"Our Brothers", the Kurds...

By Layla Anwar

"......Could not miss this excellent historical documentary on al Jazeera about Mostafa Al Barazani.
Mostafa Al Barazani is the father figure "par excellence" of the Kurdish separatist (and I would add chauvinist) movement in Iraq.
This program interviewed many personalities who intimately knew and dealt with Mostafa Al Barazani and of course his son Massoud was there too.

They say in order to understand the present, you must know the past. And this is one of the reasons, I am taking pains to summarize this documentary.

According to this documentary and it was quite accurate in its analysis, Mostafa Barazani sought support for his Kurdish "cause" from nearly everyone and everywhere......

Saddam asked him: "What do you exactly want and I will sign it for you on a blank piece of paper". The man replied "If you are willing to sign anything on a blank page, this means that you will not give us anything". Saddam then said: " Tell me what do you exactly want?" The guy replied "We want self rule".
Saddam asked: "Explain to me what self rule means" The guy replied "I will send you a two page memo about self rule"...and Saddam Hussein agreed.

Meanwhile, the Kurds headed by M.Barazani were striking political deals with the Shah of Iran...
Saddam went ahead and agreed to the application of self rule in 1974.

Turkey then intervened and started putting pressure on both the Iraqi government and on the Kurds. The program then says that there were problems in the "applications of self rule" and a disagreement followed, without really telling us what these problems were......

In 1974 two other developments took place and which are in my opinion of great importance

1) the Kurdish leadership sought out help from the Israeli Mossad and this latter gladly helped.
An Israeli former mossad agent A.Tasfirini (as I said I am terrible with names, you can have the exact name by writing to:focus@aljazeera.net) said in that same interview/program.
"It is not so much a mossad/kurdish alliance. It was more of a friendly alliance between two "opppressed" people. Us, the Israelis having known the Holocaust, understood very well the Kurdish plight for a state of their own".
This gentlemen then wrote a book in hebrew and the title was "I am a kurd too..."

2) The second important development was a secret agreement orchestrated by Henry Kissinger and the Kurdish leadership.
In fact it was a secret agreement between the CIA and the Kurds and the Iraqi government and Saddam Hussein knew nothing of it.
This unofficial agreement back in 1974 assured that the USA will help the Kurds in realizing their objectives .
Or more aptly, that the CIA will help the Kurds in realizing their aims for an independent state in Iraq.
(Notice not in Iran, not in Syria, not in Turkey where considerable kurdish populations exist, but in Iraq!).......

In 1990, the Kurdish areas became an American/ English "protected zone".
Massoud Barazani, the prodigal son, took over the leadership from his father and so it continued till the second invasion in 2003 until this very day.

Now "our brothers the Kurds" have their own little flag, have excellent ties with Iran, America and Israel who has continued training their peshmergas since 1974......."