Saturday, September 30, 2017

South Azerbaijan IS  Not Iran

By Umud Duzgun  February 26, 2013

History made by South Azeris in an international club match between Tractor of Tabriz and Al Jazeera of Dubai. A political chant gained a voice and momentum.

On February 26, 2013 an Asian Champions League match took place between the soccer teams of Tractor (Tabriz) and Al Jazeera (Dubai). " Yasasin Azerbaycan! " or Long Live Azerbaijan! was the cry from the impressive crowd of 85,000 FC Tractor faithful. The Persian minority regime of Iran, which has occupied South Azerbaijan since 1946 prohibits Azeri soccer fans from carrying any cultural and political symbols and banners. Despite all these prohibitions, the Azeri fans managed to sneak in a huge 50 foot long banner writing in English for the first time "South Azerbaijan is not Iran" resembling the Catalan slogan "Catalonia is not Spain." It caught the eyes of millions of viewers around the nation and beyond.  
The soccer team "Tiraxtur" (Tractor) is one of the most favorite Azeri soccer clubs which turned into a symbol of national pride and the independence movement of over 30 million Azeri Turks in South Azerbaijan, which is part of Iran at the moment.

The banner "South Azerbaijan is not Iran" held up and cheered by the crowd brought ultimate joy to millions of Azeri viewers in and outside the stadium.
In an interview after winning 3-1 Tractor’s Portuguese head coach, Tony Oliveira said " this was more than a football I have seen big crowds in Portugal but in my 45 years of a sporting career, I have never experienced this much enthusiasm and It was a beautiful emotion to see this happy atmosphere." 
Obviously, this was a historic day " in fact, for our people Tractor is more than a club because of the values its red flags represent." added the team captain Murteza Asadi from Ardabil the third-largest city in S. Azerbaijan.
Most of the standoffs occur when Azeri clubs play against Persian clubs in domestic games. However, this time happened to be at an international AFC match between Tractor of Tabriz and Aljazeera of Dubai, which was played at the Sahand Stadium in Tabriz the historic capital of South Azerbaijan.
 
The Persian government in Tehran tried hard to present the Tractor club as an Iranian club and turn the crowds against the United Arab Emirate which Persian nationalists and officials regards as their regional enemy. In Persian cities, they often mobilize a hostile atmosphere for guest Clubs from Arab nations. However, in this none Persian city of Tabriz, officials were not able to turn Azeri Turks against their Arab guests. To their surprise, Azeris chanted a warm welcome and friendly words "Marhaba, Ahlan va Sahlan" hello and welcome in Arabic. 
 
Similar to the FC Barcelona for the Catalan independence movement in Spain FC Tractor is the symbol of the South Azerbaijan independent movement in Iran. Unlike Catalan people in a free country of Spain, where democratic institutions exist, the South Azeri people suffer under the totalitarian regime in Iran, which lacks similar democratic institutions. Under such conditions, Tractor’s matches allow the Azeri people to express their national sentiments in the limited time and space provided by the soccer match.
 
There is a hidden war going on between Persian nationalists and none Persian nationalists for decades. The Iranian regime which represents the Persian ethnic minority is following the ideology based on Persian ultra-nationalism and carries on a racist policy towards other ethnic minorities. Azeri Turks are the largest ethnic minority in Iran. They are facing harsh treatment in all aspects of life including sports.
 
In Iran, sports are not separate from politics. All clubs are owned by the government and most runs by appointed militia generals. They try to sideline South Azeri athletes from participating in international events such as the Olympics and World Cups. They are not allowed to show their Azeri Turkic identity in the international arenas. In domestic soccer games in Persian populated cities, the Persian fans are shouting hate slogans, insulting Azeri people freely and officials allow the hate slogans to air live on Persian national TV. In January 2010 at Tehran Azadi Stadium, Persian fans attacked a red-painted pigeon, the peace symbol of FC Tractor fans which was released during the match and flew from Tractor fans' side and landed on FC Esteghlal fans' side. Sadly, in the hand of one cruel Persian fan, the innocent pigeon was beheaded and killed in front of 100 thousand people because it was painted red by a fan of Tractor club.* This was not simply a coincidence, the hate culture goes back to a long history of Persian ultra national's theory and racism against none Persians which became the state ideology of the Persian minority regime for decades.
 
