Duluthian reports on protest in Iraq

While the corporate media in the U.S. have offered some coverage of the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, they have almost completely ignored the massive protests sweeping Iraq, led by ordinary people fed up with government corruption and repression. U.S.-backed security forces have responded violently, with dozens of deaths reported. Duluthian Michele Naar-Obed is currently in the Kurdish north with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and has been able to send home regular reports. Below is a recent summary of events. You can read more and see photos from the protests on the CPT website. 

The Voices of Iraqi Kurdistan Will Not Be Silenced

By Michele Naar-Obed

Neither military forces firing indiscriminately into crowds of unarmed demonstrators, nor arrests, torture and disappearances of protest organizers nor empty promises made by government leaders have deterred the Kurdish people from continuing their demonstrations demanding an end to what they call a corrupt government run primarily by tribal parties.

Having watched the people of Tunisia, Sudan and Egypt force the step down of dictators, the people of the Kurdish north of Iraq are following their example and the wave of uprisings has washed over this land. Since 17 February, 2011, thousands of people flood the city center of Suleimaniya now dubbed “Freedom Square”, for daily demonstrations.

Since the demonstrations began there have been deaths and injuries of unarmed civilians by military and security forces, imposed curfew, armed militias positioned throughout the city of Suleimaniya and surrounding Freedom Square, an independent television station burned to the ground, hundreds of organizers arrested and disappeared, Suleimaniya students studying in Erbil universities sent back to Suleianiya, roadblocks set up around the city of Erbil not allowing Suleimaniya cars to enter, KRG Parliament emergency sessions to negotiate the demands of the people, assassination attempts against religious leaders who advocate for this nonviolent revolution, five unidentified people assumed to be terrorists, shot dead by Kurdish security forces outside of Suleimaniya city. and scores of demonstrations occurring regularly in the sub districts throughout the Suleimaniya governorate. 

The White Group formed consisting of unarmed individuals forming a human peace wall standing between the thousands of soldiers and the thousands of demonstrators in order to create a safe environment for both demonstrator and soldier. 

Both the Erbil and Dohuk governorates have banned demonstrations. Both of these governorates are KDP party controlled. Most people there appear too frightened to break the ban.

The people who have found their voice are not willing to be silenced again. The demonstrators talk of a hunger strike followed by a general strike to force Mr. Barzani to step down from his position as KRG president and to force immediate elections for an interim government. Nobody knows how long this will take or what new efforts will arise to drive out this current government if these demands aren't met.

It is clear that the current government and party leaders are feeling threatened of losing their positions of power that they have held since 1991. They have been fighting, often with dirty tactics, to regain control. If they do, the opposition people are sure that they will be killed, tortured, disappeared, arrested, and broken. The stakes are high.

There has been little reporting outside of the highly controlled local media outlets and there is a plea to not let this struggle die in vain.

Letter from Kurdistan

by Michele Naar-Obed

(photo: Village destroyed by bombing in Pshdar district, courtesy CPT)

May 21, 2010

Dear friends,

It seems like it's been frantic around here for weeks now. So frantic that I completely mixed up my days and missed my plane. So a few updates:

We've had a spate of kidnappings and killings in the two main cities of Suleimaniya and Erbil in the KRG. One of them, the kidnapping and murder of Sardasht Osman the young Kurdish journalist, made international news. Right around the time of Sardasht's kidnapping, the young son of a Sheik was kidnapped, injured and died on route to the hospital in Suleimaniya. 3 days ago, TNT was found under 4 bridges in a subdistrict of Halubja. The explosives were defused without problem. And finally, the local security officers discovered a terrorist ring inside Suleimaniya who may be responsible for some of these incidents. More investigations are underway and some of the members of the alleged terrorist ring are still at large. As for Sardasht's murder, accusations are still being hurled at certain political party members, but investigations are still pending.

With the current power vacuum throughout Iraq, and with no central government formation, there are stories of various groups intent on taking advantage of the situation to create confusion and chaos. Some of those elements have made very public and hateful statements against the Kurds. Others have gone as far to say that it's too bad that Saddam didn't finish the job of wiping the Kurds out.

