Don’t worry, this blog isn’t going to remain silent.  Actually most of the time I just forget to post my articles from Global Voices here…so really it is airheadedness on my part.

There are alot of the links on this site which unfortunately lead to inactive blog sites.  In the next few weeks, I am going to clean them up and place them in active and inactive categories…I don’t want to junk the links entirely because I feel that it is important to keep the record of thought alive.

While the Kirkuk Referendum isn’t expected to take place until December 2007, it is creating waves within Kurdistan, Iraq and their neighbors. Why the flurry of activity now? The Iraq Study Report recommended that the referendum be delayed, citing the the area as a “powderkeg”. The Republic of Turkey wants the referendum delayed, and even the Iraqi government is considering the same. This panics the Kurdish officials in the region.

Kirkuk is interesting in itself. For one, it is rich, hosting a lucrative oil supply. Secondly, the area is mixed ethnically: Kurds and Turkmen. While the Turkmen population used to be higher (and more concentrated) evolving demographics show Kurds as the new majority. The referendum would have Kirkuk classify itself as wanting to be a part of Iraq major or part of the semi-independent Northern Iraq Kurdistan.

Regional players are very important in this conflict. Turkey is opposed to Kirkuk being part of the semi-independent Kurdistan, stating that they are only looking out for their Turkmen brethren. More potently, Kirkuk being formally a part of the semi-independent Kurdistan could possibly lead to an independent Kurdistan. This threatens Turkey in respect to control its Kurdish population and Kurdish rebel violence stemming from the PKK. Additionally, an independent Kurdistan would threaten to destabilize Iraq, Iran, Syria and well as Turkey. As you can see, there is alot riding on this referendum.

How do the Turkmen feel about this? As From Holland to Kurdistan reports:

In the last KRG Parliament session about Kerkuk, a Turkmen MP made a speech in the parliament. It showed the participation of Turkmen in the Kurdish region. This was shown on the Kurdish channel Kurdistan TV.

He said: “I will say this in Turkish so Turks understand this, we are Turkmen and not Turks”. He also said Turkey is doing more damage to the Turkmeni people then any good.

Also a Turkmen politician asked Turkey to stop interfering with their business, he said why is Turkey talking about Turkmeni rights after we got those rights and not when Saddam was oppressing us?”

Additionally the Iraq Solidarity Campaign reports that the Turkmen are wary of the Turks. For a more Turkish view on the Turkmen case of Kirkuk see here. In any event, the Turks are actively involved in Kirkuk as Kurdish Aspect illustrates:

Last week Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Iraq and said “Turkey will not sit idle if the Iraqi Kurds have control over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.” That brought strong criticism by a Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) spokesman who said “we have heard for some time meaningless statements by some Turkish officials with their implied threats and we want to remind them that the Ottoman empire had fallen a long time ago and Iraq is not part of Turkey,” told Voice of Iraq.

In my opinion, all these threats and warnings, in addition to wanting destabilizing of the Kurdish achievements in Iraq, Erdogan is trying to please the chauvinist nationalist and the military power to secure the presidential post in Turkey. The threats and changes in Erdogan’s views from the beginning of his term until now are directly tied to the upcoming election in Turkey.

No matter, what happens in Iraq with regards to article 140 it is up to the Iraqi people to decide on the future of Kirkuk and not Mr. Gul, Mr. Erdogan or the Turkish State.

Iraqi Kurdistan criticizes the findings of the Iraq Study Group:

hr report is ignoring the fact that the Iraqi constitution has adopted federalism and the people of Iraq want clearly a only weak central control from Baghdad. It is outrageous that this unfortunate report is obliging to Turkey , the very country which let America down at the time of need, by calling to postpone the article 140 of Iraqi permanent constitution which paves the way for a just solution for the issue of Kirkuk and other ethnicly cleansed cities of Iraqi Kurdistan. To alienate the Kurds, the only real fiends of America in Iraq, will bring Iraq definitely into civil war and paves the way for disintegration of Iraq, for no Kurdish leader, regardless of their degree of friendship to America, will dare to abandon the issue of Kirkuk.
Mr Baker and Mr Hamilton and their study group totally ignored the Kurdish factor in Iraq and taken them for granted. All the miserable wars of saddam started from his policies of Arabization and maltreatment of Kurdish citizens, and the Kurds will not allow any central government to persecute them again, and will certainly resist any foreign intervention, especially Turkish one, in Iraqi Kurdistan affairs.

