Written statement
submitted by Transnational Radical Party, a
non-governmental organisation in general consultative
status
The outbreak of yet
another increasingly brutal and costly war in the
Democratic Republic of Congo and in Rwanda have again
transformed the Great Lakes Region into the area of
terror and human suffering. It resulted in the
killings of tens of thousands unarmed civilians and
grave violations of human rights, including
extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions and
torture, committed by all the sides of these
conflicts. It reversed the trend of returning of
refugees and internally displaced persons from the
first genocide in 1994-1996 to their homes and
dramatically increased their numbers.
Although the on-going
fighting and resulting continuous flight and influx
of people between the States of the region makes it
difficult to estimate the exact figures, the reports
of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
suggest that there are not less than 500.000 refugees
and at least as much displaced persons in the Great
Lakes Region and neighbouring countries (Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Congo-Brazzaville,
United Republic of Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda, Zambia,
Sudan, Kenya).
For nearly four
decades, the Great Lakes Region has been plagued with
violence and political upheaval between the ethnic
Tutsis and Hutus, characterised by bloodshed and
massacres committed by both sides and resulting in
massive exoduses and displacement of persons (Rwanda
in 1959 and 1994, Burundi in 1972 and 1993,
Zaire/Congo in 1993 and 1996-97). Again during the
last year, civilians bore the brunt of the conflict
between the Government of Laurent Kabila and the
rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy composed by the
diverse coalition of Anti-Kabila groups, national
opposition, the Banyamulenge (Tutsis) and former
dignitaries of the Mobutu era (Hutus), as well as of
the conflict between the Rwandan government and
insurgents backed by Hutus and composed by many
senior officers who led the 1994 genocide.
The economic, social
and political climate in the region continues to be
tense and unstable. Although the protocol signed by
the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo
and the UNHCR on 28 July 1998 was supposed to improve
the UNHCR access to refugees and improve its
activities in the country, the resumption of
hostilities made it even more difficult to reach the
refugees and in the middle of August the UNHCR was
obliged to evacuate all its staff from the country.
The authorities of Rwanda, on the other hand, have
requested the UNHCR for logistical help in returning
internally displaced people to their areas of origin.
The Transnational
Radical Party (TRP) is convinced that it is essential
to focus on measures to prevent violations and
denials of human rights that lead to and take place
during mass exoduses and displacements, and requests
the Commission to pay particular attention to the
preparation and follow-up of the report of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights on such measures, whose
preparation and submission was requested by the last
year's session of the Commission (CHR resolution
1998/49).
The TRP also invites
relevant UN bodies, particularly Under
Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to assume a
common approach to re-establishing as soon as
possible an effective UN presence in the Democratic
Republic of Congo and the Great Lakes Region.
Furthermore, the TRP
urges this Commission and its Member States to put
political and diplomatic pressure on all the sides of
the conflicts in Congo and Rwanda in order that they
fully respect their obligations to the international
humanitarian law, and particularly the standards
stipulated in Geneva Conventions of 1949.
Another issue we would
like to draw on the attention of the Commission is a
long-lasting problem of 30 million Kurds living in
Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, where they constitute a
minority, but considerable part of the population
(approximately 20 % in Iraq, 15% in Iran, 10% in
Syria and 20% in Turkey), and where their rights and
freedoms continue to be violated.
The situation of Kurds
in Iraq, where the Iraqi government is engaged in a
broad array of human rights violations against its
population in general, including mass arrests,
torture, summary executions and
"disappearances", is undoubtedly
deteriorating also due to the intra-Kurdish rivalry
and conflict between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) of Mr. Talabani and the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) of Mr. Barzani in Iraqi Kurdistan. This
region is further wracked by the operations of
Turkish Kurdish guerrilla movement of Kurdistan
Worker's Party (PKK), by significant military
confrontations between KDP and PKK and by frequent
Turkish military incursions targeting the bases of
PKK in northern Iraq.
While the meeting and
agreement between Mr. Barzani and Mr. Tallabani on
September 18, 1999, in Washington has given a
concrete hope to put an end to factional fighting in
the Iraqi Kurdistan, the attack on the region
targeting the PKK launched in November 1999 by 2.000
Turkish troops (undeterred by the U.S. policed no-fly
zone) has resulted in killing of over 1.200 people
and displacing of thousands of civilians from their
homes.
The Iraqi government's
ethnic cleansing and Arabization policy in the
Kurdish areas controlled by Saddam Hussein's forces
continued to be very dire especially in Kirkuk,
Khanaqin, Jalawla, Mandali, Tuz and Makhmour. The
triple pillar of this policy has been Arabization,
deportation and Ba'athification. The massive
settlement program launched by the government in
1970, when Kurdish workers from the region were
deported to south Iraq and replaced by Arabs, who
have been economically and socially privileged of
detriment of the non-Arab population, whose land and
properties were confiscated and was denied employment
and commercial activities, has today reached the
figure of 300.000 settlers.
