{"id":78,"date":"2002-11-24T21:29:45","date_gmt":"2002-11-24T21:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucefinley.com\/pre-war-reporting-from-southwestern-turkey-syria-jordan-lebanon-and-yemen\/a-nation-with-no-country\/"},"modified":"2007-12-04T21:37:46","modified_gmt":"2007-12-04T21:37:46","slug":"a-nation-with-no-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/pre-war-reporting-from-southwestern-turkey-syria-jordan-lebanon-and-yemen\/a-nation-with-no-country\/","title":{"rendered":"A Nation With No Country"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font><font color=\"#000000\" face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><em>NORTHERN IRAQ<\/em> &#8211; For 11 years, U.S.  fighter jets kept these<br \/>\nhoney-colored mountains safe from Saddam  Hussein.<\/p>\n<p>But now the 3.5 million Kurdish people  thriving here pose dangerous<br \/>\nproblems for a possible U.S. war on Iraq, and  for the country that<br \/>\nwould remain if Hussein falls.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. air patrols have inspired Kurds &#8211; such as woodcutter  Burus<br \/>\nOlmez &#8211; in their decades-long push for an independent Kurdistan.<br \/>\nOlmez, 28, who enters Iraq from a village in Turkey to load logs<br \/>\nand  trade in cigarettes and sugar, looks forward to increased<br \/>\ncommerce under  Kurdish rule. In Turkey, he must work as a &#8220;village<br \/>\nguard&#8221; against Kurdish  separatists, a job he hates.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to  kill anybody,&#8221; he said recently, leaning on a<br \/>\nconcrete security post that  once bore Hussein&#8217;s eagle insignia.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want  all Kurdish people to be free.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This yearning  for freedom is forcing a very tough play for the<br \/>\nUnited States &#8211; balancing  the goal of replacing Hussein, Kurdish<br \/>\nambitions and the concerns of  neighboring Turkey, a key ally that<br \/>\nopposes Kurdish  independence.<\/p>\n<p>The Kurds are the world&#8217;s largest  group without a country &#8211; 25<br \/>\nmillion people in all, scattered across Iran,  Iraq, Syria and<br \/>\nTurkey. Nobody has ever controlled the Kurds. They are  mostly<br \/>\nMuslims, ethnically distinct from Arabs, Turks and Persians, known<br \/>\nfor their intricate language and fine, hand-tied carpets.<\/p>\n<p>Entrenched in ancient stone hamlets, Kurds control vast  oilfields,<br \/>\nas well as water sources such as the Tigris River that the Middle<br \/>\nEast desperately needs. And Iraqi Kurds have amassed armies with an<br \/>\nestimated 80,000 troops.<\/p>\n<p>Their leaders are  grateful for the U.S. protection they&#8217;ve received<br \/>\nsince the 1991 Persian  Gulf War, and pledge support if disarmament<br \/>\nefforts fail and America  launches war on Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>But Iraqi Kurds insist  any war must give them freedom from a<br \/>\ncentral government in  Baghdad.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want to make sure we are not  oppressed,&#8221; said Qubad Talibani,<br \/>\nrepresenting the Patriotic Union of  Kurdistan, one of two main<br \/>\nKurdish factions. &#8220;We are not satisfied with what  we have.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Neighboring Turkey bristles,  concerned that independence could<br \/>\ncause chaos in Iraq and incite the 13  million Kurds in Turkey who<br \/>\nalso want to be free.<\/p>\n<p>The United States labors to keep Turkey calm. Turkey&#8217;s modern<br \/>\nmilitary bases are critical for a war on Iraq. F-16s poised on<br \/>\nrunways  at Incirlik, northwest of the Turkey-Iraq border, fly the<br \/>\npatrols over  northern Iraq. An underground hospital is ready to<br \/>\ntreat victims of chemical  attacks. U.S. cargo planes hauled in<br \/>\nsupplies and bombs last week, and  nurses gave anthrax vaccinations,<br \/>\nas diplomats negotiated for Turkish  approval to use bases for a war<br \/>\non Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey meanwhile has sent tanks and camouflage-clad troops to the<br \/>\nTurkey-Iraq borderlands. And it backs the Iraqi Turkomen Front in<br \/>\nnorthern Iraq. This group, with a 500-member militia and a<br \/>\nWashington  lobbyist, asserts interests of non-Kurdish Turks in the<br \/>\nregion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mishmash of policies,  treatment<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials face additional  complications from internal Kurdish<br \/>\nfeuding. Rival factions in Iraq &#8211; the  Patriotic Union of Kurdistan<br \/>\nand the Kurdistan Democratic Party &#8211; run  separate governments. A<br \/>\ncivil war between these factions in the mid-1990s  claimed 5,000<br \/>\nlives.