Major, Mitterrand and the delightful Norman Schwarzkopf can sleep soundly at night. After Operation Desert Storm we now have Operation Manna for Kurdistan. Saddam Hussein is more horrible than ever and the West remains its profoundly humanist self. All is in order in the New World Order, founded, in Bush's own words, on the "peaceful settlement of disputes" (sic) and "just treatment of all peoples."
SALAH JABER
RONY seems the only outlet for the impotent rage which the terrible outcome of the imperialist military action against Iraq inspires. To the massacre directly perpetrated during the six weeks of coalition fury against Iraq and the Iraqis, are added the apocalyptic ecological and economic consequences of the "surgical war" in Iraq and Kuwait, and six weeks of carnage (up to now) by
Baghdad's troops against the Kurdish and
Arab populations of their own country, leading to the gigantic problem of millions of refugees fleeing from the
Ba'athist terror in truly tragic conditions.
All this to restore to a few hundred thousand Kuwaitis, subjects of a despotic princely family, a sovereignty over their oil-gorged little patch of desert that is even more illusory than before.
Today, preoccupied with the dramatic fate of the
Kurdish people. Their reasons are not entirely unselfish. The awful plight of the
Iraqi Kurds also serves to distract attention from the overall balance sheet of the coalition's military operation. The Kurdish regions were spared the six weeks of bombing. The massive flight of a terrified population from advancing army serves to underline once more the vile nature of his regime. Here the West seeks to find an after-the-fact justification for Operation Desert Storm.
True, at the same time, the Kurds' new tragedy highlights the inaction of the coalition forces who were and are in a position to dictate terms to Saddam Hussein.
The latter has even accepted United
Nations' Security Council resolution 687, which should carry as its inscription the
International Viewpoint #205 • April 29, 1991 famous Roman saying, Vae victis "woe to the vanquished."2 But the western chancelleries have their line ready: non-interference — a highly flexible varthat can justify on requirement peaceful coexistence and the worst atroc-
A master of grandiloquent hypocrisy
The French president Mitterrand, that master of grandiloquent hypocrisy, has added a note of which he is particularly proud: the "duty of humanitarian interference." That is to say, the duty to ensure to the disaster-struck populations the means to remain on their territory. The fundamental aim of this (in case it has escaped anyone) is to avoid massive exoduses which, as we know, end up feeding the of immigrants from the Third World towards the West, whose prosperity has been built on their own distress. More immediately there is a need to stop the Iragi Kurds from leaving their lands under Iraqi Arab control for those under Turkish or Iranian domination, a development that would render even more explosive one of the most iniquitous "national questions" of this century.
It is simply revolting to listen to the wester governments generously handing out plaudits to Iran and the Turkish ally for their great humanism. Apparently the Kurdish people should now feel gratitude to these two of their oppressors. They are to feel particularly grateful to a Turkish government whose soldiers have not hesitated to fire on panic-stricken stones at Saddam Hussein for his oppression of the Kurds, pretend to know nothing about the oppression of the same people in Turkey and Iran, which is no less harsh than in Iraq. These same people, who just yesterday had no problem getting along with Saddam Hussein, now want to put him on trial for his crimes, and this at a time when they themselves have just committed a terrible crime in this region of the world, a crime whose final cost, when it can be counted, will be dizzying. They today reproach Saddam Hussein for doing what they wished him to do, and for which they have provided the means.
Even some of the warmongering editorialists of the American press are beginning to bitterly face up to the facts; thus William Safire of the New York Times: "Masoud Barzani of the Kurds knew he could defeat Saddam Hussein's warweakened forces in the rugged hills if the United States denied the dictator use of the skies. The Kurds would then control the oil fields of Iraq and could negotiate autonomy. But that was when George Bush got cold feet....It turns out he did not want the Iraqi people to rebel; he merely wanted the military to change dictators...But by changing his mind about protecting Kurdish skies, the president effectively intervened on the side of Saddam Hussein. Once he gave the weapon of gunship terror from the air to Baghdad's merciless butcher, Mr. Bush abandoned tens of thousands of Kurdish fighters to death and their families to starvation. "3
No change in Bush's attitude
This says it all; both the real reasons why the coalition wanted the Kurds to be defeated and the real complicity of Bush and co. with Saddam Hussein.4 Safire's only, and predictable, mistake is to believe that Bush, in ignominiously leaving the Kurds to their fate, had "changed his attitude", or to put it another way that he had ever had any intention of protecting them. One of the "president's men" the ineffable Brent Scowcroft, has stupidly, that is unintentionally, disproved the thesis of Bush's cold feet. "Mr. Scowcroft said the United States had prepositioned relief supplies in Turkey in anticipation of refugees at the end of the Gulf war, and in hindsight, probably should have had more supplies waiting. "5 1. Speech on April 13, 1991 in Montgomery, Alabama. 2. See International Viewpoint no. 204, April 15, 1991. 3. International Herald Tribune, April 5, 1991. 4. IV no. 203, April 1, 1991.
