Jose Ramos Horta, Nobel Peace Laureate, Speaks for Leyla Zana

Wednesday, May 28, 1997 Washington, DC

Jose Ramos Horta 1996 Nobel Peace Prize Co-Laureate Free Leyla Zana Reception 28 May 1996

The honor is mine to be here, to try to lend my humble and faint voice to a cause, a people , the Kurdish people, in one of the most critical strategic regions of the world, a people who have been betrayed by almost every major power in the world, a people who have been one of the greatest inspirations to all of us.

You may have read a story in The Washington Post today which refers to a refusal on the part of the White House to meet with me. I can only say that my ambition in life is not to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. It is not my ambition either to walk through the gates of the White House, as it was not my ambition in life to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Back in October, when I got the news, my plan was to have a full weekend. I was playing with one of the loveliest creatures in the world, a 2 year-old girl, a niece of mine, when the news came that I had been selected along with Bishop [Carlos Filipe Ximenes] Belo for the Nobel Peace Prize. I was surprised for many reasons. One reason was that I always thought Leyla Zana had a very strong chance, and deserved it more than the person speaking here today, for the Nobel Peace Prize. I have read and heard about the Kurdish struggle and about her work over the years through many Kurdish friends, through European Union Parliamentarians in Brussels, through Norwegian Parliamentarians. Everyone in Oslo, in all of the political parties, endorsed her for the Nobel Peace Prize. And I was very happy that she won the European Parliament award, the [1995] Sakharov [Freedom] Award, which is second only to the Nobel Peace Prize. That remains my belief: that people like Leyla Zana and Wei Xhing Jeng in China are a real inspiration to all of us.

Before I speak, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Kani [Xulam] and the American Kurdish Information Network, and to Ms. Kathryn Porter for her kind words, and also I would like to express many, many thanks to Karen [Grisez] and to the law firm of Fried, Frank, [Harris, Shriver & Jacobson] for hosting tonight's event.

I have been very frustrated reading what has happened in the past few days, the past few weeks: the deployment of Turkish troops in northern Iraq. What is going on in northern Iraq, what has happened to the Kurdish people, is to a large extent similar to what happened to the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s that led to the Holocaust. It is similar to what has happened to the Tibetans and to the East Timorese, and to so many other peoples who fought policy-makers, who fought practitioners of realpolitik, or pragmatism.

Why [did] the genocide of the Jews happen in the 1930s and 1940s? Was it because there was no information about the unfolding persecution and discrimination of the Jews? There was information; there was information in Washington, in London, in Paris. But everybody decided to be silent, to ignore it because to accept that information meant confronting Hitler; and the politics of the time was the appeasement of Hitler. In 1939, a refugee boat with 900 Jews was anchoring off Florida waiting to be admitted into the United States, the ship was called The St. Louis. After two weeks of waiting, they were turned back. Many of them found their deaths in Hitler's camps. The reason: it would be too inconvenient for Hitler, too embarrassing if the U.S. were to admit them as refugees. It was appeasement, it was realpolitik. Sixty years later, the persecution of the Kurdish [people], the appeasement of China over Tibet, and of Indonesia over East Timor remain the policies of today. I don't want to point fingers at any particular country. Unfortunately, there are too many crooks and the list is too long.

In the case of the Kurdish situation, here you have a woman, Leyla Zana, who has fought for her people, for cultural rights, for the language, for the right to preserve what is thousands of years old -- culture and civilization -- through peaceful means. The Turkish government, like the Chinese government, like the Indonesian government, refuses dialogue with people who want peaceful means. In Indonesia, the Indonesian government refused dialogue with Xanana Gusmao, refused dialogue with Bishop Belo, the other Nobel Laureate. In Turkey, it's the same; in Tibet, it's the same, refusing dialogue with the Dalai Lama in spite of his very modest proposals. And this is largely because regimes like these, that use brute force, who suppress people who want peaceful dialogue to resolve a conflict, are able to do so because time and again, decade after decade, the powers that be -- the United States, France, Germany and others -- that could exert a concerted effort to bring about a negotiated settlement to this conflict go for the easier approach; the easier approach is realpolitik, pragmatism. But what does pragmatism mean? Is pragmatism a reflection of [the] real national and security interests of a country? Is the national interest and security interest of the United States really served by introducing more weapons into the hands of a regime that is unaccountable to anyone?

