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Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations (Will you scarify $200,000 salary for telling the truth?)

By

The Guardian,
By: Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras in Hong Kong.

He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. edward Snowden“I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA’s history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows,

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations – the NSA.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions,” but “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.”

Despite his determination to be publicly unveiled, he repeatedly insisted that he wants to avoid the media spotlight. “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing.”

He does not fear the consequences of going public, he said, only that doing so will distract attention from the issues raised by his disclosures. “I know the media likes to personalise political debates, and I know the government will demonise me.”

Despite these fears, he remained hopeful his outing will not divert attention from the substance of his disclosures. “I really want the focus to be on these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in.” He added: “My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”

He has had “a very comfortable life” that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.”

‘I am not afraid, because this is the choice I’ve made’

Three weeks ago, Snowden made final preparations that resulted in last week’s series of blockbuster news stories. At the NSA office in Hawaii where he was working, he copied the last set of documents he intended to disclose.

He then advised his NSA supervisor that he needed to be away from work for “a couple of weeks” in order to receive treatment for epilepsy, a condition he learned he suffers from after a series of seizures last year.

As he packed his bags, he told his girlfriend that he had to be away for a few weeks, though he said he was vague about the reason. “That is not an uncommon occurrence for someone who has spent the last decade working in the intelligence world.”

On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since. He chose the city because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”, and because he believed that it was one of the few places in the world that both could and would resist the dictates of the US government.

In the three weeks since he arrived, he has been ensconced in a hotel room. “I’ve left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire stay,” he said. It is a plush hotel and, what with eating meals in his room too, he has run up big bills.

He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them.

Though that may sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for such fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade. He knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance organisation in America, the NSA, along with the most powerful government on the planet, is looking for him.

Since the disclosures began to emerge, he has watched television and monitored the internet, hearing all the threats and vows of prosecution emanating from Washington.

And he knows only too well the sophisticated technology available to them and how easy it will be for them to find him. The NSA police and other law enforcement officers have twice visited his home in Hawaii and already contacted his girlfriend, though he believes that may have been prompted by his absence from work, and not because of suspicions of any connection to the leaks.

“All my options are bad,” he said. The US could begin extradition proceedings against him, a potentially problematic, lengthy and unpredictable course for Washington. Or the Chinese government might whisk him away for questioning, viewing him as a useful source of information. Or he might end up being grabbed and bundled into a plane bound for US territory.

“Yes, I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets,” he said.

“We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.”

Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. “I am not afraid,” he said calmly, “because this is the choice I’ve made.”

He predicts the government will launch an investigation and “say I have broken the Espionage Act and helped our enemies, but that can be used against anyone who points out how massive and invasive the system has become”.

The only time he became emotional during the many hours of interviews was when he pondered the impact his choices would have on his family, many of whom work for the US government. “The only thing I fear is the harmful effects on my family, who I won’t be able to help any more. That’s what keeps me up at night,” he said, his eyes welling up with tears.

‘You can’t wait around for someone else to act’

Snowden did not always believe the US government posed a threat to his political values. He was brought up originally in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. His family moved later to Maryland, near the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade.

By his own admission, he was not a stellar student. In order to get the credits necessary to obtain a high school diploma, he attended a community college in Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework. (He later obtained his GED.)

In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join the Special Forces. Invoking the same principles that he now cites to justify his leaks, he said: “I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression”.

He recounted how his beliefs about the war’s purpose were quickly dispelled. “Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone,” he said. After he broke both his legs in a training accident, he was discharged.

After that, he got his first job in an NSA facility, working as a security guard for one of the agency’s covert facilities at the University of Maryland. From there, he went to the CIA, where he worked on IT security. His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma.

By 2007, the CIA stationed him with diplomatic cover in Geneva, Switzerland. His responsibility for maintaining computer network security meant he had clearance to access a wide array of classified documents.

That access, along with the almost three years he spent around CIA officers, led him to begin seriously questioning the rightness of what he saw.