Hiwakan calls for an end to Turkish involvement:

We are ready to do [alot] in UK at least in the event of any intervention, pressure and worse from Turkey to convince the UK government to back the TRUE right of the Kurds all around the world and specifically in Kirkuk where we fought the coalition forces against Saddam when the Turks didnt even allow them to use their land and were against the war on Saddam!
I am sure almost all European countries have enought southern Kurdistan Kurds together with their northen Kurdistani Kurds who are happy to express their opinion in different forms to force the governments to put pressure on Turkey to mind its own 20M Kurds and remind them again that Ottoman reign in OVER! That was your golden era and its most loyal nation was the Kurds… we HOPEFULLY have learned our lesson!
Lets see, who will win the battle for Kirkuk… in other words Kurdish Independence War!

Rasti warns about the consequences of Turkey intervening to the level they have threatened (occupation of Northern Iraq):

The best outcome of such an occupation would be the unification of the Kurdish people across all borders and the ensuing slaughter of Mehmetciks, but practically speaking, I don’t believe we are at the point of such a scheme being put into place. The US wants to maintain control of the energy resources of Iraq, including those of South Kurdistan, Mûsil, and Kerkuk. The US knows that if the Ankara regime occupies, it will not leave, thus jeopardizing the control over South Kurdistan’s energy resources. A Turkish occupation would most likely cause Iran to react in order to rebalance the regional power, possibly leading to a seizure–even if a soft one–of Southern Iraq and its energy resources. At the top domain level, we could be sure to see more regional involvement by the SCO, since Iran has observer status in that organization, causing problems for both Turkey and the US as they hope to consolidate their own power in the Central Asian republics.

This will not be the end of discussion on the Kirkuk referendum (and definitely not the end of GV posts on the subject). What we are witnessing is the beginning of a potentially explosive situation, or at least a case-study in political geography.

Due to the annoying inability of wordpress to let me log on last week, I was unable to post the GV article I did here, but I will give a link for you. Kurdistance: the End of Saddam.

I choose to begin this week’s article with a disclaimer which is spawned in response to comments I received on last week’s edition of Kurdistance: the contents of my articles are not of my own opinion, but rather the opinions of the bloggers that I cover. I try to remain neutral and objective in my article reporting: I take no sides, I will not withhold information and I will not skew what was said by someone else. The bloggers that I cover are not objective and it is my job to show you what their point of view on current events is.

Now with that out of the way, let’s get down to business.

Both From Holland to Kurdistan and Rasti discuss this week the increase of political activism that can be found on YouTube. The debate has begun in response to an audio file posted of comedian/activist Mark Thomas talking about stories of Turkish torture against the Kurds of Turkey. As later explained by the fellow who originally posted the file on YouTube, his posting of this information was an attempt to bring the ideals of pacisim and political activism to a larger audience. Based on the amount of comments that this posting has resulted in, the young gentleman deemed this a good start for promoting the protection of human rights by increasing the scope of exposure.

Rasti had this to say about Mark Thomas’s work:

There’s more on all this in an interview with Mark Thomas. Although there is no date on the interview, it is in reference to the campaign. If you read the interview, you will get a frame of reference for the audio, and an idea of what life has been like for Kurds under Turkish occupation–the same thing that makes self-confessed pacifist, Mark Thomas, “enraged.”

I don’t suffer from the disease of pacifism, and the reality always enrages me. For Thomas to admit that he could have killed the “golfers” (his term for the Turkish security forces), then he was seriously affected by the reality of the people of Turkish-occupied Kurdistan.

Let’s continue on with the theme of activism, but this time adding education into the mix. Pearls of Iraq announced this week the beginning of a children’s book drive sponsered by Kurdistan Save the Children and the University of Sulaimaniya. Please check out her link if you want to participate.

Onnik Krikorian from Oneworld Multimedia has again revisited the topic the Yezidi Kurds in Armenia this time covering more of the aspects of the difficulties in minority language instruction. Books presented for use in these minority communities have been printed in Cyrillic script whereas the common print used is Latin. The books were refused and as Onnik shows us, no one really wants to take responsibility.

Hiwa writes about a recent verbal attack from the Palestinian President against the Kurdish peshmerga and comments about how current events with the world worried about nuclear proliferation might lead to a withdrawl in Iraq.

Save RojTV talks about how Turkish General Buyukanit is not happy about freedom of expression in Turkey. And Mizgin from Rasti writes about the error of referring to Kurds as “good” or “bad”.

Ok, so maybe the title of today's post is a little bit of a misnomer, but our commentators today all mention NGO projects…and I'll give you some extra links to other Kurdish NGO projects as well. Pearls of Iraq officially starts her purple ribbon campaign for the people of Iraq (and this includes the Kurds). Check her website for supporting graphics if you are interested.

Today starts the official campaign of the Iraq Purple and Yellow Ribbon Campaign. The Ribbons symbolize support for the Iraqi people to be tied with a yellow ribbon for the troops: American, international and the Iraqi military who are making a positive difference. The purple finger of freedom combined with the yellow is a great way to show the Iraqi people our support.