Previously, Azeri people expressed their voice of protest on various issues where the interests of the local Azeri people were affected. The protests to save Lake Urmia is a perfect example. At the time of the protests, there were widespread sentiments among the local Azeri population that the Iranian government did nothing to stop the drying of Lake Urmia because it was part of the government’s deliberate
policy to displace the local Azeri people from the area around the lake. The local Azeris also protested to commemorate the victims of the Khojali genocide in 1992.
When an earthquake hit the Ahar-Varzeqan-Heris region, the local Azeris were quick to organize a campaign to help the victims of the earthquake. In recent years the Azeri people have been demanding education in their own native language and initiated a petition for a referendum to secede from Iran.
 
The theme of slogans in the past was to show the distinct national identity such as "haray-haray men Turkem" which means hey- hey, we are Azeri Turks and "Afqanistan sizindir, Azerbaycan bizimdir" which means "Afghanistan for Persians Azerbaijan for Azeri Turks." 
However, this time in the presence of international media the message was crystal clear "South Azerbaijan is not Iran" The Azeri people not only have a different identity from the Persians but they have their own historic homeland South Azerbaijan. This manifestation provoked angry reactions from Persian nationalists and shocked the mullah regime in Tehran. They arrested several Azeri fans and threatened the Azeri public with harsh words. But on the ground, they were not able to confront the people’s power. This incident resulted to further weakening of the Persian minority regime in holding together the country's so-called "i r a n" by force. In fact, Iran the enemy, the oppressors, felt a shudder. Never before has a football team been the backbone of a political ideology to this extent.
   
From the late 1990s, the Iranian regime tried to sideline all South Azerbaijani soccer clubs (with the conspiracy behind it) by pushing them to play in lower division leagues. Under the supervision of FIFA, after seven years Tractor finally managed to come back to the premier league and last year it achieved second place in the premier league. 
 
And now FC Tractor is treated almost like a security threat to the Iranian government. The authorities don’t allow any match to be played at the Bagshimal Stadium in the city center. The place allocated to Tractor's games -Sahand Stadium- is heavily guarded. And stadium itself is located well beyond the city of Tabriz. Azeri fans are not allowed to bring in their historic national flag or any signs written in Azeri Latin alphabet, which is the one used in the Republic of Azerbaijan, an independent part of greater Azerbaijan. Tractor fans face jail term threat for promoting slogans with cultural and political messages. Waving the flag of United Azerbaijan is also prohibited. 
 
Despite all these restrictions, the Azeri fans fill the stadium to its full capacity in most of the matches. Waving red flags and raising their hands in wolf head’s shapes as a symbol of resistance, singing national songs, dancing and shouting the most radical slogans. Politics became an integral part of the Tractor’s existence.
A fan from Hamadan, the sixth-largest city in South Azerbaijan, wrote a comment on his Facebook page: "It is only when you see the struggle of the South Azerbaijan people that you can start to understand the importance of FC Tractor in this independence movement."
 
And now with the upcoming referendum on Catalonian independence approaching a similar demand was requested by nine political parties of South Azerbaijan for independence under the supervision of the United Nation and the free world. In a real sense, South Azerbaijan is not Iran. Like FC Barcelona for Catalan, FC Tractor will carry on its symbolic role in strengthening the Azeri independent movement. Taking inspiration from the Azerbaijan-centered thinking of renowned Azeri writer Professor Mohammad Taqi Zahtabi, I am able to state the future prospective for the national independence movement as follows: "When the right time comes, the people of South Azerbaijan will clear the dark clouds from the skies of South Azerbaijan at such an incredible speed no one can predict."

