Speaker 1:

In the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein turned his attention to the north of his country. Despite attempts by the Iraqi authorities to suppress their culture, the Kurds continued to resist. In 1988 in the two northern Iraqi provinces of Mosul and Kirkuk, over 4,000 Kurdish villages were destroyed. To this day no one knows how many people died. Saddam was determined to rid Iraq of the Kurdish problem for once and for all. He issued military instructions to empty the Kurdish areas. It's the duty of military forces, everyone according to a section to kill any human being or animal that exists in these areas which are considered totally forbidden.

50,000 people, mostly Kurdish resistance fighters and their families, escaped across Iraq's northern border into Turkey. The authorities gave them tents, blankets and medical attention, which they needed because many were scarred, some had unusual burns on their skin. There were horrific stories about a new and appalling weapon. Chemical weapons were now being used in Saddam's campaign against the Iraqi Kurds.

Speaker 2:

I am here just because the aeroplanes  attacked my village [inaudible 00:02:05] and a lot of my people already killed and the smoke of chemical weapons didn't leave anything alive.

Speaker 1:

In one afternoon in the village of Halabja, 5,000 men, women and children died. Northern Iraq Kurds say that numerous other villages suffered the same fate. Although these pictures shocked millions of people around the world, Saddam Hussein managed to keep his vital economic links intact. For those who escaped Halabja and the devastation of the Kurdish villages in northern Iraq, the allied response to Iraqi's invasion of Kuwait causes anger and deep resentment.

Speaker 3:

Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against [inaudible 00:02:57] Kurds in Halabja, 5,000 are die and 6,000 be injured. Nobody ask, nobody talk about the Kurdish right. In Bahdinan area, which I lived in that time and there, Saddam Hussein bombed more than 70 villages.

Speaker 1:

At Silopi in Turkey, the pumping stations continued to move Iraq's oil to the west. And with only a few exceptions, Western countries kept Iraq supplied with the technology and raw materials she needed for her massive chemical, nuclear and conventional weapons programmes.

Speaker 3:

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Maybe he killed 100 or 200 person inside Kuwait. There is 10 United Nations resolutions against of Saddam Hussein. Why in Halabja nobody ask why there is no resolution. This is what Kurdish people ask, what is about the future of the Kurds?

Speaker 1:

When the Iraqi Kurds escaped over the mountains into Turkey, they found the Turkish authorities, like the Iraqis, involved in a political, social and military campaign against Kurdish culture. Above every city in the region, a message is branded into the mountain. How happy I am to be a Turk. It's directed at Turkey's own 10 million Kurds who live in the Southeastern border region, for this is a land of silent protest. Turkey's army, NATO's second largest force, has been fighting a six year guerrilla war with Kurdish fighters and since the Gulf crisis, the military presence, already large, has grown to 100,000 troops stationed in this border region. The majority of Kurds who live here do not see the army as their protectors against Saddam. In this area, it's the Turks who are seen as the oppressors.

Speaker 4:

[foreign language 00:05:13]

Speaker 1:

The Kurdish people live in a region which crosses the borders of four Middle East countries. They call their country Kurdistan and despite opposition from their host countries, they want to establish an independent or at least autonomous Kurdistan. In Turkey, as in other countries where Kurds live, Kurdish nationalism is severely dealt with. Turkish human rights abuses of a Kurdish people are a leading factor in their exclusion from the EEC.

[Zabaya Aidar 00:06:04], a Kurdish lawyer, put himself at considerable risk by telling us what he knew.

Zabaya Aidar:

[foreign language 00:06:12]

Speaker 1:

The mountainous Iraqi frontier has proved difficult for the Turks to control. With few road but numerous donkey paths, Kurds regularly crisscross into Iraq with little opposition. They have no respect for the borders that divide their land. Ruined villages litter the countryside. Like the Iraqis before them, the Turkish solution to the rebel mountain guerrillas is to evacuate and ruin the villages where they once found food, shelter and new recruits. The Turks use a variety of methods to clear this remote frontier of Kurdish habitation ranging from intimidation to outright bombing raids.

