Showing posts with label Kurds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kurds. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Most beautiful Botan valley facing destruction, It sure looks like Turkey, like Israel, the US etc...and what´s going on all over the world today, is doing what it has done for hundred of years - exterminated and exploitated
Zivzik pomegranates
The Çetin dam being built by Çetin Enerji, a subsidiary of the Norwegian company Statkraft, 3 kilometres from the village of Zivzik, will reach a height of 145 metres when completed and store 10% of the Botan river flow. Once a 10 km square lake forms behind the Çetin dam an annual production of between 110 and 300 kilowatts is predicted. The dam lake will affect the agricultural land of many villagers and will submerge the famous pomegranate orchards for which the village of Zivzik is renowned.
Actually, it seems like a VERY stupid idea to flood villages such as Zivzik. And it sure looks like Turkish authorities have had other plans for Zivzik in Siirt for a long time.
Association for Solidarity and Culture Zivzik Pomegranate Festival
Zivzik Gida''s projects
Siirt Organized Industrial Zone
Siirt Chamber of Commerce and Industry (STSO) Vice President Fuat Özgür Çalapkulu, in an interview with Sunday's Zaman, said Siirt had a very limited economy, adding that there were only seven individuals who invested in the industrial zone in Siirt from 2006 to the end of 2012. “With the settlement process that started close to the end of 2012, the number of new investors planning to invest in the organized industrial zone was 14 for the first eight months of 2013. The total number of investors operating in the industrial zone has increased to 21.
In response to a question about what kind of development projects he plans for Siirt in order to boost its economy, Siirt Governor Aydın said they have two separate plans. One is based on agriculture, while the other is based on tourism. “As part of the first plan, the governor's office will provide incentives to producers of products native to the region such as Siirt fıstığı [Siirt pistachios], Zivzik narı [Zivzik pomegranate] and menengiç [terebinth trees].
The second development plan is to revive tourism in the city focusing on faith tourism. As you may know, the tomb of the famous Yemeni mystic Uwais al-Qarani is in Siirt. Tillo [a center for religious figures] is another place of attraction in Siirt. It is estimated that the tombs of 12,000 saints are located in Tillo. Some major religious philosophers such as İsmail Fakirullah, Sultan Memduh and İbrahim Hakkı Erzurumi [who left behind scholarly works in a range of fields, from mathematics to astronomy] are buried in Tillo.”
ANF - SIIRT 04.05.2014, With the increasing number of Hydroelectric power projects being constructed for security (!) reasons in Kurdistan the Botan valley is facing destruction. A total of 16 projects planned in the region indicate that a total environmental and historical disaster is on the cards. While all over the world there is a search for alternative energy resources, in Turkey Hydroelectric projects are still in vogue and the Botan valley has become a centre for these projects. Despite protests against the building of dams on the pretext of security, the state and the Governor of Siirt are persisting with the projects.
In Siirt province there are a total of 16 dams planned by the state and the private sector. Once all these hydroelectric power stations, some of which are at the construction stage, begin to operate, the valley will be submerged.
The dams being built are:
*Limak Siirt is building 8 dams on the Botan river
* The Çetin Dam (350 MW) is being built by Statgraft
* The Alkumru Dam (267 MW) is also being built by Limak
* The Incir Dam (140 MW)is being built by EnerjiSa
* The Pervari Dam (120 MW) is also being built by EnerjiSa
* The Keskin Dam (164 MW) is being built by Bitlis Enerji
* The Oran Dam (63 MW) is being built by AGE
* The Kirazlik Dam (45 MW) is being built by Limak and partners
* The Narli Dam (36 MW) is being built by Aksa
A 6,000-year-old settlement will be submerged
Both old and new settlement areas will be submerged. On account of the dam-building archaeological digs have been intensified. One site where excavation is taking place is the village of Çattepe (Tillé Nawro) in Kurtalan district. A 6,000-year-old town has been discovered after 4 years of excavations. During the excavations a game board measuring 2.50 x 1.50 metres has been found. 49 small stones and figures have also been found in the mound, with different coloured objects in green, red, blue, black and white, thought to be the oldest pieces of a board game yet discovered.
Dozens of people have died
Dozens of people have died in Siirt as a result of the construction or of dam gates being opened without warning, causing a sudden rise in water levels. In 2011 in a six-week period 17 people died in this way. In the latest incident Fehim Özbey (39) went for a picnic with his three children at lunch time between the villages of Kutmiz and Billoris. They went for a dip in the Botan river when the water suddenly rose as a result of the Alkumru dam gates being opened without prior warning. Fehim Özbey desperately tried to save his children, but he was unable to save Serdar Özbey (18) and Ibrahim Özbey (11), and he was also carried away by the current.
Firatnews
Firatajans-gallery, Botan Valley
Facebook-Crtlerin-Tarihi-Mitolojisi ve Kültürü
Monday, 28 April 2014
Sunday, 27 April 2014
Saturday, 26 April 2014
Friday, 25 April 2014
There are attacks, bombings, explosions, masskillings, destruction and exterminations in Gaza, Lebanon, Serêkaniyê, Syria, Iraq and all over the region in "the war on terrorism" - bullsh*ttalk! These are orchestrated, coordinated, intended attacks and full fledged genocides and those in the UN body knows it very #¤#¤¤ well!
Tel Halaf is on the opposite side of the border from the Ceylanpınar Agricultural Enterprise Directorate. Before it passed under YPG control it was one of the main crossing points from Turkey into Syria for the gangs.
11 killed in suicide bomb attacks in Rojava
Public security member killed in Serêkaniyê laid to rest
Two suicide attacks in Serêkaniyê
Serêkaniyê bids farewell to fighters killed in attack
BDP demands investigation into extra-judicial killing
Kurdish political prisoner in critical conditions
UN: Civilians in Syria needs urgent aid
IT´S THE NABKA-1948-ARMENIAN-SADDAM-CIA-ISRAELI-UK-US-TURKISH-STYLISH GENOCIDES ALL OVER THE #¤#¤¤ REGION AND BEYOND! THE ONLY PLACE THAT IS NOT BOMBED AND ATTACKED FOR THE MOMENT IS NORTH KURDISTAN!
Kurdistan Letters: Turkey and the West’s immoral hypocrisy again! Dr Kamal Mirawdeli’s Memorandum to the British Prime Minister
Kurdistan, Letters, Syria, Turkey, UK
Dr Kamal Mirawdeli’s Memorandum to the British Prime Minister:
His Excellency David Cameron, the Prime Minister,
10 Downing Street, City of Westminster
8th November 2012,
Dear Prime Minister,
I am writing to express my grave concerns about the fate of Kurdish hunger strikers in Turkey’s prisons, the general deterioration of human rights and democratic freedoms under the increasingly authoritarian Islamic government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the continued oppression of Kurdish people and denial of their basic human, civil and political rights in Turkey.
Also I would like to express my strong disappointment and anger at the hypocritical double-standard attitude of the British government regarding human rights issues in the Middle East especially the situation of over 20 million Kurds in Turkey and another 20 million Kurds in Syria, Iraq and Iran.
It is really shameful that the Foreign Office has so far failed to even express a timid opinion about this grave human rights situation in Turkey and Middle East which will have a great impact on the reputation and image of Britain.
