[Shadow_Group] PBS: Kurdistan was erased from the world maps after World War One - Kurds - Iraq 101

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

Images and links to interviews and other things can be
found here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/kurds/<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/kurds/>

Kurdistan was erased from the world's maps after World
War I when the Allied Powers carved up the Middle East
and denied the Kurds a nation-state. More than twenty
million Kurds live in parts of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and
Syria. Throughout the 20th century their struggles for
political and cultural autonomy were opposed by the
region's countries and the Kurds were often used as
pawns in regional politics. 
The Kurds' plight most recently captured the world's
attention in 1991 following the end of the Gulf War.
Television around the world showed images of northern
Iraq's Kurds fleeing Saddam Hussein's Iraq through the
mountains of Turkey and Iran. Since the 1920s,
negotiations between Iraq's Kurds and the government
in Baghdad have always broken down over issues of
Kurdish independence, and the Kurds' wish to control
the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and to have their own
militia. 

In America's dealings with Saddam Hussein and Iraq,
Iraq's Kurds have been a tragic side show. For
decades, they looked to the U.S. for support in their
struggle against Saddam's government. Washington's
response has been classic realpolitik - using the
Kurds when it wanted to hurt Saddam and then dropping
them when their usefulness had run out. [See the
chronology]

For this FRONTLINE report, "The Survival of Saddam,"
producer Greg Barker interviewed key Kurdish leaders
and senior American officials who discuss the long,
bitter relationship between the U.S. and the Kurds of
northern Iraq. Here are those interviews: 

He is one of the veteran U.S. diplomats in the Middle
East. He describes America's treatment of the Kurds as
"one of the most tragic episodes in our nation's
history." 

He is Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdish Democratic
Party and one of four Kurdish leaders who joined the
Iraqi government in 1970 after the Kurds negotiated a
power-sharing agreement with then-Vice President
Saddam Hussein. He talks about U.S. betrayals and the
Kurds' continuing skepticism about U.S. support. 

He is part of a three-man leadership council for the
Iraqi opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress.
He offers an overview of Saddam Hussein and Iraq the
past three decades, evaluates U.S-Iraq relations, and
explains the threat Saddam still poses and the
strategy required for launching a successful attack
against him. 

He is former chief negotiator for the Kurdish
Democratic Party in its negotiations with Iraq and the
United States. 

He is a leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan,
one of the two largest Kurdish opposition groups in
Iraq. 

This PBS Online Newshour Forum with Dr. Salah Aziz, an
Iraqi Kurd by birth and director of the Kurdish
Studies Program at Florida State University, offers a
primer on the Kurds' story, examining questions such
as: 'What is the role of the Kurds in Middle East
dynamics?' 'How has the history of Western policy
toward the Kurds affected the present scenario?' The
Newshour site offers related background news reports
and web sites. 

"The Kurdish issue at its core is simply this: A
people with a distinct ethnic heritage aspires to
control its own ancestral domains, and to be
recognized as a nation-state in the modern world." But
there is nothing simple about the fate of the Kurds.
In this pointed historical overview (with map), Vera
Saeedpour, a longtime monitor of Kurdish affairs,
tells of: the rise and fall of the ancient Kurdish
empire; the carving up of Kurdish lands after the 20th
century's world wars; the chronic strife between Kurds
and Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria; a series of
betrayals by the United States over the last several
decades; and the current factional infighting among
Kurds themselves that is perhaps as serious a threat
to their future survival as any. 

In another pointed commentary, Katherine A. Wilkens of
the Center for International and Security Studies,
dissects the failings of two U.S. administrations to
make good on promises to help the Iraqi Kurds after
the Gulf War. 

Who are the Kurds? And is there a solution to their
enduring conflicts? This transcript of a National
Public Radio "Talk of the Nation" 1996 broadcast
offers background on the Kurds, as well as discussion
among several experts who put the Kurds' current
plight in the region in a broader political and
historical context. 

This site offers a range of information on this
Kurdish opposition group including its history and
goals, its leader Jalal Talabani, and related
background information and updated news stories. 
   
This site of the other main rival Iraqi Kurdish
faction , the KDP, has a collection of information on
their history, leaders and goals. 



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