The undersigned personalities and representatives of the ethnic, religious and other communities and political parties of the Mosul Vilayet (Northern Iraq),
The undersigned personalities and representatives
of the ethnic, religious and other communities and political parties of
the Mosul Vilayet (Northern Iraq),
wishing to go, as far as is possible and helpful for all concerned, beyond expressing our deeply felt sympathy with the families of the victims of the watershed events which have taken place since 11 September 2001 in New York, Washington and elsewhere, all of whom being victims of misguided humans who were driven to put their self and their aspirations above the sanctity of life;
keeping in mind our own painful experiences with terrorism,
recognizing that each of us has the right to err inasmuch as he heeds the inseparable obligation to admit a mistake as a precondition for reparing and not repeating same, and trusting the most effective way to undercut the likelihood of further barbaric and civilization-retarding acts to be found on the educational front and on the individual level, with myths separated from reality, with religious underpinnings of life-despising behavior dismanteled, and with individual and communal respect for the sanctity of life thus effectively promoted;
noting that one of the most noble rights and obligations of any sovereign is the protection granted to those he freely admitted to his house, and that history is awash with wars which have their origin in the exercise of these very sovereign rights, but that these rights have always been balanced with obligations which, in the words of Switzerland's original Federal Pact of 1291, may even today serve as a source of inspiration for the powers that be:
"He who, with intent and without being provoked, caused somebody's death, shall, as is indicated by the infamy of this crime and unless he can show his innocence, be put to death when he is caught; if he escaped he shall never be allowed to return. Those giving shelter and protection to such an evil person shall be banned from these valleys unless the Confederates have called them back.aware of the obliging, more than three thousand years old cultural heritage of our Assyrian, Chaldean, Medean, Sumerian and other ancestors of Mesopotamia, and recognizing that as members of the constitutive groups, tribes and communities of the Land of the two Rivers, we were not only entrusted with the upkeep of the cradle of mankind, but we also find ourselves straddled on the pathway to the common roots of our One God religions, for which reason we have taken counsel among ourselves, deliberated and formulated principles, ideas and landownership regulations(1) laid out in the present and, notably in our Unity Declaration of 31 May 1994(2), all of which we herewith solemnly reconfirm;
He who, with intent, by day or in the dark of the night, set fire to the property of a Confederate, shall have lost forever his rights as a member of our Communities, and he who shelters and protects this offender shall in our valleys compensate the injured.";
reiterating our belief, as expressed in our Vivant Sequentes Declaration of 30 May 1992(3):
"The messages of the One God have been communicated to man in numerous forms in response to the conditions of the time. The transcriptions of these messages are works of humans. And though their interpretations have evolved over time in light of changed circumstances, new needs and additional divine messages, the proper understanding and application of all these messages is not the birth right of any one man or institution, but is the fruit of individual soul-searching, modesty and tolerance. Accordingly, none of the daughters of Jerusalem has a rightful exclusive claim to the stone of wisdom, none has a monopoly for good ideas, and every one of them is but a contributing element, a guidepost of limited perfection and reliability in the spiritual and material evolution of each individual in his or her pursuit of self-fulfilment.";noting that the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Dr. Mohamed Sayed Tantaoui declared in 1998, in response to the proposal to set up in the midst of the cradle of civilization - i.e. in the Mosul Vilayet - an international institute for the study of the roots of Islam, particularly those preceding Judean and Christian traditions, with the name of SLM Center:
Article 5 "Iraqi nationals who belong to racial, religious or linguistic minorities will enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as other Iraqi nationals. In particular, they shall have an equal right to maintain, manage and control at their own expense, or to establish in the future, charitable, religious and social institutions, schools and other educational establishments, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their religion freely therein."noting these minority protection rights, obligations and guarantees to reflect the League of Nations' formula for seeking to securitise numerous minorities in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere which were uprooted by border changes in the wake of World War I (5); pertaining to life, liberty, profession, property and political assembly "without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion"(6), in each case they were declared to take precedence over any national "law, regulation or official action"(7), they could not be modified without the assent of the majority of the Council of the League of Nations, they were declared to "constitute obligations of international concern and will be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations"(8) and, inasmuch as victims of current and future conflicts and changes of international borders might be effectively securitised, socially and politically stabilised, and economically reinvigorated with the help of similar internationally guaranteed minority protection rights, it befits true leaders to effectively address some still festering wounds of the Ottoman Empire breakup and to strengthen diplomacy by acting on the opportunities entailed in, and by honoring these past commitments;Article 7 "1. The Iraqi Government undertakes to grant full protection, facilities and authorisation to the churches, synagogues, cemeteries and other religious establishments, charitable works and pious foundations of minority religious communities existing in Iraq.