<\/p>\n<p>The Kurds also clash  with other Iraqi groups. There are Shiite<br \/>\nMuslims supported by Iran, Sunni  Muslims for and against Hussein,<br \/>\nroyalists wanting to bring back a king, and  an exile-run Iraqi<br \/>\nNational Congress. All try to curb the  Kurds.<\/p>\n<p>Kurdish factions act &#8220;as if they are  de-facto governments,&#8221; said<br \/>\nINC director Entifadh Qanbar in Washington,  warning that Iraq seems<br \/>\ndestined for &#8220;maximum fragmentation&#8221; if Hussein is  removed.<\/p>\n<p>This month, squabbling between Kurds  and other opposition groups<br \/>\npostponed a unity conference that U.S. diplomats  helped organize.<\/p>\n<p>For decades, U.S. policy  toward the Kurds has been a mishmash.<br \/>\nAmericans treated Iraqi Kurds as  allies when that was convenient.<br \/>\nKurds in Turkey were  ignored.<\/p>\n<p>On one hand, the United States  supplies combat helicopters that<br \/>\nTurkey&#8217;s military uses to enforce martial  law in Kurdish regions.<br \/>\nTurkish forces emptied more than 3,000 Kurdish  villages in the<br \/>\n1990s, uprooting an estimated 400,000 Kurds. Then they  installed<br \/>\nsome 46,000 &#8220;village guards&#8221; to squelch support for the banned<br \/>\nKurdish Workers&#8217; Party, or PKK.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish  authorities continue to detain and torture Kurds, using<br \/>\nelectro-shock and  other methods, said Sezgin Tanzikulu, a<br \/>\nhuman-rights lawyer in the  southeastern city of Diyarbakir, walking<br \/>\nnear a helicopter base where  U.S.-supplied helicopters fly in and<br \/>\nout daily.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past 11 months, Kurds in southeastern Turkey filed 159<br \/>\ncases alleging abuse by military gendarmes or civilian police,<br \/>\nTanzikulu  said, adding that most abuses aren&#8217;t reported.<\/p>\n<p>Freelance journalist Yilmaz Akinci, 25, recalled how a gendarme<br \/>\ncollared him  as &#8220;one with an illegal face,&#8221; put a gun to his<br \/>\nhead, and said, &#8220;You know, I  can easily kill you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>International  human-rights organizations accuse U.S. officials of<br \/>\ntolerating abuses in  Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, U.S. Air Force  patrols over northern Iraq &#8211;<br \/>\ndozens of fighter jets scream overhead  enforcing a no-fly zone<br \/>\nagainst Iraqi forces &#8211; guarantee safety across an  area the size of<br \/>\nMaryland. As a result, Iraqi Kurds savor what they call a  golden<br \/>\nage.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ve built thousands of  schools, including a new university.<br \/>\nLeaders conduct parliamentary debates  and recently drafted a<br \/>\nconstitution declaring Kirkuk, just outside the safe  haven, a<br \/>\nKurdish capital. Kirkuk is the site of one of the world&#8217;s largest<br \/>\noilfields.<\/p>\n<p>This month, covert U.S. agents  headed through southeastern Turkey<br \/>\ntoward northern Iraq. U.S. officials  decline comment on what they<br \/>\nmay be doing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8216;No friends but the mountains&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>U.S. military  planners count Kurds as allies in any war on Iraq.<br \/>\nThey have identified  thousands as candidates for possible combat<br \/>\ntraining, said Lt. Col. Dave  Lipan, a Pentagon spokesman. The Kurds<br \/>\noffer access to strategic runways and  turf within 100 miles of<br \/>\nBaghdad.