Up on the northeastern border in the foothills of the Qandil Mountains, Iran has been heavily shelling the villages inside Iraq's border. The pretext is that Iran is after PJAK, the armed Iranian Kurdish liberation group which is related to the PKK. The Iranian regime recently executed 5 political prisoners, 4 of which were Kurdish and there have been nonviolent demonstrations, sit-ins and strikes by the Iranian Kurds close to the border with Iraq.

The villages inside Iraq that sustained the most damage and destruction during this recent round of shelling are the 9 villages that CPT has been working with to develop a new collective village in a safer area. We had hoped to get the village started before there were any further injuries or deaths, but we failed on that count. One woman was injured by a rocket in the village of Maradu. Family members wrapped her in a blanket and carried her over very rough terrain in the midst of the shelling until they got her close enough to an area where she could be evacuated by ambulance to a hospital in Suleimaniya. She is still awaiting surgery.

During the worst of the shelling which went on continuously for about 4 days, the villagers stayed underground in dugouts. Some of the children from the villages took their final exams under these deadly conditions. Meanwhile, many animals were killed and injured, and much of the new spring planting was destroyed. During lulls in the attacks, the families began to flee with their remaining animals to an old tent camp along the river still in the restricted area but in a safer zone for now. Rumor has it that the shelling will continue over these next days and they are afraid that even this tent camp will be hit.

Yesterday, CPT went to visit them at the camp. All they had to offer was a glass of water from the river. One emergency aid organization came to visit them 2 days ago, wrote down their names and their emergency needs and they haven't heard any more from them yet. We saw about 75 people in all, many of them children and babies. More families are expected to arrive in these next days while others will go back to town to stay with relatives for the time being. Some of the children appeared traumatized but still they greeted us with smiles and handshakes and one of them grabbed my hand to lead me down to the rivers edge for a quick dunk in the river. Another family nabbed a couple of chickens, tied their legs together and offered them to our group as a gift. We graciously thanked them, unbound their legs and returned them to the family. Another time, when things are better, we will all sit down together and share a meal. This I know will happen.

The momentum for building this village hasn't slowed even with this crisis. The Mayors along with a member of their provincial council have formed a team to get the families on the list. In some ways, this process is reminiscent of “Shindler's List”. There are now 2 and possibly 3 choices of land for them on which to build this new village. Habitat for Humanity seems seriously hooked, but the main office in Amman still has to approach the donors for the money to build the houses.

We estimate 150 to 200 houses are needed. The local Habitat staff member says each house will cost about $12.000. They expect that the KRG will contribute 30% of the total construction costs and the Habitat donors will take care of the rest. The calculated cost of 200 houses is $2, 400,000 total. The KRG's contribution would be just over $800,000. This is pocket change when you think that this amount of money could provide safe housing and the basis for a sustainable life for over 1,000 people.

So for now, this is where I leave them. It's up to the villagers, the rest of the CPT team, the local NGOs, local government and most importantly, the guidance of the Spirit to keep this thing moving.

Meanwhile, 3 new villages have been destroyed and now there are another 650 or so people displaced and homeless. Up until this point, their villages have remain untouched by the ongoing attacks by Iran and Turkey. This year, they lost. Maybe next year we will be facilitating the development of yet another village.

Any of you that are so inclined, please pray, meditate, think loving thoughts, visualize or do whatever you feel led to do to keep this little movement alive. We will all be very grateful.

I expect to be home on May 26. I think I finally have my days straight now.

Peace, Michele

Michele Naar-Obed is a member of the Loaves & Fishes Community in Duluth and a volunteer with the Christian Peacemaker Teams. She has served multiple deployments with CPT to Iraq, most recently to the northern Kurdish region to work with communities displaced by Turkish bombing raids.

Power to the People -- Report from Kurdistan

By Michele Naar-Obed

Dear friends,

Today is Nowroze, the traditional Kurdish New Year. The new year was brought in with firework displays which I watched from our kitchen window. To the eye, the sky was ablaze with brilliant colors but to the ear, it was reminiscent of bombs and gunshots that I often heard when CPT worked in Baghdad. The night's events left me feeling torn between joy that the Kurds were celebrating the beginning of a new year filled with hope, and sorrow for all the death that has occurred both here in the north as well as in the south of Iraq.

