On October 20, 1997, four Kurds and two Americans began a fast first on the Capitol steps and now in Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. They want peace in Kurdish lands and they seek the freedom of Leyla Zana. I am one of the Kurds. Kathryn C. Porter, the President of Human Rights Alliance, is one of the Americans. As of this writing, our fast continues, however, five members of our original group have stopped their fast due to health problems.
We chose to begin our fast on October 20 because on that day, six years ago, the Kurdish people of Turkey were finally entrusted with the choice of electing their representatives. Leyla Zana was one of the Kurdish candidates elected to the Turkish Parliament. Recognizing her duty as an elected official, she made it her mission to undo the institutionalized racism which pervades the country. Instead, she became a victim of it.
Like her parliamentary friends and colleagues everywhere in the world, Leyla Zana tried to address her constituents' concerns. An unbridled Turkish war against the Kurds was ringing alarm bells in various capitals. On May 17, 1993, she and Ahmet Turk, another Kurdish parliamentarian, were invited to Washington to address the Helsinki Commission in the United States Congress.
I had the privilege of acting as a translator for this brave Kurdish woman. During her stay here, she urged the Members of the United States Congress and the Administration officials to side with the democratic aspirations of the Kurds. Almost prophetically, she predicted the intensification of the war that continues to devastate the Kurdish lands and has created more than three million refugees.
Turkish officials viewed Leyla Zana as a "separatist" and branded the reports of her testimony in the United States as treasonous. On March 2, 1994, she was stripped of her immunity and taken into custody. Nine months later, she was sentenced to 15 years in jail by Ankara State Security Court.
Ms. Zana, a duly elected representative, is now serving her fourth year behind bars, because she vocally advocated, both in Turkey and abroad, basic human rights for her constituents. This past month, 153 U.S. Representatives signed a letter urging President Clinton to raise her case at the highest level with the Turkish authorities and seek her immediate release.
We coincided the beginning day of our fast with the day Leyla Zana was elected to the Turkish Parliament in 1991 to establish our support, by way of our suffering, for the restoration of genuine democratic choice in Turkey. That choice mandated people like Leyla Zana to speak for the Kurds in the Turkish Parliament. We want that mandate to be respected and Leyla Zana be freed.
During the course of our fast, we have had friends visit us, United States government officials talk to us, and messages of solidarity sent to us from all over the world. We have also visited churches to tell their congregations of our longing for peace and of our act of atoning for the sins of the wars that are denying peace to the Kurds.
The Kurdish people are going through one of their difficult times in history. Their land is prized but their identity is being suppressed by all the means available to modern states that have jurisdiction over them. Our fast is an attempt to draw the attention of Americans to the deplorable plight of the Kurds and their elected representatives.
Our goal of recognition has been, and apparently will continue to be, difficult to achieve because U.S. officials are loathe to expose the faults of one of our most valuable allies. Turkey, home to American military bases, a friend in NATO, a member of the Coalition Force that dislodged Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, has more weight in Washington than Leyla Zana and the Kurds. As tensions surrounding Iraq rise yet again, the United States government is reminded of its dependence on Turkey as an ally in the Middle East.
We don't know how much longer our friend will take the cold and the hunger. We continue to believe that we are at the right place with the right message urging one of the great democracies in the world to hear our anguished plea for justice and to side with the political destiny of the Kurds. We want the war to stop and the will of the Kurdish people to be respected and accepted.
More to the point, we are waiting for the Clinton Administration to come forward with its support of our campaign to free Leyla Zana. We want the debate on the Kurdish question to be changed from confrontation to dialogue. The United States needs to examine its policy towards Turkey, home to more than half of the Kurdish population in the world, to achieve these goals. For now, we are waiting.