<\/p>\n<p>But  first, Kurdish leaders demand a U.S. guarantee of protection<br \/>\nshould Hussein  launch a pre-emptive attack against them. They<br \/>\nremind U.S. officials how, in  the aftermath of the Persian Gulf<br \/>\nWar, the first President Bush urged Kurds  to rise up against<br \/>\nHussein. The Kurds did so. The United States failed to  help. Iraqi<br \/>\nforces crushed the Kurds, sending refugees north into Turkey and<br \/>\nreinforcing an ancient Kurdish proverb: &#8220;We have no friends but<br \/>\nthe  mountains.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That could happen again, said  Farhad Barzani, a Kurdistan<br \/>\nDemocratic Party envoy in Washington and nephew  of its leader<br \/>\nMassoud Barzani. &#8220;Without moving a single soldier, the Iraqis  can<br \/>\nshell us with chemical weapons,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We think America<br \/>\nshould  publicly say: &#8216;If Iraq attacks, we will respond immediately.<br \/>\nImmediately.&#8221;&#8216;<\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials won&#8217;t comment  on whether they would protect Iraqi<br \/>\nKurds.<\/p>\n<p>But U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Robert Pearson has told Turkey&#8217;s<br \/>\nrulers Kurds  would be contained after a regime-toppling war.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We oppose any independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq,&#8221;<br \/>\nPearson said in  a Denver Post interview at his residence in<br \/>\nAnkara.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, U.S. officials talk of a democratic system designed to<br \/>\ngive all factions equal opportunity in a post-Hussein Iraq &#8211; a<br \/>\nmodel for  the rest of the authoritarian Middle East. The details of<br \/>\nhow much control a  central government could have still are under<br \/>\ndebate. State Department  bureaucrats guide &#8220;future of Iraq&#8221;<br \/>\nbrainstorming sessions involving some of  the 100,000 Iraqi<br \/>\nimmigrants in America.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts warn that any U.S. reliance on Kurds or other factions<br \/>\nwill have  strings attached &#8211; as in Afghanistan, where warlords who<br \/>\nhelped the United  States now seek favorable treatment.<\/p>\n<p>The  stakes, experts say, are much higher here.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The  Kurds could destabilize the whole Middle East,&#8221; said<br \/>\npolitical scientist and  former government consultant Michael Gunter<br \/>\nat Tennessee Technological  University. He emphasizes the Kurds&#8217;<br \/>\npresence in four countries, and global  dependence on Mideast oil.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s talk of  eliminating Hussein and then delivering &#8220;a nice<br \/>\ndemocratic baby&#8221; is  unrealistic, said Gunter, a former consultant<br \/>\nto the U.S. government on  Kurdish issues who in March 1988 met with<br \/>\nTurkey&#8217;s now-imprisoned Kurdish  separatist leader, Abdullah<br \/>\nOcalan.<\/p>\n<p>Nor  will America&#8217;s past &#8220;use-them-when-we- need-them&#8221; approach to<br \/>\nIraqi Kurds  suffice given U.S. interests in oil and regional<br \/>\nstability.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The solution would have to be some type of long-term American<br \/>\ninvolvement. You need the United States in there. But you&#8217;d also<br \/>\nneed  cooperation from Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. If you think<br \/>\nyou are going to  get that, you probably believe in the tooth<br \/>\nfairy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s not easy  to be optimistic about this. &#8230;<br \/>\nThis problem will come back and burn us if  we walk away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line: U.S. air protection  already has created a de facto<br \/>\n&#8220;Kurdistan&#8221; in Iraq, said former U.S.  Ambassador to Croatia Peter<br \/>\nGalbraith, who has visited Iraqi Kurdish  territory nine times over<br \/>\nthe past two decades.<\/p>\n<p>After any war, Kurdish forces &#8220;are not going to meekly go back<br \/>\nunder Baghdad control,&#8221; said Galbraith, now a professor at the<br \/>\nNational  Defense University, a government think tank.