Archive for October, 2000
Turkmen Should Be Given Human-Rights Protections
Guler Koknar, Orhan Ketene
The suffering of 3 million Turkmen under the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has been as acute as the privations of the Kurds and Shiites, as well as compounded by Kurdish persecution. The latter, nevertheless, are protected under the wings of the United States and enjoy its exclusive anti-Saddam political backing. In contrast, the doubly oppressed Turkmen have been cold-shouldered and left to the tender mercies of both Saddam and the Kurds. That aloofness tarnishes America’s humanitarian mission. It also makes dubious U.S. national-security hopes for a stable and enlightened Iraqi dispensation in the post-Saddam era indispensable to ensuring access to Persian Gulf oil, which triggered our 1991 military opposition to Saddam’s adventurism in Kuwait.