 
 
Uploaded on Jan 19, 2010
Animal Cruelty in Iran! Very sad story! How somebody can kill an innocent bird because it was painted by the other soccer team?! ... In a soccer match in Tehran one pigeon where painted in red by a fan of Tractorsazi Team and it was released during the match but some cruel fans of the other team took the bird and killed it! Please raise your voice by distributing this video on the web to force the Iranian government to bring those criminal fans to justice
Uploaded on Jun 5, 2010
Backward Persians in Tehran insulting Azerbaijanis as Turk e khar-eshak or donkeys and police gurding persians and attacking Turks
The banner in Sahand Stadium in Tabriz was held up and cheered by millions
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e2jacGd7dE 
Summary of the match FC Tractor vs FC Al Jazeera on Feb 26, 2013

  

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

The New Middle East and breakdown of Iran 

By Umud Duzgun

October 29, 2012
 
The Arab Spring has brought some significant changes to parts of the Middle East and North Africa, however, the biggest challenge yet for the US & the West in toppling Tehran's autocratic regime has remained untouched. For decades the American approach in dealing with Iran as a country was to treat her as a unitary nation. This view has recently changed.

In the first phase of the New Middle East Doctrine which started with the US toppling the Taliban hold in Afghanistan and Saddam in Iraq, Iran benefited from the removal of her enemies. America unwittingly paved the way for Iran to increase its influence in the region. With respect to nuclear issues, the Iranian regime managed to bypass US and UN sanctions by using the oil card. It also defied American and Israeli military threats by supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and plotting against US troops inside Iraq and Afghanistan.


When the question the significance of Iran’s rise and its place in the new Middle East, the think tank and policymakers in Washington appeared clueless as to what is really Iran. Their view is based on the 70’s antiquated Carter-era version of handling Iran’s backdraft against American cold war policies. This approach is totally inapplicable in today’s Iran. They have little knowledge about Iran's complex population structure. There is no reliable statistical data in regards to the ethnic population inside Iran by the Mullah regime. However, the ethnic demography indicates that today's IRAN IS “NOT PERSIA.” The largest ethnic groups are the Azeri Turks who make up 33% to 44% of Iran’s population. In 2003 the United Nations human rights report on Iran notes that "there may be as many as 30 million" * ethnic Azeris in Iran.  Persians are second minority at 22% to 33%, Kurds 7%, Arabs 6%, Lurs 5%, Baluchis 3%,Gilak-Mazandarani 4%, Turkmen 3%, Qashqai 2% and others.

In the previous Sunni regime in Iraq or the current Alawite regime in Syria, both are minority’s rules. The ethnic Persian minority in Iran is wielding power and discriminating against other ethnic groups. Their social, political and cultural rights have been repressed. The use of native languages in education is prohibited as their regions have been economically neglected, resulting in entrenched poverty. In part, they face systematic eviction and relocation from their rich area.

Recently some think tanks in Washington such as Michael Ledeen**, acknowledged Iran as an artificial state that is held together only by coercion from Tehran. In addition, it is not a Persian solo nation. ”The fact that although Iran is made up of various ethnic groups few realize that Persians likely constitute a minority of the Iranian population.” It is believed the non-Persian majority of Iran’s population including Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis, will not rally behind the Iranian flag in the event of an American military attack.
On September 12, 2012, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA 46th) introduced House Concurrent Resolution 137, which expresses the sense of Congress that the Azeri people, although currently divided between Azerbaijan and Iran, have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country if they so choose.” “The Azeri people have an innate right to choose their own political structure and chose their country", said Rohrabacher. "It’s not up to bureaucrats in Washington or the mullah dictatorship in Iran. The ethnic Azeris in the Republic of Azerbaijan enjoy sovereignty and independence; there is no reason why her Azeri population in Iran should not be able to make that same choice."**

Earlier, on July 30, 2012, D. Rohrabacher wrote in his letter to Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton recommending that the United States support the joining of Iranian Azerbaijanis with the Republic of Azerbaijan. “My resolution puts the US on the side of the Azeri people and with the people within Iran,” said Rohrabacher in a press release. “If the people on the ground don’t want to be ruled by the mullah dictatorship in Iran, then we should support their right to determine their future through a referendum.”

