[Date] 27 Oct. 1998Report
[Place] JICA
[Lecturer] Dr. van Bruinessen
The Kurdish situation generally seems to be of less interest, at least in our Country, although it is as important as the Palestinian issue that affects the stability of today's Middle East. We invited the two speakers-for General Team's pilot study, Mr. Mahmud Usman (Iraq's former Kurdistan Socialist Party leader) who is still active in London, and for Team 2 Group C, Dr. Martin van Bruinessenn (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) who studies the relationship between the Kurdish tribal society and the Islamic mystic cults-at the same time, and planned this seminar so that we could ask them to be our speakers to talk generally about the current Kurdish problem. In the process, we have also asked Peace Wins Japan, an NGO who's currently engaged in relief activities in the Iraqi territory of Kurdistan, to join us.
With Ms. Keiko Sakai (General Team's collaborator, Institute of Devoloping Economies) as moderator, Mr. Ohnishi (Peace Wins Japan) briefly explained the current status of Iraq-Kurdistan by showing some news footages describing his organization's activity on video.
Following the explanation, Mr. Usman performed his lecture entitled "Recent Development in Kurdish Situation" in which he briefly explained about the Kurds (in Iraq) and then described how harshly they were treated since the 1980's. Touching on the recent reconciliation efforts between the Iraqi KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) and the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan), he talked about the roles of the neighboring countries, the United States, and the European countries which have played in resolving the Kurdish situation as well as the progress of dialogues held between the opposing Kurdish groups. Lastly, he emphasized the need for our country's cooperation in resolving the Kurdish situation. Afterwards, Dr. van Bruinessenn performed his lecture entitled "The Kurds In Movement: Migration, Mobilization, Communications, and the Globalization of the Kurdish Question." There, he first pointed out the serious effects the Iranian Revolution, Iran-Iraq War, and the Turkish coup that took place during the end of 1970's to early 1980's had on the Kurdish people. His point was that through those events the Kurdish village society was annihilated and thus necessitated them to migrate from their homeland. The area of their migration spun from the entire Middle East to the continental Europe, and he explained that some European Kurds even campaigned to create a common Kurdish language through publication of books and magazines and satellite broadcasts so that a sense of solidarity could be strengthened amongst themselves. He also indicated that culmination of such movement could be seen in the establishment of the Kurdistan Parliament in Exile, and that a new solidarity is being formed external to the Kurdistan movement.

The two speakers were so enthusiastic that their lectures extended well over the designated timeframe. Many questions were given in return from various perceptions, but because the speakers gave such complaisant and pertinent answers to these questions, the session went well overtime that we had to terminate the following Panel Discussion and move onto a general Q&A session instead.
Originally, we expected minimum attendance because of the particularity of the topic and because it was held in the afternoon of a school day. However, the lecture was a very fruitful one with over 70 participants (including non-students) and very active Q&A as mentioned before. We hope that this seminar was helpful in turning our attention towards the Kurdish situation and that it gave a helping hand to the Kurdish research efforts in our country.

Lastly but not least, we would like to thank the members of Peace Wins Japan who have willingly helped us plan, prepare, and set-up this seminar.