jeudi 28 août 2014

Iraq forces ready bid to break jihadist siege of Turkmen town



Iraq forces ready bid to break jihadist siege of Shiite town


AFP
Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraq was massing Forces Wednesday for an operation to break a two-month jihadist siege of a Shiite Turkmen town north of Baghdad, amid growing fears for residents short of supplies.
According to a civilian volunteer commander, thousands of Shiite militiamen from groups including Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organisation are gathering in the Tuz Khurmatu area, north of Amerli, in preparation for a battle to break the siege.The planned counter-offensive around the Salaheddin province town of Amerli comes amid reports that US President Barack Obama is weighing a decision to authorise air strikes and aid drops in the area to help thousands of trapped civilians.
And an army lieutenant general said that security forces were mobilising in the Jabal Hamreen area, south of Amerli, to launch an attack.
Iraqi aircraft have begun targeting positions of Islamic State (IS) jihadists around the town, carrying out nine strikes on Tuesday, an officer said.
Time is running out for the town's residents, who face danger both because of their Shiite faith, which jihadists consider heresy, and their resistance against the militants, which has drawn deadly retribution elsewhere.
There is "no possibility of evacuating them so far", and only limited humanitarian assistance is reaching the town, said Eliana Nabaa, spokeswoman for the UN mission in Iraq.
UN Iraq envoy Nickolay Mladenov has called for an urgent effort to help Amerli, saying residents face a "possible massacre" if the town is overrun.

mercredi 27 août 2014

ORSAM REVIEW: THE EFFECTS OF THE ISIS OPERATIONS ON THE TURKMENS

THE EFFECTS OF THE ISIS OPERATIONS ON THE TURKMENS

Bİlgay Duman

please see:

http://www.orsam.org.tr/en/enUploads/Article/Files/2014727_2014726_policybriefing7.pdf


The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant 
(ISIS), which has dominated headlines, 
has been continuing its offensive,  
causing a crisis among the people in 
areas in the northern part of Iraq, 
where it has captured.

Especially the Sunni Arabs and 
Turkmens are facing hard times in 
the cities under the ISIS, rule such 
as Mosul, Tel Afar, Salahaddin and 
Diyala, in which they constitute the 
majority. 

The Sunni Arabs, while being under 
risks due to the ISIS operations, 
are not under a direct threat. 

However, for the Turkmens, who live 
in the same region as the Sunni Arabs, 
the ISIS advance constitutes both 
direct and indirect threats to their 
survival.

The Turkish version

Full text    

jeudi 14 août 2014

Iraq: What it feels like to be on the receiving end of Isis's pickup truck killing party


Iraq: What it feels like to be on the receiving end of Isis's pickup truck killing party
A man who hid from Isis for eight hours in a stack of straw tells Richard Spencer of the horrific day when the Iraqi jihadists came to his village, murdering his son, brother, nephew and sister-in-law

Amina and husband Elias Hassan; Amina was shot in a car



By Richard Spencer, Taza, Iraq

1:57PM BST 28 Jun 2014



The Isis death squad came in the morning, and were merciless on their Shia victims. One man who survived crawled through fields of wheat for a mile on his hands and knees, with the gunmen following, looking for him.


He had left his son dying in the road behind him. He heard the shots as his brother and nephew, who had run the other way to hide in a building site, were killed with two other men.


He hid for eight hours in the middle of a stack of straw from Iraq's early summer harvest, not daring to look out.


The next day, the villagers went back for the bodies. There were 21 in all, scattered through the streets and in the looted, burning embers of their houses. The bodies of his brother, nephew and two other men in the building site had not just been shot but stabbed in the head and body, on both sides, having been turned over and over as the rampage proceeded.


His brother's finger had been cut off, to remove his ring.



"I served in the army, in the war against Iran and in Kuwait," the survivor, Fadl Moussa Hassan said. "But I never saw anything like this. Even if you captured a prisoner and killed him, you did it cleanly, with one shot."

As Isis, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, extends its control over Sunni areas of the country, the politicians in Baghdad and the world's diplomats ponder a negotiated response. They do not trust the Iraqi army's ability to regain control of the country, nor wish to commit foreign troops in the numbers required to take on the common enemy.

One argument is that the Iraq crisis has a political root, in the discrimination suffered by Sunni Muslims at the hands of a Shia-led government. Many ordinary, non-jihadi Sunnis themselves say the insurgency is a popular uprising more than extremist terrorism.

That may be true, but it does not mean those with a will and a gun cannot use the crisis to promote their own strategies.

At the opposite ends of the religious sectarian spectrum, that strategy is ethnic cleansing.

An Amnesty International report on Friday made clear that murder and mayhem is not limited to the Sunni jihadists. Iraqi security forces or allied Shia militias killed scores of Sunni prisoners in the towns of Tal Afar, Baquba and Mosul in the last two weeks as they came under attack from the Isis-led alliance.

The aim appeared to be to prevent them escaping and, if sympathetic, joining up with the attackers.

But the jihadists' attacks on Tuesday, June 17, on the Shia villages of Barauchili, Karanaz and Chardaghli, near Tikrit, and Bashir, further north south of Kirkuk, have a raw, sectarian quality previously associated with the Alawite "Shabiha" militias of neighbouring Syria.

The villages' residents are not just Shia but from the Turkmen minority, a vulnerable minority within a minority.

But ethnicity seemed to be less important than religion: the attackers were shouting "God is Great" as they roared up to the village in their pickup trucks, captured American Humvees and armoured personnel carriers, waving their black flags, and Mr Hassan and other survivors said that they could even make out Turkmen voices among the attackers.

Mr Fadl, his brother, Elias, and other villagers from Barauchili gave The Telegraph a clinical description of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a pickup truck killing party. Their accounts have yet to be assessed by independent experts, though they have been confirmed by Iraqi security forces, but the accounts of those interviewed separately matched.

The villages were attacked from either end: they came from the north, to Chadaghli first, then just as men were rushing there to defend it, they arrived at Barauchili from the south, the flag-flying jihadi column pouring up the road from a neighbouring Sunni district.

It sped through the road-hump checkpoint. Some villagers tried to fire from nearby rooftops, but they were outgunned. Najaf Kahir, 41, a local teacher, was one of them - shot and killed, his father, Abdulwahid Reza Kahir, said.

Realising there was nothing they could do, the villagers fled, but too late. When Mr Kahir's 86-year-old cousin, Kamal, and his sons Mustafa, 34, and Abbas, 28, staggered from their house, the gunmen were already there, and they killed them on the spot.

Another cousin, Abdullah Reza Kahir had a better idea. Instead of fleeing north to the other Turkmen villages, he fled south to the Sunni Arab one, Albuhassan, where he had friends.

They took him and his family in, but Isis came knocking.

The family's would-be protectors came out holding up a Koran. "For the sake of this holy book, let these men go," they said. There was some haggling, and the man's wife and daughters were allowed to remain inside.

But the father and his 15-year-old son, Hussein, were dragged out and shot in front of their hosts.

Meanwhile, the Hassan family were trying to head north. Fadl and his family were on foot, and straggling behind the rest of the villagers, which is why Isis caught up with them first.

"There were lots of other families, but we were behind them," he said.

Meanwhile his brother, Elias, was in his car with his wife Amina, heading in a different direction, west towards Karanaz. But when they reached the junction, Isis were already there - two men in a pickup, and one on the road with a sniper rifle.

As he tried to speed away, two shots rang out, and his wife's head slumped on his shoulder. When he finally made it to a hospital, she was dead.

Fadl Hassan said that while he was hiding in the field, his pursuers came close enough for him to hear their voices. Far from being the foreign fighters he had been taught to fear, some voices were local; some were even Turkmen.

The willingness of their neighbours to join the onslaught, including men from Albuhassan, whose children were their own children's classmates, shocked the villagers. But then the sectarianism of modern Iraq is not new. While some say that the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, however brutal, kept a peace between the sects, it also fostered the resentments.

Saddam had an Arabisation policy that took land and gave it to Sunni Arabs. In the town of Jalula, to the south-east near Baghdad, The Telegraph saw Kurdish Peshmerga forces who are taking on the insurgents and have driven them back into one corner of the town.

That corner is the corner occupied by a Sunni tribe which supports Isis - a tribe that was given the land there by Saddam and has no intention of giving it up.

A similar conflict underlies another massacre. The town of Bashir was once Turkmen, and was then handed by Saddam to Sunni Arabs in the 1980s as punishment for opposition from the Shia who lived there.

After he fell, the Turkmen returned, and the two lived side-by-side, uneasily.

