Anfal and the Rwandan genocide

This text was published in Xebat the 27th December 2008.

I visited Iraqi Kurdistan spring and autumn this year and collected information about Anfal. The scale of Saddam's destruction and the horrifying nature of Anfal shocked me.

After returning to my native country Finland, I searched information about Anfal and genocides in general. It surprised me how little there is information in internet about Anfal. For example about the Rwandan genocide there is so many documents, best seller books and popular movies, for example “Hotel Rwanda” which was a candidate for three Oscar awards, the most respected movie awards in the world. It did not win any of them, but even a candidacy is a good achievement.

The Rwandan genocide occurred 1994, also five years later than Anfal. Why the international community has recognized the genocide that happened in Africa but not a similar case in Iraq? In addition, it is not doing anything even now when the Allies have liberated Iraq from Saddam’s tyranny! Why his atrocities are not being surveyed intensively?

When I have asked Kurds to explain this to me, many people have spoken about the Western support to Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. That was the time of Iraq-Iran war. NATO countries sold weapons to Saddam and he used them against his own citizens. Now these countries are ashamed for this and do not want the truth to come to day light.

Kurds and KRG want Anfal to become internationally recognized. Before the international community can announce Anfal as genocide, it must know what Anfal is.

Iraq war is the hottest topic in international mass media. There are several well selling books about it, and new ones are published all the time. They are sold as cheap paperback editions. Readers can buy them easily via internet in every part of the world, except not in Iraq. There are plenty of books also about the Sudan civil war, the Afghanistan war and the Rwandan genocide. Anfal is absolutely as important news topic as them but information about it is missing in the international forums.

Kurds should not wait passively than foreign writers and filmmakers come to Kurdistan to document Anfal. That might happen, or might not.

Kurds must arrange very many things to clear the destruction, which Saddam left. You have to handle the every day problems of the genocide survivors. It is not an easy work to document the genocide in addition to that and distribute the information to international forums. For Armenians it took several generations. The Armenian genocide occurred 1915 but only now the international community is little by little starting to recognize it.

But if the Kurds do not do this work by themselves, no one else will neither do it. It is unfair that it is the responsibility of the victim to get justice. However, so it is.

If you Kurds want Anfal to be recognized as genocide, you must make international lobby for it. There must be a long perspective plan for it. Despite it is difficult thing in a chaotic country where the urgent problems take all the attention of the decision makers. Nevertheless, it is the only way to reach the target, international recognition of Anfal.

Merry Christmas from Hewlêr!

I took this picture in Hewlêr bazar today the 24th December 2008.

Kirkuk, a multicultural city

Advertisement of a Turkmen festival held in Kirkuk in November 2008. Kirkuk Turkmen are not so similar to Turks than the Turkish state claims.

There was a massive suicide bomb attack in Kirkuk during Eid al-Adha, the 11th December 2008. Fifty people died.

News from Kirkuk in international mass media is always like this: big bomb explosion, small bomb explosion, attack, murder. There is no information about the every day life.

I visited Kirkuk five times during this year. In autumn 2008 I spent six days in Kirkuk province.

What did I see? People who try to keep the normal daily routines despite very heavy military presence. They wait desperately Article 140 to be put on action.

Despite its enormous oil resources, Kirkuk is a poor no one’s land: Baghdad government is controlling it but not developing its infrastructure, fearing that the city will fall to the hands of Kurds. KRG is doing some social and health programs there (for example Roz) but its share of the budget of Iraq is meant to the provinces of Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymania, not to the Kurdish provinces outside the region.

Many people told me about the pre-Saddam Kirkuk. It was nice multicultural city with lots of tolerance and respect to other ethnic groups. Traditionally most inhabitants in Kirkuk are Kurds and Turkmen; most Arabs have arrived there recently (and are also victims of Saddam’s terror, they have been deported from the Delta area in South Iraq). Many Kurds and Turkmen speak both languages and mixed marriages are common.

People repeated that the problems and tension in Kirkuk are led from outside, Kirkuk residents want to have a peaceful life but there are too many foreign groups acting in Kirkuk.

I spoke also with many Turkmen. When they heard a foreigner speaking Turkish they started to pour their despair on me, how the world does not know what the Turkmen of Kirkuk want: peace. Turkman is different language than Turkish (which I cannot well), I did not understand much else from their speeches that they were desperate.

Since the Kurdish uprising 1991, Turkey has supported Jabhat Turkmen -party in Kirkuk to sabotage Kurdistan becoming independent with the oil resources of Kirkuk. Information and experience should have flown to the opposite direction: pre-Saddam Kirkuk was modern multicultural city where different ethnic groups have co-existed centuries in peace and harmony. The Turkish state is built on the false identity of mononationalism and Turks are afraid of multiculturalism. They should not be: the pre-Saddam Kirkuk was an example of this.