He described as formative an incident in which he claimed CIA operatives were attempting to recruit a Swiss banker to obtain secret banking information. Snowden said they achieved this by purposely getting the banker drunk and encouraging him to drive home in his car. When the banker was arrested for drunk driving, the undercover agent seeking to befriend him offered to help, and a bond was formed that led to successful recruitment.

“Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world,” he says. “I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.”

He said it was during his CIA stint in Geneva that he thought for the first time about exposing government secrets. But, at the time, he chose not to for two reasons.

First, he said: “Most of the secrets the CIA has are about people, not machines and systems, so I didn’t feel comfortable with disclosures that I thought could endanger anyone”. Secondly, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 gave him hope that there would be real reforms, rendering disclosures unnecessary.

He left the CIA in 2009 in order to take his first job working for a private contractor that assigned him to a functioning NSA facility, stationed on a military base in Japan. It was then, he said, that he “watched as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in”, and as a result, “I got hardened.”

The primary lesson from this experience was that “you can’t wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act.”

Over the next three years, he learned just how all-consuming the NSA’s surveillance activities were, claiming “they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them”.

He described how he once viewed the internet as “the most important invention in all of human history”. As an adolescent, he spent days at a time “speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never have encountered on my own”.

But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. “I don’t see myself as a hero,” he said, “because what I’m doing is self-interested: I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”

Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA’s surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to democracy”, he said.

A matter of principle

As strong as those beliefs are, there still remains the question: why did he do it? Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? “There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich.”

For him, it is a matter of principle. “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to,” he said.

His allegiance to internet freedom is reflected in the stickers on his laptop: “I support Online Rights: Electronic Frontier Foundation,” reads one. Another hails the online organisation offering anonymity, the Tor Project.

Asked by reporters to establish his authenticity to ensure he is not some fantasist, he laid bare, without hesitation, his personal details, from his social security number to his CIA ID and his expired diplomatic passport. There is no shiftiness. Ask him about anything in his personal life and he will answer.

He is quiet, smart, easy-going and self-effacing. A master on computers, he seemed happiest when talking about the technical side of surveillance, at a level of detail comprehensible probably only to fellow communication specialists. But he showed intense passion when talking about the value of privacy and how he felt it was being steadily eroded by the behaviour of the intelligence services.

His manner was calm and relaxed but he has been understandably twitchy since he went into hiding, waiting for the knock on the hotel door. A fire alarm goes off. “That has not happened before,” he said, betraying anxiety wondering if was real, a test or a CIA ploy to get him out onto the street.

Strewn about the side of his bed are his suitcase, a plate with the remains of room-service breakfast, and a copy of Angler, the biography of former vice-president Dick Cheney.

Ever since last week’s news stories began to appear in the Guardian, Snowden has vigilantly watched TV and read the internet to see the effects of his choices. He seemed satisfied that the debate he longed to provoke was finally taking place.

He lay, propped up against pillows, watching CNN’s Wolf Blitzer ask a discussion panel about government intrusion if they had any idea who the leaker was. From 8,000 miles away, the leaker looked on impassively, not even indulging in a wry smile.

Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private, whose trial coincidentally began the week Snowden’s leaks began to make news.

“I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest,” he said. “There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”

He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain concealed.

As for his future, he is vague. He hoped the publicity the leaks have generated will offer him some protection, making it “harder for them to get dirty”.

He views his best hope as the possibility of asylum, with Iceland – with its reputation of a champion of internet freedom – at the top of his list. He knows that may prove a wish unfulfilled.

But after the intense political controversy he has already created with just the first week’s haul of stories, “I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets.”

Video http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance

Snowden summonned Americans ‘To confront the growing danger of tyranny,’ father says

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According to the Associated Press, Lonnie Snowden celebrated his son’s work “summoning the American people to confront the growing danger of tyranny.”

