Documents

The Minister of Foreign Affairs
The Honourable John Manley
Ottawa
Canada K1A 0G2 May 25, 2001

Dear Mr. Manley,
Thank you very much for your kind and encouraging letter from May 4, 2001, concerning the plight of the Kurdish people and the Memorandum of the Kurdistan National Congress KNC on the situation of the Kurdish people.
We are very glad about the special attention and assistance of the Canadian government to our nation, especially concerning your raising the rights of the Kurds in the United Nations. Also we agree with you that the Kurdish factions should set aside their political differences and cooperate to improve the situation of the whole Kurdish nation, not only in South Kurdistan, but in all parts of our divided people.
With this I am sending you our letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations containing the request of the Kurdish people to obtain a status of representation for the Kurdish nation within the United Nations Organisation. To have a seat and a voice at the U.N., as the Palestines formerly had, might enable the Kurdish nation to gain the right to self-determination to which it is entitled.
The Kurdish nation with about 40 million people is the world's greatest without a nation state of its own and is divided and subjugated by foreign authoritarian regimes which are exploiting, depopulating, and destroying our country for many decades. Therefore it is necessary to give the Kurdish people a status of representation within the United Nations although up till now they could not yet foundanation state of their own.
Therefore we are asking you to kindly support our request at the United Nations and thank you very much for every thing your government is doing for our people.
Yours sincerely
Bruska Ibrahim

The KNC Chairman of Foreign Affairs
Dipl. Ing. Bruska Ibrahim

The Secretary General of the UNO
His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan
United Nations Organisation
U.N. Plaza, New York May 25, 2001
NY 10017 - USA

Dear Mr. Annan,
I am writing to Your Excellency in the name of the Kurdistan National Congress and the Kurdish people in order to request your support to gain a status of representation for the Kurdish nation within the United Nations Organisation.To have a seat and a voice at the U.N., as the Palestines formerly had, might enable the Kurdish nation to gain the right to self-determination to which it is entitled.
The Kurdistan National Congress KNC, a non party organization based in London, was founded in 1985 with the aim of uniting all Kurdish organizations, parties and persons from all over Kurdistan under one single democratic rooff or effective representation of the interests and the right to self-determination of the Kurdish people to wards the world.
The Kurdish nation with about 40 million people is the world's greatest without a nation state of its own and is divided and subjugated by foreign authoritarian regimes which are exploiting, depopulating, and destroying our country for many decades. Therefore it is necessary to give the Kurdish people a status of representation within the United Nations although up till now they could not yetfoundanation state of their own.
Therefore we are asking Your Excellency to carefully investigate this request of our nation. We would be very pleased to get an encouraging answer and some support from the United Nations after all the terrible suffering of our people.
In order to assist you in promoting a democratic order of freedom for the peoples of the Middle East, we would like to take this opportunity to send you the enclosed Memorandum on the situation of the 40 million Kurds in the various states which have divided our country between them. Especiallyfrom the United Nations Organisation the Kurdish people awaits continued support in its strivings for liberty and self-determination.
Yours sincerely
Bruska Ibrahim

Petition from
Kurdistan National Congress
to the International Community and
to all friends of Kurdistan
16th March 2001

