I liked the post below by a Kurd on The Economist website. As you read it please ask yourselves why tCypriots are not sympathetic to the plight of the Kurds in Turkey who ask for nothing less or more than tCypriots themselves ask for in Cyprus. Kurds are similar to tCypriots in that ...they suffered and continue to suffer immensely more than tCypriots ever did in Cyprus, Kurds are a large ethnic ethnic minority of a unitary state (23+%), and moreover they can claim residency of a part of Turkey since millennia ago and even before Turks ever set foot in Kurdistan, a claim tCypriots cannot make for any specific part of Cyprus, as they were first welcome to Cyprus just 400 years ago by the gCypriots who can trace their identity's root more than one thousand years before the birth of Christ!
Turkey and its Kurds South by south-east | The Economist | 14 April 2011
Hevallo, Apr 22nd 2011 9:05 GMT
Hevallo, Apr 22nd 2011 9:05 GMT
"Not long after the formation of the Turkish state, shamefully after the Kurds were called to help the Turks fight the foreign 'infidels', the Turkish state had a stated policy of forced assimilation and cultural genocide.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds have been killed in brutal and barbaric campaigns that have been kept from the Turkish public.
Even as late as the nineties the Turkish state were systematically razing Kurdish villages, towns and hamlets. In fact when the international media were talking about the 'ethnic cleansing' of Kosovans by Serbians the Turkish army were in full flow doing the exact same thing to the Kurds in Turkey but away from the eyes of the international community.
In short, the Kurds have never given up struggling against the denial of their culture, identity and language and have fought back. This fight back has been labelled 'Terrorism' by the Turkish state and because of strategic interests of the West they look the other way and accept this label thereby 'criminalising' millions of Kurds.
A shame!
But today the Kurds are changing the status quo and promise to the Turkish people that they will bring peace and democracy to Turkey.
The Turks once they know the full extent of the Kurdish experience in Turkey will find common cause against the perpetrators of these war crimes.
That day is coming closer every day!"
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds have been killed in brutal and barbaric campaigns that have been kept from the Turkish public.
Even as late as the nineties the Turkish state were systematically razing Kurdish villages, towns and hamlets. In fact when the international media were talking about the 'ethnic cleansing' of Kosovans by Serbians the Turkish army were in full flow doing the exact same thing to the Kurds in Turkey but away from the eyes of the international community.
In short, the Kurds have never given up struggling against the denial of their culture, identity and language and have fought back. This fight back has been labelled 'Terrorism' by the Turkish state and because of strategic interests of the West they look the other way and accept this label thereby 'criminalising' millions of Kurds.
A shame!
But today the Kurds are changing the status quo and promise to the Turkish people that they will bring peace and democracy to Turkey.
The Turks once they know the full extent of the Kurdish experience in Turkey will find common cause against the perpetrators of these war crimes.
That day is coming closer every day!"