According to the
report of the UN Secretary-General (S/1997/685),
there are already more than 500.000 internally
displaced persons in the three northern Kurdish
provinces of Iraq (Sulaimaniya, Arbil and Duhok), the
large majority of them come from the above mentioned
areas. The forced eviction and confiscation of the
properties continues on day to day basis. During
April and June 1998 alone, 1.468 Kurdish families
were expelled from the Kirkuk province to Iraqi
Kurdistan. A number of relatives of the targeted
families were reportedly detained and the food
rationing tickets as well as their properties were
confiscated. Tens of thousands of these internally
displaced are living in the tents and other miserable
conditions.
The ruling Ba'ath
Party Ba'athified school materials, the media, daily
life, and prohibited teaching in Kurdish and other
minority languages in this province. The recruitment
to the party, militia and other organisations also
became obligatory with privileges in all areas of
life to its members and punishment, discrimination
and exclusion for those who refused to join or obey
them. Moreover, the survivors of the Anfal Campaign
of the 80's (182.000 Kurdish victims, 4,500 Kurdish
villages and towns destroyed) suffer from multiple
diseases without any outside specialised health care.
Over 10 million land mines planted in Iraqi Kurdistan
have caused so far 15,000 civilian deaths since the
Gulf War. Scores of others were injured or maimed for
life.
The Turkey's
centrality to Kurdish conflict has to be
acknowledged, since the relatively advanced level of
civil society in Turkey opens the possibility of
improvement. However, the political violence and
certain legal restriction from the side of Turkey as
well as grave violence on civilian population
committed by both government forces and PKK
contributed to a climate not conductive to dialogue
and other conflict resolution strategies and efforts.
In 1998, several
offices of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party
(HADEP) were raided and party administrators and
members were detained and tortured and four party
officials were charged for "separatism through
publication" and "acting as the political
branch of PKK". Four parliamentarians from
Democratic Party (DEP) banned by the 1995 decision of
the Supreme Constitutional Court remained in prison.
Three other former DEP parliamentarians were
sentenced in 1998 on charges related to peaceful
expression.
The provinces in
south-east Turkey, where an armed conflict between
security forces and PKK since 1984 resulted in deaths
of about 35.000 civilians and forced depopulation of
thousands of villages and hamlets, remained under a
state of emergency, and the six neighbouring
provinces have been ruled by state-appointed
governors with extraordinary measures and extended
restrictive powers. Little effort has been made to
facilitate the return of displaced persons to their
homes or to compensate them for the destruction and
loss of property.
Although the armed
conflict in the south-east lessened in intensity,
both government forces and PKK continued to commit
serious human rights violations. Village guards -
ethnic Kurds appointed by the government in remote
areas and "convincing" villagers not to
assist the PKK - continued to be implicated in many
abuses, such as rape, executions of civilians,
forcing the villagers to walk on mine fields or
torturing family members and neighbours. PKK members
continued to execute civilians they suspected of
co-operating with the security forces. In July, PKK
members reportedly killed two girls, aged 4 and 14,
after they failed to find their father who was the
brother of the village headman. Three mayors in the
south-east, who were said not to support the PKK,
were kidnapped, and one of them was later murdered.
In August, a bomb reportedly planted by the PKK
killed seven people and injured more than one hundred
in one of Istanbul's most crowded historical
marketplaces.
A newspaper advocating
the recognition of Kurdish identity was fined
approximately 12.000US$ during the 1998 and closed by
court order for 312 days. Issues of a weekly in
Kurdish, Hevi, known for its non-violent stance was
repeatedly confiscated dozens of times during the
year. Sefik Beyaz, former head of the Kurdish
Institute, was sentenced in March by the State
Security Court to one year imprisonment and a fine of
US$100 for "making separatist propaganda by
playing Kurdish music" during his election
campaign in 1995. The Criminal Court of Istanbul
ruled in May that the officials of the Kurdish
Culture and Research foundation cannot conduct
Kurdish language courses (prohibited by law).
Repression of Kurds
and other minorities in Syria is pervasive. Kurdish
political organisations are outlawed and the gradual
Arabization of fertile Kurdish lands continues, a
process by which Kurds have been deported and their
lands turned over to Arab settlers. Another major
concern has been the denial of citizenship to
approximately 200.000 Kurds, thus denying them of
their rights and freedoms. While the Syrian
government actively recruits young Kurds to the ranks
of the PKK, encouraging them to do so as an
alternative to mandatory service in the Syrian armed
forces, and to become involved in the struggle for
Kurdish cultural and political rights in Turkey, it
vigorously denies similar activities within Syria.
The accession of
President Khatami in Iran and the will to reforms
declared by him represent an opportunity for
improvement and gives the hope for opening a
political dialogue between the government and its
peoples, who have been so far denied fundamental
rights and freedoms.
The TRP urges the
Commission and its Member States to undertake all
possible means to make Iraq respect its obligations
under UN Security Council resolutions, including the
resolution No. 688, which demands an end to
repression of Iraqi citizens.
The TRP furthermore
calls on the Commission to charge the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a
special report on the human rights conditions of the
Kurds to be presented to the fifty-sixth session of
the Commission and to undertake all necessary steps
to enhance effective presence of the United Nations
in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey and expand monitoring
and humanitarian assistance in these countries.
Finally, the TRP
requests the Commission and all the relevant UN
bodies to start a speedy process for convening an
international conference on the Kurdish question with
the participation of all parties involved and under
the auspices of the UN.