Freed from a tyrant by default in a war waged by the very country that helped create the tyrant, is enough to wreak havoc on everyones psyche. It's hard to know who to thank, who to blame, who to trust or who to be wary of, as the many facets of these realities have such different meanings and consequences to all the different players in this chapter of history.

Iraq is on the cusp of rebuilding and reshaping its future. With the second national election since 2003 behind them by 2 weeks, Iraqi still waits for the final results which may come in these next days. After that, some speculate it may take months before the new government is formed. It's a precarious time because it leaves the country in somewhat of a power vacuum until the new leaders are seated and the new government takes hold. It's a time of threats and deceit and its a time of coalition building and hope.

Here in the Kurdish north, we have seen some of the worst come out of the two main ruling parties, the PUK and the KDP. Yet, at the same time, its difficult to dismiss these ruling parties since it was those very leaders who kept the Kurds from being totally annihilated by the various occupying tyrants throughout the 20th century. Somewhere along the line, the taste of power for some individuals became more appealing than the taste of freedom and dignity for all.

However, an up and coming new political entity, Gorran, otherwise known as the Change List, has gained momentum in the Kurdish north. A call for democracy, transparency, human rights, and collective growth seems to be pulsing through the veins of many of the Kurdish people following the Gorran platform. Will the leaders of this new political entity nurture that vision or will they, like so many other political leaders become drunk with power and blinded by corruption?

Some members of the PUK/KDP ruling parties have lashed out against this fledgling political entity in tyrannical ways. CPT has been working with some of the victims of this backlash, encouraging them to continue their vow to not fight violence with violence. They insist that they will remain strong, not by the gun but by the power of diplomacy, the power of human decency, and by the support of the people of good will throughout the international community. We will be putting out a video on YouTube soon about this situation.

Iraq is a country seeking to shed its roots of tribal governing in order to embrace the way of democracy. They have a ways to go. And I'm not talking about the acts of terrorism that most people, particularly in the US, think is the dominant method of ruling by the Iraqi people. Iraq is not made up of uncivilized people needing to be “trained” by the West. On the contrary, the people of Iraq, both in the north and the south have shown exemplary humanitarian leadership traits that centuries of occupation, war and devastation have been unable to extinguish. It makes me wonder how we in the US would compare if we were to experience even a few decades of what people here have endured.

Even with all that our country has done and continues to do that flies in the face of humanity, many of the people here look to the West for advice and direction for building a democracy but I wonder what they will find or who they will emulate.

On paper the democracy claimed by the US looks good. But those of us who know our history know our problems. We in the US are lucky to have had great people like Howard Zinn who studied and recorded our history from the peoples perspective. After all, isn't that what our Constitution was supposed to be built on; “We the People...”? From this history, we have an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and hold on to what is good about us for surely there is good in our collective society.

Compared to Kurdish society, maybe the ordinary people in the US feel more empowered to change the course of government when it goes haywire. We see that in our grassroots organizations filled with committed activists who have faced government persecution and loss of a safe and comfortable place in society. Even though we've lived under tyrants, albeit tyrants masked behind a “kinder, gentler” persona, we have taken to the streets or to the jail cells denouncing crimes against humanity whether it be the crime of war or the crime of poverty perpetrated on people by government.

If we can't change it's course, maybe we are more able to separate from government and build our own little communities. Although we have never been able to fully separate from a government that's gone crazy with power, greed and corruption, some of our communities are becoming more adept at providing for each other for the common good as opposed to the good of the individual.

This is the kind of democracy that I hope for the people of Iraq both in the north and the south. Before I can pass that on to another, I need to be damn sure that I practice it myself and I need to thank those that continue to teach me including the people here in Iraq.

I expect these thoughts will bring lots of criticism from people who are threatened by the realization that the US might be less than perfect, so feel free to express your thoughts and send them my way if you'd like. After all, we live in a democracy.

Letter from Kurdistan

by Michele Naar-Obed

March 5, 2010

Dear friends,

It's been a long and tiring month and a lot has happened here in the Kurdish north of Iraq.