There are over 200,000 Kurdish citizens in UK, never mind that they are still not recognised even statistically as ‘Kurdish’ by the Home Office, who expect ‘their’ government to be fair and principled in its approach to all issues of human rights, democracy and self-determination in the world especially the Kurdish issue as Britain still has serious historical and moral questions to answer regarding the destiny of the Kurdish nation and its continued sagas of political division and fragmentation, human tragedy, forced assimilation, national oppression and genocide.
Over 700 Kurdish hunger-strikers facing death in jail
1) According to Turkish CNN, “Turkey’s Justice Ministry announced Friday 2nd November 2012 “that at least 682 inmates were participating in a hunger strike in at least 67 prisons across the country. The strike has entered its 52nd day’ and “Dr. Aytug Atici, a medical doctor and a lawmaker from the secularist Republican People’s Party, told CNN that prisoners he met during a tour of detention facilities were starting to lose basic brain functions and were showing symptoms of starvation.”
2) Turkey’s main medical association warned two days ago that the jailed hunger strikers in Turkey may start to die within the next 10 days, saying the prime minister’s dismissal of the protest as a “show” risked hardening their resolve. The hunger strike entered its 51st day yesterday, with some 700 prisoners refusing food in dozens of prisons across Turkey, demanding the government grant greater Kurdish minority rights and better conditions for their jailed leader.”
Turkey encouraging and sponsoring Kurdish civil war in Syria
3) According to London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that on Friday 2nd November, forces belonging to the so-called Syrian Free Army backed by Turkey and some Arab countries killed a female Kurdish leader in the northern city of Aleppo, which could further grow tensions between anti-regime fighters and the Kurds who control most of the Kurdish areas in the country.
Shaha Ali Abdu, who also known as Nujeen Dirik, was captured by the anti-regime rebels while she was on a humanitarian mission, then killed on Friday, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group says. She was the head of a Kurdish popular defence unit that is part of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Turkey accuses of being a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK.). “She was killed a week after she was captured by rebels,” the Britain-based watchdog added.
According to the Observatory, 42-year-old Dirik was captured when she went to hand over to the rebels the bodies of opposition fighters killed in the fighting earlier with the PYD. http://ikjnews.com/?p=5532
The situation in Syria During his visit to Jordan the Prime Minister met refugees escaping from of the brutality of the Syrian regime and heard the stories of their ‘horrendous suffering.” Later he said that Britain would begin talks with armed Syrian rebels in a bid to unite the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, and that the discussions are due to take place in Jordan and Turkey.
Dear Sir, I am extremely concerned that Britain’s Syrian policy is leaning towards arming and supporting motley fighting groups in Syria including many foreign Sunni Jihadist groups supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, that have chosen to use indiscriminate violence and extreme jihadist ideologies and may pose serious threat to Christian, Kurdish and Alawite minorities. The last thing that these groups think of is democracy, and human rights and freedoms.
After the bitter experience of creating the Taliban and the persistent lethal knock-on effects of this folly including the death of hundreds of British soldiers in Afghanistan, and the tragic human cost of US and Britain’s invasion of Iraq, one would expect Britain to act in a more rational, balanced and humane way and in line with its long-term interests and standards of fairness and democracy in its foreign affairs especially in the Muddle East.
The Kurdish people in Syria, due to decades of oppression, have suffered the most from the Ba’athist regime (about 200,000 Kurds do not have even citizenship in Syria). Therefore, they have always been the vanguards in resistance to the regime. The first real mass uprising against the regime started in the Kurdish city of Qamishli in March 2004, but this was labelled as riots by the Western media and ignored as usual by Western governments supporting the brutal despotic regimes of the Middle East.
Dear Sir, I am sorry that I have to say frankly that It is absolutely immoral to recognize, legitimize, arm, finance and support various murderous groups in Syria and support the century-long brutality of the Turkish racist/fascist regime against the Kurdish people, while labeling Kurdish political representatives and politicians in Turkish jails, demanding the right to use Kurdish in courts, Kurdish children on Diyarbakir streets demanding education in their mother tongue or Kurdish women freedom fighters in Qandil mountains sacrificing their young lives for their people’s survival and dignity, as ‘ terrorists’.
History will not forgive you! This immoral policy just like the British government’s criminal support to Saddam Hussain in his genocide against our people, will haunt you forever and our people whether this generation or next ones, will definitely be able one day to take Britain and other Western supporters of Saddam and Turkey to the International Criminal Court to make them accountable for persistent deliberate war crimes against Kurdish people.
I wrote similar letters to Mrs. Thatcher while her government was arming Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Her reply was that Britain’s trade interests would be jeopardized if Britain stopped selling arms to Saddam while other competing countries would do it anyway. But this simple logic meant that the village I was born in was annihilated, the town I studied, taught and grew up in was razed to earth with 4000 other villages and towns and 182,000 children, men and women were taken to be buried alive in different mass graves around Iraq.
Even after Halabja, the British government continued to offer credit facilities to Saddam to buy British arms. Now according to a report in the Guardian (6th November 2012) still “Britain is owed hundreds of millions of pounds of unpaid debt on loans to autocratic governments in Argentina, Indonesia, Iraq and Zimbabwe for UK weapons and equipment that were used against civilians.”
This proves that while supporting the genocide of a whole people, British people did not even get much economic advantage from this inhumane policy. The immoral hypocrisy of this policy reached its climax when Tony Blair and George Bush used the tragedy of Halabja to justify their disastrous invasion of and war crimes Iraq.
Dear Sir, Human morality, like his mortality, is indivisible. You can’t be moral, just and democratic in London while being barbaric and merchant of blood in the Middle East and Kurdistan. Exterior immorality will undoubtedly slowly but steadily creep into the very interior fabric of those who exercise it.
For over a century Western governments have prided themselves in their civilized and democratic ‘rational’ institutions and democratic values. But just taking Britain as an example, we have seen in the last few years the moral decay of the civilized institutions of its social system, from the church, to parliament, to Banks, to the Murdoch and Tabloid media, to BBC, to hospitals and child care institutions, to the culture of celebrity and even the heart of the government: the workings of the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence which yet to be revealed.
These are not separate occurrences. They are all serious natural upshots of deep-rooted immorality (in the form of unrestricted and irresponsible profit-seeking, fraud, dishonesty, sexual exploitation, greed and corruption, inhumanity) that has become the substance and structure of the capitalist system and its institutions whose marginalized victims so far have been the Other: the helpless nations like Kurds, Tamils, the people of Darfur, etc, as well as the poor, the children, the women, the disabled and people needing care and compassion.
Dear Sir, Britain’s unconditional support to the fascist Turkish state, turning a blind eye to a century-long plight and repression of the Kurdish people in Turkey, is absolutely immoral.
There are over 10,000 Kurdish political prisoners. Many of the hunger strikers have been imprisoned without trial, while others are serving long terms for carrying out nonviolent political activities.
Kurdish prisoners are subjected to lengthy solitary confinement, sudden night raids, and even torture, according to rights groups.