2. Each of these communities shall have the right of establishing councils, in important administrative districts, competent to administer pious foundations and charitable bequests. These councils shall be competent to deal with the collection of income derived therefrom, and the expenditure thereof in accordance with the wishes of the donor or with the custom in use among the community. These communities shall also undertake the supervision of the property of orphans, in accordance with law. The councils referred to above shall be under the supervision of the Government.
3. The Iraqi Government will not refuse, for the formation of new religious or charitable institutions, any of the necessary facilities which may be guaranteed to existing institutions of that nature."Article 9 "1. Iraq undertakes that in the liwas of Mosul, Arbil, Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya, the official language, side by side with Arabic, shall be Kurdish in the qadhas in which the population is predominantly of Kurdish race.
In the qadhas of Kifri and Kirkuk, however, in the liwa of Kirkuk, where a considerable part of the population is of Turcoman race, the official language, side by side with Arabic, shall be either Kurdish or Turkish.
2. Iraq undertakes that in the said qadhas the officials shall, subject to justifiable exceptions, have a competent knowledge of Kurdish or Turkish as the case may be.
3. Although in these qadhas the criterion for the choice of officials will be, as in the rest of Iraq, efficiency and knowledge of the language, rather than race, Iraq undertakes that the officials shall, as hitherto, be selected, so far as possible, from among Iraqis from one or other of these qadhas."Article 10 "The stipulations of the foregoing articles of this Declaration, so far as they affect persons belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities, are declared to constitute obligations of international concern and will be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. No modification will be made in them without the assent of a majority of the Council of the League of Nations.
Any Member of the League represented on the Council shall have the right to bring to the attention of the Council any infraction or danger of infraction of any of these stipulations, and the Council may thereupon take such measures and give such directions as it may deem proper and effective in the circumstances.
Any difference of opinion as to questions of law or fact arising out of these articles between Iraq and any Member of the League represented on the Council shall be held to be a dispute of an international character under Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Any such dispute shall, if the other party thereto demands, be referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The decision of the Permanent Court shall be final and shall have the same force and effect as an award under Article 13 of the Covenant."Article 14 "Aquired Rights and Financial Obligations Iraq, taking note of the resolution of the Council of the League of Nations of September 15th 1925:
1. Declares that all rights of whatever nature acquired before the termination of the mandatory regime by individuals, associations or juridical persons shall be respected.
2. Undertakes to respect and fulfil all financial obligations of whatever nature assumed on Iraq's behalf by the Mandatory Power during the period of the Mandate.";
noting the UN Secretariat's 1950 "Study on the Legal Validity of the Undertakings Concerning Minorities"(9) to have specified on Iraq:
"10. As suggested for the cases of former Yugoslavia[13] and others, the measures thus envisaged could take the form of temporary United Nations Protectorates, Trusteeships or similar arrangements. They could significantly - and in a mutually stabilizing manner - alter the political equation in the respective region. They could precede and facilitate the lifting of the economic sanctions on all of Iraq.inasmuch as the powers that be find it indicated to uphold, respect and enforce the assessment made in a United Nations report of April 1992:
11. The proposed measures could bring to the populations concerned the overdue relief, without prejudice to their ultimate political fate. In the case of the Mosul Vilayet's Yezidi and the Muslim, Christian and Jewish Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Turkomans and others, this would entail in time the eventual, freely-decided re-attachment of their ancestors' territory to either Iraq or Turkey, its attachment to Syria or Iran, or its eventual independence.