Then, Isis arrived there too, on the same Tuesday, and with such speed that Qassem Ibrahim Ali was overwhelmed. He put his son, who though only 13 could drive, in one car with his wife, two teenage daughters and their three-year-old, then followed driving his neighbours to safety.

He never saw his family again. He rang his son when he arrived at the neighbouring village of Taza without passing them, but all his son could do was sob.

Five days later, the jihadists who had seized Bashir sent trucks pulling metal sheeting on which lay the decomposing bodies of 17 people, including his two daughters, Masuma, 19, and Nerjis, 12, both of whom had been shot in the back. His wife, Zahra, 13-year-old son Mohammed, and the three-year-old, Ali, are still missing.

A resident who hid inside his house for several days before escaping to Taza said there were still bodies decomposing in Bashir. In all, 13 people are unaccounted for.

"Isis said when we rang my son's phone that they had not deliberately killed my daughters, that they had died in the crossfire," Mr Ali said. "But there were no clashes as they were driving. There is no doubt they were executed."

Human Rights Watch has begun to document the sectarian cleansing and suspected murders by Isis of Turkmen Shia from other parts of northern Iraq, including Mosul.

"Isis has embarked on a campaign of forced displacement of minority communities," Letta Taylor, a researcher, said. "There is a clear pattern."

There may be underlying political causes for the Sunni insurgency.

There may be a pragmatic alliance between Sunni tribes, ex-Baathists and Isis, which will break down as time passes.

The tribes believe they can see off the jihadists sooner or later.

But there seems little hope of stitching Iraq into a single, multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian state again. In that case, the three parts will be Sunni, Shia and Kurds, and minorities will only get in the way. Maybe, some seem to think, it is better to get rid of them now.

Iraqi Christians, already reduced by three quarters since 2003, are again on the move, heading north to Kurdistan and then, in all likelihood, to Germany, Sweden and Michigan, where many already live.

Ten per cent of Turkmen have left the country in that time too, said Hasan al-Bayati, head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front.

The head of the Kirkuk city council - made up of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, Sunnis and Shia - was a Turkmen Sunni until last week. Munir al-Qafili was shot dead, clinically by gunmen who were well-trained enough to pump seven bullets into his head without scratching the body of the car in which he was a passenger.

It was a warning to all the Turkmen, said a fellow council member, who understandably asked not to be named. Mr Qafili had told colleagues not long before that he had received a warning from Iraqi intelligence his name was on an Isis hitlist.

His was a death foretold, and it will not be the last.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10932689/Iraq-What-it-feels-like-to-be-on-the-receiving-end-of-Isiss-pickup-truck-killing-party.html

The U.S. and the E.U. should arm the Turkmens in Iraq

If the U.S. and the E.U. are sending weapons to the Kurds they should also arm the Turkmens in Iraq. The Turkmens, Iraq's third main ethnic community, have no armed militias, they continue to be easy targets. 

When ISIS attacked Turkmen cities and villages, neither the Iraqi army nor the Kurdish peshmerga protected them.

The Iraqi army abandoned its positions before the arrival of ISIS mercenaries and the Kurdish peshmerga who were positioned around Turkmen inhabited towns and villages did nothing to protect the inhabitants. 


Kurds who are now controlling and occupying the so-called contested territories in the north of Iraq do not protect non-Kurds.

It is like an international plot to allow the ethnic cleansing of Turkmens in Iraq. It would suit the Arabs, the Kurds and the oil-greedy Western powers. The international community has not reacted when the peshmerga took over Kirkuk and now they will deal with the Kurds to export Kirkuk’s oil. Turkmens always objected to U.S. zio-neocons definition of the Iraqi people as 'Shia, Sunna, Kurds’ one  can understand why.

Turkmens are paying the price for always being loyal Iraqi patriots and for not collaborating with the U.S./U.K. invaders.


lundi 11 août 2014

The Spread of the Caliphate: The Islamic State (Part 1)






The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced their intention to reestablish the caliphate and declared their leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during recent advances in Iraq, the Islamic State’s expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

Elsewhere in territory it has held for some time, the Islamic State has gone about consolidating power and setting up a government dictated by Sharia law. While the world may not recognize the Islamic State, in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group is already in the process of building a functioning regime.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings. In part one, Dairieh heads to the frontline in Raqqa, where Islamic State fighters are laying siege to the Syrian Army’s division 17 base.