This petition concerns one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the twentieth century, namely that of the continued slaughter of the Kurdish people and the destruction of their homeland. The tragedy of the Kurds is one which is well known to the world community, yet it has been allowed to continue almost unchecked since the Kurds were denied the right to form a nation state after the First World War on their land, which had been divided already between the Ottoman Empire and Persia, was carved up to form part of the states of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and the Soviet Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The borders of these modern-day states of the Middle East were drawn not along ethnic lines, nor traditional borders, nor according to the interests of the inhabitants of the region, but to benefit the colonial powers of the day. Since this time, however the world has moved away from the ethics of the colonial era and we have seen such leaps in the sphere of human rights such as the foundation of the League of Nations, followed by the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet the states which occupy the Kurdish homeland blatantly violate the fundamental principles of human rights with impunity. Indeed this behaviour not only goes unpunished by the international community, but these countries are rewarded in the form of financial and military aid and co-operation. The ethos behind the Sykes-Picot treaty which carved up Kurdish lands in the post-First World War era can be seen clearly in the post-Gulf War division of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Safe Haven purposefully excludes the oil rich Kurdish land, which has been given for the benefit of defeated dictator Sadam Hussein.
The scale of the disaster caused by the denial of a modern day state to the Kurds is enormous. Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria (the colonialist regimes) have all enforced genocidal policies against the Kurdish people. Since the division of the Kurdish homeland, millions of Kurds have been slaughtered, millions have been injured and millions have had to flee their ancestral lands. Thousands of Kurdish towns and villages have been destroyed so completely that they can never be inhabited again. Water supplies have been poisoned, the land infested by landmines, contaminated by chemicals and destroyed by fire. The inhabitants of these areas have been murdered or deported and many thousands still live in refugee camps.
These colonialist regimes are also involved in crimes of cultural annihilation, as their armies had in the past and in present practised the burnt land policy and barbaric and systematic destruction of thousands of Kurdish villages and towns. During those savage attacks, many Mosques, Churches and Zarathustrian Temples, as well as historical libraries and locations, and other cultural - civilisation sites, that go back to thousands of years BC, and regarded by many historians and archaeologists as treasures for the whole humanity, as it chains the past of the Kurdish nation with its present and future, and as an organic part in cultural-ethnic texture of the region.
The Kurdistan people who endured all these huge sacrifices on the freedom altar in order to obtain the right for self determination as it is mentioned in article one (clause 2) of the UN Charter, and to given all rights and responsibilities by the contemporary international law, will not allow the colonialist occupation authorities to stay without punishment.
The Kurdistan National Congress relies on principles of international law when it demands the punishment for the war criminals and anti-human offenders, wherever they were and no matter how long hiding from justice. Bearing in mind that conscience and legal consciousness of people could not be lenient with disburdening war criminals and offenders against humanity for what they have committed of shameful crimes in Kurdistan, and knowing that those crimes are not included in the list of time limitations according to the international treaty regarding not applying time limitation principles to crimes of war and against humanity signed on 26 November 1968.
On the basis of legal-historical precedents such as: Nuremberg of 1945, the decision by General Assembly of the UN on 31 November 1947 regarding handing over of the criminals of war and against humanity, and on the basis of the four treaties of Geneva of 1949 regarding victims of war, and also the international convention regarding warning about crimes of genocide and punishment of those commit them of 1948, and the Lahay treaty of 1954 regarding the protection of cultural values during armed conflicts including the UN declaration of independence for colonised people and countries of 1960.
The Kurdistan National Congress has decided to take the opportunity of the fiftieth anniversary of the international declaration of human rights, to take an official decision by the UN organisation to form an international tribunal with all clear legal authority to pursue the criminals of war for committing crimes of genocide against the Kurdistan people, no matter which position they hold in their colonialist authorities in Kurdistan, being rulers, officers, soldiers or ordinary persons, and the time passed since committing those crimes against humanity. We are calling to put Kurdistan under the UN protection, and we invite the UN to open as soon as possible an investigation into the above mentioned cases to gather evidence and proofs in which we can help in finding and collecting, and offering all the information and documents about those people involved in committing nasty massacres and crimes.
Please could you and your colleagues sign this petition below and return it to the above address. We hope with your support we can ensure that this will be the last generation of Kurdish children to grow up in a world of violent oppression, discrimination, intolerance, hunger, poverty and murder.
Please photocopy this page and write down your information and send it back to the KNC
Many thanks.

Name:..............................................................................
Address:.........................................................................
........................................................................................
Tel:...................................................................................
Fax:..................................................................................
For your fair struggle I want to:
* Establish a Kurdish Lobby for all Kurdish people and all parts of Kurdistan in my town and, or
* Intruduce you to good friends and, or
* Give a donation.
Signature:.......................................................................

KURDISTAN NATIONAL CONGRESS - KNC
Kongra Nîshtimanîya Kurdistan
P.O. Box 607, London NW8 ODT, U.K. Tel: 0044 20 8563 2881, Fax: 0044 20 8563 8406

