Mr. Chairman Denmark 23. October 2001

Ladies and gentlemen

I would like first to thank (Kurdish Danish Cultural Society and The Kurdish Group of Roskilde) for arranging this meeting in the Danish Parliament about the influx of Kurdish refugees, hopping that it will be useful. Before tackling the core of the subject, I would like to give a very brief picture of Kurdish sufferings, displacements and miseries that contributed to this influx of refugees as I have seen on the spot aiming at highlighting the back ground of the issue.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have just returned from a six-weeks trip to the liberated area of Iraqi Kurdistan. There, one could see or get direct picture about all the different waves of displacement and migration. Let us look at some examples:

1. Kurds form Kirkuk and other Baghdad-controlled areas of Kurdistan are being subjected to a policy of Arabization. They were ousted from their places of origin, lost all their property and live now under very difficult conditions in the liberated areas of Kurdistan.

Many of them are trying to seek asylum and in different countries. They are victims of a widely practiced and systematic policy of ethnic cleansing, in which the Iraqi regime is adopting extreme measures to change the national and demographic reality of the Kurdish areas under its control. They force Kurds and Turkmans to change their ethnic identity into Arabic. If they refuse to do so, they get expelled to the regions of the two Kurdish administrations in Arbil and Sulamaniyah after confiscating all their property. If they, however, agree to change their ethnic identity into Arabic, with the hope of staying in their areas, the regime deports them after some time to the Arabic of Iraq and says. “You are Arabs”.

2. Some Iraqi Kurds who have been living in Iran since the set back of 1975 who are now back to liberated Kurdistan trying to resettle with immense difficulty, although the KDP authorities are helping them as much as possible. These people have left thousands behind who are still in Iran living as refugees in difficult conditions. The ones back are having problems in getting reacquainted with the Kurdish society after living for about 20 years in the Iranian society, specially as far as the education of children and other aspects of social and cultural life are concerned.

3. Some Faylee Kurds who are Shaii’ts and because of this and of being Kurds were accused by the Iraqi regime of being Iranian in origin and expelled by force to Iran in early 1970’s and 1980’s in a cruel way after taking all their properties. Since years they haven’t been living in normal conditions have in Iraq and had daily difficulties in every aspect of their life, those difficulties have increased in the past two years remarkably. Few of them are trying to come back to liberated areas of Kurdistan to be resettled, but its very difficult to accommodate them. But most of the others are trying to seek refuge someplace abroad, their suffering represents a tragedy and thy are not seeing a way out of their very difficult situation.

4. Kurds who have been displaced several times because of war and fighting in Kurdistan, they are now trying to return to their villages which were totally destroyed and burnt but rebuilt now, many of them cannot do so and settle there because of mines which pose a very big problem in the Kurdish country side especially in the border areas about 15 million mines are still left uncollected and many citizens till now, in fact thousands have lost their lives or parts of their bodies and are handicapped because of this problem, UN and some NGO’s have tried and are trying to remove those mines but the Iraqi regime is putting continuous obstacles in front of that by not giving visa’s to the experts who are needed for that job.

In addition to that, many displaced citizens cannot go back to their villages and small towns because of the traces and effects of chemical weapons used by Baghdad in 1987-88. Those traces and influences were very clearly shown in Halabja and Surrounding areas in 998 by a British team from the U.K which found traces of chemical weapons ten years after Halabja Bombing, and concluded that such areas are dangerous to live in.

5- On the top of all what we mentioned we saw too many Kurds displaced because of the internal conflict between the Kurdish parties mainly KDP and PUK and also the conflicts of these two these two parties with PKK, fortunately there is no fighting since 4 years between KDP and PUK and the situation seems clam between these two parties and PKK in the last year. Between KDP and PUK tension is decreasing very evidently and some of those displaced are already back in their homes according to steps taken by both parties together, but too many more are still displaced and this problem will end completely, only when a real normalisation comes about between the two parties and administrations, when they complete the implementation of the Washington agreement, and the two parties will have complete freedom of action in each others area without any restrictions. It is fortunate that the two parties are taking continuous steps in this direction. We need and hope for much more and quicker ones that could bring about real peace and Kurdish unity as soon as possible, that could end completely displacement because of the internal Kurdish conflict.

