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

Kurdistan.Un
écrivain raconte son enfance volée par la guerre.
La mort des « petits héros ».
Le Criquet de 1er, par Salim
Barakat, traduit de l'arabe (Syrie)
par François Zabbal. Editions Actes
Sud, 47, rue Fanton, " Le Méjean ",
13200 Arles, France, 104 p., 75 FF,
BERNARD MAGNIER
AvecLe
Criquet defer de Salim Barakat,
écrivain kurde né en Syrie et résidant à
Chypre après avoir vécu à Beyrouth, nous
sommes loin des enfances radieuses, innocentes
et bucoliques que nous content tant
d'écrivains de par le monde. Ici, chaque
instant semble guidé par la nécessité de
survivre. Les petits héros qui hantent les
pages de ce livre semblent hors la loi du
monde. Ils vivent dans un village kurde de
la campagne syrienne, séparé de la Turquie
voisine par un « maquis touffu» et par une
ligne continue de barbelés. Ils n'ont pas eu
le temps d'être naïfs et insouciants. La vie
et les folies adultes leur ont façonné un
destin tragique.
Et pour ces « enfants voués au pillage »,
le vol, la contrebande (entre la Syrie et la
Turquie) et le dépeçage des bêtes dans un
charnier offrent les meilleurs gages de survie.
L'humiliation d'un voisin ou les sévices
administrés aux animaux sont parmi les
meilleurs de leurs jeux. Comme d'autres
jouent au football, aux billes ou à la marelle,
« ces enfants qui n'ont pas d'enfance»
s'en vont voler la canne d'un
aveugle, plumer vivant un coq, exciter les
dindons ou les béliers et s'amuser de leurs
combats, arroser de kérosène un chat et
mettre le feu à sa queue, ou bien encore
capturer les taupes ou les gerboises, inventer
des sacrifices sadiques et se divertir de
leurs souffrances jusqu'à leur mort... Leurs
jeux sont à la démesure de cette enfance
vieillie dans les incendies, la neige et les
ruines. Quant à la mort, elle est une invitée
permanente, une compagne, presque une
complice.
Ainsi, Salim Barakat choisit d'absoudre le
mal par le lyrisme subtil d'une évocation
psalmodiée dont on peut, à chaque instant,
mesurer la part de retenue. Nul doute que ce
livre - outre la richesse de son témoignage
- ne soit aussi, pour son auteur, un
exorcisme salutaire .•
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58
Turks Seek Relief
On Iraq Sanctions
By Alan Cowell
Nelf rur/..- Times Serl'lo!
ANKARA - Turkey's prime
minister. Tansu Ciller, has gone to
Washington to ask President Bill'
Clinton a question tha't has come to
preoccupy many political and economic
leaders here and elsewhere:
How long can the Western embar- '
go of Iraq continue without visible
political result?
, The question is particularly pertIn~nt
to Turkey, which says it is
lOSIng about $3 billion' a year in
trade and income from Iraq's pipelIne
across Turkey, an artery that
has been closed since the beginning
of the Gulf crisis.
, Officials heresay Mrs. Ciller's
primary aim when shemeets Mr.
, Clinton on Friday will be to press
, for relief from the cost of Turkey's
pivotal role in applying the sanc-
!ions against Iraq. Accordingly, she
, IS expected to seek Mr. Clinton's
assessment of Iraqi progress in
meeting the terms of United Nations
resolutions on the sanctions.
A Western diplomat said Mrs.
Ciller will probably launch "an appeal
to the U.S. to take a leadership
role In helping Turkey solve its
problems." But the' United Statès.,
he said. will "find itself short on
resources to respond to an appeal."
The questions go to the heart o(
Turkey's problem as a remote'
Western allylodged among unruly
and hostile neighbors in the East:
While it pursues a Western identi-
, ty. it is also a player and a trader in
a rough region.
After Iraq invaded Kuwait in
August 1990, Turkey, a member of
the. North Atlantic Treaty OrganizatIOn,
was among the first to support
the coalition assembled by the
Bush administration. Ankara severed
~rade ties with Baghdad and,
most Important to the West. closed
down the pipeline that carried oil
from northern Iraq to world markets.
The shutdown is denying
Bag~dad the chance of selling oil to
~ebuJld fur~her, but it also is deny-
Ing Turkey Income and oil supplies.
"Without any hesitation. Turkey
supported the coalition" Foreign
Minister Hikmet Cetin s~id. But he
added; "Who is suffering (rom the
embargo? Turkey ,and the Iraqi
people, not the leaders, nol Ihose
who created Ihis problem."
Mr. Cetin also said that since the
, Gulf War, Baghdad's authority no
longer J~~tended to Kurdi,sh-con-
, trolled nortliern Iraq. giving a base
'to Kurdish guerrillas seeking a separate
slatein southeastern Turkey.
"The north of Iraq is like a noman's-land,"
he said. "The territorial
i~tegrity and unity of Iraq is
;,vt:ry Important for the whole region,
and for us."
, "The problem is. how long will
this continue?" he asked. "Saddam
is there. sanctions are there and no
one knows how this will continue io
the end, We want to find a solntion."
For some Turks,an issue of
equal importance is their govern'-
ment's worry that the Russian military.
strengthened by its alliance
with President Boris N. Veltsin in
crushing the revolt by parliament
'last week, will feel emboldened to
exercise its power in such former
Soviet republics as Georgia and
Azerbaijan, bothof which are just
to theeast of Turkey.
Officials said that Mrs. Ciller ,is
also likely to register sharp differences
with the Clinton administr.ation
over developments in Russia,
which are seen In Ankara not so
much as a free-market democracy
, striving for life as a potential pegional
threat pursuing what ohe
official termed "a grand Russiim
design. a hidden hand in the Caucasus"
on Turkey's borders.