Turkish people should learn from the history of Kirkuk and use the experiences of peaceful co-existence for changing Turkey a similar place as Kirkuk was until the Baath party destroyed the atmosphere. But instead of learning something from others Turks wants to bring the repressing Turkish mentality to Kirkuk, and continue the destruction of both Kurds and Turkmen from where Saddam finished his job.

Kirkuk in pictures - 2

I have put to Sahmaran also earlier pictures from Kirkuk, here is some more of them:

The symbol of Kirkuk is fire. These flames - which can be seen when entering Kirkuk from Hewlêr direction - are very famous. But this is not Baba Gurgur, the eternal fire which has been burning four thousand years without a break. Remember that fire is the symbol of Kurdish culture. Maybe it all started here many thousands years ago.... In the battle about Kirkuk it is question of much more than oil.

Kirkuk Bazar is a walking street. Usually cars are not permitted to enter here.

Siniyu self (Turcoman: sini self) is very popular game in Kirkuk during ramazan. Men do not play it at other times.

Stadium where Saddam arranged parades to show his power. Pay attention especially to the Kurdish petrol station on the left. Six per cent of world’s known oil resources are in Kirkuk - but the petrol which is sold on the streets comes from Iran.

A view near Dubiz. Water comes here via a canal from Dohuk reservoir.

Pictures: Kristiina Koivunen

An uncommon view in Duzkhurmato

Taking pictures from a moving car is not easy. These views are quick snaps from car window in Duzkhurmato in October 2008.

Duzkhurmato is a small Kurdish town by the road from Kirkuk to Bagdad. It lies about 70 km south from Kirkuk.

All the traffic from Turkey to Bagdad goes via this road, there are many lorries. South from Kirkuk they drive only at daytime. There are many foreign lorries, most of them from Turkey. This one of the German low price super market Aldi was the most surprising one.

In places like Duzkhurmato tourists do not stop the car for photographing, you just take pictures from a moving car and maybe one picture out of ten is quite OK. For example this one is tolerable:
If you are lucky maybe your driver is decreasing the speech. I also learned that it is good to wash the car window. There is not much more to do for the sake of photographing in Kurdish countryside, which is under the Bagdad rule.

Television news show Iraq only as a battlefront and bombing field. However, the everyday life looks normal in many places. The high way restaurants near Duzkhurmato look quite the same than the ones in German Autobahns and the highway from London to Scotland. Unfortunately, I do not have better pictures.

Pictures: Kristiina Koivunen

Blogging in Iraq

Sahmaran's readers might have wondered my long silence. The main reason is the weakness of the Iraqi internet, as well as lack of time.

I was wondering why there are so few bloggers in Iraq when blogging is very popular in Iran. (But not in Turkey - that's also a good question - the answer is not at least the lack of possibilities to use internet. But for some reason Turks seem to be much more talented internet hackers than bloggers.)

After visiting the first time one of the very few internet cafeterias in Hewlêr I understood the reason for the lack of blogging. One must be real hero to blog regularly by the slow and low capacity Iraqi net.

The problems in blogging were of many different character. Just look at this pictures! I do not speak Arabic or Kurdish Sorani dialect. Not to say anything about the difficulties in finding a functioning internet access. Even if someone had computer with in internet access one has to wait that there is electricity and the line is functioning. For example sand storms prevent internet to function in many places.

Now I am back in Finland after three hot and hectic months in the Iraqi part of Kurdistan (and three hours in Habur in Turkey).

I try to put pictures from South Kurdistan to Sahmaran blog (I have almost one thousand pictures from the journey of last spring and three thousand from the autumn journey, not all of them....) but some how there seems very little time for blogging - sorry. I really respect active bloggers, like Hevallo and Mizgin of Rasti, who write much and keep us informed about the situation in Kurdistan. But I am busy with my next book.

Good news from Kurdistan!

Hewlêr Citadel from the Park Minaret direction (click the picture so it becomes bigger).

Readers of Sahmaran might have wondered the long silence.

Sorry for that. The reason is that I have made a great tourney around the autonomous Kurdistan Region in Iraq. I have travelled also in Mosul, Kirkuk and Diyala provinces. I try to put pictures here soon, if Arianet - Insallah - is in order.

Finally there are good news from Kurdistan! Not yet in connection to political situation but to the weather: The summer heat is finally over and it has been raining!

Congratulations, Martti Ahtisaari!

Martti Ahtisaari, the former President of Finland, has got the Nobel Peace Price 2008. Congratulations!

Martti Ahtisaari has done good work for example in Aceh in Indonesia, and in Kosova. I wrote last March in Sahmaran about Ahtisaari and Kosova peace process.

Mr. Ahtisaari, also Kurdish people need your skills and experience in peace negotiations!

