CPTnet
10 March 2009
IRAQ:  Kurds seek international help in returning to their villages

by Peggy Gish

Rain poured down as we headed up the windy mountain road to Erbil, on our way to meet with UN representatives and two leaders of Kurdish villages in the Chumchee region (in northern Iraq near the Turkish border).  The winter’s rainfall had been low in northern Iraq, so it was a welcome sight.

“Yesterday, I was back in my village to do some necessary work, and there wasn’t any time that I didn’t hear bombing,” one of the village leaders told us when we asked them to talk about the effects of Turkish attacks.  “We have to sneak back in because Turkish intelligence planes flying overhead will target us if they see us.  There are up to fifty to sixty bombs in one day.”

“We can’t go home because of continual bombing,” the other village leader added.  “There are more than 100 villages in our area, and our people want to return and take their animals back to graze.”  He described how the bombing has torn up their agricultural land, destroyed or blocked water and irrigation systems, and has left many unexploded bombs on the ground.  “We ask for a guarantee that the bombing and shelling stop so we can go back to do our work.”

This meeting was one step in seeking international support for a plan being formulated by CPT and the displaced villagers, for returning together to their villages.  We would initially go out for part of a day, so that villagers could care for their fruit and nut trees, their land and property.  Then gradually our presence could be extended, with the possibility of team members and villagers living together in those previously bombed areas.  We might designate the zone a “peace village,” an area in which weapons or violence are prohibited.  We could institute a “no-fly zone,” an area declared off limits for international military recognizance or attacks.

We planned these actions fully aware of recent political agreements among governments of Iraq, Turkey, and Iran to cooperate in targeting Kurdish rebel groups along the border.  We choose to focus on the basic rights of Kurdish civilians—well outlined in international treaties and human rights laws—to live in their homes and carry out their livelihood in safety.

Everyone in that room acknowledged that going together into the villages would not guarantee safety for anyone.  We however, hope that greater international attention to the human rights of these border residents and to non-military solutions for violence in the region would decrease the possibility of more attacks.

Just as these farmers and shepherds depend on rain to sustain their lives, so they also need “guarantees” of worldwide concern and willingness to stand with them, so that their ancestral villages can once more become places of sustenance and peace.