The Human Rights Association of Turkey (IHD) has received reports that the hunger strikers have been beaten, isolated and denied vitamin B1, salt and sugar water. (Hurriyet Daily News, Nov. 7; Al Jazeera, Nov. 5)
Turkish government began its witch-hunt after the local elections in Turkey in April 2009 when pro-Kurdish Peace and Democratic Party (BDP) won 99 municipalities in the local elections in March 2009. More than 10,000 Kurds have been jailed in the last three years. Many solicitors, mayors, journalists, human rights defenders, BDP members, unionists, students, mothers and children have been arrested and imprisoned.
About 181 children have been killed since AKP came to power in 2002.
In a press statement on June 26 International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Human Rights Association (IHD) Diyarbakir Branch reported that 281 people in Eastern and South-eastern Anatolia Regions were subjected to torture and ill treatment in the first four months of this year. (ANF news agency, 26 June 2012)
According to Turkish Medical Association the possibility of deaths from hunger strikes in Turkish jails is a grim reminder of a number of deaths since 1980. Some 144 people, including Kurds and leftists, have starved themselves to death since then according to the medical association.
According to a recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) the situation of freedom of press in Turkey has reached a crisis point. Turkish authorities are engaging in widespread criminal prosecution and jailing of journalists, and are applying other forms of severe pressure to promote self-censorship in the press.
http://www.cpj.org/europe/turkey/
Peaceful Kurdish demonstrations in Istanbul and other cities in support of hunger-strikers and Kurdish rights have faced violent crack down by police without this arousing any interest of Western media or governments.
However, these are all continued symptoms of the larger issue: the denial of Kurdish identity and equal citizenship rights of Kurds in Turkey.
Dear Sir, Old thinking and old solutions do not work in a new changing interdependent globalised world dominated by revolutionary information sharing technology. The loss of the Republican Party in the US in spite of billions of dollars they spend to brainwash people to elect Mitt Romney did not succeed. While Mitt Romney was calling for small government, meaning stopping the government little support schemes to the poor, and reproductive medical care to women and families, he was thinking very Big Government in terms of supporting the gigantic American military-industrial complex, thinking that US can still kill its way out of its problems by exporting its crises to other countries and increasing killing fields in the Middle East.
But this did not work either. I am afraid that our Prime Minister’s drive to sell more arms to the despotic sheikhs of the Gulf and arm jihadist murderers to prolong death, destruction and misery of the Syrian people and remove Assad, just like Saddam, without having a clue about alternatives other than creating some external political puppets with no roots and legitimacy among Syrian communities, is a recipe for failure, disaster and further spiralling human tragedies.
The Syrian children, women, ordinary people in Aleppo, Damascus and other cites and towns just want peace, they want bloodshed to stop and normal life to return. Already many neighbourhoods have disappeared, more than one million people have been uprooted, more than 50,000 civilians are dead and now PM thinks of arming the rebels in the name of liberation while there are clear evidence that the rebels are also responsible of committing crimes against humanity and massacring civilians and captives.
Dear Sir, Kurdish people everywhere are very anxious and apprehensive about Turkish government’s plans to create civil war in Kurdish areas in Syria and even encourage an intra-Kurdish civil war by creating, financing and arming a pro-Turkish kurdish militia on the one hand, and inciting and supporting hard-line Arab and Turkoman jihadist militia to attack the Kurds and occupy Kurdish lands.
Turkey has a lot of experience in these diabolical schemes. The Turkish state used Turkish Hezbollah in Kurdish areas in the 1990s to murder tens of Kurdish political activists on the one hand and accuse Kurds of being backward Islamist terrorists on the other.
Now Turkey as a Nato regional power neighbouring Syria, is almost the sole direct sponsor and influencer of the anti-regime violence in Syria.
One of the main aims of Turkey is to deny the Kurdish people in Syria the opportunity to obtain their natural national rights and possibly the creation of a federal region for Kurds like that in Iraq. The Kurds have been able so far to get organised, to liberate their areas, to protect religious minorities, and avoid violence and civil war. But Turkey is doing everything to change the situation on the ground and extend bloodshed, destruction and civil war to Kurdish areas.
The recent attacks by Turkish-backed Salafi militia against Kurdish neighbourhoods in Aleppo and their attempt to attack Kurdish town of ‘Afrin and the bloodshed resulting form these including the criminal murder of a Kurdish female captive leader, are ominous developments demonstrating the diabolical plans of the Turkish government in collaboration with extremist jihadist salafi groups.
The most vulgar excuse is to accuse Kurds of being terrorists, allied to PKK or pro-Assad while the Kurds have been the main victims of the Ba’thist nationalist regime of Bashar Assad and his father before him.
If the Kurds were terrorists, if they followed the examples, tactics and schemes of super-powers, they could burn down the whole Istanbul in one week.
If the Kurds were terrorists, if everyday a car bomb blew up women and children in crowed markets, if a road -side bomb threatened every passenger car in every road around Turkey, if the Kurds abducted and beheaded Americans, surely they would not be labelled terrorists. But, like the Taliban, they would be recognised as a genuine political force that Ankara must negotiate and compromise with.
This is the American Administration’s aim. Turkey must use drones and indulge in indiscriminate killing of Kurds the way Obama does in Afghanistan and Pakistan so that the Kurds would finally resort to lethal terrorism, eternal ethnic conflict between Kurds and Turks would materialize and PKK would qualify as a genuine political force recognized by CIA and, like the Iranian group MEK would be removed from terrorist black list!
Dear Sir, Britain should never trust and support regimes that repress their own people. The government of the Islamic AKP party in Turkey is becoming increasingly authoritarian, ideological and non-tolerant. It has revived the old dream of Pan-Ottoman Middle-East and its inclination to use the current crisis in Syria to strengthen its military power and technology by cynically exploiting its position as a member of NATO, is part of its long-term forward thinking in this direction. That is why Turkey is asking Nato to put Patriot missiles on border. I appeal to British government not to go along with Turkish demands.
Please put pressure on the Turkish government to respond to the just demands of the hunger-strikers, to legalize and formalize the use of Kurdish language in all stages of education, to release the jailed Kurdish leader Abdulla Ocalan and all Kurdish political prisoners and start a political dialogue with PKK and BDP representatives, to take serious and urgent steps to amend the Turkish Constitution to make it more democratically inclusive and recognizing national identity and rights of Kurdish people in North Kurdistan, to stop its negative interference in Syrian Kurdistan and its military attacks in Southern Kurdistan.
Britain’s experience in dealing with IRA and establish peace, stability and prosperity in Northern Ireland is an invaluable successful experience and process.
Children and women of Syria want peace, In the name and for the sake of humanity and justice and protecting the lives and livelihoods of innocent people and stopping death and destruction, Britain must work for peace first and then think of any further plans for change in Syria.
British government should ensure that there would be a real democratic process in Syria in which all the ethnic, religious and sectarian constituents of Syria would be represented. And are not marginalized or discriminated against. The start should be a secular democratic Constitution that would recognize the ethnic identity, languages and diverse religions of the Syrian citizens.
To compensate for 100 years of colonization and oppression the Kurdish people in West Kurdistan should be allowed to have their federal region within the unity of the Syrian state.
Britain should encourage Turkey to adopt the same sort of Constitution and strategy to solve its own Kurdish problem.
Children of Syria and Kurdistan do not want any more wars, violence, bloodshed and genocide. Stop selling arms and spreading blood markets.