Well, in the 1980s, you might recall, in the conflict between Iran and Iraq, Iraq was the aggressor; it invaded Iran in the aftermath of the collapse of the Shah. Every Western country provided weapons to Saddam Hussein under the assumption that Saddam Hussein was a moderating force in the Gulf region. When Kurdish women and children were gassed to death inside Iraq by [the] Iraqi Air Force, it was the first time since W.W.I. that chemical gases were actually used; they were forbidden in W.W.I. At least 4,000 children and women were killed; we saw it on television, on the cover of Newsweek. In spite of that, Saddam Hussein, the aggressor against Iran, user of chemical weapons, was still viewed as the moderating influence in the Gulf region. They were surprised only when Saddam Hussein used the same guns, the same weapons provided by the liberators -- by the U.S., by the French, by the Germans -- and, armed with the mistaken assumption that the U.S. would not do anything, went into Kuwait.

The cases go back [further]. In 1982, [Gen. Leopold Fortunado] Galtieri of Argentina sent his forces to reoccupy -- that was their allegation -- Maldines, the Fauklands. Galtieri and the generals proceeding him were some of the worst human rights offenders in Latin America. Tens of thousands of Argentineans disappeared. Even today, there are still thousands of Argentineans still unaccounted for; yet weapons were provided to Galtieri by the French, the Americans and the British. I don't want to criticize the U.S. because, after all, I come from a place that's not even called a country; we are called a territory. Under UN language, East Timor is a non-self-governing territory. I'm not criticizing the U.S., I'm not criticizing any big power...I'm just saying that we fail to understand why the U.S. continued to provide weapons to Indonesia as it did to Iran, to Iraq, to Mobutu in Zaire. And, we think this is wrong.

But asking forgiveness for my own indulgence, allow me to say only a few points. Introducing weapons to that region of the world, is morally indefensible not only for what is happening to Kurdish women and children but also for what is happening to Turkish people, themselves, who also want a more open and democratic society. It is morally indefensible to provide weapons to any brutal regime in the world, but, in my humble view, introducing weapons to Turkey today, to the region, is extraordinarily dangerous for its relations with its neighbors, with Greece, with Cyprus, in the entire region. Turkey does not face any external threat. Quite the contrary, it is the one potential threat to each of its neighbors. Introducing more weapons to Turkey, at this time when the regime is under challenge by its own people, is morally indefensible and strategically unsound.

The examples of the past are there. I certainly applaud, and, I should say if you don't do anything on East Timor but you do a lot on Leyla Zana for the Kurdish people, I'm already very happy. If you don't do anything on East Timor but you do a lot on Aung San Suu Kyi, on the Burmese struggle, I'm very grateful. If you don't do anything on East Timor but you do a lot on the Tibetan people, you have my profound praise. Because the struggle of the Kurdish people, of Leyla Zana, what she represents, what Aung San Suu Kyi represents, represents all of us.

Therefore, my warmest applause to the Members of Congress who have signed the letter calling for the release of Leyla Zana. That's the minimum the U.S. can do, to demand her release and of other political prisoners in Turkey. And it would be for the benefit of the Turkish government, for it's own image, for pragmatic reasons maybe, they would be persuaded to release her.

In the case of additional initiatives that should be taken in the case of the Kurdish people not only in Turkey but other regions of the world, particularly in the three other countries where they are -- in Syria, in Iraq, in Iran -- I believe that the Kurdish people in all four regions deserve better. There have been no other people in human history that have been so persecuted, so humiliated, so robbed like the Kurds, like the Tibetans, like the Jews, like the East Timorese, the people in West Papua, in Indonesia and so many other people around the world. Unfortunately, the list is too long.

Last but not least, I remember not long ago, I saw the film Schindler's List. At least he, Schindler, tried to do something. Fighting the powerful German Nazi machine, he saved some lives. And I also remember the story of a Portuguese consul, Mr. Mendes, a Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, occupied France. In spite of the fact that the Portuguese fascist state at the time was neutral but allied with Hitler behind the scenes, he issued false passports to 30,000 Jews and saved them. These people did a lot under extraordinary difficulties. We, those who are abroad, I think we owe those who are in Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, in Turkey, much, much, much more. And we can do much, much more. Thank you.