WPLN News Archive; Nashville Kurds (Terri Smith) 5 5 03; News Archive 4/1/03-7/1/03

sen nelson guevara is located in a modest strip mall nationals thompson lee in the small square dining room scene and plays continuously from a television set perched atop a tall bottle a glass case this restaurant there that is that it's not so much for the customers for the kurdish employees and restaurant owner had mccarthy like most of the over seven thousand kurds living a national cause he's in constant contact with friends and family in kurdistan these days though very cold and there's a huge audience of the dozens of other than enough buses brought in on the mystery is celebrating because most of the region is over for anyone who knows the history of the kurds the celebration is no surprise the largest ethnic group in the world without a state the kurds live mostly second class citizens in turkey iraqi moran michael kantor is a professor of political science at tennessee tech he says the kurds are not organized enough to form a nation when ottoman empire fell in nineteen twenty nine and a falling decade kurdish efforts to create a state met with violent resistance in a pattern of oppression the climax with saddam hussein's regime only an

acre of using chemical warfare again and killing polio or other at the end of the day gave at iran iraq war three waves of violence brought iraqi kurds to the us the failure of major kurdish revolt in the mid nineteen seventies and early nineties spurred the first tee migrations but their group arrived in nineteen ninety seven after saddam hussein invaded the american and bridges safety zone of kurdistan and brenda kill on iraqis working with those countries most of those iraqis were kurds and ishmael roche was one of them rose says after his friends and co worker was killed in the night and left a mystery is a lesson he spent months hiding eventually the us government brought roche and seven thousand other kurds to america he says it was a natural fit for most of the grape to come to nashville was the closest aides to our culture and even the environment and a climate it's a ridiculous record as a plus though you know there were a couple thousand coders so imagine that's the only way we survived so this is a

distinctive yellow to be closed to journalists and so far remaining together has been no easy task since iraqi kurds of historical lid on the most economically valuable land in that country at least in border states have tried to prevent the establishment of an independent kurdistan by physically separating him politically dividing the kurds for most of the twentieth century where says even though you'll be an american citizen next year he still feels the frustration of having no homeland some of the lessons one screams ah that's the hardest question my face and it was difficult and on a film telephony that i don't have a constitution turkey has the most to lose if the kurdish status for interact turkey has the largest kurdish population in the world and about fifty million the country's government fears the kurdish independence interact will inspire the same in turkey michael w those fears are exaggerated but not completely unfounded or the other

or a large group of applicants right across the border from california proclaiming the idea of a greater write a code that would include parts of florida that might be of that and maybe about the whole idea of a turkish here here a waiter at the house at the bottom for me to sign doesn't believe kurdish leaders want to take over a rapper part of turkey they don't see turkey's desire to control events in northern iraqi as a threat to peace in kurdistan five and five or eleven i was on was among the political ally even though the creation of a kurdish state seems to be at the negotiating table and the turks haven't made other attempts to interfere in the region is iran continues to remain precarious with a slew of ethnic and religious groups battling for power iraqis now that she has to start their government from scratch

michael geller says occurred from model for democracy to ratchet twenty first century in the past ten years under the aegis of the us no fly zone in northern iraqi kurds have developed a rather sophisticated understanding of how to govern themselves uneven development of beginning democracy in which puts the lie to the idea that balloons cannot our democracy and even the arab majority interact is recognized that the kurdish model democracy in northern iraq as a model the common wisdom among kurdish americans with him for democracy to work in a rack the united states to stay until system administration has established they fear that without a strong iraqi government nothing will prevent border states from once again dividing up the resource rich lands that three million kurds call home for national public radio i'm teresa

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