Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

INFORMATION AND liAISON BUILEfIN 6
They were afraid of this message of peace so they killed
the messengers. It Is In this manner that some big
children who govern certain lands of the world act.
Abdul Rahman, men of your caliber are rare as we
approach the end of the century. And many of those
that ressemble you, combat humanists, have been
killed as well. ANOUAR EL SADATE, the Egyptian,
ISSAM SARTAOUI, the Palestinian, SADEGH
GHOTBZADEH, the Iranian, BAODIN MAJERHU, the
Afghan and Jean-Marie TJIBAOU the Iraqlan. Abdul
Rahman Ghassemlou, I have the Impression of knowing
you everywhere, without a doubt because you
were a model.
You are not at home in the ground, Abdul Rahman
Ghassemlou, at the foot of the Wall of Federates that
knows other battles about which you knew and approved
of. You are far from home. Do you have a home?
Eternal exile? Here, with us, your friends, we hope that
you will feel at home. ccThe struggle is hard,» my friend
Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was telling me days ago,
especially because in turning around one sees empty
seats and thinning ranks. This is the place of companions
who have fallen in this struggle. So many of us are
dead, you were telling me. You too, my friend, you are
dead. How injust it is.
Stay with us for a while, Abdul Rahman and you too
Abdullah; for the time that your country might stop
spilling blood and spilling its own; the time that black or
white bearded men and women in black extend their
hands and stop evoking God at the slightest of massacres
that they perpetrate themselves.
INTERVENTION BY
PATRICK BAUDOUIN
SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE INTERNAIONAL
FEDERATION FOR THE RIGHTS OF MAN
When words are difficult to find, where discussions
seem some how in vain; It is moments like this, even for
those who have been struggling for years in favour of
the Rights of Kurds, It must be said, moments that are
discouraging.
How?! Here again are militants of thiS cause, and they
are among the greatest who have fallen, cowardly
assassinated. Here is even more proof forthe Kurdish
people!
Fifteen years ago I took my first trip there, to Iraqi
Kurdistan. Atthetimethere was already a war gOing on
between the others. Barzani was still the historical
leader then. And since then, what disillusions for the
Kurds! What battles! What atrocities have been committed!
Villages destroyed, populations massacred,
children who are not allowed to learn their own languages,
their traditions. The use of chemical weapons All
of this is weighing on the Kurdish people. And what Is
the International public doing? What are the governments
doing? Indlffernce, silence I I don't hesitate here
to express our disgust, our repungence while twenty
plus million Kurds live under such conditions, such
difficult conditions for so many years.
But they do It with so much courage. And It Is not to the
Peshmergas present here that I will speak of courage,
forthey know what that means. For It Is the sense of the
word ccpeshmergas» (don'tfeardeath andgo Infront of
it) when it is a question of struggling for their cause, a
just cause. No, there will not be wasted deaths. The
struggle will continue, we can be sure. We know the
courage of the Kurds and we, who are not necessarily
Kurdish, we are here to support them. We, in any case
the international organisations with means, will try to
make it so that the Kurds are spoken of more, so that
they are not ignored while atrocious acts being committed
against them and so that international organisations,
governments might finally put pressure on the
authonties concerned in Iran, Iraq, in Turkey .... That
this situation might stop and the Kurds might finally
have the legitimate rights that they are claiming, that
they might aqulre a minimum of autonomy so that they
can become something other than a people at war,
continually at war, continually oppressed.
But we know, we know that the courage of the Kurds Will
help. We know that we must not lose hope. And we
know that after Dr. Ghassemlou and the two other
Kurdish militants who were so savagely assassinated
there Will rise other men, other militnats to take over.
And we, international organisations, all present here
today, have come to give family and friends our entire
support. And, also to tell them that we hope to draw
from thiS moment that IS so painful to us a new energy
for the tnumph of the Kurdish cause, so worthy.
INTERVENTION BY
AHMED BEN BELLA
FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
OF ALGERIA
All of Hlwa's family IS In mourning. Our chief editor,
Fadel Rasoul has just been cowardly by assinated.
This mourning that has struck his family affects us
terribly; we, who were his friends and worked With him
on the Journal ccEIHiwar». Similarly, hiS being lost has
reached Innumerable readers of thiS journal who were
able to appreciate the quality of his writing as well as
those who, from close by or from a distance, got close
to him and knew him. And all of those people could do
nothing but love him
Fadel was the symbol himself of the title of our journal,
which before being ours was hiS; before everything