12. Also, in the cases of the Christian, Shiite and Sunnite inhabitants of the Baghdad and the Basra vilayets, further developments are conceivable which seem worthy of these peoples' great cultural past. This might include interim solutions for Palestinians of all faiths who, in the event, may need complementary solutions and fallback positions. However, that road may be opened only by a deliberate - and sanctions-relevant - dissolution of existing structures into a federated state involving notably the Kingdom of Jordan.";
"The articles mentioned above, some of which have a direct bearing on the question of oil ownership, could not have been unilaterally abrogated by Iraq and consequently, remain fully in force.inasmuch as we, both individually and jointly, thus are endowed with special rights, obligations and privileges in religious, cultural and economic matters which, in international law, have never been abrogated, changed or diminished;
Since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Iraq has been repeatedly condemned for grave breaches of international norms. Yet the Security Council has throughout affirmed the commitment of all Member States to the "independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq." (Resolutions 686 and 688). Given the implications of the League of Nations documents, Iraq's "sovereignty and territorial integrity" under international law are conditioned; use of these terms in official UN documents does not convey rights Iraq has not acquired in due course.
With regard to the oil ownership question, these documents provide a prima facie ownership case in favor of some Turkish citizens and Kurdish tribes in whose ancestral lands the largest oil field, in Kirkuk, is situated. Accordingly, the seizure protection wording of Resolution 712, paragraph 5, may not stand in a tribunal. It is thus advisable to execute Resolutions 706 and 712 either exclusively on the basis of oil pumped from uncontested Iraqi fields not in the Mosul Vilayet area or on the basis of corresponding agreements with the Turkish Government and the involved Kurdish tribes.";
inasmuch as the acknowledgement is still valid, which the Director of the "Office of the Executive Delegate of the Secretary-General for a United Nations Inter-Agency Humanitarian Programme for Iraq, Kuwait and the Iraq/Turkey and Iraq/Iran border areas" expressed with his letter of 19 November 1991, concerning "drilled and capped oil wells in Kurdish controlled territory in Iraq", i.e. Europe's strategic oil reserve:
"We take note of your expressed intention to demonstrate the technical feasibility of making these wells produce, and of applying the proceeds to Iraq's humanitarian needs."; andinasmuch as the petroleum exports under the United Nations' "oil-for-food" program have originated from oil fields which, in international law, are thus still the exclusive property of the tribes, communities and families who, already prior to Iraq's ascension to internationally recognized statehood, held legal title to these properties in the Mosul Vilayet:
therefore
1. fully support the
solidarity measures of the leaders of the Syan and Mama Seny and other
tribes on whose ancestral lands the Kirkuk oil field is situated, and join
them in their decision to allocate from their share of the proceeds of
petroleum exports from their Kirkuk fields one billion US dollars to the
families of victims of the watershed events which have taken place since
11 September 2001, and request the United Nations Secretary General to
see to it, in cooperation with our Representative(14),
that the corresponding funds currently held in escrow by the United Nations
are promptly transferred to the families concerned;
2. invite both
the leaders and adherents of the One God religions, as well as the
interested governments, governmental and non-governmental organizations,
to actively support the establishment and operation of an international
institute in the
Mosul
Vilayet dedicated to the study of the roots
of the One God religions,
particularly those preceding Judean and Christian traditions, with
the name of SLM
Center with contributing institutions set up - or annexed to
existing ones - in Cairo, Geneva,
Jerusalem, Jesalem
and Rome;
3. invite the United Nations member governments in a position to do so, notably those represented in the United Nations Security Council, to actively facilitate the prompt establishment and operation of the SLM Center in the Mosul Vilayet, and to refrain from all contrary decisions and actions, including the self-financing of this and other humanitarian programs in the fields of de-mining, re-forestation, education (e.g. Project Plato) and food (e.g. Project Ceres) through lifting of all current economic and political restraints, notably on the development and exportation of locally available petroleum resources, as well as the establishment and operation for humanitarian purposes of a civil airlink between Geneva and Arbil (Northern Iraq); and
4. invite the
Governments of the Swiss Confederation and of the Republic and
Canton of Geneva to do everything in their power - including the provision
of travel documents and visas - which facilitates, and to refrain from
everything which might jeopardize the establishment and/or operation of
a)
the Swiss-based SLM Foundation,
b)
the Geneva-based affiliate of the SLM Center,
c)
the regular humanitarian airlink between Geneva and Arbil through
the Swiss national airline on the basis of a corresponding shareholding
participation by the landowners of the Mosul Vilayet.
