Letter to UN Secretary over Iraqi Kurdistan referendum

United Nations appoints Portugal's Antonio Guterres as next UN chief — United Nations appoints Portugal’s Antonio Guterres as next UN chief. Photo: Courtesy/UN Geneva

Omar Sindi | Exclusive to iKurd.net

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

September 22, 2017
Mr. Antonio Guterres
Secretary-General
United Nations
New York, NY 10017
U.S.A.

Dear UN Secretary-General Guterres,

I am writing on behalf of the voiceless people, the Kurdish people, who are urging you to put your best effort on the status of Kurdish referendum issue in the autonomous region of Iraq:

The United Nations (UN) should give its support to the Kurdish people’s aspirations for self-determinations. There are over 190 flags flying at the UN headquarters in New York. Each flag represents its people, even though many of those countries’ population are less than a million. It’s good to be accolated, but there are over 40 million Kurds that inhabit the Middle East, and are geographically living in a coherent area with its own history and culture, and they are voiceless in this body, the UN.

Since its creation, the United Nations has done a remarkable job around the globe, preventing and deescalating major wars, especially between super powers, and particularly during the cold war era between the United States and Soviet Union. The UN helped and prevented many catastrophic starvations around the world and deescalated many other crises around the globe.

Fraudulent justice will be contested; the Kurdish people have been deprived from universal human rights, they have been persecuted in their own home. Could one imagine a parent not being able choose a Kurdish name for his child, because the state authority don’t like Kurdish names, or not being able to wear a piece of Kurdish clothing, because he would be jailed by the state police? The 12,000 year old town of Hasankeyf meets all UNESCO heritage emblems, but the Turkish authority did not submit Hasankeyf to UNESCO-Archaeology most likely because it’s a Kurdish city.

Very soon this ancient city will face obliteration, it will be underwater because of the “Ilisu Dam” over 70,000 people will be displaced. The majority of these people are Kurdish people, and it will have severe environmental affect in the riverine ecosystem in this part of the world, including the marshes in Southern Iraq.

Dear Mr. Secretary, many iconic world leaders throughout the 20th century have supported the Kurdish aspiration.

1- US President Woodrow Wilson who struggled to initiate the world “safe for democracy”,

2- Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian civil rights leader, who then criticized those occupying states for mistreating the Kurdish people,

3- Anti-apartheid Nelson Mandela, the “champion of freedom”; and now a majority of nonpartisan people of the world are urging their politicians to support the rights of Kurdish people.

Since the creation of the Iraqi state, the Kurdish people have vehemently objected this forceful attachment. A century old and entrenched, unworkable colonial system of adopted policies in the Middle Eastern regimes have not offered any amicable policy to alleviate the plights of the Kurdish people. Kurdish people in Iraq have faced many inhumane treatments such as the forceful deportations from their own homes, the infamous Anfal “The spoils of War”, in which over 180,000 perished. Occasionally there are still mass graves being found in different parts of Iraq, the remnants of Anfal. The city of Halabja was gased by the Ba’athist regime, in which over 5,000 people died. And last but not least, the Kurdish city of Shingal was attacked by the nihilistic ISIS/ISIL Daesh, from which still over 3,000 Kurdish Yazidi people are missing… The Kurdish Peshmerga is fighting the terroristic organization Daesh, who is perilous to humanity, and to the whole civilized world.

Today, the Iraqi Kurds of over 5,000,000 are living at a cross road in a purgatory status, they are contemplating their own decisions, whether or not they will go to vote yes or no to referendum. They should be given a chance that is a basic human right. The UN should support this conscious effort and strong statement, underscoring the importance of warning to the neighboring countries to abstain from Iraqi internal affairs, the stringent abidance by international law, there should be a firm warning those who violate the law, and because they must know that they will be held accountable for their misdeeds.

Just like the Federal government in Canada gave a chance French speaking people in Quebec province to vote for independence, just like England gave Scottish people in Scotland a chance to vote yes or no to referendum for independence; I am not comparing Ottawa and London to Baghdad, But Iraq-Baghdad authorities claiming its constitutionally federalized state so therefore, they should tolerate the Kurdish vote for referendum.

Sincerely,

Omar Sindi
United States.

Omar Sindi, a senior writer, analyst and columnist for iKurd.net, Washington, United States.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.

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