American concert in Hewlêr

I have now Arianet so it is easy to use internet here in Hewlêr. But for example tomorrow I travel out from here and now I have time to put only this picture to my blog.

It is from a concert today evening by American soldiers in the auditory of Kurdistan's Ministry of Culture in Hewlêr.

I have heard Kurdistan's national hymn "Yah Rahqeeb" many times, but this was the first time I heard it played by American soldiers.

After Kurdish and Iraqi national hymns the rest of the concert consisted of American folk music.

I have still ban to enter Turkey

When I was deported from Turkey December 2006, I received from Turkish police only oral information that I have a ban to enter Turkey. They did not give me any paper about it. Neither I was told the reason for the ban and how long time it is valid.

My advocate Murat Timur has tried to get this information since that from the Foreign Ministry of Turkey and from a court. Until now the only response what he has got is a paper that the application has been received. Turkey neither gave any answer to the note Finnish Consulate left to Turkish Foreign Ministry in January 2007.

Another advocate advised me to travel to Turkey to find out whether I still have a ban to enter there. So I travelled from Iraq to Habur on Friday the 4th October 2008. My plan was to go to Batman Festival which was arranged that week-end. I participated Batman Festival also three years ago. The journey from Iraqi boarder to Batman takes about three hours.

I was in Habur police station three hours (I was also permitted to visit a cafeteria and tax free shop). Policemen told me that I have a ban to enter Turkey. At last I got this information also on a paper. Policemen did not tell me reason for the ban, they said there is an office in Ankara where I can get this information. Their English was not good enough to explain what is this place. I made phone call to advocate Murat Timur so that the policemen could have explained this for him in Turkish but they refused to speak with Timur.

This little episode is one example about the present political situation in Turkey. It has not developed towards a positive direction. Turkish citizens (which the Kurds residing in Turkey are) and associations which are run according the Turkish law must have the right to receive visitors freely according their wish. This is impossible when the state gives bans to enter the country. My ban to enter Turkey violates the rights of Turkish citizens.

I have spoken here in Hewlêr which several people who have a ban to enter Turkey, both Iraqi citizens and foreigners. They all say that they have not lost anything when they are denied the possibility to travel Turkey. In a way I feel also like this. Three hours was enough to remember the atmosphere of fear which dominates life in Turkey. Of course I was disappointed that I could not participate Batman Festival and that I did not get information about the reasons for my ban to enter Turkey. But any way it was a relief to return to Iraq. I crossed walking the boarder river, escorted by a Turkish soldier until about middle of the bridge, and then received by a Kurdish peshmerga.

There was still one surprising thing. I had in my mobile phone SIM card of an Finnish telephone company (Eliisa). With it I could easily make phone calls and send SMS to Finland. But not to Iraq, the network was out of order. Despite the distance is only a few hundred meters.

Life in Iraqi Kurdistan

From left: Falakaddeen Kakaie (Culture Minister, KRG), Ayla Akat Ata (MP, DTP, Turkey), Kristiina Koivunen and Bengi Yildiz (MP, DTP, Turkey). Hawler the 9th September 2008.

I am still in Iraqi Kurdistan tackling with heat, internet and several other problems.

Life in Hawler is very interesting. There would be enough of things to write a book, not just posts in a blog (well, actually that's just what I am doing).

Insallah when internet works I try to put some more pictures to Sahmaran. But only when I can use wireless network with my own laptop. I do not put my flash memory (memory stick) to any Iraqi computer. Among other problems Iraq has its own national community of computer viruses. I am tired to take my laptop to anti-virus treatment every time when I have used my flash memory in the computer of someone else. I have sent pictures to Finland from various computers - when I let my camera to be checked it had more than twenty viruses.

The above picture is taken here in Hawler the 9th September 2008.

I have lots of other interesting pictures too, but the scheduldes of Hawler internet and mine don't seem to fit together. When internet is functioning I do not have time to write to Sahmaran and vice versa.

The charm of traditional Iraqi houses

I am now in Kurdistan. I am happy to stay in a Kurdish families, in addition to hotels. I learn a lot this about the every day life in Kurdistan.

My country Finland is very cold most time of the year. But that is not a problem for us because our houses are good and warm. Finnish people spend much time inside the houses.

For me the most charming thing in the traditional Iraqi houses was the way how people spend lots of time in the open air. They spend evenings in gardens, make food in back yards and sleep on house roofs as well as bake bread there. Also I have slept nights on the roof. It is something I will always remember: the beauty of the sky, the distant voices of the city, warm air and feeling of safety despite of being in the open air. My friends here in Finland are jealous when I tell about it.

Also I admir how few high houses there are Hawler - this is very positive. In most European countries only rich city dwellers have villas and their own gardens. It is so also in Turkey. Most Kurdish people there live in apartments and only dream about gardens. They spend evenings drinking tea in their small balconies. In Turkish cities not even rich people have such one-family-houses where Iraqi Kurds usually live.