Watch our 5 Part documentary 'The Battle for Iraq' -http://bit.ly/1nmit6C

Read Now: Total Chaos in Northern Iraq as Islamic State Takes Country's Largest Dam - http://bit.ly/1yaqbSO

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Iraq's Night is Long - Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish: Iraq's Night is Long

 
Listen to this page using ReadSpeaker
[Mahmoud Darwish. Image from tahrirnews.com][Mahmoud Darwish. Image from tahrirnews.com]
[Today marks the fifth anniversary of Mahmoud Darwish’s death.]

Iraq’s Night is Long
Mahmoud Darwish
[For Saadi Youssef]

Iraq, Iraq is blood the sun cannot dry
The sun is God’s widow above Iraq
The murdered Iraqi says to those standing at the bridge:
Good Morning, I am still alive.
They say: You are still a dead man searching for his grave
in the corners of cooing

Iraq, Iraq . . . Iraq’s night is long
Dawn breaks only to the murdered
praying half a prayer and never finishing a greeting to anyone
For the Mongols are coming
from the gate of the Caliph’s palace
at the river’s shoulder
The river runs south and carries our dead who stay up,
carries them to the palm trees’ relatives.

Iraq, Iraq is cemeteries that are open, like schools,
to everyone:
Armenian, Turkmen, and Arab. We are all equal in eschatology
There must be a poet who wonders:
Baghdad; How many times will you disappoint myths?
How many times will you make statues for tomorrow?
How many times will you seek to marry the impossible?

Iraq, Iraq, here prophets stand
unable to utter the sky’s name
Who is killing whom in Iraq now?
Victims are shards on the roads and in words
Their names, like their bodies, are bits of disfigured letters
Here prophets stand together unable to utter
the sky’s name and the name of the murdered

Iraq, Iraq. So who are you in the presence of suicide?
I am not I in Iraq. Nor are you you
He is none but another
God has abandoned the perplexed, so who are we?
Who are we? We are nothing but a predicate in the poem:
Iraq’s night is long
Long!

[Translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon from Athar al-Farasha (Beirut: Riyad El-Rayyes, 2008)]

dimanche 10 août 2014

Turkmens desperately call on Turkey to be let in





Turkmens seeking refuge in the Kurdish region have not received a warm welcome from the Kurdish government and are reportedly barred from going to Kurdish cities such as Arbil.(Photo: Cihan)
August 09, 2014, Saturday/ 17:00:00/ AYDIN ALBAYRAK / ANKARA
Turkmens fleeing the terrorist group “Islamic State” (IS) in Iraq have been crying out to be granted entry into Turkey, but their calls seem to have fallen to deaf ears in the Turkish capital, which is so far only sending humanitarian aid to those whose lives are in jeopardy.



“We ask Turkey to let us cross the border,” Yasin Muhammed Yunus, a 55-year-old Turkmen who arrived in Turkey about a month ago, told Sunday's Zaman.

Members of the opposition parties have criticized the government for ignoring the plight of Turkmens in Iraq and for denying them entry into Turkey despite the fact that the country is currently hosting around 1.5 million refugees from Syria.

It is estimated that several thousand Turkmens have died since the IS launched its offensive in Iraq. At least 300,000 Turkmens are believed to have fled their homes in the past two months because of the IS terrorist attacks.

Yunus, a civil engineer who was based in Mosul before the IS captured the province in June, was only able to make it to Turkey thanks to a Kurdish friend who works as a civil servant. The peshmerga forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq do not allow Turkmens to pass through the Kurdish region which has a border with Turkey.

In an official car, his friend took him to the Habur customs gate at the Turkish-Iraqi border. Yunus had to leave his family, who are struggling to survive in the difficult conditions in Iraq.

Most recently, in an offensive over last weekend, the IS seized three more towns in northern Iraq. These towns were home to Turkmens and Yazidis, tens of thousands of whom were forced to flee from Zumar and Sinjar to the KRG territory in northern Iraq. The UN has said that some residents remain trapped in a rugged and open area on a nearby mountain that has been surrounded by militants.

The issue was hotly debated in Parliament at the beginning of the week. During the discussion, Sinan Oğan, a deputy from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), stated that the government is not allowing Turkmens without passports to seek refuge in Turkey. In stark contrast, as was noted by Oğan, Turkey does not demand to see the passports of hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing civil war when they arrive at the border.