Pearls of Iraq also gives us a wonderful evaluation of the Kurdish NGO Kurdistan Save the Children:

I visited with Kurdistan Save the Children whose work expands Kurdistan and includes Baghdad. They are strong in education, youth centers and cultural centers, which they call Kaziwa which means ‘dawn’ in Kurdish. I visited one center in Sulaimaniya and was so pleased at the hard work four young men have accomplished over the years. They have developed a large youth center with many activities including sports, art, computer training, English classes, music rooms, computer rooms, internet café (the young people pay tiny fee which teaches them respect of equipment) exercise workout room (for both girls and boys, scheduled appropriately), a media and film department, cafeteria, and a huge center hall with a circle upper balcony, perfect for drum circles. He was very open to different activities including the drum circles that I suggested. Music and art in addition to other activities is strongly encouraged. The manager of this center is a young man with his 3 associates and they have the drive and good hearts to help the children in the city.

Save Roj TV reminds us that the new Impact Report from the Kurdish Human Rights Watch is now available for download. KHRP produces some wonderful stuff, I highly recommend them.

Rasti writes about the Turkey section of the new Amnesty International report:

In general, AI seems to be in agreement that things are really going to hell in Turkey. After the events of the first half of this year, I predict AI's 2007 report is going to be a lot more intense. Give that report a read so that you can make your own comparison of how bad things have gotten.

For other links to worthy Kurdish NGO's see the following:

American Kurdish Information Network

Institute Kurde de Paris

KOMAK

Washington Kurdish Institute

And if you still hunger for more, there is a pretty long list at my other website Kurdistan Blog Count.

Till next week….

So I got a bit spacy and forgot to re-post my Global Voices article here before I published it, please follow this link to read "Kurdistance: Finding Rebirth in Grief".

What makes a people, a people? What defines a group: a common voice, a common history, culture, a blogging engine? Just as the Iranians, the Kurds celebrate New Year or Newroz every March. Among the celebrations and the well wishes given, there is an underlying sadness and strength that defines the Kurdish people during this holiday. Some say that it is the legend of Kawa that unites them while others believe that the history of violence against the Kurds is the backbone of their identity. March is the month of many anniversaries for the Kurds, violence in Syria, violence in Iran, but most notably the horror that occurred in the village of Halapja in 1988….and Halapja was the center of a new resurgance of violence this year.

Halapja burned once more this March, but not for the reasons you would think.

Let's first cover the issue of the importance of Halapja if you are unfamilar. As part of Saddam's Anfal Campaign in March of 1988, a mixture of various chemical weapons/gases were dropped on the village of Halapja, resulting in the deaths of over 5000 Kurds in a few short days. Images of this are truly heartbreaking, with the environmental and social impacts still being felt to this day.

This year, on the 18th Anniversary of the tragedy, students used the commemoration as an opportunity to protest the Kurdistan Regionals Government's corruption and lack of social services. The students were blocked at the gates, one demostrator was shot. The Halapja memorial became a symbol of the corruption, a place to take national guests but a place denied to those it honors…more violence erupted and the monument was burned to the ground. For Americans who are looking for an equivlent, imagine the Holocaust museum being destroyed in Washington DC. Some good has come from this, the KRG has apologized for the death and being the cause of the event; one can only hope that perhaps in destroying such a symbol that the government will learn to take the people's demands seriously.

Reactions to the burning of the monument are mixed, as a blogger myself I am still at a loss to define how I feel about this. The overwhelming sentiment is divided into two: those who are appalled that a monument (viewed to the level of sacred) could be and was so easily destroyed by the very people that it honors, or those who regret what happened but are grateful for the protest victory that has been hard won in this situation. Was this a needed sacrifice? I'll leave the decision of that to you.

I know Delal will be surprised by this post, but I wanted to write this myself with her permission off course!

Mr.Shaswari, the Kurdish Software Engineer from east Kurdistan has made the move to build the first Kurdish blogger engine and it is in a lovely shape and form ready for Kuridsh bloggers to use it. Some poeple have already booked their spaces on board, although he is still working on improving it.

Mr.Shaswari was the man who won a computing prize last year.

I am helping him with testing and suggesting better Kurdish words for the interface and also some functionalities of the blogging engine.

www.kurdweblog.com is the current name and we are trying to get a better name, for example something like www.kurdblogger.com or www.kurdishblogger.com or similar shorter and possibly one or two words URL.

Me and I think Delal havent yet been able to find someone who could do some weekly translations from the kurdish bloggers.

Kurd.pl: Kurdish news site in Polish

Amude: Kurdish news site in Kurdish

Kurdish Youth Forum

KOMAK: Kurdish Children’s NGO

Kurdische Nachrichten: Kurdish site in German

Ahh…the wonders of Technorati.  I found a new Kurdish News website called Kurdish Aspect, which has an accompanying blog.

Also, thanks to Hiwa for the link to this site, Awene.