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IRAQ criminals?
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In sum, the United States knew perfectly well that their Gulf war would lead to a new tragedy for the Kurdish people -certainly a far more deserving object of compassion than the Kuwaiti exiles. Tents and supplies indicated what these Lords of the Earth had in mind, as they had to the Palestinians a short while ago. The fact that so many worthy souls who supported the anti-Saddam crusade believed in good faith that the coalition would raise the flags of democracy and the rights of peoples in the region is a sign of their naivety and complete ignorance of the real motives of the western powers.
The problem is that the Kurds themselves were taken in. Once more the Iraqi Kurds allowed themselves to think that the West would help them throw off the yoke. They forgot the way in which Washington abandoned them in 1975, after an agreement to that effect was signed by Baghdad and the Shah of Iran; at that time several hundred thousand Kurds had to seek refuge in Iran. They also overlooked acquiescence in Saddam Hussein's gas attack on the Kurdish people in 1988.
But one cannot reproach a people for its repeated illusions when it is headed by leaderships whose visceral opportunism constantly reproduces false hopes. Thus Talabani, the chief of the Kurdish Patriotic Union (KPU) has publicly expressed his desire that the Turkish president, the grotesque Özal, should be the Kurds' spokesman! Such is the fate of this part of the world, where the leaders of two peoples, the Palestinians and the Kurds, who
GM Ford ITT
EXON are subject to several oppressors, ally themselves in an unceasing round with one of their oppressors against another, hoping always for salvation by the biggest oppressor of them all, the United States.
It must be admitted, however, that this time, the illusions of the Kurdish people do not count for much in the tragedy Which has just befallen them. The void left by the short-lived withdrawal of Saddam Hussein's troops, required for more urgent repressive tasks in the south of Iraq, was an irresistible invitation to a population exasperated by its endless martyrdom to rise up in revolt. They had to seize the moment. Furthermore, outcome was not pre-determined: nobody predict with certainty that Ba'athist regime would be able to stand up to a generalized popular insurrection after the crushing defeat of its army by the coalition. In these conditions the risks attendant on rebellion had to be taken, with or without illusions on the subject of external support.
Unfortunately, with the coalition's complicity, Saddam's henchmen have for the moment proved the stronger. For how long is another, still undecided, matter. The Ba'athist regime is fighting with the energy of a regime with its back to the wall. Its men are unleashing on the population of their own country the same fury as they themselves experienced, almost without reaction, at the hands of the coalition.
But every day that passes sees the common fate of all of Iraq's inhabitants get worse, making heavier the apocalyptic
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IRAQ disaster inflicted on them on the combined responsibility of Saddam Hussein and the imperialist coalition. The flames of revolt in Iraq will be much harder to put out than the burning oil wells of Kuwait. New flames will ceaselessly flare up from the embers of the despair of a people, of whom the Kurds form only the minority that is today most visible in the western
The rest of Iraq is suffering just as much, if not more, than Kurdistan. But the governments in Washington, London and Paris prefer to pass over this disaster in silence since it is the direct result of their "liberation". This is shown by the lack of publicity given to the explosive report of the United Nations commission of inquiry sent to Iraq to evaluate the consequences of the war for that country.
Iraqis face famine and epidemics
This report was presented to the Security Council on March 22 by the UN's under general secretary, the Finn Martti Ahtisaari. He explained straightforwardly that Iraq had been thrown back to "the pre-industrial age" by "near-apocalyptic" bombing that had seriously affected food supplies, agriculture, water, electricity, hygiene and health. He stated that if a humanitarian operation was not launched urgently in these different domains an "imminent catastrophe" would strike Iraq, with terrible and massive human losses through epidemics and famine.
The president of the American organization, Physicians for Human Rights, Dr. Jack Geiger, returning from Iraq, estimated that the number of deaths due to this catastrophe would soon reach "many tens of thousands"
This appalling reality, currently cealed, was the subject recently of an excellent — and lone — article by Jessica Matthews in the Washington Post. It ended with a series of highly relevant ques-
"With whom were the allies at war, Saddam Hussein or all Iraqis? If not all Iraqis, which? If the goal of getting rid of Saddam Hussein has failed, at least for the time being, should geopolitical or humanitarian concerns take precedence? Specifically, if epidemics and starvation take hold before the terms of the ceasefire's 120-day schedule are met, which is more important? How far does America's and other coalition members' responsibility extend for Iraq's suffering? If Iraq cannot pay for what its people need while also paying reparations, what should be done?
"Finally, unavoidably, Was it worth it?'6
And let us add a question of our own: who should be the first to be tried for crimes against humanity? * 5. IHT, April 15, 1991. 6. IHT, April 17, 1991. April 29, 1991 • #205 International Viewpoint
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