Thirty million Kurds constitute the world's largest nation without a state. Kurdistan, at present divided between five approximately the size of France. If independent, it would potentially be the most powerful state of the Middle East/Caucasus region. But the Kurdish people have never been allowed to establish self-rule. The strategically important land of Kurdistan, which controls major land routes from Russia and Europe to the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, has always been partitioned by rival neighbours. KURDISTAN HAS been occupied by Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. Rival European states have competed for control over the area, replacing old borders by new, equally artificial divisions.
Since the Arab conquest in about 640, the majority of Kurds have been Muslims. They have, however, retained their own language, culture and tradiHONS Arab nationalists rarely mention that the great warrior king Salah ed-Din (Saladin), who defeated the Crusaders and reconquered Jerusalem, was not an Arab but a Kurd. Indeed, for Saddam Hussein, born in the same town 800 years The British were the first later, Salah ed-Din to use poison gas against has become a symbol Kurdish peasants of his Arab nationalist struggle against, among others, the Kurds.
With the rise of Ottoman power from the 14th Century, Kurdistan was divided hetween the Ottoman and Persian empires. This border lasted 500 years, and still largely forms the border between Iran and its neighbours. Both of these emnires ruled in the name of slam rather than nation, and both recruited Kurdish tribes and traditional leaders as mercenaries. It was only with the growth of modern nationalism that any serious attempt was made to achieve Kurdish self-determination.
From the 1880s onward, in parallel with the growth of Arab nationalism, a Kurdish national movement developed, demanding Kurdish unity and independence.
The Ottoman Empire, known as 'the sick man of Europe', was in decline, and For this 70 page in-depth analysis of the meaning of the Gulf War and the political aftermath send a cheque or postal order for £3.50 payable to Pierre Rousset to: The Red Box, PO Box 431, Cardiff CF1 9YA, Britain.
Outside Britain add 50pence for postage.
• Ankara TURKEY SYRIA • Damascus ARABIA language, culture and traditions. in Asia and the Balkans its client nations were demanding freedom. However, this demand was frustrated both by Western imperialist manoeuvres and by the backwward and chronically tribal nature of the Kurdish leaders.
Following the First World War Britain ended up in control of most of KurdMany Kurds, believing in US President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Principles, hoped for liberation and independence.
Indeed. Britn and France. in the notorious Sykes-Picot agreement which carved up the spoils of the Middle East, nad agreed to estab lish a Kurdish state. This agreement was translated into the 1920 Treaty of sevres. which recognised a small, but independent. Kurdish state in parts of southern Kurdistan.
However. the new geopolitical situation caused by the Russian Revolution, and with the emergence of a Turkish nationalist republic in place of the Ottoman Empire, this Treaty was scrapped.
In the 1923 Lausanne Treaty it was agreed to partition the Kurdish people and their lands between Turkey, Persia and the British and French mandated territories in the area (subsequently to become Iraq and Syria).
The expendable Kurds thus became the first victims of the Western war against the Russian revolution.
and Salah Jaber Tehran • Baghdad o IRAN IRAQ Kurdistan: the majority of Kurds are Muslims, but retain their own A lengthy Kurdish revolt against this betrayal was brutally repressed by the British army and air force - which became the first outside power to use polson gas against Kurdish peasants during their freedom struggle.
Repression of the Kurds continued in all of the successor states to the Ottoman Empire.
In Turkey, in particular, any manifestation of Kurdish culture, including their language, was banned by the nationalist regime of Ataturk.
A fifteen-year popular uprising was brutally defeated by the start of the Second World War.
Although Kurds continued to struggle for their freedom in all parts of Kurdistan, this struggle was frustrated by their failure to establish a truly national and independent leadership.
The tribal leaders were exploited and manipulated by the various occupying powers, who would make promises one day and renege on them the next. This pattern continues today. Both KDP leader Massoud Barzani and PUK Jalal Talahani have been allied at differMassoud Barzani ent times with the Iranian and Iraqi governments, who have regularly betrayed them.
This system of alliances is reflected in political programmes advocating Kurdish autonomy within Iraq, Iran and Turkey, rather than Kurdish unification ane incenendence.
