.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
Instead, the Kurdish population
was parcel~d out across Turkey,
Syria, Iran and Iraq. About 25 million
of them live in the region, in
mountain villages and dusty cities
on the oil-rich plains. They are the
world's largest group of stateless
people. And everywhere, they have
been a persecuted minority. Turkey's
forces have waged a bloody
war against Kurd separatists for
decades; Iran and Syria have
harshly quashed independence
movements.
'
But no 'one has targeted the,
KUrds like Saddam Hussein. When
the Iraqi leader" took power in
1969, he set out to "Arabize" his
multi-ethnic country. He has sent
tanks to raze Kurdish villages,
cemeteries and orchards, dropped
nerve and mustard gas on Kurdish
towns, and had ,Kurdish men and
boys rounded up in the nightand
taken them away to mass graves.
Kurdish leaders say about
200,000 of their compatriots died
in Saddam's anfal- his campaign
of conquest - which they call
genocide. Human-rights groups
say the figure is likely closer to
100,000, but no one disputes its
brutality.
Even, the current autonomous
zone, home to 3.7 million Kurds,
has bloody roots. In 1991, U.S.
President George W. Bush senior
encouraged Iraqis to rise up
against Saddam Hussein - then
provided no support for their rebellion,
and' stood passively by
while Mr. Hussein exacted his revenge.
Finally, late that year, a UN
resolution created the no-fly zone
in northern Iraq, and British and
U.S. fighter jets began to patrol the
skies here. - which afforded the
Kurds a certain pmtection froni.
Baghdad.
In that tenuous environment,
they began. their experiment. They
held elections in 1992, and weathered
old men and women came
, down from the craggy m~untains
to line up at poll stations until well
past midnight. Enterprising businessmen
built a phone network,
which patches calls by satellite
through London. The government
began to rebuild the villages and
set up the television stations. They
opened medical schools, and doubled
the number of doctors.
They also trained an army, and
even assigned traffic police in
smart blue uniforms to check for
seat-belt use. "We are the most advancedpart
of Iraq," said a beaming
Jalal Talabani, head of one of
the two ruling parties, the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUl