazire had defiled her family's reputation. Only her death - an "honor killing" - could right that wrong.
If custom had held, she would now be nothing more than a statistic, a single digit added to the 382 women known to have been murdered by their families between 1998 and 2002 in the northern half of Kurdish Iraq.
Instead, she is alive, and living in safety with her 3-year old son Amar. The story of her survival is emblematic of the way Kurdistan, independent from Baghdad in all but name since 1991, has slowly transformed over the past decade with the help of dozens of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working here.
"When the incident happened, I had nobody to talk to, and it was six months before I realized what was happening to me," she says. "The driver told me not to worry. He told me he would sort everything out. I was only a child and I believed him."
Instead, with a family of his own, he abandoned her. When she gave birth, Nazire's baby was taken from her the next morning. Tipped off by doctors, three policemen escorted her from a maternity ward to prison. "They said it was for my own protection," explains Nazire. "But it was three weeks before I saw Amar again."
"For her punishment, more like," snorts Christian Lagerlof, the Middle East representative of Diakonia, a Swedish NGO.
Diakonia's local staff has lobbied for stiffer sentences against honor killings. The pressure paid off in 2002, with a new law defining honor killings as straightforward murder. More immediately important for girls like Nazire, though, was the organization's funding to build a women's shelter on the outskirts of Dohuk.
"Behind high walls, and with guards at the front, the women here know they are safe," says the shelter's director, Mariam Sheikmuhamad. "And their children are cared for."
But the most pressing aspect of the work done by Ms. Sheikmuhamad's staff is finding a future for the residents. "There is no future for a single mother in Kurdistan," she says. "So we have to be pragmatic." Of the eight women who have lived in the shelter since it opened in 2000, two have been helped to find husbands willing to look after them and their children. Two more have been helped to move in with relatives away from Dohuk. Others have been reconciled with their families.
After three visits from Sheikmuhamad, Nazire's father has only hinted a willingness to compromise. The rapist's father has responded more positively, indicating he will accept responsibility for Amar if DNA tests prove his son's paternity.
"We hope he will pay money to Nazire's family," explains Halas Yousif, one of the shelter's two lawyers. "That way at least, Amar will be legally recognized. At the moment, he is an invisible child."
The driver, who has denied any relations with Nazire, is now serving a six-year sentence for rape. For Shirin Amedi, secretary-general of the Kurdish Women's Union, the case is evidence of the speed at which Kurdish society is changing. "The fact the judge sentenced the driver is proof enough of that," she says. "All he had were his arguments and hers. And he believed hers."
Thanks largely to the local media's championing of reform, she adds, the number of recorded cases of honor killings has dropped dramatically since Ms. Amedi commissioned the 1998-2002 survey.
Back in the shelter, Sheikmuhamad is less optimistic. Her requests to publicize the shelter in local newspapers have been denied. "It may be the editors themselves, or it may be the authorities that are blocking me," she says. All she knows for sure is that it took her nine months to persuade the governor to transfer Nazire to the shelter. Other women - willing or unwilling adulteresses and single mothers - are still locked in the city's jail. "Mentalities take longer to change than laws," she sighs.
Nazire's main hope, meanwhile, is that her father will forgive her.
"My family may be angry with me, but I feel no anger for them.
I just miss them terribly," she says. Even if the dispute is
resolved, her greatest concern is her son. "I just want him to
have a father like any other child. It makes me sad to say this, but
I often think it would be better for him if I gave him away."
6. - The Scotsman - "No Plan B on Cyprus, Says Straw":
By Pippa Crerar / 2 March 2004
There is no Plan B in place if talks on the reunification of Cyprus
fail before the island joins the European Union on May 1, Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw warned today.
It would not be in either side’s interest for a divided Cyprus
to come into the EU and would merely make the reunification problem
“more difficult” to solve.
The United Nations and EU are optimistic that ongoing talks, part
of a UN reunification plan, could bring about an end to the island’s
30 year division in time for accession.
Mr Straw said initial reports on the progress of the talks, held in
Nicosia, were “encouraging”, though both sides were arguing
for substantive changes.
He hoped the “constructive spirit” shown by the Greek and
Turkish sides in previous talks would prevail and they would reach
agreement.
But he warned: “The Plan B, in a sense there is no plan B, what
will happen if no agreement can be reached is that a divided Cyprus
will come into the European Union.
“There is only a Plan A and what we’re saying not only to
the Turkish Cypriots and the Turkish Government but also to the Greek
Cypriots and the Greek Government is that it is in no-one at all’s
interest for a divided Cyprus to come into the EU.”
Tory Adrian Flook (Taunton) had asked whether there was a Plan B as
EU enlargement was only nine weeks away.
Labour’s Andrew Love (Edmonton) said the eventual solution should
be flexible or else it would not be carried by both sides in the planned
referendum.
Mr Straw agreed a “spirit of compromise” was needed on both
sides.
Greeks and Turks must put “past hatreds and animosities”
behind them and recognise this was the “best opportunity”
for two generations for the problem to be resolved, he said.
“But if it is not resolved by May 1 it will not go away, it will
just become more difficult.”
Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when the Turkish invaded in the
wake of a failed coup backed by supporters of union with Greece.
Under EU membership plans, the Turkish Cypriots would be left out
of the EU unless the island is reunited. Only the internationally-recognised
Greek part of the island would join.
The UN plan calls for a single state with Greek and Turkish Cypriot
federal regions linked through a central government.