The Kurdish Institute of Paris | By Kendal Nezan

The loss of Nelson Mandela has aroused great feelings in Kurdistan, where people remember with gratitude his stands in support of the Kurdish people in the 1990s.

I had the privilege and honour of meeting him during his first visit to France in June 1990, at Danielle Mitterrand’s Fondation France-Libertés. In reply to his questions, I briefly described the fate of the Kurdish people to him without wasting his time, aware that after 27 years captivity he had plenty of other concerns.

Nevertheless, over and above any politeness or simple curiosity, he seemed anxious to enquire about developments in the world, that he hadn’t been able to follow during his decades of isolation. He urged me to keep him informed about the situation of the Kurds, which is what Danielle Mitterrand and I tried to do regularly.

His wife, Winnie, who we had met several times in Paris and made aware of the Kurdish problem had, in 1988, signed an international petition for the defence of the Kurdish language and culture, at that time forbidden in Turkey.

In May 1992, the Turkish government, to regild its image, somewhat tarnished by the horrors of the war in Kurdistan, decided to award Nelson Mandela the “International Ataturk Peace Prize”. We wrote to tell him that Ataturk had deported and massacred the Kurds, banned the oral use of their language and that the government at that time was waging a devastating war against the Kurdish population.

A few days later, Mandela announced, through his spokesman, that he was refusing the Ataturk Prize “because of the persecution of the Kurdish people in Turkey”.

This refusal earned him a virulently hostile campaign in the Turkish press. “Terrorist”. “Dirty African”, “Ingrate”, “Boor”, “Ignoramus” were the epithets mist often used by the editorial writers of the major Turkish media, some of which even went so far as to affirm that the refusal was due to the prizes financial endowment was insufficient.

Evoking this “sad problem” on behalf of his government, the Prime Minister, Demirel, wanted to sound calmer: “This is an unfortunate event. We wanted to honour him to show that we were not racists and that we were attached to human rights. He declined the honour. It must be due to a misunderstanding or to the harmful influence of the Kurdish lobby".

These excessive comments only served to strengthen Mandela’s conviction about the relevance of his decision and sharpen his interest in the Kurdish cause.

We dreamt of a visit by Mandela to Iraqi Kurdistan, the only free part of the Kurdish lands. Unfortunately this could not be done because of the trying conditions of such a journey for a man of his age.