National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden’s father has published an open letter praising his son’s contributions in exposing the United States’ vast surveillance operations.5_si

The letter was reportedly penned by the leaker’s dad and Bruce Fein, a Washington, DC-based attorney who has represented CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou.

Publishing of the open letter comes less than 24 hours after Edward Snowden issued a statement through the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks from Moscow, where he has spent eight days so far awaiting potential asylum from one of more than a dozen countries he’s pleaded with for assistance. President Barack Obama has asked for Snowden to be extradited to the US, and the Department of Justice has indicted him on counts of espionage for disclosing state secrets involving the NSA’s clandestine surveillance programs.

“In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake,” Snowden, 30, said in the WikiLeaks statement. “We are stateless, imprisoned or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.”

Lonnie Snowden has reportedly not spoken to his son directly since before Edward fled the US in May for Hong Kong. There he gave several interviews to The Guardian newspaper, which first published leaked documents attributed to him on June 6.

“I love him,” Lonnie Snowden told NBC News last week. “I would like to have the opportunity to communicate with him.” He has also suggested that the whistleblower website that released a statement on behalf of his son earlier this week may not have his best interests at heart.

“I think WikiLeaks, if you’ve looked at past history, you know, their focus isn’t necessarily the Constitution of the United States. It’s simply to release as much information as possible,” Lonnie Snowden said.

Fein told Fox News previously that he is attempting to work “with the Department of Justice of creating information directly to Mr. Edward Snowden that would enable him to make an intelligent decision of what’s available back in the United States with regard to due process.”

Egypt’s Morsi faces street rage, internal divisions (Canadian embassy in Cairo to shut down)

By

The Associated Press

Posted: Jul 2, 2013 6:40 AM ET

With a military deadline for intervention ticking down, hundreds of thousands of protesters seeking the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president sought Tuesday to push the Eygept on Fireembattled leader further toward the edge with another massive show of resolve and unity.

In a significant move, opposition parties and the youth movement behind the demonstrations agreed that reform leader and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei would represent them in any negotiations on the country’s political future.

The pact, at least in theory, should end the bickering and rivalries that have plagued the opposition.

At the same time, President Mohammed Morsi faced fissures from within after a stunning surge of street rage reminiscent of Egypt’s Arab Spring revolution in 2011 that cleared the way for Morsi’s long-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood to win the first open elections in decades.

Three government spokesmen were the latest to quit as part of high-level defections that underscored his increasing isolation and fallout from the ultimatum from Egypt’s powerful armed forces to either find a political solution by Wednesday or the generals would seek their own way to end the political chaos.

The police, which are under control of the Interior Ministry, have stood on the sidelines of the protests, refusing even to protect the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood that have been attacked and ransacked. Their ministry has thrown its considerable weight behind the military.

ArhalIn response to the growing pressures on Morsi, his Islamist backers have stepped up their own warnings that it may take bloodshed to dislodge him.

The uncertainy has prompted the Canadian embassy in Cairo to shut down for security reasons. It will remain closed until further notice. Foreign Affairs is warning Canadians in Egypt to avoid demonstrations and gatherings and to stay clear of military offices and facilities.

CBC reporter Derek Stoffel said from near Tahrir Square that people are asking what it might mean for Egypt’s nascent democracy. “People are talking about, well, what does that mean for the next person if Morsi does step down?”

Some supporters say they would rather die fighting a military takeover than accept Morsi’s ouster just a year after the country’s first free election.

“Seeking martyrdom to prevent the ongoing coup is what we can offer as a sign of gratitude to previous martyrs who died in the revolution,” Brotherhood stalwart Mohammed el-Beltagi wrote Tuesday in his official Facebook page.

Morsi, meanwhile, met with Defence Minister and army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Qandil in the second such meeting in as many days. No details were given about the meeting, reported by an official at the president’s office, Ayman Ali.

The meeting, however, suggests that efforts were being made to resolve the crisis, although there is little time and almost no political will from the opposition to accept anything less than Morsi’s departure.

Cyprus: Volunteered vibrancy aims to energise Nicosia

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By Maria Gregoriou

A NETWORK of volunteers and the Nicosia municipality have joined forces to promote an extensive cultural, social and environmental programme which aims to draw active participation from as many city residents as possible.

pic-for-Nicosia-volunteerism-storyOrganisers hope the planned events will create a more vibrant Nicosia and support its citizens during the economic crisis. They hope that more Nicosians who believe in a cultural, green and lively city will join in the efforts.

The first cultural events of the volunteer group Lefkosiazo – taken from the words ‘Nicosia’ and ‘alive’ – will begin tomorrow with the first in a series of free screenings of classical Greek and English films. These will be shown every Wednesday of July, twice in August and twice in September at the open air theatre of the cultural foundation of the Bank of Cyprus in Socratous Street in Faneromeni area at 9pm.

Entrance is free and the money collected from refreshments will go to charity organisations.

Municipality councillor and cultural committee chairperson Leoni Orfanidou described how the project came about at a press conference yesterday.

“One evening we all got together. We are all very different people but we all have a common love of Nicosia. Because for us Nicosia is a living place with huge potential, we wanted to do something for our city,” he said.

“We are a network of volunteers who believe in the unique power of action and want to share our vision for a better Nicosia. We believe now is the perfect time for our creativity and energy to be put into action.”

The group’s vision has been endorsed by Nicosia mayor Constantinos Yiorkadjis who called yesterday for the active participation of all those who were born in Nicosia or have chosen the capital as their home.

“Now more than ever, we must take action to create a city that we envision and deserve,” he said.

The Lefkosiazo network of volunteers is divided into five teams.

The ‘culture’ team will organise cultural events and performances. The ‘green’ team aims to help by cleaning and improving public spaces. The ‘plus’ team will support social actions. The ‘city’ team will focus on Nicosia’s rich history by arranging city walks and tours while the team ‘our voice’ will promote activities, lectures and publications.

The 1955 Greek film Laterna, Poverty and Pride kicks off the film programme tomorrow. On July 10 the 1931 film City Lights with Charlie Chaplin will be screened, followed by the Greek film A Greek Woman in a Harem on July 17. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly will be shown on July 24 and the Greek 1968 film The Taming of the Shrew will be on the last Wednesday of the month.

The 1933 comedy Duck Soup will be shown on August 7, followed by the Greek 1960 film Mandalena on August 28.

The 1963 film The Great Escape will be shown on September 4 while the programme will end with a screening of the 1953 film Roman Holiday on September 11.

To become a volunteer with Lefkosiazo go to http://www.lefkosiazo.com/. You can also view upcoming events as they are announced and make any suggestions or comments.

Iraqi Kurdistan no longer possesses a legal president (Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely)

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By Kamal Chomani – World Bulletin

All in all, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq no longer possesses a legal president who has been elected by the people through ballots. Kurds in Iraq now have a president who has been forced on them by violating the principles of democracy.

July 2, 2013

state7192While President Masoud Barzani was in a meeting with the French President François Hollande, discussing the Kurdistan Region’s booming economy and democracy, his Kurdistan Democratic Party was in another meeting with Jalal Talabani’s party, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, breaching the laws and violating the most basic principles of democracy in their effort to extend Barzani’s incumbent term for another two years. However, a surprising development occurred when a few of the PUK’s Politburo members and the KDP agreed, in a clandestine meeting, to postpone extending Barzani’s term until August 19, 2015, and to extend the Parliament’s term to be continued till November 1, 2013.

President Barzani, in a speech delivered on the occasion of the 36th Anniversary of the Gullan Revolution in Hawler (Erbil) on May 26, 2013, promised his constituency that Presidential, Legislative and Provincial Elections would be held in September 21, 2013. He also accused the opposition parties of becoming obstacles to the elections. After his announcement, the Independent High Electoral Commission confirmed that the

commission had prepared all the facilities for the dated elections. Soon afterwards, the registration dates for presidential candidates were announced to be between June 10th and June 30th, which was later extended until July 10th. 8 politicians registered as candidates in the presidential elections race.

