"The Kurdish problem"The basic problem: There is still no homeland for the Kurdish people. Human rights are violently ignored in Turkey and Iraq (countries wich have large Kurdish populations), and brutal opression and torture of Kurds are taking place in the NATO country Turkey. No other nationality of this size has no homeland. For a number of years the Turkish government has been waging a war against the Kurds. 4000 Kurdish villages have been destroyed and lots of people are refugees in their own country. There are no precise estimates about the size of the Kurdish population - but more than 20 million etnic Kurds are living in Turkey, Iraque, Iran and Syria, apart from a large diaspora in Europe and other countries. In Turkey, people are persecuted for refering to the Kurdish people. It is forbidden to give children kurdish names.The Turkish hijacking of the PKK (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan)leader Abdullah Ocalan from his escape in the Greek embassy in Kenya, has further brought the fight of this people to the headlines of world news. (February 1999). |
The long fight
|