CPTnet
15 May 2009
IRAQ UPDATE: April 2009

CPTers on team in April were Bob Holmes, Craig Kite, Michele Naar-Obed, and Chihchun Yuan.

Friday, 3 April 2009
In Zherawa the team interviewed a family whose 1 ½ year old son died when Iran shelled their village, Razga.  The team then visited the new IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) tent camp in Zherawa.  The camp has no water, no shade, and no families.  Next, the team met with the local KRG Parliament member who listened to the story of the family and the camp.  He promised that he would visit both the family and the camp to “get things moving.”

Sunday, 5 April 2009
The team met with the UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq) human rights office in Hawler about documenting human rights violations.  They filed paperwork with the KRG Ministry of Planning to register the team as an NGO.

Monday, 6 April 2009
Chihchun Yuan and Michele Naar went to an NGO coordination meeting at the U.N. in Howler and learned about the security situation in the KRG.  Tensions are mounting between the Kurds and Arabs around the governorates of Kirkuk and Sinjar.  Four acts of violence are occurring every day, and one bombing every week in Kirkuk; in Mosul a bombing occurs every day and ten acts of violence a week.  The authorities stopped a car on its way to Howler, the capital of KRG, carrying explosives.

Wednesday, 8 April 2009
The team called Qandil, the company contracted to build the IDP camp in Zherawa, and asked if water provision is included in its contract.  Qandil hoped that the host community would provide water to the camp.  The team also contacted UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), which has the responsibility to provide water to the IDPs.

Thursday, 9 April
Holy Thursday

A Kurdish family invited the team to celebrate the “Freedom Day” holiday by picnicking at the family’s farm near Kirkuk.  Kirkuk has long been a Kurdish area but Saddam Hussein coveted its oil fields and began an “Arabization” policy early on in his rule.  When the Kurds rebelled in the late 1980s, he responded with the Anfal, a genocidal attack on the Kurds.  In the Kirkuk region all the villages, including the host family’s, were destroyed and the villagers either deported or killed.  

Sunday, 12 April, 2009
Easter Sunday

After Easter Mass at the Chaldean Catholic Church the team had a special Easter dinner together.

Monday, 13 April 2009
The team visited the new IDP Camp in Zherawa again and found that forty-five families have moved there.  They also saw a supply of water–temporarily trucked in by the municipality but with no promise of a longer-term solution by Qandil.  Qandil and UNHCR were in the middle of a press conference announcing the opening of the camp.  CPTers were also interviewed and partners told them they felt were encouraged when they saw them on TV that evening.

The team documented the stories of more families from Razga.  One family told of Iran’s heavy bombing of Razga in 2008, during which they took shelter in a cave.  Their ninth child, a girl, was born in the cave.  They fled to the IDP camp in the mountains and have not gone back to their village since.

The team travelled to Qaladze and met with the Mayor who told the team that 500-600 families have been displaced from seventy villages in the region.  This displacement had put tremendous stress on the towns, which do not have enough housing or jobs for the IDPs.  They also visited the hospital in Qaladze to document the injuries to villagers by the bombing on the border.  The hospital will share their statistics with CPT.

Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Kite and Holmes met with a member of MAG (Mine Action Group) to plan for a workshop on landmines to be given to CPT by MAG in Shaladze in May.

Wednesday, 15 April 2009
The team traveled to Shaladze to interview the new translators and set up plans for the delegation visit and for CPT moving there.

Thursday, 16 April 2009
In the morning, the team met the Mayor of Amedi Region and the head of Asaish (Kurdish secret police) in Amedi to get permission to document the destruction of a bridge by Turkish bombs in 2008.  The team went from there to the bridge.  An officer, who accompanied the team from the checkpoint, told them, “There was bombing on that bridge yesterday.”

Sunday, 19 April 2009
The team sent documents to the United Nations, reporting the shelling of families in their homes when Iran broke a ceasefire and describing the conditions of the current IDP camp.
 
Wednesday 22 April 2009
The delegation visited Amna Soorican (‘red security prison’ where Saddam Hussein tortured Kurds), Women Alliance for Democracy Iraq (WAFDI), and Kurdistan Human rights Watch (KHRW).

A WAFDI representative spoke about their efforts to stop domestic violence and encourage women's political participation.  At KHRW, the delegation learned that this NGO has obtained permission to investigate the human rights situation in Susa prison, a central government prison formerly run by the U.S. in the KRG.  KHRW also educates the Asaish (security police) on human rights.

