Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RwISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETÎ
Dally Snin VIewpoInt 1'I-dIr1, 0ctGœr 28, :1.993
Today Palestine,
tomorrow Kurdistan?
By Yona Sabar
The recent agreement between
Israel and the PLO cheered many
people all over the world, and
rightly so, for even a local
conflict affects world peace. One
wishes such an agreement for
peaceful co-existence, cooperation
and mutual recognition of
national rights - instead of
mutual destruction - will be
signed by other.nations in the
Middle East and elsewhere.
I have in mind the case of the
Kurdish people in particular.
Their conflict with their neighbors
is as old as the Palestinians' .
The 1920 Treaty of Sévres, which
dismantled the defeated Ottoman
Empire, clearly recognized the
right of the Kurds to have their
own state, and President
Woodrow Wilson vigorously
promoted the idea of "selfdeterminations"
for all nationalities,
"Arabs, Armenians, and the
Kurds." There are several Arab
states in the Middle East and
North Africa, and an Armenian
state.. but the Kurds were robbed
of this right and remain stateless
until ttte present.
In:utany ways, the plight of the
Kurds is much worse than that of
the Palestinians. Kurdish territory
and the Kurdish people are split
by four states - Iraq, Iran,
Turkey and Syria - none of
which shows much sensitivity to
their Kurdish citizens' national
and cultural identity.
, The Kurds count about 25
million, speak an Indo-European
language and have an ancient
culture. The Palestinians are a
couple of milÎion and can speak
and maintain their Arabic culture
in Israel and anywhere in the
Arab world, whereas the Kurds
are not allowed to maintain and
cultivate their language and
culture. In Turkey, at least until
recently, they were not even
allowed to speak Kurdish in
public.
Kurdistan has a long tradition
of pluralism, because many
oppressed religious sects -
Muslim, Christian, Jewish - and
ethnic groups escaped to the
mountains of Kurdistan to find
shelter from the central governments.
Saddam Hussein, who had
been systematically destroying
Kurdish villages until the end of
the Gulf War, had made a
condition that he would retreat
from Kuwait if Israel would
retreat from the occupied territories.
He shouldbe equally
concerned, or force