Traditional way of house building has developed during many decades, maybe even centuries. Houses fit to the conditions in the best possible because the knowledge is collected during many generations.

This Iraqi Kurdish knowledge should be remembered when building new housing areas instead of importing ideas from totally different environments.

Take only the best foreign ideas!

I am surprised to see that people do not pay attention on saving energy when it is available. In Europe it is popular tendency to save energy because of ecological reasons and the rising prise of petrol. Hopefully the people who make construction plans in Kurdistan study these experiences, for example solar energy.

It surprised me that solar energy is not used in North Iraq. In Turkey it is very common, people heat water with it.

Maybe they think that there is no need to have other energy sources than petrol because there is so much of it. But why not use solar energy when there is plenty of it available? Free of charge!

I could have written about the lack of houses in Hawler. I know it is big and acute problem. There is need to build very many houses. But despite people need them in a hurry the plans should made with long perspective.

The world is preparing itself for changes in energy systems, from dependency of petrol to renewable energy sources. Houses are being built to last for many decades. They should be planned so that they are flexible to adjust new technologies what ever things the climate change and development of renewable energy technologies bring.

My interview in PUKmedia about Kurdish movements

You can listen my interview which PUKmedia made today (the 23rd August 2008) in Sulaymania. It is in English and translated to Kurdish.

http://pukmedia.com/english/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6007&Itemid=42

Back in Kurdistan

Sahmaran has been silent for a long time, sorry for that. I have not been near internet. I arrived to the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq the 19th August. Now I am in Sulaymania following the Sulaymania Film Festival.

I will write more as soon as I have time and access to internet.

Culture Minister Falakaddin Kakeyi in Finland

I (left) and Culture Minister Falakaddin Kakeyi.

Falakaddin Kakeyi, Culture Minister of Kurdistan Regional Government, is now in Finland. I met him on Wednesday the 29th July 2008 in Helsinki.

Pashay Gawra, a music team of sixteen members, is expected to come Finland from Rawanduz, South Kurdistan. They should play on Saturday the 2st August on Faces Etnofestival in Karjaa. But due to problems and delays in getting visa it is not yet sure whether they will come here.

Lack of buses in Stockholm and in Hawler

An uncommon view in Hawler: a bus.

I was some time ago in Stockholm, Sweden. Local buses were on strike. Lack of buses remainded me about my stay in Hawler last spring. For me the biggest surprise there was the lack of public transport. The problems in travelling was in Stockholm an exception which makes people angry. In Hawler a situation, which is much more difficult, is a normal thing.

Metro train in Fittja, a suburb in Stockholm.

Stockholm has effective underground system. It is very quick and in most stations there are buses going to different directions. Fortunately underground drivers were not on strike. But the system was half paralyzed because there were no connecting buses. What people did? They walked. I walked in the mornings 45 minutes to from my friend's home to an underground station. Fortunately the weather was good.

In Hawler I saw almost no people to walk. This surprised me. How the poor people travel who do not have a car? And no one was driving bicycle. In European cities bicycling is very popular. There are roads which are used only by bicycles. In Helsinki I bicycle every day in the summer. Hawler would be good place to bicycle because there are no hills.

In Stockholm underground stations there are persons who control that passengers have tickets. Most of them are immigrants. They do their work but they also keep an eye on people of their own nationality, especially the women and teenagers. The Kurdish ticket controllers are a network of spies who know what time Kurdish youth travel and with whom. If a girl travels with a stranger whole the Kurdish community knows about it and her parents are the first ones to get the information. So the girls avoid this.

There are already now bad traffic jams in Hawler. And I suppose the situation will be much more difficult after some years. When people get money there will be more and more cars on the streets.

In every European city with one million people there is underground, local trains or trams. Public transport is better by them than by buses. They are faster as the traffic jams do not affect them. If the public transport system is fast and comfortable, even car owners use it. This means less cars on the streets so that every one benefits, also those who travel by their own cars because they do not waste time by waiting in traffic jams.

Now the re-construction of Hawler is going on and the decision makers decide the travelling policy of the future. There is a need for good public transport system.

But maybe the lack of public transport is a secret plan of the men to keep their women at home. I do not speak only about the work of studies of women - not even to mention feminist activities. They are depended of their fathers and husbands when they want to do just some ordinary shopping in the bazaar.

Finnish and Kurdish demilitarized zones

In Turkey people have been made to believe that the country is surrounded by enemies. And because of this the army must be strong. But Turkey has never had a war against its neighbour countries during the 85 years of independence. Turkish army has been fighting only against its own people. Even in North Iraq army's target has been Kurds who are Turkish citizens.
Looking from an European perspective Turkey's neighbours are not too aggressive. But Turkey has the fifth biggest army in the world.

