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

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
American military hardware," much of it scribes the reciprocal escalation ofterror in
used against Kurds inside Turkey and in eastern Turkey during the nineties: the
the so-called safe haven of northern Iraq. state terrorizing its Kurdish citizens (some-
Randal is no ideologue; he knows the tUnescalled "Armenians") while attacking
Kurds have often held on to old tribal loyal- the guerrillas; the P.K.K..terrorizing Kurds
ties and betrayed each other, and he reports while attacking the state; the state consumwith
disgust the 1996 civil war that led one ing itself with its expensive violence; the
of the foremost Kurdish leaders, Massoud P.K.K. undermining itself with the cheap
Barzani, to ally himself with Saddam. But murder oftourists.
even "after such knowledge," Randal re- Both Turkish politicians and the P.K..K..
fuses "forgiveness" to U.S. governments are, implies Rugman, Ataturk's children
that have contributed to the Kurds' his- . intheir single-minded devotion to a single
torical repression and present plight. goal. He represents the resulting polarity
Randal treats Abdullah "Apo" Ocalan- in two 1994 interviews-with President
leader of the Marxist-influenced Kurdistan Suleyman Demirel and P.K..K..spokesman
Workers' Party (p.K..K..),which has waged Kani Yilmaz. Shorter comments in a secguerrilla
war in Turkey since 1984-as a tion called "Voices from the Crossfire"-
posturing clown, safe in his Syrian hide- and Hutchings' s photographs, which illusaway.
InKurdistan, vanBruinessenismore trate the text-tip Rugman's neutrality
measured toward Ocalan. For a detailed toward sympathy for the P.K..K.The thirty
study of the P.K.K., the only Kurdish or- pages of stark black and white photos
ganization with widespread support and grouped at the book's end have a nowpower
in Turkey, one needs Rugman and familiar narrative line: military and police
Hutchings's Atatürk's Children. After ex- surveillance, Kurds driven from the land,
amining Ocalan's background and the rise new squalid conditions, political protest,
of the P.K.K.. in the eighties, Rugman de-
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more refugees, trials ofKurds and, final~
ly, Ataturk's statue from the rear, father
of Tur~ey standing tall despite his exposed
flank.
Atatürk's Children is almost all terror.
~xcept for one map,After Such Know/edge
IS all text. As for Meiselas's Kurdistan, my
only complaint is the partial misnomer of
her title. Most of the photos are of Kurds.
Wesee little of the land or the Kurds' landhugging
culture, the.reasons Kurds have
worn~eir bandoliers, fought against overwhelmingforces
and, ironically, become a
refugee people. For more photographs of
Kurdistan's beauty, you may need interlibrary
loan to fmd a 1990 book Meiselas
doesn't mention in her bibliography-another
Kurdistan, with photos by N. Kasraian.
The introduction is in garbled translated
English, but the large color platesof
pueblo-like villages and nomadic camps,
Kurds in their homes, with their families,
attheirceremonies, mountains in the background
and foreground--are further reasons
to mourn the terrible devastation that
Meiselas documents. Mourn and then celebrate
the culture that KÙrdsand Kurdistan
have managed to preserve.
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IraqiKurds
exchange
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prIsoners
Ankara - Turkish Daily News March 23, 1998
Rival Iraqi Kurdish groups that control much of northern Iraq exchanged dozens of prisoners
Saturday to commemorate their new year, one of the groups said in a statement.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) said it released 75 members of the rival Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan (PUK) to commemorate the Kurdish new year, which began Saturday, the first day
of spring. The PUK released 67 KDP members in turn, said the KDP statement.
The exchange took place in the areas of Koysinjaq and Deigala in northern Iraq, the statement
said.
The groups reached an agreement last month to exchange all their prisoners. PUK and KDP
officials exchanged lists with names of prisoners who were supposed to be swapped a week
later, but the exchange never took place.
Three bilateral meetings between the KDP and the PUK aimed at creating better relations
between the rival groups took place in northern Iraq with the participation of high level
members of both parties. Confidence building measures, the initial one of which was the
exchange of prisoners, were widely discussed during these meetings.
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