Moreover, this development did not come overnight and has a history behind it. A greater Azerbaijan was divided by Russia and Persia in 1828 without their consent. The South Azerbaijan issue was one of the first cold war era cases brought to the UN chamber in 1946. Back then, due to USA and Soviet Union competition, America refused to recognize a short-lived secular and democratic government in South Azerbaijan. All this came to an end with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Once again on the eve of 1991 people from North and South Azerbaijan unofficially unified by tearing down the walls and fences that divided their historic homeland. In 1992, A. ElchibeyAzerbaijan’s first democratically elected president called for the freedom of South Azeris and the creation of “United Azerbaijan”. In March 2006, at the World Azerbaijanis Convention in Baku, a number of participants addressed the concept of “unified Azerbaijan”. The current president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev called upon all Azeri people including Azeris in the south for unity. He said: “there are more than 50 million Azerbaijanis who live around the world, and about 30 million of them live in Iran, their destiny for us is very important.” In February 2012 a resolution was introduced to the Azeri parliament by some members of the opposition and the ruling party calling for changing the official naming of their country to North Azerbaijan, which is an implicit indication (emphasize) that there is in existence a South Azerbaijan under the colony of Iran.

All this angers not only the Persian minority regime in Iran but the Pan Iranian opposition inside and in exile alike. On the ground, however, what really worries the Persian minority regime in Tehran is not a foreign recognition of the issue, but a rapidly growing resistant movement by non-Persians like the Baluchis, Kurds, Arabs and especially the Azeris in South Azerbaijan. This has become the biggest hurdle for Tehran in enforcing its unpopular policy of a unitary nation as a means to avoid an Iranian breakdown as what had happened in the Soviet Union. The evidence shows that the Azeri independent movement deepened since the May 22, 2006 uprising and is only looking for a perfect momentum of weakening, in the mullah regime to pursue its mission of choosing its own destiny.

Finally, the highlighting of Iran’s ethnic Azeris issue on the US Congress floor and US Congressman  D, Rohrabacher stating that: “Aiding the legitimate aspirations of the Azeri people for independence is a worthy cause in and of itself, yet, it also poses a greater danger to the Iranian tyrants than the threat of bombing its underground nuclear research bunkers.”  With the White House welcoming reaction to that, it shows policymakers in Washington have shifted their views on Iran from the old one-nation Persia state to a new multi-nation states concept. For that reason in folding another chapter of the New Middle East, America will find the Azeri population inside Iran as potential allies in toppling down the Tehran regime, knowing this could result in a Soviet-style breakdown of Iran and the creation of the new countries in that region. 


 Please copy paste :
 

Monday, September 25, 2017

Iranian Regime Is Killing Lake Urmia

By Umud Duzgun 

Image

August 25, 2014: The latest scientific study posits the location for the legendary Garden of Eden in South Azerbaijan (now northwestern Iran), in the vicinity of Tabriz upon which the Genesis tradition was based. According to the British archaeologist Davis M. Rohl, the Garden of Eden was then located in a long valley to the north of Sahand volcano, near Tabriz and not far from the footsteps of Adam and Eve (30 miles) is a lake called Urmia which is now dying not from the global climate change, but from the problems intentionally created by the ruling regime in Iran.

Lake Urmia, known as one of the largest permanent hyper saline lakes in the world, is located at the heart of South Azerbaijan (now northwest of Iran) and is slightly bigger than Utah’s Great Salt Lake. It extends as much as 90 miles from north to south and is as wide as 35 miles east to west during high water periods. This lake was declared a Wetland of International Importance (1971) and designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (1976). Home to a unique species, Artemia, ducks, flamingos and  seasonal habitat for many of migrating birds, Lake Urmia was a popular destination for vacationers.

Recently, Lake Urmia faces the danger of drying out and the local Azeri population holds the Iranian regime accountable suspecting that the neglect for Lake Urmia’s environmental problems stems from the Iranian government’s deliberate policy to depopulate the area densely populated by an ethnic minority – the Azerbaijani people.  During the past five years, the local people used different symbols in protest, like pouring a bottle of water into the lake or calling people for crying and filling the lake with their eye drops. “Let’s go to Lake Urmia and fill it up with our tears” The latest protest symbol for saving the dying lake appeared on a video posted on social media showing a girl speaking in her native language, Azeri  Turkish " I'm from South Azerbaijan, for saving (to save) Lake Urmia and because of (Iranian president) Mr. Rouhani's failure to keep his promise on saving Lake Urmia, I'm calling him for the Salt Bucket Challenge" then pouring a bucket of salt on herself.



