For Immediate Release

Contact: Adam Eidinger

202-986-6186 or 202-744-2671

June 20, 2000

Acclaimed Documentary Exposes US Double Standard on Kurds

Washington Premiere Raises Arms Sales Issue on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON, DC - Is it possible to call some Kurds good and others bad when both ask for basic human rights? On Thursday, June 22, Rep. John Edward Porter (R-IL) will host the Washington premier of Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends but the Mountains at the Rayburn House Office Building, Room B369 at 5:00 PM.

Photojournalist Kevin McKiernanís provocative documentary which details arms transfers from the U.S. to Turkey and the Turkish governmentís human rights violations against Kurds includes rare footage from mountain outposts held by the Kurdish PKK fighters.  Following the screening, McKiernan will lead a question-and-answer session regarding the role of the U.S. government in preventing future human rights abuses against Kurds living in Turkey.

WHAT:  Washington premiere of Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends but the Mountains and discussion of recent efforts to stop the sale of U.S. arms to Turkey

WHO:   Rep. John Edward Porter (R-IL)

           Kevin McKiernan, Photojournalist and Award Winning TV Producer

WHEN:   June 22, 2000 at 5:00 p.m.

WHERE:   Rayburn House Office Building B369

SPONSORS:    Amnesty International USA, the Arms Sales Monitoring Project, Fund for Constitutional Government, Center for Defense Information, Washington Kurdish Institute, and the Congressional Human Rights Caucus

While the Clinton administration has condemned Saddam Husseinís oppression of Kurds in Iraq, it also provided $7 billion worth of M-16 machine guns, M-60 battle tanks, Cobra attack helicopters and F-16 fighter planes to Turkey, a NATO ally and host of army bases significant to U.S. foreign policy. Though the Turkish government has used U.S.-transferred arms to oppress and murder Kurds of southeast Turkey for decades, talks of sending $4 billion dollars of U.S.-manufactured attack helicopters plod onward. When will this policy of double-standards towards the Kurds end?

McKiernan began filming Good Kurds, Bad Kurds nine years ago after covering the Iraqi Kurdsí aborted attempt to protect themselves from Husseinís regime. Upon realizing that few journalists were making the dangerous trek to the heart of southeastern Turkey -- where 37,000 Kurds have been killed since 1984 -- McKiernan made the trip on his own. In addition to capturing hard-hitting scenes of Kurdish guerilla safehouses, exclusive interviews with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and dramatic shots along the mountainous Turkish-Iraqi border, McKiernan met with top officials from the U.S. State Department, the European Union, the World Policy Institute and other foreign affairs agencies. Through their words, McKiernan uncovers the U.S. governmentís dual-treatment of oppressed Kurdish populations.

"The Clinton administration seems to think there are good Kurds and bad Kurds," explains World Policy Institute analyst Bill Hartung, one of several top U.S. foreign policy experts featured in Good Kurds, Bad Kurds. "Kurds who are being oppressed by Saddam Hussein are, by definition, good Kurds because they help make propaganda against [Hussein]. The Kurds being slaughtered by our allies in Turkey need to be ignored because it sends a bad message against Turkey. Itís completely based upon politics and public relations."

When McKiernan approached ABC News with his hard-hitting footage, a ABC producer deemed it "exclusive, but a no-go." McKiernan took his footage to another station, where a station representative told him, "itís just not on our radar screen."

"I couldnít even give the story away," McKiernan says.

Good Kurds, Bad Kurds received a second life after McKiernan met the family of Kani Xulam, a Kurdish immigrant and former Maytag appliance salesman who is now one of the most prominent defenders of Kurdish rights in Turkey working in the US.  Xulam has lobbied on Capitol Hill so effectively that 153 Congress members signed a letter to President Clinton demanding the U.S. do something to free Leyla Zana and prevent future human rights abuses in Turkey.

In 1996, Xulam spent eight weeks in jail before he was sentenced to 400 hours of community service at AKIN. The irony of Xulamís case prompted Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy to deem it "the U.S. justice system at its most venal and most just."  Xulam still faces the prospects of deportation to Turkey pending his political asylum case with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Good Kurds, Bad Kurds received the Human Rights Prize at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. McKiernanís story, "Turkeyís War on the Kurds" was selected as one of  Project Censoredís Top 25 News Stories of 1999 Awards.  For more information on Thursdayís screening, call Kevin McKiernan at 805-875-6506 or Kani Xulam at 202-483-6444.