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t use force to bring them under Baghdad control. They are<br \/>\ngoing to  be our allies. Besides, that wouldn&#8217;t be just. We are just<br \/>\ngoing to have to  come to terms with it. So is Turkey.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Negotiating postwar arrangements<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now in the  run-up to a possible U.S. war, Kurdish leaders are down<br \/>\nfrom the mountains,  jockeying in Washington, London and Turkey&#8217;s<br \/>\ncapital, Ankara, for favorable  postwar arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the scene one  recent evening in Ankara, beyond clusters of<br \/>\nblack Mercedes at a grand  hotel. In the glowing atrium, Turkish<br \/>\ngenerals with medals on their lapels  commanded prime, padded chairs<br \/>\nwhile intelligence agents skulked about  murmuring into cellphones.<\/p>\n<p>In strode a burly  man with a mustache, Sanaan Kassap, leader of the<br \/>\nIraqi Turkomen Front that  asserts Turkish interests in northern<br \/>\nIraq. The group seeks U.S. funding  under the 1998 Iraqi Liberation<br \/>\nAct, said Mustafa Ziya, the front&#8217;s  coordinator. The act provides<br \/>\nmillions of dollars for Iraqi opposition  groups.<\/p>\n<p>Across the lobby, leaders of the  Kurdistan Democratic Party watched<br \/>\nwarily. They&#8217;re feuding with the Turkomen  Front over its 500 armed<br \/>\n&#8220;guards&#8221; in Iraq, said Safeen Dizayee, the KDP  representative in<br \/>\nTurkey. The Turkomen &#8220;totally disregard our regional  Kurdish<br \/>\nadministration,&#8221; he said, and the militia is &#8220;a security  risk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Iraqi Kurds want independence, but  without support from the United<br \/>\nStates they will settle for autonomy within  a federation of Iraqi<br \/>\ngroups, Dizayee said. &#8220;I mean, we are actually  independent now.<br \/>\nBut if we declared it, how long would we survive? We have  to be<br \/>\npragmatic. It&#8217;s the right of the Kurds to be independent. But the<br \/>\ngeopolitical situation does not allow that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Iraqi Kurdish leaders have proposed expanded turf, while a  central<br \/>\nIraqi government would guide foreign, military and economic<br \/>\npolicy.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish officials reject  this.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A federation can lead, in the long term,  to a dismantlement of<br \/>\nIraq,&#8221; said a diplomat, speaking on condition of  anonymity.<br \/>\n&#8220;There is no experience of &#8216;a federation&#8217; in the Middle East. If<br \/>\nthere is instability in Iraq, it could be worse than it is under<br \/>\nSaddam  Hussein.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And instability in a postwar Iraq  could spread to Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>Interviews with Kurds  in southeastern Turkey reveal the push to<br \/>\ncreate a Kurdistan under U.S.  protection in Iraq &#8211; and the arrival<br \/>\nof a new Turkish government &#8211; are  raising expectations for better<br \/>\ntreatment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8216;We are second-class&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These rolling hills where  scarf-clad women pick cotton and rusting<br \/>\noil trucks whoosh past  bullet-pocked shells of former shops long<br \/>\nhave been a hotbed of anti-Turkish  sentiment. The name of every<br \/>\ntown has been changed from Kurdish to Turkish.  Parents give their<br \/>\nsons and daughters Turkish names, and teachers punish  children who<br \/>\nspeak Kurdish.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey&#8217;s  15-year crackdown to suppress any sympathy for the banned<br \/>\nPKK cowed many  Kurds.<\/p>\n<p>Yet at the roadside village of Svik,  sharecroppers proudly told how<br \/>\nthey refused Turkish offers of $190 a month  each to serve as<br \/>\n&#8220;village guards&#8221; against separatists. That money would have<br \/>\nbought medical care for sick and deformed children, and paved<br \/>\nSvik&#8217;s  muddy streets.