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Project Update: May 7-18, 2008

Wednesday, 7 May
After the team heard allegations about “unusual weapons” used by the Turkish military in the Qandil Mountain villages during the 16-17 December 2007 bombing campaign against the Kurdish Worker Party (PKK), the team visited the assistant mayor, Mr. Abdullah in Sangasar to get more information. The team also asked for details of the 1-2 May bombings by Turkey in the same region.

Regarding the May bombings, Mr. Abdullah reported that they covered a wider area, hitting around the perimeters of the villages, where people graze their animals, but did not directly hit any village. The villagers are feeling “crippled,” Mr. Abdullah reported.

Regarding allegations of chemical bombing during the December 2007 bombing runs, “the KRG Ministries of Health and Environment separately visited the site but have reported nothing to anyone regarding their findings,” Mr. Abdullah told CPT.

The team left Sangasar for Raniya where they were invited to attend a concert at the Raniya School of Fine Arts. Included among the artists were a group of students who performed the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “Ode to Joy.”

Thursday, 8 May
Anita David and Chihchun Yuan visited the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Camp at Kalawah in Sulaimaniya. The city council and Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to move the IDP camp to Baziam, which is outside Sulaimaniya. The camp representative is not able to see the new place and thus cannot discuss concerns with the authorities about the new potential location. The representative reported that the IDPs are worried that if they moved out of the city, they will have difficulty traveling through the check points for work in the city because they are Arabs.

A representative of a group of independent journalists invited CPT to accompany a journalist who will be on trial on 8 June 2008. The government has charged the journalist with “insulting,” carries a thirty-year sentence if the court convicts him. The charge originated in 2006 and became the basis for an investigation by the international organization, “Committee to Protect Journalists.”

Sunday, 11 May
The team held a Non-Violence and Reconciliation Training for the Center for Democratic Organization (CDO). The approximately twenty-five participants came from six different provinces throughout Iraq, and comprised primarily Arab and Kurdish Muslims, although a small contingent of Christian Iraqis also participated.

Following the last, emotionally intense, exercise of the training, one participant said, “we have to come together to overcome the violence in our country.”

Sunday, 18 May
Naar-Obed and Yuan went to Sangasar for a series of meetings regarding the allegations of chemical weapons used in the Qandil Mountain villages by Turkey during the bombings of 16-17 December 2007. They spoke with the assistant mayor in Sangasar, a resident of Levce village who lost a large number of livestock, a resident of Sangasar displaced from the village of Levce following the December 2007 bombings, and a veterinarian who treated the village animals.
CPTers told people they would take these reports to the UN. One person told them, “We will never be safe in our homes again. Turkey continues to bomb us and the US does not protect us.”