I find it necessary to talk about some important points here as far as this topic is concerned to high light further it’s real dimensions of this problem and the reasons behind it :-

1- Many times displacements have been repeated continuously till the displaced Kurd has found a place to settle in, or often a single village or a small town has been burned or destroyed several times, and the inhabitants had to leave it and come back to it several times too. So displacement has become a way of life for them. Sometimes internally displaced Kurds have migrated abroad after suffering from repeated internal displacements inside. So for Kurds this has been a chronic problem and the reasons behind it has always been wars, atrocities, persecution, fear of tyrannic regimes and lack of stability.

2- Baghdad regime has gone in its policies to the extreme escalation which destroying life from all aspects in a very wide area of Kurdistan and forcing inhabitants into concentration camps, that happened especially in the 2^nd half of the 1970’s and 1980’s when Kurdistan was also bombed by chemical weapons and the chain of notorious Anfal operations took place during which 182 thousand civilian Kurds were taken to the deserts in the south of Iraq, where they were buried alive after experimenting chemical and biological weapons on them. According to this policy 4500 villages with their farms and trees were burned, cattle were killed and even the water springs were cemented, all that was part of the scorch earth policy which killed life. They mined large parts of the area and polluted them with chemical weapons. This forced displacement inside was the biggest in Iraq Kurdistan and the camps they were taken to didn’t have the minimum standard of living, about I million Kurds were displaced in these operations, in fact about two hundred thousand of the (Anfal victims) had mortal displacement, that is to say they were displaced to mass graves, this was an evil effort of assimilation or destruction of a nation by the racial regime in Baghdad, it couldn’t be completely implemented as planned because of the first and second Gulf wars 1988 and 1991 and their consequences. Some of the Kurds, which were supposed to be deported by force, could run away from the Iraqi authorities and seek refuge in Iran, Turkey and abroad so those operations resulted practically in both international and external displacement and migration.

3- The evacuation of Kurds from their areas have come sometimes even without wars or fighting, they have been persued because of ethnic, security or economical reasons, One can find examples of this in the tragic process of ethnic cleansing and the deportation of tens of thousands of Kurds to Iran as we explained previously. In these forced evacuations the regime was aiming at punishing Kurds because of their ethnicity especially if they were at the same time Shiittes or expelling them from areas rich in petrol and minerals so that they will be deprived of any economical base for security reasons like deporting the people from Kurdish towns on the Iranian or Syrian frontiers like Khanakin and Sindjar, because the location of Kurds there was considered threat to the (national Security!!) of Iraq.

4- During 1975 when the Algerian agreement was signed between Iraq and Iarn, on the 6^th of March in Algeria tens of thousands of Kurds were displaced internally or externally because of the setback which followed that agreement, and the cooperation between those states at the expense of Kurdish interests. At that time most of them went to Iran very few could make it abroad, and Turkey didn’t accept anybody. In 1988 when there was another set-back because of the cease-fire between Iran and Iraq and the destructive Anfal operations and chemical bombardments, again tens of thousands were obliged to flee to Iran and this time Turkey too. Some of those could make it later on to outside countries mainly Europe. In 1991 after the second Gulf war and the failed uprising and after USA government disappointed everybody by not getting rid of Saddam Hussein and his regime, Kurds feared very much the use of chemical weapons again when the Iraqi authorities and forces came back to the big towns so hundreds of thousands had to flee to the frontiers many of them entered Iran. Turkey didn’t accept refugees and America and its allies had to create a safe haven to protect them on the Iraqi side. Cooperation between these states where Kurds live, has always been there against Kurds and sometimes there were joint operations across borders especially when wars were waged in one or more parts of Kurdistan, and many measures were taken against the Kurdish movement accordingly, as they regarded it always as a threat to their national security, so many times when those states had long conflict, Kurds had to pay some price. Geopolitics of Kurdistan has always been a staunch obstacle in front of progress and success in our case.

This is no doubt that the problem of international displacement and migration has affected not only the life of the concerned people but also the conditions and the normal life in the Kurdish society as a whole, from social, political and cultural aspects in addition to being a big human tragedy. I will give one very clear example; when hundreds of thousands of Kurdish villagers were forced to leave their destroyed villages, farms, cattle and everything, they had to go empty handed to the big camps and towns to live, this created a big problem from two aspects for the society, on one hand agricultural production, live-stocks and any other type of production and resources in the country-side from which Kurdistan and the whole Iraq profited very much were destroyed. One the other hand that big unemployed crowd which were imposed on the towns created all sorts of problems as far as the living conditions, economy, social life, employment and services for the population, were concerned for both the deported Kurds as well as the ones who originally lived in those towns.