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Any true Kurd would refuse,&#8221;  said Bedirhon Gokhan, 42. &#8220;If we<br \/>\ncould, we&#8217;d make a Kurdistan. We want all  the Kurdish people to<br \/>\nlive together. If the U.S. war against Iraq will help  us live<br \/>\ntogether, we want this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The  Kurdish-run People&#8217;s Democracy Party, successor to the PKK, now<br \/>\nwins more  than 50 percent of votes in southeastern cities. Kurds<br \/>\njoin because &#8220;they  see that in Iraq, as in Iran, Kurds can teach<br \/>\nKurdish in school,&#8221; said Aydin  Unesi, a gas station manager who<br \/>\ndirects the party in the town of Batman  along the Tigris River.<\/p>\n<p>Kurdish schools and  newspapers in the Iraqi safe haven are &#8220;an<br \/>\nexample for us,&#8221; he said.  &#8220;Kurdish people in Turkey, we want<br \/>\nthis.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some party members envision new arrangements for Kurds to cross<br \/>\nTurkish,  Syrian, Iranian and Iraqi borders. &#8220;They are Kurds. We<br \/>\nare Kurds. Why not?&#8221;  said Sehnaz Turan, 28, a party administrator<br \/>\nin Diyarbakir. &#8220;I know those  outside Turkey have better<br \/>\nconditions. They are free to express the culture,  the language. We<br \/>\nhaven&#8217;t seen freedom in practice yet here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Turkish Kurds already press for cross-border  commerce.<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of oil trucks line up at  the main border crossing at<br \/>\nHabur. There drivers wait for weeks as Turkish  border guards parse<br \/>\nout permission to enter Iraq and buy oil, then return  and sell it<br \/>\nfor a profit.<\/p>\n<p>This defies  United Nations sanctions against Iraq, but long has<br \/>\nsustained Turkish Kurds.  &#8220;People depend on it here,&#8221; said butcher<br \/>\nBayram Yakut, 30, pouring tea as  trucks rolled past his shop just<br \/>\nnorth of Habur. &#8220;We want the door  open.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Turkish soldiers posted in the  borderlands say they will block any<br \/>\nIraqi Kurdish refugees who might flee  north to Turkey in a war.<\/p>\n<p>A U.S. war may prompt  an extension of martial law in southeastern<br \/>\nTurkey, said Selahattin  Demirtas, 29, a lawyer leading a<br \/>\nhuman-rights group in  Diyarbakir.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If Turkey&#8217;s government would give  equal rights to the Kurds,&#8221; he<br \/>\nsaid, &#8220;then people would accept being part of  Turkey.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Turkey&#8217;s ailing economy adds urgency  to the Kurds&#8217; call for<br \/>\nchange.<\/p>\n<p>Huddled in  burlap-and-plastic tents by a roadside near Batman, a<br \/>\ngroup of migrant  $1.90-a-day cotton pickers complained they can&#8217;t<br \/>\nget medical attention. Rain  pattered on the tent roofs and mud<br \/>\noozed around them. They went to big  cities looking for jobs, &#8220;but<br \/>\nwe are second-class,&#8221; said Mehmet Titiz, 45, a  father of six.<\/p>\n<p>Even the childrens&#8217; hands were  calloused from picking. Parents said<br \/>\nthey are ashamed that their children  don&#8217;t attend school. They<br \/>\nwould also prefer to give their children Kurdish  names and listen<br \/>\nto radio news in Kurdish, said Mehmet Guli Tepe, 41,  gesturing<br \/>\nhelplessly at his skinny 12-year-old boy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can&#8217;t keep living like this.&#8221;<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NORTHERN IRAQ &#8211; For 11 years, U.S. fighter jets kept these honey-colored mountains safe from Saddam Hussein. But now the 3.5 million Kurdish people thriving here pose dangerous problems for a possible U.S. war on Iraq, and for the country that would remain if Hussein falls. The U.S. air patrols have inspired Kurds &#8211; such [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-war-reporting-from-southwestern-turkey-syria-jordan-lebanon-and-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}