Everything was in order for the presidential elections to be held on September 21st—a date decided on by Barzani himself The Independent High Electoral Commission was very well prepared, opposition parties were about to announce their nominees, 8 politicians had already registered, Parliament had passed a special law– in the absence of a constitution— for the Kurdistan Presidency (Law No 1, year 2005), people and media had no problems with the presidential election, and the Kurdistan Region had not been involved in any wars and natural disasters which could be used as an excuse to extend the term. The only reason Barzani’s term was extended was that the KDP couldn’t find a loophole in the presidency law to allow Barzani to run for a third term. According to the Presidency Law of 2005, the President of Kurdistan Region could only run for two four-year terms.

As stated on the Kurdistan Presidential website, the president can be “elected by secret ballot in a popular vote every four years and can stand for election for a second term.” The current Presidency law would not allow Barzani to run for presidential elections, and passing the drafted constitution, which would give the president the chance to be re-elected again,www.ekurd.net would be difficult due to the limited period of time for its approval by the people in a few weeks. Furthermore, opposition parties and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan had already shown their disagreement with passing the constitution to a referendum unless their demands to modify numerous articles were met. Opposition parties (the Gorran Movement led by Nawshirwan Mustafa, Islamic Union led by Muhammad Faraj and Islamic Group led by Ali Bapir), other minor parties, the PUK along with the public and free media have a unanimous perspective on the constitution to be amended, while only the KDP opposes.

Ultimately, in an agreement between the KDP and part of the PUK’s leadership, a law that would extend Barzani’s term for two more years was proposed.

So why did this extension create tensions inside parliament to the extent that a Gorran MP threw a bottle of water at Speaker of the Parliament, Dr Erselan Bayiz of the PUK. And why was this law called a ‘dictatorship’ and ‘treason’ by journalists and the public?

First of all, the parliamentary regulations stipulate that any proposed law to be introduced for discussion on the floor should be distributed to MPs at least 48 hours in advance of the session. However, the proposed bill for extending Barzani’s term was not distributed to the MPs until the session started. This served as a clear indication of a pre-planned conspiracy by the KDP and certain factions in the PUK to pass an illegal law, with a PUK leader Arez Abdulla calling it a “coup on parliament.”

As opposition MP from the Gorran entity Kardo Muhammad said, the parliament could extend neither its own term nor the president’s term. Barzani was proudly saying that he by himself asked the parliament to pass a law that the president should be elected by the popular vote of the people, so that his term can be extended by the people in a referendum rather than the parliament. Barzani was not elected in the parliament, so why should his term be extended in the parliament?

The extension of Barzani’s term was a threat to Kurdistan’s so-called thriving democracy as it becomes a habit to which any president can resort. Violating the principles of democracy for the sake of a single man is by all values against human rights. Barzani should have acted as a Mandella by leaving the position so as to make a statement that, in our society, power belongs to the people rather than individuals, but instead he chose to act like Hosni Mobarak.

Aram Qadir, an opposition MP from the Islamic Group, told the media that Barzani’s extension was a trick and the KDP and PUK fooled the masses. He further elaborated that according to parliamentary laws, Presidential and Legislative elections should be held simultaneously. And now that Legislative elections will be held by September 21, 2013 and Barzani’s term has been extended to August 2015, it will be problematic. Either Parliament should dissolve once Barzani’s two year extension ends and then hold simultaneous elections, or Barzani’s term should be extended again in August 2015 since it will be illegal if only presidential elections are held alone. As Qadir noted, of course the KDP and PUK will extend his term for two more years because Parliament cannot dissolve itself as it is elected for a four-, not two-, year period.