The situation of Kurdish Autonomous Area is opposite to that. It is really surrounded by enemies. And the situation is opposite to Turkey even so that peshmergas do not have other weapons than kalashnikovs, and some old panzers taken from the escaping Saddam soldiers in 1991.

This lack of heavy arms surprised me when I visited North Iraq in spring. In Turkey I have got used of seeing panzers and hearing the sound of military airplanes and helicopters all the time. Kurdish autonomous area has became a demilitarized zone without any one planning is purposefully.

Maybe the Kurdish leaders hope to buy F 16 -aeroplanes and Cobra helicopters and put peshmergas to pilot school as soon as possible. I am not a military expert but my suggestion is that why not keep North Iraq a demilitarized zone also in the future? And make it a real demilitarized area where security is not based even on kalashnikovs. At least it would be cheaper than buying expensive military technology. With the exemption that a good radar system is a necessity.

This came to my mind because my country, Finland, has a demilitarized zone, Aland Islands. They are located between Finland and Sweden. Aland is nearer to Sweden.
30 000 people, who live there, speak Swedish. There was a referendum in 1921 where the people could decide whether they want to be part of Sweden or Finland. They choose autonomy in Finland.

One part of the autonomy plan made by the League of Nations in was that the islands are a demilitarized zone. The area was strategically important especially at those days when St. Petersburg was the Russian capital. It lies by the Baltic Sea. Aland Islands lie in the same sea and who controls them has good possibility to control all boat traffic to St. Petersburg. The decision made whole the sea more peaceful.

Despite times are now different than during the days of the first world war, Kurds should study the autonomy of Aland islands. Maybe there are aspects which are useful for them. Also in other issues Kurds look now at decisions made at those days.

The autonomy and demilitarization of Aland has been successful because it was guaranteed by the international community. An area without arms can live in peace only if demilitarization is made with strong enough international quarantine. When Western countries now desperately want to remove their troops from Iraq maybe a demilitarized buffer zone in the north would be a acceptable solution even for them. International agreements would only legalize the situation which de facto already exists.

This text is published in Gulan, it is in Kurdish here.

Finnish report about North Iraq

This text about a report of North Iraq was published in Xebat the 24th June 2008. It can be read in Kurdish here.

Finnish Immigration Service has made a report about North Iraq and put it to internet. The 42 pages long report is made by a fact finding team of three people. They collected information from various sources, like UNAMI and other international organisations. They also made a six days long journey to Iraqi Kurdistan Region last October.

Finnish Immigration Service is making decisions to asylum applications and information has been collected mainly for this purpose. As there is common information about KRG Region in the report, it can be used also by people who are interested in North Iraq for other reasons.

The report gives mainly a positive picture about life in KRG Region, especially it pays attention to the good security situation.

During the spring there has been in Europe quite lot criticism about the situation of Assyrians and other Christian minorities in Iraq. For example in the International Compact with Iraq Conference in Stockholm at the end of May some Assyrians raised their voices.

The Finnish team found the situation of Christian minorities to be normal in KRG Region. The report says:

"Due to the stable situation the three northern governorates have become a safe haven for internally displaced persons, for instance Christians, who told the fact finding team that the situation of Christians resembles something like a normal life in the KRG region. Christians have been welcomed by the local population in the three northern governorates. They have had a good relationship and are respected by their moderate Muslim neighbours, but consider radical Islamists a threat."

The team noticed last October that the Christians were worried about the PKK conflict, which touches areas near the border where Christian people are settled, and where shelling has occurred.

“Some informants pointed out, that the Turkish army has already for years had several outposts inside the KRG region, at least in Bamarne and Zakho districts of Dohuk governorate“, says the report.

The Finnish team did not visit Kirkuk last October as they found it too dangerous. They write that the security situation in Kirkuk was bad and say:

“Some informants thought that the resolving of the Kirkuk issue would take a long time. Ownership issues remain a large problem, as lost property such as houses have been sold several times over, and may have many claims of ownership by different people.”

The report draws a potential link between the increase of Islamic terrorism and the situation of Kurdish youth:

“During the fact-finding journey, no terror attacks were reported in KRG Region. Some informants mentioned that the youth in Kurdistan is at a critical stage, due to economic hardships, unemployment and the lack of meaningful activities. Due to these circumstances, some join mosques and become extremists. Youth care is needed, and informants suggested that the West help to set up activities such as youth centres.”

In the human rights situation the report does not find too many causes for criticism. Any way, the long waiting times for some detained persons before trial is not acceptable according to international standards. The report says:

"Pretrial detaining periods are long. There are some detainees who are from Mosul or Kirkuk. KRG courts claim that they have no jurisdiction to try them. These people are therefore in a legal limbo. They have been detained, but have not been charged of any crime, and there is no apparent solution to their cases."