Sharply criticizing the government, Oğan said: “[Turkmens] say: 'I am also Turkish [and] Muslim. I will come if you open the border.' Why are you closing the border to Turkmens? Are they to blame because they are Turkmens? If they were Arabs, you would have immediately opened the border.”

“Why won't you open the border when Turkmens are being slaughtered there [on the other side of the border]?” Oğan added, and he challenged ruling party deputies to speak out if his remarks were untrue. None of the ruling party deputies disputed Oğan's comments.

Yunus finds it hard to understand why Turkey asks to see fleeing Turkmens' passports, as most Turkmen do not have passports. Most of the people who have been internally displaced in Iraq over the last two months have taken refuge in the Kurdish region. According to Kurdish officials they currently host 1.5 million displaced people. There are not enough camps for the number of refugees, a significant number of whom are Turkmens, and many have no choice but to live in tents or in the open under the cruel summer sun.

Turkmens seeking refuge in the Kurdish region have not received a warm welcome from the Kurdish government and are reportedly barred from going to Kurdish cities such as Arbil.

“We do not want to stay in the Kurdish region because we are not treated well by the Kurds,” Yunus confirmed. “If Kurds do not want to host us [in their region], then they should let us leave and establish a corridor to the Turkish border,” he suggested, hoping that the few Turkmens with a passport would be able to come to Turkey.

After capturing Mosul in June, the IS also seized towns in the surrounding area, where thousands of Turkmens live. Turkmens then fled to the mountains and the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq that borders Mosul province.

Following their expansion into Mosul in mid-June, the IS seized Tal Afar, a city with a population of nearly 400,000 people in northwestern Iraq, the majority of whom are Turkmens.

An aid worker from Kimse Yok Mu (Is Anybody There?) who, during one of his trips to transport aid to Turkmens, had the chance to get information about the Turkmens fleeing the IS occupation of Tal Afar, said Turkmens do not feel safe and just want to get into Turkish territory.

Before Sinjar, a city in northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border, was captured by the IS, Turkmens fleeing the attack on Tal Afar wanted to take refuge in Sinjar. But the Kurdish peshmerga forces controlling the city did not allow the Turkmens to enter the city, which is under the KRG's administration.

Kimse Yok Mu's aid worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said that Turkmens from the Sinjar area had told him that Turkmens had not received all the humanitarian aid sent by Turkey as the aid was distributed by peshmerga forces. “I was told that there are no doctors in the camps where they are kept and their children don't have access to proper medical care,” the aid worker told Sunday's Zaman, adding that Turkmens had said, “Take us to Turkey, we want nothing more than that.”

Having done nothing other than send humanitarian aid to the Turkmens, Turkey is at long last now preparing to establish a campsite for displaced Turkmens near the Turkish border in Iraq.

Turkmen representatives called on Turkey to mobilize the UN to establish a safe zone in northern Iraq where Turkmens would be protected against the threat of the IS. The calls apparently fell on deaf ears in Turkey, and Erşad Salihi, the leader of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), submitted a petition to Nikolay Mladenov, a UN representative in Iraq at the beginning of the week. The petition reiterated the request for a UN safe zone in areas populated by Turkmens in Iraq.

During the US occupation of Saddam-era Iraq in the early 1990s, a US-led coalition imposed a buffer zone in northern Iraq to protect Kurds from potential attacks by the Iraqi army.

Noting that Turkmens have been the biggest victims of the IS terrorist attacks, Salihi told the Doğan news agency in Kirkuk: “The land populated by Turkmens is on its way to being depopulated. We are sandwiched between the two sides. Either the armed groups will seize our land or we will, in cooperation with peshmerga [Kurdish military] forces, fight against the armed groups.”

Salihi noted that, unlike the Kurds, Turkmens do not have an armed unit of their own and that he is making these calls on the UN because the Turkmens' survival is being jeopardized by the swift advance of the IS.

Like the MHP, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has also criticized the government for ignoring the plight of Turkmens.

Faruk Loğoğlu, deputy chairman of the CHP told Sunday's Zaman: “In terms of humanitarian law and morals and [because] Turkmens are our kinfolk, it is completely the wrong attitude to close the borders to Turkmens. The AK Party [Justice and Development Party] has been insensitive to the plight of Turkmens [in Iraq]. It has left Turkmens to their own devices,” he added.