As two Kurdish intellectuals expressed in one of their co-articles for Weekly Awene, the ‘Kurdistan parliament is a big lie.’ Mariwan Wrya and Aras Fatah wrote: “Kurdish politics is a dark politics and what’s present in this darkness is conspiracies and underground agreements for secretly distributing power, not debates and open dialogues. This is a kind of blind conflict over power and only directs hate and social disasters.”

People have called the extension of Barzani’s term as a real intention for dictatorship, as a Gorran MP announced on Pro-KDP Rudaw TV that “Barzani is a dictator, he is no different than Libyan former president Al-Gaddafi.”

In the Kurdistan Region, day after day, authoritarianism is developing. This authoritarianism has emerged as a real threat. The KDP and PUK have controlled all the joints of social, political and economic life. Yet the KRG is divided into two different zones: KDP and PUK. Peshmerga forces are still under the control of the KDP and PUK. Police are still divided, as the KDP police cannot operate in a PUK zone, and vice versa. Security forces are not national forces as they belong to the KDP and PUK. The oil income has become a curse for the people and has created a corrupt elite. Oil contracts are still between the giant oil companies and a few politicians— recently Hama Jaza, Ashti Hawrami’s deputy of the Natural Resources Ministry is proof of this. In the KRG, if someone wants to obtain a simple job, he/she should have connections within the two ruling parties. Universities are still under the control of these two ruling parties. Regional and foreign relations are still formulated via these two ruling parties, etc, etc, etc…

In a police state and corrupt system like this, any move by any political leader must be extremely questioned because ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ as we saw yesterday in the Kurdistan Parliament. All in all, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq no longer possesses a legal president who has been elected by the people through ballots. Kurds in Iraq now have a president who has been forced on them by violating the principles of democracy.

Kamal Chomani is a Kurdish journalist based in Iraqi Kurdistan. He writes for Awene, south Kurdistan’s major independent newspaper, sits on the editorial board of Lvin magazine, a leading trimonthly, and works with Reporters Without Borders.

First published at worldbulletin.net

Turkish Jews worried after politician links diaspora to protests

By

Reuters

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A Turkish deputy prime minister linked the “Jewish diaspora” to recent anti-government unrest, drawing condemnation from world Jewish leaders on Tuesday and concern among Turkey’s Jews the comments could make them targets of popular anger.

Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay’s office said his comments, made to reporters in the town of Kirikkale and published on the Cihan news agency website on Monday, were taken out of context.

Turkey was rocked by violent protests last month when a small effort to save Gezi Park in central Istanbul from redevelopment mushroomed into a mass demonstration by tens of thousands of people opposed to what they see as Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

Erdogan, in power for ten years, and other officials have cited conspiracies involving “foreign circles”, an “interest-rate lobby”, foreign media and terrorists engineering the protests to undermine Turkey’s economy and political clout. Atalay’s comments pointed the finger at the ‘Jewish diaspora”.

“There are those inside and outside the country who are envious about Turkey growing too much,” said Atalay, one of four deputy prime ministers.

“They are all uniting. On the one side you have the Jewish diaspora. You have seen the foreign media’s attitude over the Gezi Park events, how quickly they bought into it and how quickly and widely they started broadcasting before any assessment was made,” he said.

In a written statement to the media on Tuesday, Atalay’s office said some of the minister’s comments had been taken out of context and had been added to, resulting in articles stating Atalay had said the Jewish diaspora was behind the protests.

“There was no such statement or assessment made by our Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay,” the statement said.

“DESPICABLE”

The World Jewish Congress said it was shocked by what it said were “despicable” and “totally baseless slurs”.

“Mr. Atalay should have the decency to apologize. His remarks are an insult not only to the Jewish people but also to the many Turkish citizens who took part in the protests and who have real grievances,” it said in a written statement.

The Turkish Jewish Community, which represents most of Turkey’s estimated 23,000 Jewish faithful, said Atalay’s remarks could lead to reprisals against its members in a mostly Muslim country of 76 million.

