THE MIRACLE
A True Story |
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towers and through military operations, as well as by political
means. With the full cooperation of the authoritarian
administration in Tehran and the fascist regime of Saddam
Hussein in Baghdad, Turkey has succeeded in carrying out
a series of genocidal attacks against the Kurdish population.
On September 1st, 1990 the then foreign minister of Turkey,
Vafet Halefoglou, stated quite openly in the newspaper Milliyet
that "Iran, Iraq and Turkey would never allow the establishment
of a Kurdish state!"
Each of the three allies, all mavericks in their own way yet
united in the fight against the Kurdish nation, has thus carried
out separate attempts to wipe out the Kurds. In March,
1988 the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, used chemical
weapons in the region of Halepçe to wipe out 5,000 Kurds:
women, children and the elderly were all victims of a hideous
crime that went almost unnoticed by so-called "civilised"
governments, which in other respects display sensitivity to
such situations.
On 13th July, 1990 Iranian "diplomats" held a top-secret
meeting in Vienna with the leader of Iran's Democratic
Kurdistan Party, Abdurrahman Quasimio, and his colleagues
to discuss the autonomy of the Kurds in Iran. The Iranian
"diplomats" suddenly assassinated the Kurds in cold blood,
and the Austrian authorities, having arrested them, allowed
them to go free under the pressure of the threatened
occupation of the Austrian embassy in Tehran.
The Kurdish nation, which today numbers approximately
30 million people, has survived despite the merciless,
coordinated attacks by its oppressors. Half the Kurdish nation
still manages to live in Kurdistan, which Turkey occupied by
force and strength of arms. The "Kurdish Question" is gradually
beginning to attract the attention of an increasing number
of progressive European peoples, in contrast to the silent
indifference shown by their governments.
In Yugoslavia, the major powers created a number of
new states populated by only a few hundred thousand citizens,
because it served their interests to do so. The 30 million Kurds scattered in their homeland over three hostile countries,
who have been caught up in bloody uprisings for at least a
hundred years, do not, it would seem, carry enough weight
on the cynical scales of expediency that govern the decisions
taken by the major powers.
Western Thrace. Having completely ignored its obligations
towards the Christians who stayed behind in Constantinople,
Imvros and Tenedos and used "all possible means" to turn
Greeks out of their homes, Turkey proceeded to exploit to
the full the civilised nature of Greece, which instead of
ridding itself of the Muslims living in its territory as Turkey
had done with the Greeks, allowed the population to increase
in conditions of total freedom - and this, despite being well
aware that Kemal Ataturk had himself quite openly clarified
Ankara's goals in the Misak-i Milli, the oath of the Young
Turks which was taken during a secret session of the Turkish
Parliament in January, 1920: "It is our aim that Western
Thrace should remain in Turkish hands as a unified whole
and that as soon as a suitable opportunity presents itself, it
should be united with the Motherland. We shall not accept
any expropriation of this Turkish region. Our brothers in
Western Thrace must, as a first step, fight to gain the
region's autonomy and independence."
Celal Bayar, the butcher who had embarked on his macabre
task in 1914 when the Young Turks sent him to Smyrna to
eliminate the Greek population living there, and who went
on to slaughter the Greeks and Armenians in the Pontus
and Ionia, visited Komotini in 1952 as the president of the
Turkish Republic, officially to "promote Greek-Turkish
friendship". Unofficially, however, the purpose of his visit
was to put into effect Turkey's latest plan to "turkify" the
Muslim children living in Western Thrace through education
and training. The aim was clear: to kill two birds with one
stone by giving the Muslims who were not Turks a Turkish
national consciousness, on the one hand, and on the other
to set up agencies that would faithfully carry out Turkey's
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