Thursday, 23 April 2009  
The team and delegation traveled to the Zherawa IDP camp and witnessed the harsh conditions there.  The group met with the family that lost their 18-month son in an attack by Iran on 10 March 2009.  Many other internally displaced people (IDP) at the camp expressed their desire to go home.

The delegation then traveled to Choman to spend the night with the Mukhtar (village leader) who is an IDP from Kani Spi village.  His family shared their story up to the last time their village was bombed in 2008.  “Families are now beginning to move back,” the Mukhtar reported.

During the drive to Choman, the team received welcome news from CPT Co-Director Doug Pritchard: “The steering committee has officially granted the Iraq team’s extension through December 2009.”

Friday, 24 April  2009
The Mukhtar of Kani Spi took the team and delegation to his village, situated among lush green meadows, mountains, and waterfalls.

Upon arrival, the group received warnings about the many landmines, left over from the Iran/Iraq war, strewn throughout the village.  A number of mines encircle the Mukhtar’s  house.  The Mukhtar lost his leg to a landmine; mines have also killed his brother, nephew, and one son.  The Mukhtar has applied for mine removal but so far, the area is too unstable for organizations to work for landmine removal.

The Mukhtar showed his fruit tree orchard and a cleared area where he can grow vegetables between mine fields.  He asked CPT to help the village appeal to mine removal organizations.  The team recorded GPS coordinates of craters left by recent shelling very near his house.  After leaving Kani Spi, the team and delegation drove to Sheladze to spend the night at the new CPT house.  The group spoke with two community leaders who told of the suffering and economic hardships they experience due to their inability to return to their villages.

Saturday, 25 April 2009
The group traveled to Kani Masi to visit a Christian village that is famous for its apple orchards.  The area is intensely monitored by a Turkish military base posted on top of a mountainous knoll inside the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) border and above the village.  The delegation learned that this military base sets up checkpoints at night.  Turkish soldiers search vehicles going to the village.

The Mukhtar of the Christian village told the group that in the 1990s, Turkish soldiers took two of his relatives and tortured them.  In 2006, the Turks bombed their land and most people fled; only thirteen men remained in the village.  The Turks bombed the village again in 2007.  This year, a roadside bomb was planted along the road to the village.  Turkey tried to blame it on the PKK but the villagers were sure that the Turkish military planted the bomb.  Nobody was injured.  The Asaish were called to investigate.

Sunday, 26 April 2009    
The delegation met with a family in Sheladze who told about the Turkish military invasion of their village in 1994.  Everyone from the village left, except a few people.  The family’s father and friend were among those that stayed.  After twenty-six days, the Turkish military delivered a dead and mutilated body of the father to the family.  Sometime later, the friend’s body was found.  The family said a human rights organization spoke with them once, but they never heard from the international community again.

Monday 27 April 2009
The delegation met the Interim minister of Agriculture and an educator/advocator for Kurdish rights.  They offered political advice for CPT's border project and advised CPT to push the landmine/cluster bomb issue.

The group visited Nature Iraq and learned that Turkey, Syria, and Iran are building dams that are negatively affecting communities in the Southern Iraq Marsh lands and forcing Kurdish villagers into Turkish cities.  Also, the community of Taq Taq in the KRG is angry because of a Canadian/Turkish oil project that is pumping water from the Zap River along which the villagers live.  The KRG is developing its oil infrastructure while central Iraq wants control.  Big oil companies go to the South and small, risk-taking companies, the most environmentally irresponsible, go to KRG.  The KRG fears encroaching central control and thus wants to make money from oil contracts now, ignoring environmental repercussions.  

Tuesday, 28 April 2009
The delegation traveled to the refugee camp in Makhmoor.  The camp is for Turkish refugees who have PKK relatives.  There the group met the “Mothers for Peace,” mothers of Kurdish fighters who are calling for an end to the violence.  Two women shared that they wanted a peaceful and democratic solution to the Turkish/Kurdish conflict.  “We do not want Turkish or Kurdish mothers to cry,” one said.  Over a million Kurds in Turkey are displaced and the Turkish government will not allow international human rights organizations into the country to document what is happening.

Wednesday, 29 April 2009
The delegation went to Halabja, where Saddam Hussein ordered chemical gassing that killed 5000 Kurds in 1988.  They listened to two survivors tell their stories of living through it.  

Thursday 30 April 2009
Naar, Kite, and Yuan met with the Kurdistan Center for Strategic Studies to learn about political agreements that have given Turkey the ability to invade the KRG’s border area  and have military bases inside Iraq.  They learned no agreement to open the border for foreign military action was renewed  after Saddam Hussein's fall.  Additionally, there is no written agreement allowing Turkish military bases to stay inside Iraqi territory.