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| A child at the Zharawa refugee camp on Iraq's border with Turkey. |
Michelle Naar-Obed, of Loaves and Fishes Catholic Worker House in Duluth, sends this report about her latest journey with the Christian Peacemaking Team (CPT) to northern Iraq:
I have been back in the Kurdish north of Iraq for 3 weeks now. Some things have changed over the 7 months that I was at home in Duluth MN. Some changes for the better, some for the worse depending on which lens you are viewing this from. And then much has remained the same. In the scheme of things, 7 months is a millisecond where time is measured in millenniums.
For the 3 years that I have been working in the Kurdish north with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), we have focused primarily on the plight of the people in the village areas along the borders of Iran and Turkey. We have spent a lot of time trying to understand how a political and military web has been woven inside the Kurdish region of Iraq (KRG) with the permission of the KRG officials. Caught inside this tangled web are 1.5 million displaced civilian villagers who have been systematically attacked by both the Iranian and Turkish military. Accused of harboring the armed liberation groups PKK and PJAK, the border villages inside the sovereign state of Iraq are subject to these military operations which have also been backed and supported by the US in the name of fighting terrorism.
The village way of life, culturally and economically has been severely disrupted. Some villages have been destroyed, others damaged and many are now empty. Lives have been lost and many people have been injured both physically and psychologically. However, as a community, they have not been beaten spiritually. They still have hope and year after year, they put their crops back in the ground, wait in hope for their animals to have babies and multiply, take care of their bees so they can harvest the best honey in the region, and pray for good winter and spring rains. This year, they asked me if I could help them find out how to harvest electricity from animal manure, ie, how to convert methane gas into electricity.
Last year, CPT got a request from 137 families from 9 villages in the northeast corner of the Kurdish region to help convert their “internally displaced people's camp” (IDP camp) into a single village for all the families. We all worked very hard on this request. The village leaders drafted the proposal which was submitted to government officials and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). We went to meeting after meeting together and drank more cups of tea than any one person should consume in a lifetime. And we waited, and waited. Meanwhile, Iran attacked the villages relentlessly last spring and summer. They accused the KRG of hosting “foreign” governments that trained Kurdish Iranian dissidents to overthrow the Iranian government. Again, the Iraqi Kurdish villagers were caught in the web. They had hoped that houses would be built at the IDP camp which could be used as temporary safe houses when their villages were under attack.
While I was home in Duluth, I heard that the building project had come to a standstill over the summer of 2010. However in late fall, the foundation for 2 small houses for 2 families of elderly villagers was laid and when I arrived in early January the walls were built and they are still waiting for the roof and floors. We saw that electrical lines had been installed hooking them up to their national power line. The well that was dug 2 summers ago is still functioning and now they are hoping to get a small greenhouse so they can grow their own vegetables. They are very happy with all of these simple things that so many of us take for absolute granted. We have since heard that the government is assessing the housing needs for the other 135 families. Hope is still alive although every now and then it needs some resuscitation.
This year, CPT will continue to follow the plight of the IDPs but we plan to focus on the youth and women. These are the most vulnerable people living in lethal conflict zones. The youth in particular are in grave danger and they are the future leaders of the region. Their lives are constantly disrupted which means their education and family stability is broken with each round of attack that causes them to flee from their villages. Many of them have been traumatized and emotionally stunted.
The village youth are finding some support and friendship from the youth in the small nearby city, Rania. Plans are under way for a youth concert exchange project. By the way, Rania was the city that started the uprising against Saddam in 1991. The US encouraged the uprising but then turned their backs on the Kurds and the uprising failed. Rania, along with other nearby cities and villages experienced brutal retaliation until the northern no-fly zone was established by the United Nations. Rania is also the city that has partnered with Duluth MN to form the Duluth-Rania Friendship Exchange Project in 2009 which many of us in Duluth are very proud of.
CPT has also witnessed the brutal executions of Iranian Kurdish political prisoners. Public hanging is carried out routinely. As of 13 January, 75 people were executed and there is a record number of executions expected this year. Last week, a Dutch-naturalized Iranian woman was hung because she participated in a demonstration against the current Iranian government while she was visiting her family in Tehran in 2009. Many more political prisoners are on death row awaiting execution.
CPT recently received a request from a group of Iranian Kurds who are living in the KRG awaiting political asylum and relocation to a European host country. Some have been waiting for 6 years. Many are homeless, lacking work and basic necessities. The few that are employed are working as day laborers. Some have pooled their income so they can afford to rent a small flat together. They know they are being watched by Iranian intelligence and they live in fear of kidnapping and worse. They have asked CPT to document their stories and to make them visible to the world. CPT agreed to do this.
As always, I want to thank all of you that have supported the work of CPT. If you want more information about our work you can go to www.cpt.org, click on “our work” and then click on “Iraq Project”. You can also follow the progress of the Duluth-Rania Friendship Exchange Project by going to www.duluth-rania.org.
I expect to be in the Kurdish north until June 2011 and will continue to send monthly reports.
By the way, I butchered a goat for the first time in my life. The goat was brought as a gift from the villagers with whom we have been working. It was sacrificed in traditional manner and was killed quickly and respectfully. It was an honor to help prepare the goat for eating.
In Peace,
Michele Naar-Obed (obedsinduluth@yahoo.com)
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