Support peace, human rights and democratic Constitutions and institutions.
Yours sincerely,
Kamal Mirawdeli (Dr.) Kurdish writer,
politician and presidential candidate in Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Kurdistantribune - Kurdistan, Turkey, Wests immoral hypocrisy again!
Guardian-Britain owed millions for weapons used by autocratic regimes
Torture and abuse in Iranian prisons
BEHIND THE KURDISH HUNGER STRIKE IN TURKEY
POLITICAL PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE IN IRAN’S DETENTION
FOR BETTER OR WORSE? THE KURDISH HUNGER STRIKES
Jailed children's ill-treatment in Pozanti Prison, abuse just ‘tip of the iceberg’
Alleged Sexual Abuse of Children in Pozanti Prison
DIHA journalists who exposed child abuse in prison detained
BIA Report: 104 Journalists and 30 Distributors in Prison
http://www.info-turk.be/403.htm#jailed
Kurdish News Weekly Briefing 3-8 March 2012
Rights group accuses Turkey of covering up its ‘dirty war’
CPJ - Turkey's Press Freedom Crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Al-Qamishli_riots
After the Armenian genocide ..The ethnic cleansing of Kurds...on the dot...into the borders of Iran..for a fact..
These maps were maps that were taped onto the wall of Ozgur Gundem, the Kurdish newspaper that lost many writers and journalists to Turkish death squads because of their reporting. They detail the vilages, towns and hamlets that were systematically razed by the Turkish army in the nineties.
Thursday, 24 April 2014
Turkey: A day filled with remembrance. The 99 anniversary of the Armenian genocide, bombing, ethnically cleansing of Kurds, remembrance for Roboski martyrs/victims, bomb attacks in Serêkaniyê and Iraq
Armenian President: we don't see Turkish society as enemies
ANF - Yerevan 24.04.2014, The speech President of Armenia Serj Sarkisian will hold to mark the 99th anniversary of the Armenian genocide today has been published on the official website of the Armenian presidency.
President Serj Sarkisian pointed out that the Turkish State still continued to deny the Armenian genocide altogether today, adding that; “We are confident that this denial means a direct follow-up of this crime. Further similar crimes can be prevented from taking place in the future only by admitting and condemning this crime.”
The Armenian president said they wanted to confirm before everyone once again that Armenians didn't see the Turkish society as an enemy. “May God bless those who endangered their life and that of their families by extending hands to our citizens and helping them”, Sarkisian said and stressed that it depended on the Turkish state's approach to leave this historical shame behind and to have the Turkish state be relieved of this heavy burden".
The president also said: "Today, nearly a hundred years after the Genocide, it is obvious the trauma inflicted upon our people by an unthinkable atrocity we were never prepared for. Until now, all Armenians dispersed throughout the world and all their generations are closely familiar with outcome of the Genocide. Despite this truth, however, the reality is that we have rebuilt a state from the remains of the Armenian homeland and today, in contrast to the past, we are more aware of and more prepared for the dangers we may face. Nowhere in the world is as safe for an Armenian as in her homeland, under the auspices of her own people’s state."
The president ended by saying: "We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide with our heads held high and hopes for the future, with a state, whose name is the Republic of Armenia. It is the homeland of the entire Armenian people, who, despite decades-old illegal blockades and a “neither war nor peace” reality, continue to make progress.
The year 2015 should convey a strong message to Turkey. Its attitude toward Armenia can no longer be measured by words because the time is here for clear steps: the opening of the closed borders and the establishment of normal relations. Our position on the Armenian-Turkish protocols has not changed and the idea of “reasonable terms” is becoming more urgent than ever."
Children's Day in prison for 2000 kids
The Armenian genocide, 99 years ago
Portraits of 99 survivors of the Armenian genocide
Zabel Yesayan told the horror of genocide
DTK urges government to apologize to Armenian people
Easter 1916 and the laneways of history
Trench digging at Rojava border ended. What's next?
http://news.am/eng
http://www.araratnews.com
Monday, 21 April 2014
Digging up the "Green Belt" in Kurdistan
Actually, just like in the borders between Gaza and Egypt, Afghanistan, Swat Valley and elsewhere...there are in any other countries laws to secure artifacts and archaeological findings before such a project!
These #¤#¤¤ criminals are just plowing all over it after have exterminated people for hundred of years! Thousands of years...dating back to the #¤#¤¤ bronse age! Among one of the first populated landscapes in the human history, with Persia, Afghanistan and the Indo-European nomads!
Maybe some wants to cover up the massgraves of Kurds, Armenians and Persians after the Turk tribes, Azeri Turks and the Khazars invaded!
Friday, 18 April 2014
Kurds as Victims of the Iran-Iraq War - Still going on and took a new drive in connection to the Bilderberg conference in Istanbul 2007, in Iran, Turkey, all over the region, just as the attacks in Iraq
More Victims of the Iran-Iraq War
Now actively promoting condemnation of Iraq for its use of chemical weapons, Iran has well earned its characterization as "no slouch in the atrocity game." Though Iran's internal Kurdish problem captured headlines in the New York Times back in 1981, the warfare that continues even today between its forces and Kurdish guerrillas led by Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou has long been a dead issue in the press.
In this chronic war, more than 25,000 indigenous Kurds have been driven from their villages, their homes burned and pillaged and Pasdaran (Iranian military) stationed to keep them from returning.
Thousands of Kurds, including civilians, have been detained, tortured and executed. A particularly grievous Iranian action was brought to our attention back in September 1983 through a report of the Federation of the Rights of Man in Paris. Failing to gain the consent of the Khomeini government to investigate allegations that some 59 Kurdish civilians had been executed at Urmiah, the organization mandated an observer to make a clandestine visit. When the observer arrived, 15 persons had just been executed in Mahabad prison. Between August 22 and 25 of that year another 48 civilians were killed; 19 were young girls.
Prior to the executions their bodies had been drained of blood. The federation's observer came upon the following directive issued on 3 October 1982 by the Chief of the Revolutionary Procurers: "We have given a secret order that medical equipment be used to draw blood secretly from individuals condemned to death and whose punishment is to be carried out expeditiously. Blood will be put into containers to be sent to a dispensary as soon as possible for a bloodbank to benefit the wounded. This act is not in violation of Islamic principles because the Imam Khomeini has ordered it."
The federation raised the question: "Were 450 Kurdish civilians executed since the beginning of 1983 simply to make use of their blood?"
In a space of 10 months between December 1982 and September 1983, the federation estimated the number of Kurdish fighters executed at 1,339 and the number of civilians at 1,500.
The report quoted one Kurdish mother who lost two sons to execution: "Khomeini thinks all Kurds are fighters. Can anyone then not fear to become his victim?" Christian Rostoker, the federation's director, drew this conclusion: "There is no doubt that for a majority of the people executed, they are killed for one crime: being Kurdish in the Islamic Republic of Iran." That was five years ago; nothing has changed since then for the nearly 5 million Kurds in Iran.
SaeedpourVera Beaudin- Victims Iran-Iraq war
Rojhelat.info
A Kurdish youth hung himself in Meriwan in order to not join the Iranian army.