“We are trying to obtain information about the meaning, the scope and details of Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay’s statement about the ‘Jewish Diaspora being behind Gezi protests,'” the Turkish Jewish Community and chief rabbinate said in a joint statement on the community’s website.

“(Because) Turkish Jewish citizens, as well as other Jewish people living all around the globe, may be affected and pointed (out) as a target of such a generalization, we wish to express our concerns and share our apprehension and worry of the consequences that such perceptions can cause.”

Turkey’s Jews, most of whom trace their roots to the 15th century when their ancestors found refuge in the Ottoman Empire from the Spanish Inquisition, have in recent years faced pressure as relations between Israel and Turkey soured.

Ties between the erstwhile military allies hit a low in May 2010 when Israeli commandoes killed nine Turkish activists in storming the Mavi Marmara, a ship in a Turkish-led convoy seeking to break a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this year, Erdogan called Zionism “a crime against humanity”, prompting objections from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. President Barack Obama subsequently orchestrated an Israeli apology for the Mavi Marmara raid.

While at least one other member of Erdogan’s ruling party has suggested Jewish involvement in the Gezi protest, the remarks by Atalay appeared to be the first such public accusation by a senior member of the ruling AK Party, which traces its roots to a banned Islamist movement.

In a message on Twitter, the AK Party mayor of the Turkish capital Ankara, Melih Gokcek, said on June 16 the Gezi protests were a “a game of the Jewish lobby” and cited a Turkish newspaper report that a Washingon-based think tank linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbying group had predicted the protests earlier in the year.

(Reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley, Jonathon Burch and Gulsen Solaker; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Turkey: Strict security measures taken for Sivas massacre’s 20th anniversary

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1 July 2013 /TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL
Police in Sivas province are taking strict security precautions for a large ceremony in memorial of the 20th anniversary of the Madımak massacre, in which 37 people, mostly Alevis, were killed after an angry mob set a hotel building hosting an Alevi cultural conference on fire on July 2, 1993.

madimakiA total of 33 artists and intellectuals along with two hotel workers and two assailants died inside Sivas’ Madımak Hotel. The mob was protesting the arrival of atheist writer Aziz Nesin.

Thousands of Turks and foreigners are expected to attend the ceremony, which is being held near the former site of the Madımak Hotel, and the police are taking precautions to prevent problems, including manning ID checkpoints at the city’s entrances and exits. A total of 2,500 police officers are working to ensure participants’ security. Various streets have been closed to traffic and the police will watch the event using Mobile Electronic Systems Integration (MOBESE) cameras installed in various parts of the city.

A delegation from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will participate, including CHP Deputy Chairman Nihat Matkap, CHP Sivas deputy Ejder Özdemir and CHP Malatya deputy Veli Ağbaba.

Turkish EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış, speaking to reporters on Monday, delivered a message of common sense. He said that not only Alevis were killed in the massacre, but also Kurds, Turks and Sunnis. Various steps, he continued, had been taken by the government in the recent years: “There may be some groups who want to manipulate the Alevi people on the anniversary of the Madımak incidents. They want to push Turkey into a chaos by manipulating the innocent feelings of Alevis. I ask them not to listen those provocative people and I call on them to behave sensibly.”

Another memorial ceremony will be held by Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK) members on Tuesday in central province of Eskişehir.

An Armenian named Talaat

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Khatchig Mouradian for The Armenian Weekly

Talaat is the son of an Armenian Genocide survivor.

g_image-Talaate ArmineI first met him on a cold January day in Lice (pronounced Leejeh), a district perched on layer upon layer of violence—first against the Armenians, then the Kurds.

It was a day before my scheduled speech at a conference in Ankara.

His family gave us a warm welcome. After all, I was friends with Talaat’s brother, who had recently changed his Muslim name to Armen, and was taking Armenian language courses in nearby Diyarbakir.