Ladies and gentlemen it’s very evident from all what we mentioned that political situation in Kurdistan is squarely behind this issue of displacement and fleeing of refugees abroad and without solving this political issue of the Kurdish people, the question of this displacement and migration stays on and cannot be solved. In a conference in the London University on migration and asylum seekers held a few months ago, I explained in my intervention that these people who migrate and seek asylum here and there are not economic migrants, but most of them are genuine refugees who have fled their countries because of political reasons, I further explained that each one of these people that come out spends between 10 to 15 thousand dollars (most of which goes to smugglers) until they reach their final destination. Such a big amount of money is enough to live on for years in the country they come from, the main reason behind internal and external displacements are obviously political as we explained previously, a policy featured with wars, killings, persecution, repression, and discrimination. As far as the migration abroad of the last few years is concerned, the main contributing factors are; uncertainty about future of the protected Iraqi Kurdish area, lack of guaranteed security, a high unemployment rate and lack of real economical and political stability. There is a problem which is obviously political, it is that of a divided nation called Kurds, it should be put on the agenda of the international community, tackled and solved. In Iraq all those crimes of the genocide we mentioned have been committed against Kurds the miseries of the people and their daily sufferings increase continuously, in Iran they say that all Iranians including Kurds are Muslims and there is no discrimination but in reality the Persians rule and there is no Kurdish participation even in the new Cabinet formed by Mr. Khatami after his re-election this year. The Kurdish resistance of Kurdish people, and who ever asks for peace or justice in Kurdistan is labelled as a terrorist. In Syria there is no constitutional recognition for anything Kurdish. So fleeing abroad is continuous mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Some UN bodies and NGO’s have worked in the last few years in Iraqi Kurdistan and neighbouring countries to help displaced and migrated Kurds but the help has been much less than that required for those individuals. The Kurdish question is not on the agenda of the international community as such, it wasn’t during the cold when the USA and the Soviet Union were leading the world, it not even now when USA is leading the international community. Even in such a case of very clear ethnic cleansing which is a violation of all international laws and the UN charter, no interventions have been made in favour of the victims (Kurds, Torkmans and others). USA and the NATO waged a war of about three months on Yugoslavia accusing it of persuing ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. But the one practised in Kirkuk and other areas of Kurdistan, is older deeper and wider than that of Kosovo and still they didn’t take any measure against the Iraqi regime. We, on this occasion, call upon the international community and United Nations in particular once again to be concerned about the Kurdish issue and try to solve it in the countries Kurds live in peacefully and on the basis of justice and democracy through an international conference, that alone could end displacement and the influx of refuges abroad, had the situation in Iraq been changed and the regime toppled the influx would have stopped and even reversed.

As far as Europe is concerned it’s clear that the European countries are suffering from this influx of refugees in thousands, it is in fact becoming a European problem, and in some aspects even a world problem. Every ship which carries hundreds of refugees or asylum seekers rings a bell which reminds the outside world that the problem in Kurdistan itself should be solved on the basis of justice and respect of human rights. The European countries should unfortunately face this influx and try to bear it, which I think will continue as long as the main problem back home is not solved. Sending back asylum seekers under the excuse that Iraqi Kurdistan is a safe place is not correct, because this area is part of Iraq and that’s what the international community confirms always though now protected temporarily and as long as the situation in Iraq is not changed for good this part also couldn’t be safe. Besides there is no real economic or political stability in this region and people are worried about their future. Even the two ruling parties KDP and PUK make that repeatedly very clear now, these people who have lost or sold all their belongings and sought asylum in Europe or other countries need help and just treatment. I believe that their cases should be looked at on individual basis and no decision should include all of them together. They and their cases differ.

In conclusion, I hope that this meeting will help in getting more understanding and support for the case of these asylum seekers in this country and the Danish government will be more sympathetic towards this issue and discuss it with other European states in order to find a just solutation for it.

Thank you very much for your kind attention

Dr. M. Osman