Professor Suphi Saatçi, a Kirkuk-born scholar from Mimar Sinan University, recently said that Turkey was refusing entry to Turkmens fleeing violence in Iraq. Highlighting the conditions that the Turkmens live under while fleeing the extremists, Saatçi said, “They are living under the harsh sun, without shade, food or water and are left to die right under our noses; we are overwhelmed.”

Although in recent weeks Turkey seems to have increased the amount of humanitarian aid sent to Iraq for Turkmens and others facing threats from the IS, many Turkmen children have died due to heat exposure, diarrhea, malnutrition, thirst and scorpion stings while struggling to stay alive in desert areas where they have had to settle. Many children and their parents are living in extremely unhealthy conditions, sleeping in the open air when they cannot find a place in refugee camps and tent cities, and thus have no access to services or food.

Turkmens in Iraq are disappointed by the government's insensitivity to their plight. “Turkey has not backed us politically. This is what saddens us most,” Riyaz Sarıkahya, a Kirkuk-based leader of the Turkmeneli Party, told Sunday's Zaman.

Although expressing his gratitude for the humanitarian aid Turkey has been sending to Turkmens, Sarıkahya said: “Turkey has not submitted petitions to any international organizations regarding the security of Turkmens. We are deeply disappointed by that.”

samedi 9 août 2014

‘Bölgede Türkmen izi yok ediliyor’


‘Bölgede Türkmen izi yok ediliyor’

http://www.bizturkmeniz.com/tr/index.php?page=article&id=30636






ZEHRA ONAT

Prof. Dr. Suphi Saatçi, Kerkük doğumlu yüksek mimar ve akademisyen. Saatçi, Kerkük Güldestesi, Kerkük Evleri, Kerkük´ten Derlenen Olay Türküleri ve Kerkük Çocuk Folkloru gibi eserleriyle Kerkük kültürü hakkında önemli eserler verdi. Bölgeyi ve kültürünü yakından tanıyan Saatçi ile Iraklı Türkmenlere yapılan zulmü ve bölgedeki son durumu konuştuk.



Şu anda Iraklı Türkmenlerin bir soykırımla karşı karşıya olduğunu biliyoruz. Türkmenlerin sesini dünyaya duyuran bir kültür adamı olarak olayları nasıl değerlendiriyorsunuz?

Haziran ayından itibaren Irak´ta meydana gelen olaylar, en çok Türkmen toplumuna zarar veriyor. Özellikle IŞİD sanki sadece Türkmenleri hedef seçmiş gibi görünüyor ve şu andaki durum tamamen Türkmenlerin aleyhine gelişiyor. IŞİD Musul´u işgal ettikten sonra bölgede yaşayan Araplara veya Kürtlere ne gibi zararlar verdi? Bunu bilmiyoruz ve böyle bir şey de duymadık. Fakat IŞİD Musul bölgesindeki Türkmenleri yerlerinden ve yuvalarından söküp atmış durumda. Bölgedeki cehennemî sıcaklar altında çölde nereye gideceğini bilemeyen Türkmen aileleri perişan haldeler. Her gün güneşin kavurucu sıcakları altında aç ve susuz kalan Türkmenlerin onlarca çocuğu ve bebeleri ölüyor. Peşmerge kuvvetleri de onları Erbil´e sokmuyor. Düşünün, Erbil Irak´ın bir şehri, Telafer ve Musul da Irak´ın şehirleri ama Kürt yönetimi bunları yabancı kabul ederek Erbil´e sığınmalarına izin vermiyor. Ölümden kaçan bu Türkmen göçmenlerini Türkiye de içeri almıyor. Yerle gök arasında, kızgın güneş altında gölgesiz, gıdasız ve susuz kalan bu insanların burnumuzun dibinde böylesine ölüme terk edilmeleri, insanı kahrediyor. Bunları hadi Türk veya Türkmen kabul etmekten vazgeçtik, bari birer insan olarak kabul edelim, diyoruz.

Orada neler olup bittiğine dair sağlıklı haberler alabiliyor musunuz?