I do not remember how long I sat on the sofa in their quaint living room, at loss with words, sipping my tea, and thinking about identity, while my friends conversed with the family, diluting the awkwardness of my silence.

Talaat’s father, Hovsep, was born in 1910 in an Armenian village in Lice. His family was butchered during the genocide when he was five, but somehow, he survived, and was taken in by a Muslim family, which renamed him Bekir.

Bekir grew up as a devout Muslim, twice making a pilgrimage to Mecca. He had five sons, and even named one of them Talaat—the name of Ottoman Turkey’s Minister of the Interior at the time of the Armenian Genocide, and widely seen as the mastermind of this crime.

And now, Talaat, Armen’s brother, was sitting across from me, most likely wondering why I had fallen silent after a few minutes of small talk.

I grew up learning that a genocide survivor was someone who made it: escaped the miasma of massacre, disease, and starvation, and rebuilt their life either in Soviet Armenia or in the newly emerging Armenian communities in foreign lands. These survivors often shared the same roof with my generation.

But my encounters with hundreds of “hidden Armenians” in Turkey, most of whom, like me, are children and grandchildren of genocide survivors, drove home the realization of how incomplete that definition is.

The tens of thousands of Armenian women and children who converted to Islam forcibly, or to escape death, were genocide survivors too. Often, they were the siblings of the men and women who escaped, and whom we now remember in Armenia or the Diaspora as our dear grandmother or grandfather.

What made one in our eyes a Turk or a Kurd, sometimes an Arab, and the other an Armenian Genocide survivor, was fate—or, simply, luck.

Many of these “hidden Armenians” yearned to meet “certified Armenians.” Some went out of their way to show documents proving their identity, seeking some kind of validation from the latter. And many simply wanted a hug.

Talaat’s grandnephew, barely two years old, was the center of everyone’s attention that day. His dark, expressive eyes reminded me of Armen and Talaat. I wondered in what kind of Turkey he would grow up. I wondered what he would learn about the fate of his great-grandfather Hovsep who turned into Bekir, and his great uncles Armen and Talaat. I wondered what he would name his child: Talaat or Zohrab?

I hugged Talaat that day. He then asked my Kurdish friend to take a picture of the two of us. “What can I do,” he said. “My blood is calling.”

We returned to Diyarbakir that evening to catch my flight to Ankara. Within hours, I was scheduled to deliver a talk, and I only had some incomplete notes. But I wasn’t worried; I knew exactly what I was going to say, and what language I was going to say it in.

That night in Ankara, I wrote down my speech in Turkish. Two friends I was staying with, Bilgin and Şebnem, made sure the language was impeccable.

The next morning, as I faced the audience from the podium, I was thinking of my grandparents. But mostly, I was thinking of Talaat.

Author’s note: Talaat’s story has been gestating in my mind since January 2013. I hoped I would be able to write it down after I visited him again in May with a group of friends, but all I could come up with was the title of the essay. Finally, upon reading news of police violence in Lice on June 28, I sat down and wrote it. Perhaps one day, Turkey will discover the strata of violent history in that region.

Turks building restaurant in place of Armenian cemetery

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Ermenihaber.am news website reports that Malkara-based Turkish writer Umit Bayazoglu has told media that a restaurant is being built in the place of the Armenian cemetery of Malkara.

g_image-Armenain sametryThe construction works go on irrespective of the fact that it was revealed that there had been an Armenian cemetery in that place.

More than 3,500 Armenians lived in Malkara, a town of Tekirdag Province in the Marmara region of Turkey, in the early 1915.

According to the municipality project, the small concrete construction located in the place of the Armenian cemetery is scheduled to be reconstructed into a restaurant. Human bones emerged as the foundation digging began.

Demir Ali Pala, head of the territorial organization of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), told reporters that even his father did not know whether or not there had been a cemetery in that place, and that he did not know where the bones had been gathered. According to him, it is a walking place for people, and some people gather there and drink alcohol and use drugs. Pala added that the place needed cleaning up.