The KNC Chairman of Foreign Affairs

The President of the USA
Mr. George W. Bush
The White House

Washington - USA 12 September 2001

Dear Mr President,

In the name of the Kurdistan National Congress and the Kurdish people I want to express my deeply felt horror and affliction at the shocking and most atrocious attack against the United States of America and the American people which happened on 11 September 2001. We are mourning with you and the afflicted families for the victims of this terrible crime. We especially hope and wish that you will succeed not only in fighting and eliminating the terrorists being responsible for these shocking crimes against humanity and civilization but also in fighting the deeper causes of such hatred and rage against the United States of America.
Our sympathy with the American nation considering the present situation is even stronger as the Kurdish people has suffered so many terrible attacks and crimes from their oppressors, for instance the death of more than 5,000 people in the Kurdish town of Halabja by poison gases in one single day in 1988 and the killing of about 200,000 people during the so-called "Anfal Operations", both executed on the orders of Saddam Hussein who was still a western ally in those days.
With the NATO state of Turkey the Kurds have suffered quite similar experiences. Over the past 80 years hundreds of thousands of Kurds have fallen victim to Turkish massacres. Hundreds of thousands more have lost their homes and property in displacement campaigns. Innumerable relatives are mourning those who have either lost their lives or health during raids, torture and imprisonment, those murdered by unknown assassins or who have disappeared without trace while in police custody. Up till now the Kurdish people in Turkey is still suffering from this criminal Turkish oppression.
Not only the Kurds but a lot of nations are presently living in disastrous circumstances of oppression and poverty creating hatred and rage. Therefore in our opinion America first of all must fight these terrifying circumstances to eliminate the roots of international terrorism. All the nations of the world must work together in creating the fundamental conditions of peace and prosperity for all mankind, not only for the industrial nations.
The industrial nations cannot afford any longer to deprive some parts of the world from selfdetermination and prosperity. They cannot afford any longer to let conflicts escalate and become uncontrollable. They cannot afford any longer to sell weapons to despotic governments all over the world. Because if they will go on doing so, concerned only about their own prosperity and power, the terror will spread everywhere and there will be no prosperity for nobody.
The hope and the best wishes of the Kurdish people are with your government and your efforts to overcome international terrorism and to defeat its causes.

Yours faithfully

Bruska Ibrahim

16 years On Establishing
Kurdistan National Congress
in14 April 1985

We, the Kurdistan National Congress, are an unarmed organisation and as an umbrella organisation above party lines working in diplomatic ways:
* To create KURDISH UNITY.
* To put the case of an INDEPENDENT KURDISTAN in the agenda of the great powers and the international organisations.
* Do away with the unfair and artificial borders that cut Kurdistan into five pieces (since the First World War).
Kurdistan National Congress was established 16 years ago (14 April 1985) and during the past 16 years had four General Meetings in Paris and London in 1989,1991, 1996 and 1998. every time hundreds of the Kurdish politicians, scientists, writers, poets and Kurdish parties representatives attended the KNC conferences from all parts of Kurdistan. KNC conferences received thousands of messages and supports from all over the world, one example is the Prime Minister of the U.K. Mr. Tony Blair. KNC is unique, because Kurdish organisations and individuals from all parts and from left to right ideologies and levels have one aim to create a Kurdish state and to protect the unity, peace and settlement between the Kurds.

THE NATIONAL PACT OF
KURDISTAN

Why the Kurds need the KNC and National Pact of Kurdistan? Because the Kurds today more than any other day need one aim, one flag, one map of Kurdistan, one population number, one national anthem, one national security
We the signers below are representatives of political parties and organisations, the cultural and social Kurdistan institutions, patriotic personalities, the participants of the third Kurdistan National Congress in Paris from 18 - 19 September 1996. We have decided to comply with the form and contents of the clauses of the National Pact of Kurdistan, and any one who violates any of its clauses would be regarded as defying the will of the Kurdistan society:
1- The people of Kurdistan: (with the population of 40 millions of Kurdish majority and ethnic minorities) have a civilization going back to thousands of years living in their homeland of Kurdistan.
2- Kurdistan: is the homeland for the Kurdish people and all the brotherly minorities who live together on the land of Kurdistan, it has the area of 550 thousand square Kilometres, covering a landscape situation between the two meridians 35-55 and the two parallels 34-40 , and extends from Hurmiz passage at East to the Mediterranean at West, and Caucasus at North as mentioned in the book of Sharafnama by its author Sharaf Khan Al-Badlisi.
3- International treaties : The people of Kurdistan reject all the present political international borders which absorbed Kurdistan to the benefit of the states of the region without any right to do that and without any consent from the people of Kurdistan. This rejection is a legal one because neither the people of Kurdistan nor any representative of them has signed any of those treaties regarding this matter, and the Kurdish people have the right of self-determination on the basis of freedom and equality. The use of this right of self-determination must be on free terms and for the sake of gaining freedom.
4- The flag of Kurdistan : Red on the top, then white, and then green, and on the white strip there is a shining sun in yellow. This is the flag that was presented by General Sharif Pasha with his memorandum about the independence of Kurdistan for the peace conference of 1919 in Paris after the World War One as a result of which there was a decision about the future of Kurdistan in the treaty of Sevres.
5- The national anthem of Kurdistan : is the same as the national anthem for the Kurdistan Republic of 1946.
6- Blood, property and honour of the people of Kurdistan: are sacred and protected matters which can not be wasted under any circumstances.
7- Thoughts, believes, religion and individual liberties : should not be harmed in any way and should be subjects of respect.
8- The national security of the Kurdish people : should have the first priority in all aspects and also in the relations of the Kurdistan parties among themselves, and especially their international relations with the states that occupy and share Kurdistan.
9- The Kurdistan National Congress has to create necessary laws to protect the rights and duties in all aspects (the law of parties, organisations and professional unions, as well as regional , tribal and religious organisations ..etc.) in order not to give any chance to any one to blow away or impede the march of the liberation of Kurdistan.
10- Working towards forming a nucleus for united informational, political, economical and military forces of the Kurdish nation, including those organisations that care about the united struggle for Kurdistan, and should have an immediate target of resolving problems between the organisations and finding a recipe for an agreement in order to make these forces a corner stone for building a united Kurdistan national liberation movement which will be the true weapon for the liberation of Kurdistan. for only with our unity we can gain the respect and trust of our people and the outside world.