NOTES
(1)
Mosul
Vilayet Declaration, 20 October 1992
(2)
Unity
Declaration, 31 May 1994 (for political key signatures, see below
and at www.solami.com/mvcsig.jpg)
At the request
of the leadership of the Mosul Vilayet Council (MVC), this
Declaration,
those previously adopted and the Statute
of the Mosul Vilayet Council were developed in consultation with
representatives of Allied governments by the CORUM
Research Group. It was aimed at resolving some festering key problems
- notably the landownership dispute - underlaying the fighting which broke
out again beginning of May 1994 between the peshmergas (militias) of two
of the three major political parties, i.e. the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The current presidents of the ruling
parties, Massoud BARZANI
(KDP) and Jalal TALABANI (PUK),
have from the outset in 1992 personally pledged their full support for
the implementation of this non-prejudicial interim solution - provided
the Allied governments unambiguously "give the green light". This
1994 Declaration has been signed notably by the mayors of the following
and other districts of the Mosul Vilayet:
11th March, Arab & Qala, Bahar
& Nawruz, Khanaqa, Mufti & Mantikawa, Mustawfi & Karama, Rizgari,
Saidawi, Shorish, etc. Among the initial signatories, numerous judges,
lawyers, educators, professionals and landowners of the Mosul Vilayet are
found, as well as the presidents of all other 17 political parties of the
liberated part of the Mosul Vilayet. The latter signatories are:
Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party (Eshaya Hurmuz DAWOUD),(3) Vivant Sequentes Declaration of 30 May 1992/97
Centre of Culture and Support from Christians (Fuad Askander ALAKA),
Iraqi Democratic Salvation Movement (Abu Haider AL-WASITY),
Iraqi Turkman Union Party (Saifaddin DAMIRCHI),
Islamic National Movement in Kurdistan (A. MOUSTAFA),
Islamic Unity Party (Sarwan Majeed AHMED),
Kurdistan Conservative Party (Omar Khidher AL-SOURCHI),
Kurdistan National Party (Jabar Abdulla Mirza ROSTAMI)
Kurdistan Old Fighters Society (Muhammed Ismaeel HAMAD),
Kurdistan Rizgari Party (Rekar Aziz AHMED),
Kurdistan Union of Independence (Renas MUHAMMED),
Kurdistany Socialist Party (Moohamad Haji Mahmood GOLA-KHAN),
Kurdish Nationalist Society (Bakhtiar Shawkat ZANGANA),
Kurdish Nationalist Society - Progressive Leadership (Ghafour MAKHMOURY),
Turkman Brotherhood Party (Waleed Muhammed Salih SHARIKA),
Turkman Union Party (Riyaz SARIKAHYA),
Turkoman Woman Union (Nergiz Abdulla AZIZ),
Work Party for Kurdish Independence (Wirya SAEED),
Yazidian Community (Edou Baba SHEIK, MP),
Other signatories include key members of the PUK and the KDP, over 500 personalities of the Arab, Assyrian, Kurdish and Turkoman communities, and key representatives of all religious, cultural and business communities. According to the draft MVC Statute (provisional Constitution), the latter are "Candidates for ad personam MVC membership" who will be called upon for public service based on their background and competence.
Press Release
of 17 October 2001 (at: http://www.solami.com/PR01e.htm)
back
to the Global Ivory Tower homepage back
to the Mosul Vilayet homepage back
to the index