Our long awaited human rights report is now public. "Where there is a promise, there is a tragedy": Cross-border bombings and shellings of the northern village peoples of the Kurdish region of Iraq by the nations of Turkey and Iran, is a 57 page report which documents the impact of an intermittent war waged on an isolated civilian population, the historical context in which the current warfare is occurring, and the international legal implications of decisions taken by various militaries engaged in acts of violence against a vulnerable civilian population in an already-vulnerable and -war-torn country. These are the links for the report in both English and Kurdish. I'll also post the links on my website; www.duluthcpt.net. And if you haven't already checked out the videos, take a look at "hospitality Zharawa IDP camp style". Their stories are included in the report.

My last email painted a rather bleak picture with regards to the 137 families with whom we work closely. They were in pretty deep despair having now been displaced for over 2 years. Some have been living in the tent camp for over one year through pretty harsh weather and in very sparse conditions.

They have seemed to get their resolve back and they feel hopeful again. They contribute much of that hope to us and we contribute much of our feelings of hope to them. It's as if there's an energy that moves between and amongst us and keeps the flame alive.

Two weeks ago, we delivered our human rights report to the Prime Minister's office. The Prime Minister's aide accepted the report and we had quite a long talk about it. At first his reception was a bit cool, but within a short time, he had moved his chair closer and had tea brought in and I knew I had a captive audience. He took lots of notes and asked lots of good questions and then said he wanted this office to make the case of our 137 families their top priority. Now, it's campaign season for the national elections so we know we can be dealing with empty campaign promises and a lot of hot air but nonetheless, we're trying to capitalize on the moment.

The aide asked when we would be going to the camp next. It happened that we were going in 2 days. He asked if he could come. I said sure, not fully counting on it but sure enough he came through at the last minute and I believe he was really shocked at what he saw.

The purpose of our meeting at the camp was to synthesize the plans and visions of 11 different villages into one vision and plan. We anticipated that this task would take days if not longer. But with the help of another good friend from Rania, a beautiful plan was laid out and a letter was drafted and all the village leaders signed their names and presented this letter to the Prime Minister's office manager. He promised to deliver it to the Prime Minister, Mr. Barham Salih. I've heard good things about this guy but I've also heard that his hands are tied by other party members.

Essentially, the plan is to build a large collective village close to their old villages but in a safer location. The villagers also believe that by collecting themselves together in one village instead of being scattered into multiple smaller villages will make them safer. This new village will have land for their animals, bees for honey, agriculture and orchards. This is the work that they love and that they are so good at. Believe me, I've tasted their honey and their fruits and they're pretty incredible. And they want to do this collectively which is a pretty incredible step for them. They have been separated by tribal rivalry and jealousy and the political parties try to further divide them and make them smaller and weaker and more vulnerable. They recognize that and they are ready to work together for the good of all. They've asked us to help them and challenge them with better ways to work together.

The villagers would also like this new collective village to have a CPT presence. They believe that our presence will make them safer.

It will take a lot of work to build this new collective village. Right now the foundation is built on a hope and a prayer. Our job now is to see to it that the KRG government, with the help of the international community, add mortar, brick and stone one house at a time. More importantly, our job is to keep hope alive.
After my last email, many people asked what could they do for the 137 families. I don't have any answers for that question YET. We will be working closely with their government to find out the next steps for building this collective village. Likely, it will require the help of international NGOs and there may be ways for those of you that are interested to help. I will make specific requests as the needs develop.

In the meantime, if you are so inclined, you can keep these families in your prayers and thoughts. Building this village will be a long process and they could use some encouragement along the way. Send them a short email through me if you'd like. I can get them translated and present them to the villagers.

Peace,

Michele

Michele Naar-Obed of Duluth's Loaves & Fishes Community has recently returned to Kurdish region of Iraq with the Christian Peacemaker Teams. The CPT has maintained a presence in Iraq since October of 2002, and is currently focused on accompanying displaced persons in the Kurdish border region and documenting human rights violations against civilian populations. You can read more of her reports at duluthcpt.net.