London 1st November 2001

To/ The United Nations Organisation, European Union, member states of NATO and all human rights and freedom-loving organisations!

The terrorist attack of last month was important for the USA and Western countries, especially members of NATO, in the sense that it was not this time just an attack by terrorists that happened in the Middle East or anywhere outside the borders of the USA or Europe, but it was struck at the heart of America and a large city such as New York, causing huge human and economic losses. So this act alerted all democratic countries that they cannot underestimate such a terrorist action, because if they do not act quickly to prevent it, apart from economic interests, it will endanger the security and lives of the entire world. That is why immergency meetings were held rapidly and successively by the Americans, all European countries and NATO members, and they decided to eliminate terrorism in the world, and this decision was backed by all friends and allies of America all over the world.
It is obvious that elimination of international terrorism does not mean only "Usama Bin Laden" and his few-hundred member groups. It also implies destroying the roots of terrorism that are being planted by the state terrorism of such countries as Iraq, Iran, Afganistan, Syria and others like them. That is why this time the political and military agenda of the NATO and USA should be far more stronger and broader than their attack of 1990 against Iraq.
There are signs of political changes in the Middle East. These changes could serve the humanity only if all the terrorist states or those harbouring terrorism, such as Iran, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and others, which in some way or the other are incouraging terrorism are replaced by governments that believe in freedom, democracy and international peace, and recognise the right of self-determination for all nations occupied by them.
The whole world knows that the Kurdish nation has been subjected to genocide attempts several times. In one single chemical attack in 1988 on the town of Halabja more than 5000 civilian Kurds were killed. More than 200,000 Kurdish civilians disappeared without trace during the Anfal operations carried out by Saddam Hussain's army in the same year. In Turkey and Iran thousands of Kurds have been shot dead by execution or assassination. In Syria any kind of rights for the Kurds have been ignored. In spite of that the UN and democratic countries are still silent about some of the mentioned states such as Turkey which uses the excuse of fighting terrorism to wage a war of genocide against 20 million Kurds for the past 80 years in the part of Kurdistan which is occupied by it.
The KNC asks the UN and NATO and European Union members:
(1)- Extend the no-fly zone, set to protect South Kurdistan above the 36 parallel from Saddam regime attacks, to cover all parts of Kurdistan, to protect them as well from the terrorist and genocide policies of Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraqi occupying regimes, and extend the no-fly zone to no-fly no-drive zone. When Kurdistan is protected by the UN, this will be the correct hit in the heart of the main resources of the international terrorism.
(2)- We ask the UN members to separate freedom fighting actions of occupied nations from all kinds of terrorism, whenever these actions do not exceed the right to defend oneself and one's country against occupying forces, without carrying that fight anywhere outside their territory as it has always been the case with the Kurds.
We would like finally to express our wishes for a lasting democratic and free life for all the nations of the world including the Kurds!

Yours sincerely
Jawad Mella
President
Kurdistan National Congress

Some examples about our deplomatic struggles
Dear Rt. Hon. Tony Blair,
the Prime Minister of the UK
Happy New Year, and the Millennium to you and to our Kurdish and British peoples and to the whole world.
We would like to express our thanks and full support to military actions of Britain to protect the Kurdish people in Iraqi Kurdistan (Southern Kurdistan), regarding the following points:
1- Britain is the owner of the idea and the plan of Save Haven in Kurdistan.
2- Britain is trying very hard to keep Kurdistan under the authority of the Kurds.
Now, the Israeli-Syrian peace process being on your agenda, we hope that the national rights of the Syrian Kurds (two millions) to be mentioned and guaranteed in the peace agreement.
We ask Your Excellency to do for the Syrian Kurdistan (Western Kurdistan) and if possible to all parts of Kurdistan the same you have done for the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan (Southern Kurdistan).
At the end we would like to express our thanks and full support to you again, and you may count on Kurdistan National Congress for any help and in any means.
Yours sincerely
Jawad Mella
President of Kurdistan National Congress