MILITARY DILEMMA FOR KURDISH YOUTH IN ROJHELAT AND IRAN
The world’s largest open-air prison of the Islamic republic regime
Iran, SAVAK, and the CIA: Financial Support, training and prisons big as cities
Iran Contra & the CIA Cocaine Conspiracy - Brainwash Update
The Iranian Regime Snares for Youth
Iran drug addiction rate highest in world
2007, Torture and abuse in Iranian prisons
London, 1980 - Iranian activists stage siege on Iranian embassy. "All the terrorists were killed."
2014, Imminent execution of two Ahwazi Arab political prisoners
3 July 2009 - Demonstration in Front of Iran's Embassy in London
Kurdish political prisoner executed in Iran
East Kurdistan student faces hanging
Sine prison: Hebibulla Letifi on death row
Political prisoners on hunger strike in Iran’s detentions
Death sentences and executions in 2013
Young Kolber Was Shot Dead by Iranian Guards
Iran- the starving people policy using food aid plan
Kurdish Sheik Maksoud neighborhood bombarded
KNK: Release all critically ill prisoners in Turkey
ECHR finds Turkey guilty of 1993 disappearances
Kissinger and "Our Disappeared" - Argentina
Henry Kissinger Istanbul, Turkey May 31, 2007
Now actively promoting condemnation of Iraq for its use of chemical weapons, Iran has well earned its characterization as "no slouch in the atrocity game." Though Iran's internal Kurdish problem captured headlines in the New York Times back in 1981, the warfare that continues even today between its forces and Kurdish guerrillas led by Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou has long been a dead issue in the press.
In this chronic war, more than 25,000 indigenous Kurds have been driven from their villages, their homes burned and pillaged and Pasdaran (Iranian military) stationed to keep them from returning.
Thousands of Kurds, including civilians, have been detained, tortured and executed. A particularly grievous Iranian action was brought to our attention back in September 1983 through a report of the Federation of the Rights of Man in Paris. Failing to gain the consent of the Khomeini government to investigate allegations that some 59 Kurdish civilians had been executed at Urmiah, the organization mandated an observer to make a clandestine visit. When the observer arrived, 15 persons had just been executed in Mahabad prison. Between August 22 and 25 of that year another 48 civilians were killed; 19 were young girls.
Prior to the executions their bodies had been drained of blood. The federation's observer came upon the following directive issued on 3 October 1982 by the Chief of the Revolutionary Procurers: "We have given a secret order that medical equipment be used to draw blood secretly from individuals condemned to death and whose punishment is to be carried out expeditiously. Blood will be put into containers to be sent to a dispensary as soon as possible for a bloodbank to benefit the wounded. This act is not in violation of Islamic principles because the Imam Khomeini has ordered it."
The federation raised the question: "Were 450 Kurdish civilians executed since the beginning of 1983 simply to make use of their blood?"
In a space of 10 months between December 1982 and September 1983, the federation estimated the number of Kurdish fighters executed at 1,339 and the number of civilians at 1,500.
The report quoted one Kurdish mother who lost two sons to execution: "Khomeini thinks all Kurds are fighters. Can anyone then not fear to become his victim?" Christian Rostoker, the federation's director, drew this conclusion: "There is no doubt that for a majority of the people executed, they are killed for one crime: being Kurdish in the Islamic Republic of Iran." That was five years ago; nothing has changed since then for the nearly 5 million Kurds in Iran.
SaeedpourVera Beaudin- Victims Iran-Iraq war
Rojhelat.info
A Kurdish youth hung himself in Meriwan in order to not join the Iranian army.
MILITARY DILEMMA FOR KURDISH YOUTH IN ROJHELAT AND IRAN
The world’s largest open-air prison of the Islamic republic regime
Iran, SAVAK, and the CIA: Financial Support, training and prisons big as cities
Iran Contra & the CIA Cocaine Conspiracy - Brainwash Update
The Iranian Regime Snares for Youth
Iran drug addiction rate highest in world
2007, Torture and abuse in Iranian prisons
Iraq timeline. Or "the Iraqi threat to its neighbours"..Like in the 90s..
...that would be after the wars in the 80s....
...that would be after the wars in the 80s....
London, 1980 - Iranian activists stage siege on Iranian embassy. "All the terrorists were killed."
2014, Imminent execution of two Ahwazi Arab political prisoners
3 July 2009 - Demonstration in Front of Iran's Embassy in London
Kurdish political prisoner executed in Iran
East Kurdistan student faces hanging
Sine prison: Hebibulla Letifi on death row
Political prisoners on hunger strike in Iran’s detentions
Death sentences and executions in 2013
Young Kolber Was Shot Dead by Iranian Guards
Iran- the starving people policy using food aid plan
Kurdish Sheik Maksoud neighborhood bombarded
KNK: Release all critically ill prisoners in Turkey
ECHR finds Turkey guilty of 1993 disappearances
Kissinger and "Our Disappeared" - Argentina
Henry Kissinger Istanbul, Turkey May 31, 2007
Thursday, 17 April 2014
To "prevent smuggling" 10 years later..or 1.5 million Iraqis and a lot more than hundreds of thousands Syrians, Palestinians..Kurds..later.. Or for cables, powerstations, pipelines, highways along the "green belt"..
605-kilometre ditch along the Iraq-Syria border, only 15 kilometres remains to be completed. The ditch is in general 2 metres wide and 3 metres deep.
Thousands gather at border to protest Hewler government
Rojava citizen shot dead by peshmerga at border crossing
Turkey also digging ditches on border
Vigil at Rojava border
Turkish Soldiers Attack Rojava Residents Along Border
"We want to celebrate the May Day in our lands"
Turkish army activity in Kurdistan
Mass grave discovered during road works
Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi urges Iran to stop executing Kurds
Kurds in Selmas threatened by Iranian regime
The Iranian Regime Snares for Youth
East Kurdistan student faces hanging
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Öcalans’s Newroz 2014 message: Time for Negotiations
Greetings to all those whose hearts are ablaze with the fire of Newroz for peace and freedom!
I greet our people who have turned the magnificent Newroz fire into a celebration of revival and democracy in Mesopotamia – the cradle of civilisations.
Via all of you I send my love to all the youth and women of my country. I call on all those who have opened room for peace in their heart and hear our voice as well as all of Turkey to unite with the centuries old spirit of solidarity.
I also celebrate the festivities of sister peoples of the Middle East and Asia who were the cradle of the world civilisation history.
I send you all my heartful greetings. Greetings to all!
We extinguished the war fire that turns young saplings, beloved persons, loves and labour into ashes and ignited the grand revival torch for peace on a day like this, last Newroz.
The beloved people of Turkey!
History has shown us that if a decisive leadership for peace is not displayed then historical problems shall follow its own course and shall generally generate, through transformations with huge losses, their own responses. The question before us that scorchingly awaits an answer is whether we shall continue to make headway through recurring coups or through a complete and radical democracy.
The current concrete situation we have experienced since last Newroz represents exactly this crossroad. The 200 year old conspiratorial-putschist regime based on capitalist modernity shall either restore itself and sustain power or the Turkish-Kurdish relations reseated on its historical course shall go through the most comprehensive reforms with a regime based on democratic constitution that shall dismantle the conspiratorial-putschist mechanisms. All other short term gateways and temporary forms have now petered out.