The team found problems also with the trial process:

“Most of the detainees are not satisfied with the trial process, often they have no information on the appeals’ process, and many have had no access to a lawyer”, says the report.

It also states that according to UNAMI, prison conditions do not meet international standards.

One area of criticism is the situation of women. The report mentions that it is bad in many rural areas. The situation of honour related violence is very alarming. The amount of women’s suicides has doubled between 2002 and 2007.

“An important factor in the increase of honour related violence is the increasing use of mobile phones, as SMS-messages and the saved phone numbers of men reveal unacceptable relationships”, says the report. But it continues:

“At the same time, awareness of the situation has increased. Women today seek help against domestic violence more readily than before. However, available shelters are full, and women cannot often return from the shelters to their families. Some women have been killed after they have returned to their families.”

The report pays mainly attention to problems where improvement is necessary. But it says about mass media that there exists some degree of freedom of expression. Journals have been able to criticise the administration and to write articles on corruption, without having been charged.

It also says that the civil society in KRG Region is active.

The report gives detailed information about the health care and problems in it. When thinking about them it should be kept in mind that the problems are caused by the international sanctions which hindered development of health care system.

It is noteworthy that there exists no public psychological treatment in KRG Region. There are no government programmes for the treatment of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). This is a big problem when keeping in mind in how much Kurds have suffered for decades because of wars, Anfal and other Saddam’s atrocities. NGOs (non-governmental organisations) are too busy with helping internally displaced persons with basic necessities such as water and sanitation to concentrate on mental care issues.

The report tells about the housing problems in KRG Region. The number of internally displaced families is about 100 000 – 150 000. The future of displacement depends on the outcome of the Iraqi war. The report pays attention that Kurdish families flee violence to KRG Region from Mosul but not from Kirkuk.

The report is available in English language in internet here.

Kirkuk Citadel - 2

March 2007 I wrote about Serhat castles . Also South Kurdistan has rich cultural heritage with castles which are maybe thousands years old. They are not only Kurdish history, as there has been many other civilizations during the history.

These pictures are from Kirkuk Citadel. It is a peaceful oasis in the middle of the war zone. Just look at the pictures, while walking in the Citadel you could not imagine that the war with almost daily bomb attacks is just outside the Citadel walls.

Saddam destroyed the old town of Kirkuk during the 1990s. It is inside the Citadel but I do not have pictures of the centuries old houses which are now in ruins. Let us hope that the war will not cause more damage to Kirkuk Citadel. Instead there should be archaeological surveys and preservation. Kirkuk Citadel should absolutely be in the UNESCO World Heritage Program!

I am sure that in the future Kirkuk Citadel will be a popular target for tourists.

I know very little about Kirkuk Citadel. If some one has information about it, please let me know!

Kirkuk in pictures

UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq) has published an analysis how to resolve disputed internal boundaries.

I have not had time to go through it, so I do not comment it.

But here are some pictures from Kirkuk. I have been wondering why there are so few good pictures from Kirkuk available in Internet. Well, after visiting the town I understand the reason. The pictures are taken in April 2008.

At least the car windows should be clean when I go there next time!

Halabja: People who are stronger than chemical weapons

I visited Halabja during my journey to North Iraq. My feelings are quite confused so I can not write much about it before reading background information. Just look at the pictures which I took.

I went there expecting to see a living misery - 1988 there were about 70 000 people in Halabja and five thousand of them died in Saddam's attack by chemical weapons. How a town can come back to normal life ever after such a thing?

But what I saw was an active town just preparing the anniversary of one of its massacres. Because 16.3.1988 is just one example in the long line of massacres.

Many people left Halabja after the gas attack so the population is now under 70 000. But those who remained say they will never leave their home town because of respect to their ancestors who have been murdered.

It was my first visit to Halabja but very soon I felt like I had been there earlier. Or in a place which is similar to Halabja. Where? In Dersim, October 2005. When seeing the statue of Zilan opposite to the statue of Kemal Ataturk in Tunceli city centre one understands that the Dersim people have not given up.

And neither have the Halabja people done. They say that they are stronger than chemical bombs.

It is also amazing how quiet the liberators of Iraq, also Americans and Britons, have been about the Halabja massacre. It is the clearest evidence of Saddam’s atrocities towards Iraqi citizens - why the liberators do not make surveys about it and use this information for verifying the right of their crusade? Because the first question in any research would be that who gave Saddam the chemical weapons.

I visited both the mass graves of the 16.3.1988 victims and the Memorial Statue of the massacre.

There are three mass graves where the bodies have been counted but not identified.

This is a symbolic grave yard. The victims of Saddam’s atrocities are not buried here, but they lie in mass graves and in anonymous graves in villages around Halabja. Each stone represents one family, not one person.

