They are questions that no politician can avoid in what the international lexicon calls the Kurdish Region of Iraq. Is Kurdistan going to be independent? And, if so, when? Virtually all Iraq’s 6m Kurds would give an emphatic yes to the first question. But most would wobble and waffle on the second. Nor do they know exactly where the borders of the new state would run http://econ.st/17vtT2N
They are questions that no politician can avoid in what the international lexicon calls the Kurdish Region of Iraq. Is Kurdistan going to be independent? And, if so, when? Virtually all Iraq’s 6m Kurds would give an emphatic yes to the first question. But most would wobble and waffle on the second. Nor do they know exactly where the borders of the new state would run http://econ.st/17vtT2N
司馬觀點：苦難的庫德人（江春男）
過去幾個禮拜，一個外界無人知曉的小鎮「科巴尼」，因為獨立英勇對抗「伊斯蘭國」的攻擊，而成為國際焦點，這個庫德族小鎮面臨種族滅絕的危險，他們的安危牽涉到3千萬庫德族人的命運。
庫德族分布在土耳其、伊拉克、敘利亞、伊朗和亞美尼亞，土地比台灣大數倍，人口也比台灣多1千萬，還有上千萬海外僑民，他們有自己的種族、文化和語言，是世界上人數最多、土地最大、卻沒有自己國家的民族。
科巴尼鎮是敘利亞庫德族自治區，位於土耳其邊境，敘利亞陷入分崩離析，庫德族是少數民族，無力自衛，且接近三不管地帶。「伊斯蘭國」在敘利亞興起後，風起雲湧，打到伊拉克北部，一路挺進，如入無人之境。以為這個小鎮唾手可得，想不到遇頑強抵抗。
這個庫德小鎮人口不到10萬人，一半已被攻佔，另一半打死不退，連女人也組成抗暴隊伍，他們的英勇和孤立，激起全球庫德人義憤，美軍和盟軍空投武器彈藥補給，土耳其立場軟化，伊拉克國會也通過讓庫德族自由鬥士參與作戰，科巴尼變成「大庫德斯坦」夢想的象徵。
庫德族分布在土耳其、伊拉克、敘利亞、伊朗和亞美尼亞，土地比台灣大數倍，人口也比台灣多1千萬，還有上千萬海外僑民，他們有自己的種族、文化和語言，是世界上人數最多、土地最大、卻沒有自己國家的民族。
科巴尼鎮是敘利亞庫德族自治區，位於土耳其邊境，敘利亞陷入分崩離析，庫德族是少數民族，無力自衛，且接近三不管地帶。「伊斯蘭國」在敘利亞興起後，風起雲湧，打到伊拉克北部，一路挺進，如入無人之境。以為這個小鎮唾手可得，想不到遇頑強抵抗。
這個庫德小鎮人口不到10萬人，一半已被攻佔，另一半打死不退，連女人也組成抗暴隊伍，他們的英勇和孤立，激起全球庫德人義憤，美軍和盟軍空投武器彈藥補給，土耳其立場軟化，伊拉克國會也通過讓庫德族自由鬥士參與作戰，科巴尼變成「大庫德斯坦」夢想的象徵。
抗命30年萬人斷魂
在一戰以前，阿拉伯世界只有部落，沒有民族國家，庫德人是游牧民族，在美索不達米亞平原和土耳其、伊朗的高山上生活。奧圖曼帝國隨著一戰瓦解，阿拉伯世界被劃分為幾個國家，英法急著分贓，卻對庫德人食言，因為土耳其、伊拉克和伊朗都拒絕承認庫德人獨立。
土耳其的庫德人口最多，估逾1500萬人，佔人口五分之一，但他們過去備受歧視，土國不承認他們的民族地位，講庫德語，穿庫德服裝，都要受懲罰。庫德人被稱為「高山上的突厥人」。有壓迫就有反抗，土耳其庫德族工人黨和政府對抗30年，死亡人數萬人，直到10年前庫德族革命領袖歌卡蘭被捕，情勢才緩和。
數十年來，庫德族內部派系林立，無法團結，這一次科巴尼的戰爭，促進庫德人大團結，它變成「大庫德斯坦」夢想的象徵，全世界無數人在為這個苦難民族禱告。
土耳其的庫德人口最多，估逾1500萬人，佔人口五分之一，但他們過去備受歧視，土國不承認他們的民族地位，講庫德語，穿庫德服裝，都要受懲罰。庫德人被稱為「高山上的突厥人」。有壓迫就有反抗，土耳其庫德族工人黨和政府對抗30年，死亡人數萬人，直到10年前庫德族革命領袖歌卡蘭被捕，情勢才緩和。
數十年來，庫德族內部派系林立，無法團結，這一次科巴尼的戰爭，促進庫德人大團結，它變成「大庫德斯坦」夢想的象徵，全世界無數人在為這個苦難民族禱告。
KURDISH fighters from Turkey and Iraq are scrambling to help defend a vital Kurdish safe haven in northern Syria, where tens of thousands of Kurds have fled from ISIS.
The border region of Kobani, home to half a million people, has held out for months against an onslaught by Islamists seeking to consolidate their hold over swaths of northern Syria. But in recent days, Isis extremists have seized a series of settlements close to the town of Kobani itself, sending as many as 100,000 mostly Kurdish refugees streaming across the border into Turkey.
“I don’t think in the last three and a half years we have seen 100,000 cross in two days,” the representative for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in Turkey, Carol Batchelor, told Reuters. “So this is a bit of a measure of how this situation is unfolding, and the very deep fear people have about the circumstances inside Syria and, for that matter, Iraq.”
A Kurdish commander on the ground said Isis had advanced to within 9 miles (15km) of Kobani.
A Kurdish politician from Turkey who visited Kobani on Saturday said locals told him Isis fighters were beheading people as they went from village to village.
“Rather than a war this is a genocide operation … They are going into the villages and cutting the heads of one or two people and showing them to the villagers,” Ibrahim Binici, a deputy for Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic party (HDP), told Reuters.
“It is truly a shameful situation for humanity,” he said, calling for international intervention. Five of his fellow MPs planned a hunger strike outside UN offices in Geneva to press for action, he said.
The Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), a rebel group that has spent three decades fighting for autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds, renewed a call for the youth of Turkey’s mostly Kurdish south-east to rise up and rush to save Kobani.
“Supporting this heroic resistance is not just a debt of honour of the Kurds but all Middle East people. Just giving support is not enough, the criterion must be taking part in the resistance,” it said in a statement on its website. “[Isis] fascism must drown in the blood it spills … The youth of North Kurdistan [south-east Turkey] must flow in waves to Kobani,” it said.
Hundreds of people gathered in solidarity for a third day on the Turkish side of the barbed wire border fence near the town of Suruc, where many of the refugees have crossed. Security forces trying to maintain order fired teargas and water cannon and some protesters started throwing stones at them in frustration.
Even by the standards of Syria’s bitter war, the refugee numbers are alarming. Their numbers add to the 2.8 million Syrians who have become refugees in the past three years, and another 6.4 million who have been displaced within their own country – approaching half of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million.
UNHCR and the Turkish authorities said they were preparing for the possibility of hundreds of thousands more refugees arriving in the coming days.
Kobani’s relative stability through much of Syria’s conflict meant 200,000 internally displaced people were sheltering there before Isis’s advance, UNHCR said.
“This massive influx shows how important it is to offer and preserve asylum space for Syrians as well as the need to mobilise international support to the neighbouring countries,” said Antonio Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees.
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