by Peggy Gish

"We want security and our neighboring countries to stay out of our country and villages," a group of twelve men displaced by Turkish bombing around the village of Terwanish in northern Iraq, said to CPT's delegation of international peace workers.  They told of Turkish airplanes flying low over their village, terrorizing the people, hearing the continual bombing of villages a few kilometers away, and the loss of their livelihoods and traditional ways of life.

For ten days, the delegation worked alongside the Iraq team, going to the border areas to listen as the people talked about the impact of the Turkish and Iranian bombing on their villages.  The delegates joined meetings with villagers to discuss ways villagers could press officials to act on their behalf.  They helped gather information to document and report the violations of international human rights agreements in these areas.

At a meeting with representatives of the legal political wing of one of the Turkish rebel groups, CPT asked what kind of help they want from the American people.  One of the representatives answered with the adage, "If you stop making trouble for us, we won't need your help."  When U.S. members of the delegation commented that it seemed strange that there are over twelve Turkish military bases inside the Iraqi borders, a Canadian delegate responded, "How can Americans find it strange when the U.S. has more than 800 military bases in countries all over the world, and at least fourteen permanent bases in Iraq?"

Anna Bachman and her co-workers at Nature Iraq (NI), a nonprofit organization working to protect the environment in Iraq, reported that as of 2006 they have restored 60% of the marshlands drained by Saddam Hussein.  They said, however, that throughout Iraq, the water is highly contaminated by a "cocktail of toxins."  Iran and Turkey use water as a political bargaining chip when they dam up and limit the water flowing into Iraq via shared rivers.

To better understand Kurdish history, the delegation visited the Amna Suraka prison museum in Suleimaniya, where the Ba'ath regime tortured and killed hundreds of Kurds.  Near the end of their tour, a woman, who had been imprisoned there along with her two sons (both later killed), suddenly shouted her grief and read a poem written to her captors.  Days later, the delegates heard survivors of the Halabja chemical gassing in 1988 tell about how they escaped and then returned to find all of their family dead.

These glimpses into the villagers' struggle for survival, Iraq's many problems rebuilding their land and society, and the horror of what the Kurds experienced, were informative but jolting.  Delegates left more aware of the roles their own countries played in these events, understanding the need for nonviolent alternatives to these tragic acts of violence, and determined for their words and actions to say, "Never again!"