“If the leadership calls on us to withdraw from the government, then we will do so,” said Nisreen Berwari, a Kurd who is the Public Works minister in the interim government, according to the June 9 International Herald Tribune. “All the struggles we made last year have been lost,” she added.

Berwari was referring to the resolution crafted by Washington and London and approved June 8 by the United Nations Security Council. That resolution backed the handing over of sovereignty on June 30 from the U.S.-led occupying forces to the Iraqi interim government. But it did not endorse Iraq’s interim constitution, known as the “transitional administrative law” and agreed to in March, which included a clause granting a measure of autonomy to the Kurdish areas.

This provision would effectively give the Kurdish parties a veto over ratification of a constitution, which can be blocked by a majority of any three provinces that oppose it. Kurds constitute a majority in three of the northern provinces. The clause would enable them to defeat any constitution that weakens Kurdish autonomy in the region.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—the two main parties in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq—have hitched the future of the Kurdish struggle to the wagon of U.S. imperialism. They backed the U.S.-led war to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime and have gone to great lengths to assure Washington and Ankara that they have no intention of declaring a separate Kurdish state in northern Iraq. The current conflict, however, shows that whatever alliances the Kurdish leaders make with the occupation forces, the struggle for Kurdish self-determination remains explosive and a threat to imperialism and to the bourgeois regimes in the region.

The Tribune reported that in a letter to U.S. president George Bush, Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, leaders of the KDP and PUK, respectively, said they would not participate in the central government in Baghdad, boycott upcoming elections, and bar Iraqi government officials from entering Kurdish provinces if the interim government makes any attempt to nullify the existing autonomy provision.

“Until now, we have not called for a separate Kurdistan, but if the Kurds’ rights are not recognized, then we will take political measures that serve the interests of the Kurdish people,” said Mulaha Bekhtiyar of the PUK, according to the Associated Press.

Washington refused to include any reference to Kurdish autonomy in the Security Council resolution. The U.S. government opposes the national aspirations of the Kurds, an oppressed nationality of an estimated 25 million people. In addition to Iraq, Kurds live in a territory that also includes parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Armenia.  
 
Washington is worried
Top U.S. government officials flew to the Kurdish areas to try to assuage Kurdish leaders to stick with Washington, the conflict over the UN resolution notwithstanding.

In a June 17 press conference with Barzani in Irbil, northern Iraq, U.S. deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz said, “The United States stands firmly behind its Kurdish allies and feels the best bet for their future is in a united, democratic Iraq.”

Following the meeting, Barzani described Wolfowitz as a “dear and close friend” and thanked Bush for the “great support” his administration has given to the Kurdish people.

Prior to this visit, Iraq’s leading Shiite cleric, Ali al-Sistani, has made it clear he also opposed any inclusion of Kurdish autonomy in the UN resolution. Washington has sought the cleric’s help in resolving armed revolts by Shia groups like that led by Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army in central and southern Iraq. In a letter to the UN Security Council, al-Sistani warned that any such reference in the resolution would be “an act against the will of the Iraqi people and will have dangerous results.” Leaders of Shia parties, according to the Tribune, have repeatedly stated their intention to remove provisions for Kurdish autonomy from the constitution. Adil Abdul Mahdi, the interim government’s finance minister and a leader of the one of Iraq’s largest Shia-led political parties, said the autonomy provision must be removed, even at the risk of the Kurds leaving the government.

Despite statements by Kurdish leaders that they want to maintain a united Iraq, “popular sentiment for full independence appears to be rising,” said an article in the May 19 Wall Street Journal. The article noted that 1.75 million Kurds, half of the Kurdish population in the northern region, recently signed a petition demanding a referendum on Kurdish independence.

Kurds have every reason to be concerned about moves against their limited autonomy. In the aftermath of the 1991 U.S.-led war against Iraq, the Kurdish people took advantage of the weakening of the Saddam Hussein regime to press their struggle forward. They held many villages and towns, including the major city of Kirkuk, for a week or more in March 1991. But Washington stood aside as Hussein sent helicopter gunships and heavy armor to crush the Kurdish revolt.

According to the June 20 New York Times, thousands of Kurds have begun a drive to reclaim land they were driven from by the Hussein regime in the 1980s. Under the ruling Baath party’s “Arabization” campaign, Hussein’s troops destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages and forced Arabs from southern and central Iraq to resettle there. Karim Qadam told the Times that 10 years ago Hussein officials forced him to leave his home in the southern city of Diwaniya and move to an evacuated Kurdish village in the north. The regime provided him with “free” farmland. In recent weeks Kurds returned to retake the land. Qadam and his family were forced to move into a bombed out building in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad.

U.S. officials estimate that more than 100,000 Arabs have fled the Kurdish regions. Some 10,000 Kurds have gathered in sprawling camps outside Kirkuk and are demanding to be allowed to enter the city. Kurdish leaders are pressing to make the city, with its vast oil deposits, the Kurdish regional capital. And despite a prohibition in the Iraqi interim constitution, Kurdish government officials are setting up offices and exercising political authority in the newly settled areas, according to the Times.  
 
Kurdish struggle in Turkey, Syria
The Kurdish national liberation struggle is also alive in the Turkish areas bordering Iraq. Some 15 million Kurds live in Turkey.

An estimated 20,000 Kurds rallied in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey, to celebrate the release on June 9 of four Kurdish members of parliament who had been imprisoned for 10 years on charges of collaborating with the armed Kurdish guerillas led by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The European court of human rights has also begun examining an appeal by PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan who was captured and imprisoned in 1999. The PKK was formed in the fall of 1978 by a group of young radical intellectuals at the university of Ankara who were attracted to Maoism.

Kurds danced in the streets of Diyarbakir and waved Kurdish flags and the traditional Kurdish colors of red, green, and yellow, according to an NBC broadcast.

Ankara, under pressure to meet “human rights” requirements to gain entry to the European Union, released the four pending the outcome of their appeal. The four are expected to be retried in July. One of those released, Leyla Zana, was also charged with speaking in Kurdish at her swearing-in ceremony in parliament and with wearing a headband for the ceremony adorned with the Kurdish colors.

Successive Turkish governments have refused to recognize the existence of the Kurds, describing them as “mountain Turks.” Until 2002 Kurds were prohibited from publishing newspapers and magazines or broadcasting in Kurdish, and could not receive educational instruction in the language.

In another step to push for acceptance in the EU, Ankara aired the first-ever Kurdish-language broadcast on the TRT state television channel. Crowds of Kurds gathered around the country wherever a television could be found to listen to the 30-minute program, reported EU Business. The program launched daily television and radio broadcasts in Kurdish and other non-Turkish languages.

In Syria, too, the Kurdish national struggle has picked up recently. Eleven Kurdish parties in Syria have vowed to continue their political activities despite being banned by the government, reported the Al-Jazeera news agency on June 15. In mid-March at least 25 Kurds were killed in clashes with Syrian soldiers, and Kurdish groups say that at least 2,000 individuals have been detained.

In 1962 the Syrian Baath party stripped 120,000 Kurds in the country of citizenship—the Kurdish population in northern Syria stands today at 1.5 million. As in Iraq, the regime settled thousands of Arabs on lands confiscated from Kurds. The Syrian government even changed the names of Kurdish villages and stores into Arabic. Teaching Kurdish in schools was banned along with publishing in the Kurdish language. Some of these repressive measures were eased in the 1970s. The Syrian government tolerated the activities of some Kurdish political parties, permitted Kurds to speak their language in public, attend school, and have some Kurdish cultural programming on television. The current crackdown by Damascus threatens those gains.  
 
 
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