Türkmen bölgelerinden az çok haberler alıyoruz. Özellikle göçmen Türkmenlere gidip durumlarını öğrenen arkadaşlar, bunların fotoğraf ve haberlerini bize ulaştırıyorlar. Esasen bölgeden ne Türkiye ne de dünyanın diğer medya kuruluşları doğru dürüst haber alabiliyor. Bugün Gazze´deki durumu, her saat başı ulaşan görüntü ve haberlerden takip ediyoruz. Fakat her ne hikmetse IŞİD´den ve yaptıklarından haber sızmıyor. Sağlıklı haber alınamayınca, sağlıklı ve doğru yorum ve tahminlerde bulunmak zorlaşıyor.

Bunda sosyal medyanın etkisi ne kadar? Türkmenler bu aracı iyi kullanamıyor ve bu yüzden mi seslerini duyuramıyorlar?

Türkmenler sosyal medyayı kullanıyor. Ancak Türkiye´de asıl televizyon ve haber ajanslarının ele almadığı sorunlara halk da ilgi göstermiyor. Türkiye´de haberleri medyaya artık sadece siyasî iktidar servis ediyor. Hatta belki medyanın malzemesi Başbakan´ın söylediklerinden oluşuyor. Bu yüzden Başbakan´ın gündeminde Türkmenler yoksa medyada da Türkmenler yer alamıyor. Özellikle seçim süreci boyunca en çok tartışılan konular, Başbakan´ın seçim meydanlarında söylediklerinden ibaret. Bu toz duman içinde gariban Türkmen, sesini nasıl duyursun?

Peki, sizce Türkiye neden bu kadar duyarsız?

Türkiye, şu anda IŞİD´in yaptıkları karşısında biraz şaşkın durumda. Herhangi bir diplomatik atak da yapamıyor. Bu yüzden Türkiye beklemede, belki şu aşamada beklemek de en doğrusu, en azından fotoğraf netleşsin. Diğer yandan IŞİD´in elinde 80 dolayında Türk vatandaşı rehine bulunuyor. Ayrıca Türkmenlere insanî yardım gönderiliyor. Devlet dışında başka kuruluşlar da insanî yardım gönderiyor. Bu açıdan Türkmenlere insanî destek var. Burada eksik olan siyasî desteğin olmayışı… Türkiye siyasî destek yapabilir mi? Bence yapabilir.

Türkmenlerin bir kısmı yurtlarını terk etti ve dağlara, çöllere çekildi. Onların hayat şartları ne durumda?

Güneyde Kerkük ve Tuzhurmatu çevresindeki Türkmen bölgelerinde huzursuzluk had safhada. Çevre köylerden Kerkük´e sığınan ve sokaklarda yaşayan yüzlerce Türkmen, köyünden, obasından, yerinden, yurdundan ve evinden kopmuş durumda. Bunlar çocukları ile birlikte sefalete sürüklendiler. Musul yöresi ve Telafer Türkmenleri de çöllere dağıldılar. Bunların bir kısmı Necef ve Kerbela şehirlerine nakledildiler. Topraklarından ayrıldıkları için orada da huzurlu değiller. Ancak ölümden kurtulmak için başka çareleri kalmadı. Anlayacağınız, Türkmenlerin Allah´tan başka kimseleri kalmadı.

Türk kültürü ve tarihi siliniyor!

Türkmenlerin kültür varlıklarına karşı bir saldırı var mı?

Maalesef, Musul´da bin yıllık Nebi Yunus Camii ve içindeki makam yerle bir edildi. Nebi Şit ve Nebi Circis camileri de patlatıldı. Selçuklu dönemi yapılarından İmam Avnüddin ve İmam Yahya Ebu´l-Kasım türbelerinin havaya uçurulduklarının çekimlerini maalesef internette içim burkularak izledim. Musul Ulu Camii gibi Irak´ın en eski minaresine sahip bir yüce mabedin de havaya uçurulacağı söyleniyor. Atabeyler döneminde Musul´da inşa edilen ve kenti süsleyen kültür varlıklarının ve dinî merkezlerin birkaç dakikada yerle bir edildiğini görmek insanın içini kanatıyor. Nebi Circis külliyesi Timur döneminde (14. yy.) bile büyük bir restorasyon geçirmiştir. Yani düşünün, bu zihniyetin, İstanbul´da olsa Fatih´in, Kanuni´nin türbelerini dinamitlerle dümdüz ettiğini gözümüzde canlandıralım.

Bu vahşetin ileride ne gibi kültürel yıkımları olur?

Bu zihniyetin egemen olacağı her yerde türbe, makam ve mezar gibi kültürel varlıklar ve değerli yapılar birer birer yıkılacaktır.