Ethnic Minority Issues and Lake Urmia

For Azeri Turks the fate of Lake Urmia is a national, social, and economic issue and regarded as part of the  Azerbaijani civilization.  Unfortunately, the fate of the lake is now in the hands of a colonial regime of Iran. For the people outside the region, it's hard to understand that the political motives of the Iranian regime plays a significant role behind the slowly unrolling death of the Lake.  Iran is a multi ethnic and multi regional country. A region of South Azerbaijan (northwest- Iran) which divided in 9 provinces is the homeland of over 30 million Azeri Turks. As a largest ethnic group these people have been the backbone of the democratic movements for a century. They formed their own sovereign and democratic state independent from the Persian dominated regime of Iran (1945-46). However, this young democratic state became the first victim of the cold war and brutally crushed and occupied by the Iranian military forces. After the military occupation of South Azerbaijan the Iranian government imposed a tight control on its non-Persian population. The government introduced summary executions, jailing, burning the Azerbaijani school books printed in their own mother tongue.  Mass exile and forced relocation followed by systematic and forced assimilation, banning the use of native language in all schools, offices, courts and replacing it with Persian language. The Azerbaijani regions of Iran were economically neglected, resulting in entrenched poverty.  After the downfall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, in a close-door  meeting (which leaked out and became a public) about a major investment in South Azerbaijan, the current adviser to Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayeti acknowledged that " soon or later this region will separate from Iran and we should not waste our national budget for major/ key investment there". This racist policy got worst in the last decade, due to increased demand for ethnic minority rights and the rise of the independence movement.



Image result for lake urmia
Destruction of Lake Urmia

Destruction began with the construction of a 16 km Highway- causeway and 1.5 km bridge over the lake since late 80's.  This infrastructure cuts the lake almost in two equal parts and slows down the water flow from one half to another. As the water circulation in the lake is impeded, there has been a dramatic increase in the water salinity. The most destructive impact came from the construction of 39 dams over the 13 rivers that feed Lake Urmia. In contrast, the beneficiaries of water dams were not local farmers, but the companies controlled by the Iranian regime's militia elites. The lake had an estimated 32 billion meter cubic water (1975-95). By August 2014 has only about 2 billion cubic meters water and losing almost 95% of its water volumes. The average surface of the lake area used to be around 6100 km (1971-95). However, by cutting the 13 life line (main rivers) of the lake, it lost 85-90% of its original size by August 2014.  The official Tehran claims the cause of drying the Lake entirely on global climate change and drought, but the evidence shows only minimum of such effects (5%-10%). For instance, the Lake Van in Turkey just 90 miles in distance did not face any loss in water or size in the same period. The UN environmental experts acknowledged that the impact of drought is minimal and manageable by the Iranian government. However, the local people don't expect any attempt from the Iranian government to save the lake because they believe that the Iranian regime has a hidden agenda behind the drying up of the Lake. They are intentionally creating a venue for demographic change by depopulating of ethnic Azeri Turks from their historic homeland and replacing them with ethnic Kurds. Among the Azeri activists, there have also been some speculations about the militarization of the vast salt land for a secret nuclear ambition in search of lithium and uranium from beneath of the lake and using the salt land as dumping ground for the nuclear waste.

Inaction of the government to save Lake Urmia is very obvious.  Whereas, they are spending millions of dollars to build canals from Caspian sea and Karun river to Persian populated desert region in central Iran. There are only endless popular talks in seminars by officials about saving Lake Urmia and allocating a huge amount and planning to bring water jokingly as far as the Republic of Georgia (which doesn't have a share border with Iran), but on the ground no actions were taken and no money was spent.  The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has allocated $135 million for Iran to address environmental issues of the Lake Urmia. That money has also disappeared.

Lake Urmia now became a vast salt desert land and a small portion of the heavily contaminated salty water.  In fact, drying up of the lake already caused alteration of the local climate.  According to the experts an estimated 8-10 billion cubic metric tons of salt will be released into the region, resulting in an environmental, agricultural and social catastrophe. The salt storm which already started to throughout the whole region and threaten the health and existence of 6 million people around the Lake and tens of millions more beyond it.

