While Turkey’s air strike continues in southern Kurdistan, Leyla Zana, in a letter to the leaders of the world, criticized the silence over the growing attacks against Kurds.
Text of Leyla Zana’s letter
“While the world is going through a very fast process of change and transformation and the Middle East is witnessing new developments, our people who are deprived of the fairness of the history still continue their struggle for “existence” at the cost of their lives.
When it comes to the Kurds and their political status, the world opinion keeps remaining silent and condoning the right and boundary violations, bombings on villages, houses and people, regardless of women, men and children, cross-border operations and the ongoing aerial operations. This situation is greeted with great astonishment by our people and considered difficult to understand.
The constant attack position of these powers and their intention to destroy all the values of Kurds do not comply with the character of the 21st century and the principles of fairness in the world.
The latest aerial attacks on Kandil, which have killed a civilian family in the region, are defended by Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey which is currently trying to set an example of a “model country” to the Middle East and conducting negotiations to be a member of the EU. In a statement to a national newspaper, the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, saying that “the operations are legitimate and true”, didn’t abstain from defending the attacks which target civilians. (Bülent Arinç/Cihan News Agency/22.08.2011)
I would like to express my regret that the Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey is increasing the policy of violence against Kurds as the Western world is holding up him as an example to the Middle East. I am greatly worried that we may face a modern dictatorship while the dictatorial regimes in the Middle East are falling down. The state’s attitude which forces the whole society to think the same with itself and the closure cases against the worldwide multilingual Roj Tv need to be accepted as a sign in this regard.
In brief, the military, political, diplomatic attacks launched against the Kurds and most importantly, the boundless attacks on our civilian people are in front of the eyes of the world public opinion. It is possible to foresee how the destruction of an oppressed people’s children will deepen the deadlock. All efforts of the Kurdish side are intended for finding a democratic and political solution to this problem. Although Mr. Ocalan has many times silenced the weapons since 1993 and created opportunities for obtaining the rights of the Kurdish people on a democratic ground as well as convincing his public that the problem can be solved in this way, the state has negated all these processes with a negative attitude and turned a blind eye to these opportunities. Resisting extraordinarily about defining the problem, the state has at every turn considered and applied violence as the single method of solving the Kurdish problem.
Mr.President,
In the testimony of the whole world’s humanity, the geography which has been in a conflict environment for two hundred years is now expecting peace and quiet. Kurdistan’s geography should not be a second Palestine and the Sri Lanka simulation shouldn’t even be associated with the situation in Turkey. Otherwise, a social chaos and an ethnic war among the peoples will be unavoidable, which will no doubt drag the world peace and humanity into more disaster. I expect and wish that you will meet the requirements of your both conscience and position.”
