Tribal reconciliation

Najat Amin, chief of KDP's 16th branch in Erbil. GLOBE PHOTO/ Wahid Ismael

By Ako Muhammed
The Kurdish Globe

A report of August 2007

New "social committees" will attempt to settle rivalries.

Rivalries between families and tribes still exist, leading to murder as a form of revenge. Courts cannot always end disputes, and this is where tribal reconciliation is most important.

Khanaqin dries up

Khanaqin dries up

Two men fish the Alwan River in Khanaqin, which is almost completely dry due to Iranian dams. GLOBE PHOTO/Qassim Khidhir

The Globe - Khanaqin
Ako Muhammed and
Qassim Khidhir

A report of July 2008

Iranian dams produce a major crisis and result in the loss of farms and drinking water.

The Alwan River, which crosses through Khanaqin town north of Diyala province, is completely dry due to the construction of dams by Iran on the Iranian side. The people are suffering a vital shortage of drinking water, their farms are dying, and they have lost a river, which is the symbol of their town.

Fayli Kurds prepare genocide case

Hadi Ali's family is shown here in 1980. Ali and three of his brothers were lost after they were imprisoned near Baghdad in the early 1980s. GLOBE PHOTO

Two years passes since this report was published. the aim of republishing it is for raising a question, What Happened to the Fayli Case?

Fayli Kurds prepare genocide case

By Ako Muhammed
The Kurdish Globe

A report conducted in June 2008

KRG supports victims' families in their search for traces of lost youths and with legal compensation.

Crimes against Fayli Kurds from as far back as the '70s and '80s are now ready to be heard by the Iraqi High Crimes Tribunal.

Jalawla is "kingdom of orphans"

Kurds evacuate Jalawla

A man in traditional Arab dress walks through the central market of Jalawla town on February 9, 2010. GLOBE PHOTO/Ako Muhammed

The Kurdish Globe

Arabs from other provinces are replacing Kurds in disputed town of Jalawla.

Hundreds of Kurdish families escaped threats and shortage of services in the disputed town of Jalawla, and Arabs from other provinces are replacing them, according to Kurdish sources.

More than 450 Kurdish families left Jalawla, a district in northern Diala province, because of bad security and other difficult conditions, said Amir Raf'at, a Kurdish former member of Diala provincial council in an interview with Erbil-based Payamner news agency. He added that a large number of Kurdish families also left nearby Sadiya and Qaratapa districts. These districts, which belong to Khanaqin town, are considered a part of the disputed areas covered by constitutional Article 140.

Donkeys’ utopia to be established in Kurdistan

Association forms to defend donkeys’ rights and educate people

Saving donkeys and ensuring they are treated in a humane manner becomes the main task of the Kurdistan Donkeys Association.

Argument renewed on case of murdered Sardash Osman

Interrogation committee claims victim had ties to Ansarul-Islam

Organization calls for further investigation as KRG publishes information on murder of Sardasht Osman.

Nechirvan Barzani: Oil is not smuggled in Kurdistan

“Awene” runs in-depth interview with former PM Nechirvan Barzani

Among other issues discussed, the former PM responded frankly to a question about smuggled oil: “We have to act transparently in the oil issue or it will trouble the KRG.”

PUK, an idea born at a café

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan began in Syria in 1975

By Ako Muhammed

At Tolaitala, a café in Damascus, Syria, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) became a Kurdish revolutionary name for the first time. To revive the Kurdish struggle against the Iraqi Baath system, President Jalal Talabani met with Dr. Fuad Masum, Abdul-Razaq Aziz, and Adil Murad to discuss the future of a nation, above and beyond drinking coffee.

Anfal leaves survivor infertile

After-effects of 1988 Anfal tactics produce misery to this dayMore than 20 years later, an injection given to an imprisoned Kurdish man during the Anfal Operation still haunts him.
After 13 years of marriage, Ibrahim Amin still has not become father. Medical reports recently revealed that his infertility is because of an injection he was given while in jail.

Kurds rebury massacred children

“My Hajar was quite a lady…like an angel.”
Anfal’s 22nd anniversary observed at a funeral of 104 children and two women

One day 22 years ago, Maryam Faqe Ali was separated from her family—she never saw them again. Seeking to start a routine rural life, they were interrupted by an army attack on their village of Askar, southwest of Suleimaniya.
Her husband, Hassan Mohammad, was shot dead. She and other women from the village smelled toxic gas. But the women were able to escape the army and the gas as they hid in a pool of water. Her three children and a daughter-in-law were captured and they disappeared.
“My eldest son was dear Sabir, and my Talib was like that boy,” she pointed to a child nearly 8 years old as she mentioned her lost children. “My Hajar was quite a lady…like an angel,” she said, then burst into tears. “The Baath government…only because we were Kurds,” Ali said in reply to why they were targeted.

Children starved to death in a Baath jail

Witnesses tell of burying Anfaled children in Dubis

Children who died of starvation will be memorialized and remembered for their suffering.

Underground, in a space twice as large as a basketball court, Karwan, Hiwa, and many others of their age—less than 12 years old—who endured starvation and imprisonment, were buried by volunteers in Dubis, a multiethnic town northwest of Kirkuk.
"This grave is of Hiwa. I remember very well the day the prison guards brought him," said Hassan Ahmed, a water project worker who had dug many graves for children taken out dead from a military prison in his town in 1988. That time, Ahmed was an 18-year-old student; his home was located close to the children’s cemetery next to the Old Mosque of Dubis.

KRG criticizes UNAMI report

UNAMI accuses the KRG of having “secret jails” in Kurdistan Region; KRG denies the charge

Report welcomes KRG attempts to “improve prison situations,” but claims it violates detainees’ rights at the same time.