To date it was a dialogue process that was conducted and it was of importance. Both sides tested the good will, realism and proficiency of one another during this time. Both sides have come out of this test, the quest for peace, with determination despite the government’s reluctance, one-sided implementations, avoidance of creating a legal basis and stance of prolonging things. However although dialogue processes are important they are not binding. Therefore they do not constitute an adequate guarantee for a lasting peace. A legal framework for the systematics of negotiations is now unavoidable.
Peace is more difficult than war but each warfare certainly has its own peace. We were not scared as we resisted; we will also not be scared when we make peace.
Our resistance was not against the sister peoples but against the tyrannical order with hegemonic character that disregards, destroys and denies. Therefore our peace is not for governments or states but for the peoples of Anatolia, Kurdistan and Mesopotamia who have absorbed the thousands of years old ancient values of these lands and are the unique preparators of the world’s cultural heritage. The government and state are obliged to develop a sobriety which is in line with this reality.
Our grand peace journey has come under many attacks such as the one faced in Oslo, Paris, Gever, Lice as well as the KCK operations and the cruel attitude towards the ill prisoners. It is this movement; it is indeed you who shall spoil all such dirty games, weaken and thwart the domination of the international GLADIO. The struggle we have waged played a huge part in rendering all orders of tutelage in the whole region ineffective. It is our historical responsibility to display sufficient care against international plots appearing before us in various forms.
On the other hand a responsible manner of address and speech shall not only render many racist psychological warfare methods invalid, it shall also be the fundamental character of our grand peace.
Such a peace shall only be strengthened by solutions through democratic constitutions throughout the region and above all in Rojava.
Women shall become the true guarantors of this peace not only because of their accumulated great potential for freedom and equality but because of the new ethical and aesthetic values they have added to the democratic social development. Our movement began as a youth movement and has always stayed young. The youth shall yet be the unflinching defenders of this peace in the face of all attacks and provocations against it.
Our people dispersed all around the world, and especially those in Europe, shall become our voice that speaks out for peace and an honourable free life.
All our comrades who without any hesitation gave their lives, health and freedom wherever hope was fading shall be our fundamental pillars. Peoples of Turkey, with our thousand year old tradition of amity, shall give the most effective response to the racist, discriminatory, arrogant and hate speeches.
I salute you all with my belief for a free and fully democratic country where all beliefs, peoples, cultures and labour shall feel free and with revolutionary feelings.
I call on all those who feel a sense of responsibility towards this era and humanity to become the building blocks of this grand peace of ours.
Salute to all those who take on responsibility for amity between peoples!
Long Live Newroz!
Long Live Amity Between Peoples!
Translation: International Initiative
http://www.freeocalan.org
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com
I greet our people who have turned the magnificent Newroz fire into a celebration of revival and democracy in Mesopotamia – the cradle of civilisations.
Via all of you I send my love to all the youth and women of my country. I call on all those who have opened room for peace in their heart and hear our voice as well as all of Turkey to unite with the centuries old spirit of solidarity.
I also celebrate the festivities of sister peoples of the Middle East and Asia who were the cradle of the world civilisation history.
I send you all my heartful greetings. Greetings to all!
We extinguished the war fire that turns young saplings, beloved persons, loves and labour into ashes and ignited the grand revival torch for peace on a day like this, last Newroz.
The beloved people of Turkey!
History has shown us that if a decisive leadership for peace is not displayed then historical problems shall follow its own course and shall generally generate, through transformations with huge losses, their own responses. The question before us that scorchingly awaits an answer is whether we shall continue to make headway through recurring coups or through a complete and radical democracy.
The current concrete situation we have experienced since last Newroz represents exactly this crossroad. The 200 year old conspiratorial-putschist regime based on capitalist modernity shall either restore itself and sustain power or the Turkish-Kurdish relations reseated on its historical course shall go through the most comprehensive reforms with a regime based on democratic constitution that shall dismantle the conspiratorial-putschist mechanisms. All other short term gateways and temporary forms have now petered out.
To date it was a dialogue process that was conducted and it was of importance. Both sides tested the good will, realism and proficiency of one another during this time. Both sides have come out of this test, the quest for peace, with determination despite the government’s reluctance, one-sided implementations, avoidance of creating a legal basis and stance of prolonging things. However although dialogue processes are important they are not binding. Therefore they do not constitute an adequate guarantee for a lasting peace. A legal framework for the systematics of negotiations is now unavoidable.
Peace is more difficult than war but each warfare certainly has its own peace. We were not scared as we resisted; we will also not be scared when we make peace.
Our resistance was not against the sister peoples but against the tyrannical order with hegemonic character that disregards, destroys and denies. Therefore our peace is not for governments or states but for the peoples of Anatolia, Kurdistan and Mesopotamia who have absorbed the thousands of years old ancient values of these lands and are the unique preparators of the world’s cultural heritage. The government and state are obliged to develop a sobriety which is in line with this reality.
Our grand peace journey has come under many attacks such as the one faced in Oslo, Paris, Gever, Lice as well as the KCK operations and the cruel attitude towards the ill prisoners. It is this movement; it is indeed you who shall spoil all such dirty games, weaken and thwart the domination of the international GLADIO. The struggle we have waged played a huge part in rendering all orders of tutelage in the whole region ineffective. It is our historical responsibility to display sufficient care against international plots appearing before us in various forms.
On the other hand a responsible manner of address and speech shall not only render many racist psychological warfare methods invalid, it shall also be the fundamental character of our grand peace.
Such a peace shall only be strengthened by solutions through democratic constitutions throughout the region and above all in Rojava.
Women shall become the true guarantors of this peace not only because of their accumulated great potential for freedom and equality but because of the new ethical and aesthetic values they have added to the democratic social development. Our movement began as a youth movement and has always stayed young. The youth shall yet be the unflinching defenders of this peace in the face of all attacks and provocations against it.
Our people dispersed all around the world, and especially those in Europe, shall become our voice that speaks out for peace and an honourable free life.
All our comrades who without any hesitation gave their lives, health and freedom wherever hope was fading shall be our fundamental pillars. Peoples of Turkey, with our thousand year old tradition of amity, shall give the most effective response to the racist, discriminatory, arrogant and hate speeches.
I salute you all with my belief for a free and fully democratic country where all beliefs, peoples, cultures and labour shall feel free and with revolutionary feelings.
I call on all those who feel a sense of responsibility towards this era and humanity to become the building blocks of this grand peace of ours.
Salute to all those who take on responsibility for amity between peoples!
Long Live Newroz!
Long Live Amity Between Peoples!
Translation: International Initiative
http://www.freeocalan.org
http://peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.com
Öcalan’s historical Newroz 2013 Statement
I SALUTE THE FREEDOM NEWROZ OF THE OPPRESSED
I salute the people of the Middle East and Central Asia celebrating this awakening, revival and resurgence day of Newroz with extraordinary participation and unity…
I salute all the peoples celebrating Newroz, which is the daylight and turning point of a new era, with great enthusiasm and democratic tolerance…
I salute all the travellers on this grand path toward democratic rights, freedom and equality…
I salute you, the Kurdish people, living at the Zagros and Taurus mountain skirts and in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. I salute the Kurdish people, an ancient people, dwellers in the sacred lands of Mesopotamia and Anatolia, mother to all agricultural, village and urban civilizations….