This man at the risk of three years imprisonment took us back to his village, now deserted and destroyed.

Speaker 6:

[foreign language 00:07:37]

Zabaya Aidar:

[foreign language 00:08:03]

Speaker 1:

Yet despite such uncompromising policies, Turkey's Kurdish guerrilla movement continues to exist. These pictures were taken in Turkey by the Kurdish nationalist guerrilla movement, the [foreign language 00:08:32]. They've survived because they know the inaccessible mountains bordering Iraq better than their enemy. In the last five years, over 5,000 have dies in their war against the Turks. Their leadership believes the Turkish government has an ulterior motive in its recent involvement in the Gulf War, a war which for the most part Turks and Kurds would rather stay out of.

Speaker 7:

[foreign language 00:08:59]

Speaker 1:

This week, Turkey indicated she may well have a hidden agenda. Until now, the children in this Kurdish school would have been beaten if they spoke their mother tongue in class. For speaking Kurdish in public, their parents will face prison sentences. Now Turkey's president, Turgut Özal, has in a surprising move announced that these laws, the source of such resentment amongst Turkey's Kurdish minority, are to be reviewed. What most Kurdish people are asking is why.

Speaker 8:

The timing of this decision is very interesting indeed, because it has come during this crisis. One wonders, I mean, why not before and what lies behind it? If there's a plan, for instance, to give Turkey some encouragement to go further or to make certain military incursion and to calm down the feeling of the people to carry out its schemes.

Speaker 1:

Here at [Jakuja 00:10:31], Turkey's closest military base to the mountainous border, the army is ready for war. Helicopters buzz through the inaccessible mountains. Although initially Turkey wasn't keen to fight against her largest trading partner, she's been actively involved in the war since the first American bomber took off from [inaudible 00:10:48] two weeks ago.

Turkey's two NATO airbases at Incirlik and Batman are being used in daily bombing missions into Northern Iraq and further Turkish troops are being moved up to the frontier. Many Turkish officials quietly believe Turkey's borders should move to encompass the oil rich Northern Iraqi provinces of Mosul and Kirkuk.

Speaker 9:

The present day border was originally set up by the allies at the end of the first World War and Turkey appealed against that to the League of Nations, very newly set up League of Nations, and I believe there was a referendum held in 1926 and certainly the League of Nations ruled that the border should remain as it is today between Turkey and Iraq.

Speaker 1:

Turkey would have great difficulty convincing the world of rights to planes in Iraqi territory. Rather Middle East specialists believe Turkey may have a more subtle interest in the region.

Speaker 10:

I think that Turgut Özal has one big concern about the possible breakup of Iraq after the Gulf War ends and that is that the Kurds of Northeastern Iraq might try to set up an independent state of their own. I think he feels that this would have a knock on effect on his own Turkish minority, some 9, 10, or possibly 12 million strong in Southeastern Turkey.

Speaker 1:

The [inaudible 00:12:16] guerrillas of Northern Iraq, a remainder from the 1988 massacres, are still fighting Saddam's military. Many believe the aftermath of this war will present an opportunity for them to gain the cultural freedom they desire. If the Turkish intervene to prevent it, they will become the enemy. Today there are few Iraqi Kurds demanding the breakup of Iraq, an independent Kurdistan surrounded by hostile governments is widely recognised to be impractical.

Speaker 10:

Today I think history has moved on too far. The best I think the Kurds can hope for is autonomy and freedom to exercise their cultural linguistic rights in the countries to which they now belong. I think realistically most Kurdish politicians today in Iraq, in Turkey and in Iran, recognise that that is all that's available to them and I think that is in fact the limit of those ambitions. Autonomy within the states within which they live.

(singing)

Speaker 1:

For much of the world, there's sympathy for their plight and their past suffering. An end to Saddam will not easily result in the realisation of their goal. Turkey will resist, as will Syria and Iran. Any new Iraqi government is also likely to object, perhaps violently as well.