Kurdish Gunmen Open Fire on Demonstrators in North Iraq

[Barrett808]

Nineveh, Iraq (AINA) -- A group of Shabak demonstrators was fired upon by Kurdish gunmen in the morning of August 15.

A demonstration organized by the Democratic Shabak Coalition was held to demand separate representation for the Shabak community. Demonstrators held signs which read "We are the Shabak, NOT Kurds and NOT Arabs" and "We ask the national Assembly to recognize the rights of the Shabak." A group of KDP gunmen (of the Kurdistan Democratic Party militia) approached the crowd and opened fire on the demonstrators, injuring several of them.

The demonstrators re-iterated their dissatisfaction and anger for being blocked -- along with ChaldoAssyrians, Yezidis, and Turkoman -- in last January's national elections. Many demonstrators were certain that members of this same KDP militia had a hand in delaying the ballot boxes in the January national elections.

Dr. Haneen Al-Qado, The Shabak representative in the Iraq National Assembly and the constitution committee, said "The public demonstration was planned by the peaceful community of Bartilla (near Mosul), 5 days ago on Wednesday and proper approval was obtained from District Mayor Abdil-Amir and from the coalition forces. The demonstration was a result of the Shabak people's awareness of the fact that the Kurds were against having the Shabak being recognized as a unique ethnic people separate from Kurds and their attempt to Kurdify the Shabaks. This is something we the Shabaks are absolutely against"

One demonstrator said "they are non-governmental and have no business being here. They are not part of the Iraq military nor the security forces in charge in this area of Nineveh".

(more)

http://www.aina.org/news/20050816114539.htm

[maxsolomon]

1. phrase of the week

"Kurdify the Shabaks".

[VegasWolf]

2. Description of Bush's new Iraq, FUBAR!!! nt

[PurityOfEssence]

3. Simple solutions are for simpletons and assholes

Why was Saddam a friend of Tito? Because they led countries that were remarkably similar: as dying empires collapsed (the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian) something had to be done, and they were both victims of the Versailles Treaty. Arbitrary lines were drawn, throwing dissimilar peoples together, and that was that.

What was done was done by interlopers who had no idea of the complexities they should be addressing, and this haunts us to this day. Truly, World War I did more damage in the long run than World War II.

The alpha males of he minute will always try to cram reality into whatever boxes they consider convenient, but the underlying realities of culture and religion will not be so easily dominated.

Nobody's playing fair here, and it's ALL OUR FAULT. We smashed into a complex situation with simplistic answers, and we don't have the honor to try to answer them fairly. Withdrawal is selfishness at this point. Much as invading was deeply ugly, to leave now is just egotism at its height. We opened up these discussions, and we owe it to the entire human race to see that they're fairly moderated. Of course we won't, because we're so self-absorbed that neither the left nor right is focusing on what's best for the poor suckers caught up in this morass.

Pulling the troops out now would be disaster. Much as we never should have gone in, we're there now, and that makes us ALL responsible for the outcome. There are intricacies of cultural interplay that we hardly even know, and IT'S OUR FAULT. We walked into a delicately balanced nexus of cultures, and we blew it. Who do we think we are? We bear the responsibility of our government's actions, and that's a heady load.

Who are we going to help crush? The Kurds want their due for helping us for the past decade, but to help them is to destabilize the Kurdish parts of Syria, Turkey and Iran. The Shiites in the south want their due for playing nice for the last two years. The Sunnis resent being caught in the middle: although a minority in this country, living in the ONLY region of the country with no oil, they are still part of the overwhelming majority of Moslems. They were also our stalwart allies throughout the 70s and 80s and feel abused. (Join the line; we abuse everyone.)

It's all so easy.

It's like the morons who yearn for a fair tax code that can be filled out on a post card: life is NOT easy, and those who want it to be so are either children or people who want to screw others.

This will still be unresolved when I'm long since dead. Those who think otherwise are fools. Those others who state that it will are merely dicks with greedy hopes dancing about in their addled heads.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. Excellent post, but with one disagreement

We must pull out ASAP, but with agreements from other parties to move in and stabilize to the best of their ability. Any relationship with the US/UK/Coalition powers must be arms length. Yes, Iraq will probably be split, as was "Yugoslavia." And the world must administer that split to avoid further bloodbath. But the US/UK/Coalition powers cannot be part of that administration (though they should be required to pay reparations to ease the transition): we've done too much already, and cannot reasonably make an argument for good faith. As it stands, the mere presence of the US is a distinct efficient cause for the ongoing violence. And trying to solve a problem by insisting on the continuation of its cause is madness.