Kurds have taken part in this several-thousand-year-old civilization in friendship and accord with diverse races, religions, creeds – we have all built it together. For Kurds the Euphrates and Tigris are the siblings of Sakarya and Maritsa. Ararat and Judi are the friends of Kaçkars and Erciyes. Halay *1 and Delilo *2, are in the family of Horon *3 and Zeybek *4.
These grand civilizations, these coexisting communities have more recently been pitted against each other by political pressure, external interventions and group interests. The result has been the construction of systems that are not based upon rights, law, equality and freedom.
For the last two hundred years military conquests, western imperialist interventions, as well as repression and policies of denial have tried to submerge the Arabian, Turkic, Persian and Kurdish communities to the rule of nation states, its imaginary borders and artificial problems.
The era of exploitative regimes, repression and denial is over. The peoples of the Middle East and those of Central Asia are awakening. They are returning to their roots. They demand a halt to the blinding and seditious wars and conflicts against one another.
Those thousands, millions of people who are pouring into these arenas are burning with the passion of Newroz. They cry for peace and amity, and they are demanding a solution.
This struggle, which began as my own individual rebellion against the despair, ignorance and slavery into which I was born, has sought to create a new consciousness, a new understanding and a new spirit. Today I see that our efforts have reached a new level.
Our fight has not been and can never be against any specific race, religion, sect, or group. Our fight has been against repression, ignorance and injustice, against enforced underdevelopment as well as against all forms of oppression.
v Today we are awakening to a new Turkey and a new Middle East.
The youth who have welcomed my call, the eminent women who heeded my call, friends who have accepted my discourse and all people who can hear my voice:
Today a new era is beginning.
The period of armed struggle is ending, and the door is opening to democratic politics. We are beginning a process focused on political, social and economic aspects; an understanding based on democratic rights, freedoms, and equality is growing.
We have sacrificed much of our lives for the Kurdish people, we paid a high price. None of these sacrifices, none of our struggles, were in vain. For as a consequence of them, the Kurdish people have attained once again their identity and their roots.
We have now reached the point of “silence the weapons and let the ideas and politics speak”. The modernist paradigm that has disregarded, excluded and denied us has been razed to the ground. Regardless of whether it be Turkish, Kurdish, Laz or Circassian – the blood spilled is flowing from a human being and from the bosom of this land.
Witnessed by the millions of people who heed my call, I say a new era is beginning; an era where politics gain prominence over weapons. We have now arrived at the stage of withdrawing our armed forces outside the borders.
I believe that all those who have believed in this cause and me are sensitive to the possible dangers of the process.
This is not an end, but a new beginning. This is not abandoning the struggle – we are initiating a different struggle.
The creation of geographies based on ethnicity and a single nation is an inhuman fabrication of modernity that denies our roots and our origins.
A great responsibility falls on all of us to create an equal, free and democratic country of all peoples and cultures, befitting the history of Kurdistan and Anatolia. On this occasion of Newroz, I call on the Armenians, Turkomans, Assyrians, Arabs and all other peoples just as much as on the Kurds to behold the flame of freedom and equality – the fire that is lit here today – and embrace it as their own.
Distinguished people of Turkey;
The Turkish people who live in what is called Turkey today – the ancient Anatolia – should recognise that their common life with the Kurds, under the flag of Islam, rests on the principles of amity and solidarity. The rules of amity has and should have no room for conquest, denial, rejection, forced assimilation, or annihilation.
The last century’s repressive, annihilationist, and assimilationist policies, based on capitalist modernity, represent the efforts of a ruling elite to deny a long history of amity. They do not represent the will of the people. It is now very clear that this grip of tyranny contradicts both history and rules of amity. In order to be able to leave that lamentable past behind, I call on the two strategic powers of the Middle East to build a democratic modernity befitting our culture and civilization.
The time has come for dispute, conflict, and enmity to yield to alliance, unity, blessings, and a mutual embrace.
The Turks and Kurds who fell as martyrs together at Çanakkale also went through the War of Independence together, and together they opened the 1920 assembly.
Our common past is a reality that requires us to create a common future. Today the spirit that established the Turkish Grand Assembly leads the way to the new era.
I call on all oppressed peoples; on women, who are the most long-standing colonized and subjugated class; on all marginalized and excluded creeds, cults, and cultures; on the working class and all subordinated classes; on everyone who has been excluded from the system to take their rightful position in Democratic Modernity and to attain its mentality.
The Middle East and Central Asia are searching for a contemporary modernity and a democratic order that befits their own history. A new model in which all can coexist peacefully and amicably has become an objective need like the need for bread and water. Inevitably, again, the geography and culture of Anatolia and Mesopotamia are guiding it to build such a model.
We are experiencing a more current, more complicated, and more profound version of the War of Independence that developed in the framework of the [1920] National Pact.
Despite all the mistakes, setbacks, and failures of the past ninety years, we are once again trying to build a model with all the peoples, classes, and cultures who have been victims and have suffered through terrible disasters. I call on all of you to step forward and help achieve an egalitarian, free, and democratic social organization.
I call on the Kurds, Turkoman, Assyrians and Arabs who were separated despite the National Pact and today have been condemned to live under grave problems and in conflict with one another within the Syrian and Iraqi Arab Republic to begin discussions, and re-asses as well as to take decisions on their present reality in a “National Solidarity and Peace Conference”.
The breadth and comprehensiveness of the “WE” concept has an important place within the history of this land. But in the hands of the narrow and ruling elitists, “WE” has been reduced to “ONE.” It is time to give the “WE” concept its old spirit and to implement it.
We shall unite against those who want to divide and make us fight one another. We shall join together against those who want to separate us.
Those who cannot understand the spirit of the age will end up in the dustbin of history. Those who resist the current will fall into the abyss.
The peoples of the region are witnessing a new dawn. The peoples of the Middle East are weary of enmity, conflict, and war. They want to be reborn from their own roots and to stand shoulder to shoulder.
This Newroz is a beacon to us all.
The truths in the messages of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed are being implemented in our lives today with new tidings. People are trying to regain what they have lost.
We do not deny the values of the contemporary civilisation of the West in whole. We indeed take the values of enlightenment, equality, freedom and democracy, and in order to implement them we synthesise them with our own existential values and lifeways.
The basis of the new struggle is thoughts, ideology and democratic politics, and to be able to start a great democratic leap forward.
Greetings to all those who have contributed to this process and strengthened it, and to all to those who have supported the peaceful democratic solution!
I salute all those who take responsibility for the amicable, equal and democratic freedom of peoples!
Long live Newroz, long live the amity of peoples!
Imrali Prison 21 March 2013
Abdullah ÖCALAN
Translation from Turkish:
International Initiative "Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan - Peace in Kurdistan"
http://www.freeocalan.org
1 Anatolian folk dance
2 Kurdish folk dance
3 Black Sea folk dance
4 Central and Southern Anatolian folk dance
I salute the people of the Middle East and Central Asia celebrating this awakening, revival and resurgence day of Newroz with extraordinary participation and unity…
I salute all the peoples celebrating Newroz, which is the daylight and turning point of a new era, with great enthusiasm and democratic tolerance…
I salute all the travellers on this grand path toward democratic rights, freedom and equality…
I salute you, the Kurdish people, living at the Zagros and Taurus mountain skirts and in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. I salute the Kurdish people, an ancient people, dwellers in the sacred lands of Mesopotamia and Anatolia, mother to all agricultural, village and urban civilizations….