Image result for save lake urmia protests
Warning and Public Protests

Early warning from the environmental experts did not get any attention from the Iranian officials. However, the government reacted when a public protest critical of the Iranian government’s inaction on the lake alarmed the political scene in Iran in 2009. The Azerbaijani people launched a symbolic protest by pouring a bottle of water each into the lake and chanting "break the dams - lake is thirsty". In the follow-up of these protests, the Iranian regime had a heavy-handed crackdown arresting more than 150 people, sentencing some of them to long prison terms. A year later another large protest action took place in Tabriz on the World Environment Day, at the end of which the Iranian police arrested some 70 protesters. There were also protests in Europe and North America by the Azeri diaspora. In August 2011, after the Iranian parliament dropped an urgent bill to discuss the revival of the lake, thousands of people from Tabriz and Urmia City were on the streets protesting the central government for intentionally drying up the lake.  Protesters chanted slogans including "Lake Urmia is in danger- Government ordered its death," and " Mr. Ahmadinejad, is the crisis of Lake Urmia less important than the Nuclear Crisis of Iran?” The government responded by a violent attack of the Iranian security forces killing two protesters and arresting dozens. During the flawed presidential elections in June 2013, Rouhani promised to take measures to save Lake Urmia. However, after becoming a president, he did not follow his words undertaking no measures during the past 15 months of his presidency.  Instead, two more dams have now been built over the rivers and blocking the water-flow into Lake Urmia.


Solutions Proposed by International Experts

 Environmental experts believe that Lake Urmia’s drying up has less to do with the climate change and drought, which are indicated by the Iranian government experts as the primary reason of this environmental catastrophe. This problem has more to do with the decades of environmental neglect and unregulated development, including construction of the causeway and bridge, too many dams and excessive water subsidies for agriculture. The suggested solutions to save the lake include diverting water from neighboring watersheds, removing some of the dams, bringing water from Zab and Araz rivers, Caspian sea and comprehensive integrated water management plan for irrigation and  ecosystem preservation.
Government of Japan and some European countries have announced their readiness to restore Lake Urmia. In May 2014, at a signing ceremony allocating  of $1 million from Japan to address Lake Urmia’s plight, the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Representative GARY LEWIS said :"The scientific evidence tells us that much of the water which enters the Urmia basin can still be allowed to flow naturally to the Lake – re-charging it and re-energizing its communities while we set aside enough to feed agriculture and industry,”  and “it is a question of balance, this problem can be solved.”  However, the Iranian government keeps pushing the official propaganda line trying to convince the public that it is impossible to save Lake Urmia.  In June 2014, in a parliament session one MP from Tehran said: "the lake is already dead, we should not waste our money for it. Instead we should give some money to local people around the lake to move to other provinces." This indicates a new form of ethnic cleansing that is taking place in Iran, right now! The Soviet Union regime had implemented the same policy to declare the death of Aral Sea until its break up (1991). However, that policy of destruction and ignorance changed by the independent government of Kazakhstan to a policy of hope and revival of the Aral Sea that has started to make a recovery. Now there are fishes in the water again, and people are returning to their towns and normal lives.

Image result for lake urmia

Unfortunately, the Iranian regime keeps ignoring the suggestions by international experts to save the lake. The Iranian government has even had the success of misleading and silencing the world’s environmental organizations by rejecting any direct involvement and technical help from other countries.

The fate of Lake Urmia is essential for the people living in the vast regions around it.  In fact, the very existence of South Azerbaijan is dependent upon it. The South Azerbaijani people believe that, it was the Iranian regime, which planned the lake's destruction and gradually implemented it during the last 20 years. Unfortunately, many years of the civil protests, which resulted in heavy crackdowns by the Iranian security forces, the voice of South Azerbaijani people have not been heard by the international community.  People are using all civil methods in protest and paying a heavy price for the revival the lake hoping to spread the awareness to the world that the sacred lake of South Azerbaijan Lake Urmia is being killed by the deliberate policies of the Iranian government, that the Iranian regime is destroying the regions populated by the Azerbaijani people to achieve a demographic alteration, that people are about to lose their homelands where they lived for thousands years.

------------*****-------------

Video of Garden of Eden

The article in Azerbaijani Turkish version
The article in Farsi version

Photos of Lake Urmia: Before and After