Headline: Kurds and U.S. friends fast outside Congress
Date: Mon, Oct 20, 1997
 
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four Turkish Kurds and two Americans began an open-ended fast outside Congress Monday to publicize the plight of the Kurds and of imprisoned Turkish Kurd parliamentarian Leyla Zana.
     The fasters said they would drink only electrolyte -- water with minerals to maintain the balance in their bodies -- for as long as they could keep going.
     Kani Xulam, director of the Washington-based American Kurdish Information Network and one of the fasters, said they were not making specific demands because they did not seek confrontation with the Turkish government.
     But in the unlikely event that the Turks do agree to release Zana, they will call the fast off, he added.
     The fast is timed to coincide with the sixth annivesrary of the day Zana was elected to parliament. Zana, 36, was jailed for 15 years for treason in 1994 partly because of testimony she gave to the Helsinki Commission of Congress.
     The two fasting Americans are Kathryn Cameron Porter, president of the Human Rights Alliance and wife of Rep. John Porter, an Illinois Republican, and Linnaea Melcarek, 23, who works with Xulam's group. The other Kurds were Ferda Beyrikan, Dara Rizgari and New York City grocer Amed Kozlu.
     More than 20 million Kurds live in a mountainous region spread across Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. In Turkey, about 27,000 people have been killed in a separatist campaign waged by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
     Supporters of the Kurds say they are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own state.
     They have enjoyed widespread support in the United States, especially since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein incurred the wrath of Washington by invading Kuwait in 1990.
     In 1995, 144 members of the House wrote to President Clinton asking him to raise the case of Zana with the Turkish authorities.
     But Turkey is also a NATO ally of the United States, which sees Ankara as a valuable counterweight to Iraq and Iran.
     In speeches launching the fast, activists including Bianca Jagger and Rep. Bob Filner, a California Democrat, urged Clinton to try again.
     "I am participating because of my frustration with my own government. I have tried everything possible to turn our policy around, to see that the United States stands for what it supposedly stands for," said Kathryn Cameron Porter.
     "This country (has) put its trust in the generals of the Turkish military rather than in Kurdish representatives who long for democratic ideals," added Xulam.
     The fasters will spend about 10 hours a day outside Congress and spend the nights at a downtown church. They will also march to the White House and back once a day.