Kurds have taken part in this several-thousand-year-old civilization in friendship and accord with diverse races, religions, creeds – we have all built it together. For Kurds the Euphrates and Tigris are the siblings of Sakarya and Maritsa. Ararat and Judi are the friends of Kaçkars and Erciyes. Halay *1 and Delilo *2, are in the family of Horon *3 and Zeybek *4.
These grand civilizations, these coexisting communities have more recently been pitted against each other by political pressure, external interventions and group interests. The result has been the construction of systems that are not based upon rights, law, equality and freedom.
For the last two hundred years military conquests, western imperialist interventions, as well as repression and policies of denial have tried to submerge the Arabian, Turkic, Persian and Kurdish communities to the rule of nation states, its imaginary borders and artificial problems.
The era of exploitative regimes, repression and denial is over. The peoples of the Middle East and those of Central Asia are awakening. They are returning to their roots. They demand a halt to the blinding and seditious wars and conflicts against one another.
Those thousands, millions of people who are pouring into these arenas are burning with the passion of Newroz. They cry for peace and amity, and they are demanding a solution.
This struggle, which began as my own individual rebellion against the despair, ignorance and slavery into which I was born, has sought to create a new consciousness, a new understanding and a new spirit. Today I see that our efforts have reached a new level.
Our fight has not been and can never be against any specific race, religion, sect, or group. Our fight has been against repression, ignorance and injustice, against enforced underdevelopment as well as against all forms of oppression.
v Today we are awakening to a new Turkey and a new Middle East.
The youth who have welcomed my call, the eminent women who heeded my call, friends who have accepted my discourse and all people who can hear my voice:
Today a new era is beginning.
The period of armed struggle is ending, and the door is opening to democratic politics. We are beginning a process focused on political, social and economic aspects; an understanding based on democratic rights, freedoms, and equality is growing.
We have sacrificed much of our lives for the Kurdish people, we paid a high price. None of these sacrifices, none of our struggles, were in vain. For as a consequence of them, the Kurdish people have attained once again their identity and their roots.
We have now reached the point of “silence the weapons and let the ideas and politics speak”. The modernist paradigm that has disregarded, excluded and denied us has been razed to the ground. Regardless of whether it be Turkish, Kurdish, Laz or Circassian – the blood spilled is flowing from a human being and from the bosom of this land.
Witnessed by the millions of people who heed my call, I say a new era is beginning; an era where politics gain prominence over weapons. We have now arrived at the stage of withdrawing our armed forces outside the borders.
I believe that all those who have believed in this cause and me are sensitive to the possible dangers of the process.
This is not an end, but a new beginning. This is not abandoning the struggle – we are initiating a different struggle.
The creation of geographies based on ethnicity and a single nation is an inhuman fabrication of modernity that denies our roots and our origins.
A great responsibility falls on all of us to create an equal, free and democratic country of all peoples and cultures, befitting the history of Kurdistan and Anatolia. On this occasion of Newroz, I call on the Armenians, Turkomans, Assyrians, Arabs and all other peoples just as much as on the Kurds to behold the flame of freedom and equality – the fire that is lit here today – and embrace it as their own.
Distinguished people of Turkey;
The Turkish people who live in what is called Turkey today – the ancient Anatolia – should recognise that their common life with the Kurds, under the flag of Islam, rests on the principles of amity and solidarity. The rules of amity has and should have no room for conquest, denial, rejection, forced assimilation, or annihilation.
The last century’s repressive, annihilationist, and assimilationist policies, based on capitalist modernity, represent the efforts of a ruling elite to deny a long history of amity. They do not represent the will of the people. It is now very clear that this grip of tyranny contradicts both history and rules of amity. In order to be able to leave that lamentable past behind, I call on the two strategic powers of the Middle East to build a democratic modernity befitting our culture and civilization.
The time has come for dispute, conflict, and enmity to yield to alliance, unity, blessings, and a mutual embrace.
The Turks and Kurds who fell as martyrs together at Çanakkale also went through the War of Independence together, and together they opened the 1920 assembly.
Our common past is a reality that requires us to create a common future. Today the spirit that established the Turkish Grand Assembly leads the way to the new era.
I call on all oppressed peoples; on women, who are the most long-standing colonized and subjugated class; on all marginalized and excluded creeds, cults, and cultures; on the working class and all subordinated classes; on everyone who has been excluded from the system to take their rightful position in Democratic Modernity and to attain its mentality.
The Middle East and Central Asia are searching for a contemporary modernity and a democratic order that befits their own history. A new model in which all can coexist peacefully and amicably has become an objective need like the need for bread and water. Inevitably, again, the geography and culture of Anatolia and Mesopotamia are guiding it to build such a model.
We are experiencing a more current, more complicated, and more profound version of the War of Independence that developed in the framework of the [1920] National Pact.
Despite all the mistakes, setbacks, and failures of the past ninety years, we are once again trying to build a model with all the peoples, classes, and cultures who have been victims and have suffered through terrible disasters. I call on all of you to step forward and help achieve an egalitarian, free, and democratic social organization.
I call on the Kurds, Turkoman, Assyrians and Arabs who were separated despite the National Pact and today have been condemned to live under grave problems and in conflict with one another within the Syrian and Iraqi Arab Republic to begin discussions, and re-asses as well as to take decisions on their present reality in a “National Solidarity and Peace Conference”.
The breadth and comprehensiveness of the “WE” concept has an important place within the history of this land. But in the hands of the narrow and ruling elitists, “WE” has been reduced to “ONE.” It is time to give the “WE” concept its old spirit and to implement it.
We shall unite against those who want to divide and make us fight one another. We shall join together against those who want to separate us.
Those who cannot understand the spirit of the age will end up in the dustbin of history. Those who resist the current will fall into the abyss.
The peoples of the region are witnessing a new dawn. The peoples of the Middle East are weary of enmity, conflict, and war. They want to be reborn from their own roots and to stand shoulder to shoulder.
This Newroz is a beacon to us all.
The truths in the messages of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed are being implemented in our lives today with new tidings. People are trying to regain what they have lost.
We do not deny the values of the contemporary civilisation of the West in whole. We indeed take the values of enlightenment, equality, freedom and democracy, and in order to implement them we synthesise them with our own existential values and lifeways.
The basis of the new struggle is thoughts, ideology and democratic politics, and to be able to start a great democratic leap forward.
Greetings to all those who have contributed to this process and strengthened it, and to all to those who have supported the peaceful democratic solution!
I salute all those who take responsibility for the amicable, equal and democratic freedom of peoples!
Long live Newroz, long live the amity of peoples!
Imrali Prison 21 March 2013
Abdullah ÖCALAN
Translation from Turkish:
International Initiative "Freedom for Abdullah Öcalan - Peace in Kurdistan"
http://www.freeocalan.org
1 Anatolian folk dance
2 Kurdish folk dance
3 Black Sea folk dance
4 Central and Southern Anatolian folk dance
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