Although Barzani has now, in alliance with Saddam Hussein, defeated lalabani, saddam is unlikely for long to tolerate any genuine Kurdish autonomy.
The latest developments may satisfy the ambitions or barzan an e machi nations of Saddam. but they are not in the interests of the Kurdish people.
Unly a programme calling for an end T THE TIME Socialist the results of the Bosnian election on 14 September were not known. But it was not too early to draw conclusions about the nature and purpose of these elections.
The commander of IFOR NATO forces in ex-Yugoslavia, essentially an army of occupation, said after the ballot boxes had closed that his 53,000 troops had "opened the door for democracy" In bosnia.
If this and the Bosnian elections had been just a sick joke it would not be so tragic. But they were The elections are being conducted on the brutal lie of a unitary country. They legitimise Radovan Karadzid and Ratko Mladic's so-called Republica Srbska and the ethnic cleansing and genocide that created it. They are rehabilitating war criminals.
The elections were the cynical outcome of the Dayton "agreement" which the Bosnian Government was threatened and cajoled into last year. i nis partition, conducted under US auspices at a time when the course of the war had changed in favour of Bosnian forces, achieved the strategic objective of western intervention through the course of the war.
The Dayton "agreement" handed 49 per cent of Bosnia over to Karadzie and Mladic and their greater Serbia project. The idea that these two war criminals no longer control political events in Republica Srbska beggars belief. The candidates in the elections were a part of the ethnic cleansing gangs created by Karadzic and Mladic.
Despite the claims of fairness of Richard Holbrooke, NATO commanders and international observers who are desparate to give it legitimacy, the voting could hardly have been a greater travesty.
•he former non-Serb population of the now Republica Srbska, those who are not refugees outside of the country (or populating the mass graves), were expected to get onto buses, cross Che controntation me ane co dack to their original towns and villages, from which they had been ethnically cleansed, to vote.
Yet another sick joke.
According to some reports only 20,000 of the 150,000 entitled to vote in that way were pre. pared to face intimidation and do so.
On the other hand, 4,000 Serbs crossed into Bosnia to vote. They were not crossing into an area controlled by a genocidal regime but one which remains multi-ethnic despite all the problems.
In no sense can this election be called fair.
It is not surprising that the Bos. nian government has said in advance that it will not recognise the results in the "Serb Zone" of the country when tens of thoucanes have been inine lee no not voting.
Bile be the Bostian Sov. he elections may well suit paign but the Bosnian Government has to face not only the undemocratic nature of the election but the fact that the country will be permanently divided by it.
All the carvers-up of Bosnia stand to gain from the election. The architect of the greater Ser. bia project, the sponsor of ethnic cleansing, and the invader of Bosnia in the first place, Slobodan Milosevic, will get international recornition and leritimacy out of the elections. (It even seems to have legitimised the arch-ethnic cleanser and mass radist Arkan who was disgracefully allowed a letter in the Guardian on election day to justify his actions).
Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, a junior partner in the carve up of Bosnia as well as a victim of Serb aggression in the first place, has settled his differences with Milosevic and they have mutually recognised each others countries.
The Dayton "agreement" suits him down to the ground.
It not only gives him a lease of life in Croatia but he can continue to influence parts of Bosnia through the Bosnian-Croat Federation, a snaky alliance entirely to his advantage.
The outcome of the elction is unlikely to be a surprise.
Nationalist forces are likely to be strengthened in all parts of Bosnia. Many Bosnian liberals will vote for President Alija Izetbegovic and his Muslim SDA in order to prevent a solit vote from allowing a Serb or Croat nationalist to win.
This is likely to damage the prospects for former PM Haris Silajdzic and his Party for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and for the coalition of smaller non-national parties.
I he multi-ethnic content of Bosnian society, defended by the war. will be put under turther pressure from the nationalist forces.
It could hardly be otherwise. The multi-ethnic character of Bosnia does however remains and needs to be defended. SPECIAL OFFER
NOTEBOOKS FOR STUDY AND RESEARCH The Gulf War and the New
A Outlook went to press,