For my big surprise I heard that the monument was burnt last year, but it did not became clear by whom it was done. But it seems that also other people than the Islamists are disappointed on the way how KRG has dealt the Halabja tragedy.

As you can see from the picture the monument the reparation goes on now.
The picture is bad because it was difficult to take pictures by a digital camera in the heat and heavy sunshine.

Here is re-cycling by the Halabja way: authentic chemical weapons á la Saddam styled in an artistic way:

Vice-mayor of Halabja, Mrs. Kwestan Akram. Also Tunceli’s mayor is a woman, her name is Songül Erol Abdil. So even in this aspect these two towns are similar.

After visiting Halabja I visited Medico Legal Institute Kurdistan which is part of Hawler Medical University.

Here is some statistics of their work:

Pathologist working in the institute: 10
Autopsy per day: 2 -3
Deceased waiting for identification in their morgue: 700
Deceased waiting for identification in mass graves around Iraq:

182 000

Due to poor security situation in the Iraq area controlled by Arabs the digging of the mass graves has been postponed.

Pictures by Kristiina Koivunen, Halabja, the 10th May 2008

Vain hopes in ICI Stockholm Conference

The Stockholm International Compact on Iraq (ICI) Conference is over.

My feelings are confused. Did the ICI Conference reach anything?

There were big expectations to the Conference. International Community wants to end the Iraq war.

But before any problem can be solved it must be defined what is the problem. When listening the speeches of various foreign ministers in Stockholm about the economical improvements in Iraq one could think that the biggest problem in Iraq is economy. Does any one in Iraq agree with this?

Almost no one of the speakers mentioned the Kurdish autonomous area. Iraq was described in the speeches as one area where the chaos is similar every where.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan spoke in the conference about Turkey's efforts to assist Iraq during difficult times. Some hours after Babacan's speech Turkish air forces bombed North Iraq.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki spoke about peace and stability in the entire region.

"It is necessary to use opportunity provided by this conference to help stabilize the situation in Iraq, improve the living conditions there and contribute to the reconstruction of this country in a more responsible manner", Minister Mottaki said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke also in this conference about how the weapons of mass destruction were the cause of the American military intervention.

Rice used several times words "the Iraqi people" despite there does not exist such a nation. Peter W. Galbraith has critized in his book “The End of Iraq” the American way to see Iraqi people as an unity despite there are three very different groups.

Several speakers spoke about the importance about national reconciliation in Iraq. The target can be achieved only by seeing the real facts, not speaking about one’s own dreams about one Iraqi nation. In reality such attitudes fuel the partition of Iraq despite the speakers claim they are against it.

Many speakers in the conference expressed their wish that refugees would return to Iraq. Also here reality is opposite: bombings to North Iraq by Iran and Turkey force more people to become refugees.

I believe that the international community really wants to find a solution to the Iraqi war. It is too expensive both in the economical cost and in the lost of lives of American and other foreign soldiers. The first thing to end this war is to see the real situation. If the peace is reached by some miraculous way under these false ideas there is a seed for the next conflict.

The speeches in the conference were polite and optimistic but they show how weak and helpless the international community is in front of this war.

One of the decisions of the ICI Stockholm Conference was to arrange a follow up conference next year in Bagdad. This in an ambitious decision. It is a good test for United Nations and the international community to show what they can do for this situation. Iraqi citizens will remember this decision.

ICI Conference in Stockholm 29.5.2008

Representatives of nearly 100 countries took part on Thursday the 29th May in a conference in Stockholm, Sweden's capital. The UN called the conference to review a five-year package it brokered last year, called the International Compact with Iraq (ICI). The gathering followed the conference in May 2007 at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the Iraq Compact was launched.

In the Stockholm Conference participants represented governments, United Nations and European Union. There were no NGOs. Among the delegates in the Conference were UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, EU High Representative Xavier Solana, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. Thirteen Ministers of the central government represented Iraq, led by Prime Minister Noori Al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki asked the international community to relieve Iraq's debt. Officials said the move was aimed mainly at Arab countries, to which Iraq owes most of its 67 billion dollar debt. It dates from the time of Saddam Hussein's regime. The debt is owed to the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. The request was aimed at supporting Iraq's efforts to restore stability and rebuild a functioning economy. Correspondents say progress in these areas remains fragile. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said before the Conference debt was not its subject.

Despite big hopes laid on the ICI Conference the arrangements of it reflected how fragile the situation is. Programme and participants of the delegations were announced only on the same day as the ICI Conference took place. Hope, optimism and need for reconciliation was expressed in many official speeches but difficult topics like the Kirkuk question or bombings of North Iraq were not mentioned.

Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih mentioned in his speech the need to implement the issue of the Disputed Territories and internal boundaries addressed by Article 140 ot the Constitution.

Condoleezza Rice repeated that US supports a unified Iraq. She repeated both in her press conference and in her speech in the ICI conference how the security situation in Iraq is getting better.

Rice refused to answer journalists who asked her to say the biggest mistake what US has made in Iraq. She said the historians will analyse the situation in a different way than people nowadays. She was sure that it was not a mistake to liberate Iraq because now the Iraqi people have a possibility to develop their country and Iraq can become a stabilising force in the Middle East.

Also the other speeches in the ICI Conference sounded similar to speeches held various times in other conferences. The Conference concentrated on issues related to the central government and Arab parts of Iraq. While listening the official speeches people who are unfamiliar to the situation in North Iraq could not imagine that every part of Iraq is not under chaotic conditions.

Country which is like a fairy tale

I write these words a few days after returning home from Iraqi part of Kurdistan. I wanted to write a column already during my three weeks stay there. But it took a little bit of time to go through all the experiences and to understand what I had seen. It was my first journey there, everything was new.

Now after spending some days in the cool temperature I can analyze things better. This might be hard for Kurds to believe but when my plane arrived to Stockholm, Sweden, it was late afternoon and the temperature was nine degrees!

To put it shortly: I was amazed to visit a country where everything is opposite to Turkey. A country where one does not have to be afraid of police and check points on the roads. There is an European fairy tale called "Alice in Wonderland". It tells about a girl who visits a land where everything is opposite to what she is used to. This story expresses my feelings during the first days in Hawler.

I collected information for a book and newspaper articles. I got all information what I asked for and there would have been even more available - but I did not have ability to receive it. People helped me every where I went, many thanks for that. Especially I want to thank Ministers Dr. Idris H. Salih, Dr. Mohammed Ihsan, Nimrud B. Youkhana, Chnar S. Abdullah, Taha Barwary and Falah Mustafa Bakir for giving me their time and answering my questions.

One thing what surprised me was that everything happens very quickly in Kurdistan. Of course it was partly because my journey was short and meetings could not be postponed. But also there is a public will to develop the country and catch everything what was lost during the long years of international economic sanctions. Kurdistan is very dynamic place and the atmosphere of change is special.

The good level of security is a miracle which I believed only after seeing it with my own eyes. Of course I had read about it. But I did not understand it before walking days around Hawler and seeing no other police men than traffic police.

After seeing the life of Iraqi Kurds I understand better the situation of Kurds in Turkey. Also what they are missing when comparing their situation to Kurds who live under their own administration.

Of course there were also things which deserve criticism. My biggest surprise was the almost total lack of public transport in Hawler. In Finland I travel always by bus or by bicycle. So I felt almost like at home when I visited Sulaymania and travelled by bus instead of taxi. The traffic jams and transport problems in Hawler is so big issue that I will write more about it some other time.

I am looking forward to come soon back to Hawler and Sulaymania. Then I will be better prepared and my questions will be more precise.

World Village Festival in Helsinki

World Village Festival was celebrated this week-end (24.-25.5.2008) in Helsinki down town in bright sunshine.

Here Hasan Dohogu and I speak about the Kurds.

Iraqi style petrol station

According to Times Iraq could have the largest oil reserves in the world.

Here is Iraqi style petrol station. I took the picture near Hawler. Views like this are common everywhere in North Iraq, also in Kerkuk (which has six per cent of all known oil reserves in the world.)

Do not ask me about the quality of the street petrol!!

Hawler Textil Museum

I have very many things to tell about my journey to South Kurdistan. Instead of writing long reports I will put here pictures. I start with Hawler Textil Museum which is located in the Citadel and is open every day.

Iraqi Kurds love everything what is new - and made in factories (which are of course in other countries and do not produce things according the Kurdish style).

I do not want to be unpolite towards Iraqi Kurds but they seem to lack such knowledge and respect of their own culture than people in North Kurdistan have. There Kurdish kelims and handicrafts can be seen every where - in South Kurdistan I saw traditional Kurdish carpets during three weeks only in the museum. The long years of isolation and economical hardship have taken its toll also in this sense: 25 000 old Kurdish rugs were exported to Iran during early 90s (also other second hand things are usually sold to Iran).

Now this hundreads years knowledge of carpet weaving is not passed to next generation in the Iraqi part of Kurdistan. I really hope that people there understand what they will lose if this thing does not change quikly. Kilims are the traditional art of Kurdish women.

For the tourists who travel Hawler I recommend to visit the shop of the Textil Museum. There are still some nomad women who know carpet weaving and traditional designs of their tribe. Their carpets can be bought in museum's shop. I did not buy any as my bag was very heavy. I regret it now - it would have been better to pay the over weight cost in the airplane.

Here are some pictures from the museum: