Today's Zaman claims that Turkish troops have crossed the boarder and entered North Irak. Other media has not yet heard about it.
The 22nd January 2007 I wrote in Gulan about Orkun Ucar’s and Burak Turna’s book "Metal storm". Two years ago it was the most sold book in Turkey. It tells about war between Turkey and America. It starts in North Iraq when American army arrests Turkish soldiers near Kerkuk. In the novel Turkish army enters North Iraq to help Turkmens.
This book came to my mind when I read in The New Anatolian the interview of retired Chief of Joint Staff of the U.S. Army General Richard Myers. I borrow the interview which was published the 9th April:
Asked on the possibility of a military operation against PKK in northern Iraq by Turkey, Myers said that the forces of the Turkish and the U.S. armies may confront one another.
"Such a possibility that has also occurred at past makes me anxious. If Turkey raises an cross-border operation, that would be a ominous ciscumstance," Myers said, referring to the Sulaymaniya sack case.
When the war between USA and Turkey starts in Ucar’s and Turna’s book?
It starts May 2007.
I had the book but I gave it to a friend. I think I will go and take it back.
****
Today’s Zaman’s article is here:
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=107995
The interview of General Richard Myers is here:
http://www.kurdish-info.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6848
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Monday, April 9, 2007
Gulan: The roots of Islamic terrorism
http://www.gulan-media.com/h629/krestina629.pdf
President George W. Bush is running a crusade against Islamic terrorism. Who created this monster? Believe me or not: his father George Bush in cooperation with his predecessor Ronald Reagan.
Who gave weapons to Islamic militants? CIA, the American intelligence service. CIA also trained them to kill. It was the period when many African and Asian countries had got their independence after colonialism. It was the cold war era.
Open involvement in other countries policies had not given CIA the results it wanted. CIA replaced the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddeq in Iran 1953 by Shah Reza Pahlavi. But it was only a short term solution to get American minded administration in Iran. And of course the Vietnam war was the real catastrophe.
So CIA learned its lesson. When the government of a third world country made cooperation with Soviet Union CIA’s strategy was to arm their opponents like The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jamaat-i-Islam in Pakistan.
The peak of these activities was the war in Afghanistan. Soviet Union soldiers entered there 1979 and CIA started to arm Mujahedins to fight against them. Mahmood Mamdani calls this war an American jihad: CIA armed militant Muslims from all around the world to a holy war against Soviet Union. Mamdani is professor of anthropology in the American Columbia University. He is born and grown up in Uganda. He lived in South-Africa during the change period from apartheid to democracy. Now Mamdani lives in New York. He observed there the 11.9. attack and has written a sharp analysis about it.
The name of Mamdani’s book is ”Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror”. He criticizes CIA for running secret military operations against the will of the American congress.
The Vietnam war caused an anti-war movement in USA. Many senators who wanted peaceful foreign policy were elected to the congress. Most famous of them were John Tunney and Dick Clark. The congress accepted the so called Clark Law 1976. It gave the congress good possibilities to get information and control American military operations abroad. Due to ”the Clark Law” CIA could not involve openly in wars abroad. So it started to finance secretly Islamic groups abroad. This law was annulled 1985 during the second era of president Ronald Reagan. Mahmood Mamdani pays attention that CIA’s secret operations abroad are an attack also against the American democracy.
CIA tried to turn the Afghan war into Soviet Union’s Vietnam. But then happened something CIA had not expected: the cold war ended to the collapse of Soviet Union. There were thousands Islamic fighters in Afghanistan. It became the training centre of Islamic militants. When the war ended they returned to their home countries. They were well trained and had built an close network. Islamic terrorist groups were formed from these troops.
In South Kurdistan the situation is totally different than in the wars during last decades in Laos, Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. US army is making openly co-operation with a well functioning administration, not with marginal groups fighting against the legal administration. CIA’s target in Afghanistan was to win the Soviet troops, not to form a new government. They knew it was impossible. By using Mamdani’s terms the cooperation between the Afghan clans was ”like putting five different animals into one cage”. Taliban movement is a consequence of this war.
Islamic militants have not arrived to South Kurdistan. But in America there are now some similarities to the post-Vietnam war period. Anti-war movement is growing. And so are the demands to remove American troops from dangerous Iraq.
I am sure that every politician in both South Kurdistan and the Arab parts of Iraq think all the time what to do when American troops go home from there. I hope they will do anything else but not secret deals with CIA.
Mamdani, Mahmood: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. Pantheon Books, New York 2004.
President George W. Bush is running a crusade against Islamic terrorism. Who created this monster? Believe me or not: his father George Bush in cooperation with his predecessor Ronald Reagan.
Who gave weapons to Islamic militants? CIA, the American intelligence service. CIA also trained them to kill. It was the period when many African and Asian countries had got their independence after colonialism. It was the cold war era.
Open involvement in other countries policies had not given CIA the results it wanted. CIA replaced the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddeq in Iran 1953 by Shah Reza Pahlavi. But it was only a short term solution to get American minded administration in Iran. And of course the Vietnam war was the real catastrophe.
So CIA learned its lesson. When the government of a third world country made cooperation with Soviet Union CIA’s strategy was to arm their opponents like The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jamaat-i-Islam in Pakistan.
The peak of these activities was the war in Afghanistan. Soviet Union soldiers entered there 1979 and CIA started to arm Mujahedins to fight against them. Mahmood Mamdani calls this war an American jihad: CIA armed militant Muslims from all around the world to a holy war against Soviet Union. Mamdani is professor of anthropology in the American Columbia University. He is born and grown up in Uganda. He lived in South-Africa during the change period from apartheid to democracy. Now Mamdani lives in New York. He observed there the 11.9. attack and has written a sharp analysis about it.
The name of Mamdani’s book is ”Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror”. He criticizes CIA for running secret military operations against the will of the American congress.
The Vietnam war caused an anti-war movement in USA. Many senators who wanted peaceful foreign policy were elected to the congress. Most famous of them were John Tunney and Dick Clark. The congress accepted the so called Clark Law 1976. It gave the congress good possibilities to get information and control American military operations abroad. Due to ”the Clark Law” CIA could not involve openly in wars abroad. So it started to finance secretly Islamic groups abroad. This law was annulled 1985 during the second era of president Ronald Reagan. Mahmood Mamdani pays attention that CIA’s secret operations abroad are an attack also against the American democracy.
CIA tried to turn the Afghan war into Soviet Union’s Vietnam. But then happened something CIA had not expected: the cold war ended to the collapse of Soviet Union. There were thousands Islamic fighters in Afghanistan. It became the training centre of Islamic militants. When the war ended they returned to their home countries. They were well trained and had built an close network. Islamic terrorist groups were formed from these troops.
In South Kurdistan the situation is totally different than in the wars during last decades in Laos, Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. US army is making openly co-operation with a well functioning administration, not with marginal groups fighting against the legal administration. CIA’s target in Afghanistan was to win the Soviet troops, not to form a new government. They knew it was impossible. By using Mamdani’s terms the cooperation between the Afghan clans was ”like putting five different animals into one cage”. Taliban movement is a consequence of this war.
Islamic militants have not arrived to South Kurdistan. But in America there are now some similarities to the post-Vietnam war period. Anti-war movement is growing. And so are the demands to remove American troops from dangerous Iraq.
I am sure that every politician in both South Kurdistan and the Arab parts of Iraq think all the time what to do when American troops go home from there. I hope they will do anything else but not secret deals with CIA.
Mamdani, Mahmood: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. Pantheon Books, New York 2004.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Gulan and Serhat Castles
This week my column in Gulan tells about the Serhat castles. I put it in this blog in English already last week, but it was in Gulan only the 2nd April. Last week Gulan was not published due to Newroz. Here is a link to the column in Kurdish:
http://www.gulan-media.com/h628/g45.pdf
http://www.gulan-media.com/h628/g45.pdf
Van Bostaniçi Mayor Gülcihan Simşek in Helsinki
Bostaniçi Mayor Gülcihan Simşek came yesterday the 2nd April for a short visit to Helsinki. She came from Sweden where she had raised funds for projects of her town.She came to Finland for three days to meet the Kurdish community in Helsinki. She had also a short meeting with Pekka Sauri, Helsinki Mayor for Public Works and Environmental Affairs. Mr Sauri is on left in this picture.
Here is Gülcihan in front of the Helsinki main cathedral.Bostaniçi is a suburb of Van. You can call it a gecekondu. One of the poorest towns in Turkey, maybe the number one in this list. Most of people who live in Bostanici moved there last decade from villages which Turkish army burnt. They are from seventeen clans. Bostanici is a big refugee camp.
Gülcihan didn’t have any good news from Turkey. Almost 500 DTP members have been arrested during recent weeks, including the chairman of DTP in Diyarbakir, Van and Batman. Cizre Mayor Aydin Budak was arrested yesterday.
Gülcihan had one important message: lots of observes should come to Turkey during the elections. I think that election observation should be going on already now because also the campaigning should be free. When hundreds of politicians are behind the bars how the elections could be free?
Friday, March 30, 2007
Van University Student Association YÖDER needs help
I got an e-mail from Van University Student Association YÖDER:
"Some 40 students, members of Van 100th Year University Students' Association (YÖDER), were detained during house raids conducted on 5 March in Van..... Van Security Director Mehmet Salih Kesmez announced that the students were detained for throwing molotov cocktail to a shop."
2004 YÖDER started a campaign to improve the position of Kurdish language in Turkey. Since that more than two thousand students have been target for police investigation because of "separatism". 700 of them have been punished. 135 of them got YÖK-punishment (Yüksek Ögretim Kurulu, the Higher Committee for Education) which means that they are thrown away from Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi in Van and they can never apply to any university in Turkey, not even to the private ones.
Students in Van urgently need contacts abroad to other student associations. If any reader of this blog can help YÖDER, please write to me and I forward the message to them. You can write also in English, there are people in YÖDER who can English. If you read this later than spring 2007 (when I write this message) it is still important to get in touch with YÖDER.
My e-mail address is: k_kristiina@hotmail.com
Such false prosecutions are not a new thing in Turkey. For example DIHA (Dicle Haber Ajansi) correspondent Rodja Kizgin was arrested in Bingöl due to similar claims. After being many months in prison she was released. Some activists told me last time when I was in Turkey that they look all time carefully after their bags. They are afraid that Jitem agents will secretly place some weapons to their bags and then call for police.
"Some 40 students, members of Van 100th Year University Students' Association (YÖDER), were detained during house raids conducted on 5 March in Van..... Van Security Director Mehmet Salih Kesmez announced that the students were detained for throwing molotov cocktail to a shop."
2004 YÖDER started a campaign to improve the position of Kurdish language in Turkey. Since that more than two thousand students have been target for police investigation because of "separatism". 700 of them have been punished. 135 of them got YÖK-punishment (Yüksek Ögretim Kurulu, the Higher Committee for Education) which means that they are thrown away from Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi in Van and they can never apply to any university in Turkey, not even to the private ones.
Students in Van urgently need contacts abroad to other student associations. If any reader of this blog can help YÖDER, please write to me and I forward the message to them. You can write also in English, there are people in YÖDER who can English. If you read this later than spring 2007 (when I write this message) it is still important to get in touch with YÖDER.
My e-mail address is: k_kristiina@hotmail.com
Such false prosecutions are not a new thing in Turkey. For example DIHA (Dicle Haber Ajansi) correspondent Rodja Kizgin was arrested in Bingöl due to similar claims. After being many months in prison she was released. Some activists told me last time when I was in Turkey that they look all time carefully after their bags. They are afraid that Jitem agents will secretly place some weapons to their bags and then call for police.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Serhat castles and UNESCO World Heritage Program
Hosap Castle 60 km east from Wan.
The valleys of Euphrat and Tigris are the cradle of humankind. When our nomad ancestors thousands years ago settled down and learned to cultivate land it happened here. The history of the civilizations which existed in this area is heritage of the whole world.
There is a program to protect the most valuable historical monuments in the world. It is UNESCO World Heritage Program. UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Guess whether such places where the Kurds live nowadays are on the list of World Heritage Program! Correct - there is almost none of them. I found one: Nemrut Dag which is in Turkey. Seven years ago Harran and Sanliurfa were accepted on the proposal list of World Heritage Program. From Iraq there is in the program for example the fortified city Hatra which is near Ninawa.
Instead of one column I would like to write a book about the historical places in Kurdistan which should be in the UNESCO World Heritage Program. And it would be a thick book!
But here is space to present only one topic so I tell about the castles in Serhat area. For me they have been very impressive but they are not well known even among the Kurds. Serhat is one the Kurdish districts in Turkey. It is located around Wan lake, west from Zagros mountains.
In Wan there is the castle of Wan. The castle area is huge, it covers almost two kilometres long mountain. Once whole the mountain was surrounded by walls but now only parts of them remain. Wan castle is three thousand years old, it has its origin in the Urartuan civilization. Castle mountain dominates the landscape in Wan. It is so huge that I almost did not believe my eyes when I saw it for the first time.
But even bigger surprise was to see how many castles there are in Serhat. Only 25 kilometres east from Wan by the Hakkari road is the next castle, Cavustepe castle. And 35 km east from Cavustepe is the huge Hosap castle. No one knows how old Hosap castle is but it was renovated 1643 by Süleyman Bey. Serhat is an area for ancient castles. I do not know whether there is dozens or hundreds of them.
The castles are creatures of many civilizations. Ani is famous for being the ancient capital of Armenians. But Ani has its roots also in many other civilizations, like the Urartuan, Bysant, Selchuk and Georgian cultures.
I do not know whether the decision makers in the UNESCO World Heritage Program have ever heard about the castles in Serhat. Each castle is unique but even more important aspect to them is the entity what they constitute. This historical heritage must be protected and there must be archaeological research in every castle! Also Kurds and other people who live in Serhat must learn to respect the value of the castles and other historical monuments. Now peasants take their sheep and goats even to most valuable places. They spoil ancient ruins by burning fires to make tea and taking stones to build houses.
Protection of Serhat castles is not a threat to the Republic of Turkey. Rather the opposite, the multicultural history of the country is a richness to all Turkish citizens.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Newroz in Helsinki
Kurds from whole Finland gathered in Helsinki to celebrate newroz But not for one newroz party. Like earlier, Kurds from Turkey had one party and Kurds from Iran and Iraq had another party.
I went to both of them. Also some young Kurdish people enjoyed the possibility to listen good music and dance and went to both newroz celebrations.
These pictures are taken yesterday (the 24th March 2007) in the South Kurdish newroz party. Left on my side is Weeja who makes Kurdish programs in Helsinki local radio.
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