Helping the victims of terror worldwide!

Göttingen
Dear Sir or Madam,

dear friends ,

Like the people in many countries and continents all of us have been appalled and disturbed by the awful terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. According to the UN-Convention they have to be denoted as genocide. A single blow that has changed the world. Terrorist attacks could be directed towards nuclear power stations or biological and chemical weapons could come into use at any time. Drastic security enforcements are being discussed. We have to pay attention that our liberal democracy doesn’t fall by the wayside!

More than just a few politicians have demanded retaliation. However, terrorists have to be taken to the International Criminal Court. The GfbV constantly promotes the speedy build-up of this institution. Military action would inevitably hit innocent civilians. Germany’s Chancellor Schröder called this an attack upon the whole civilized world. But the suffering people in the multiracial state of Afghanistan who are now fleeing by the millions belong to this civilized world as well as numerous ethnic and religious communities in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. Many of whom have been victims of terrorists and terror regimes long before September 11th, 2001. The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) ensures that human rights and rights of ethnic minorities stay on the political agenda, especially now. To achieve this we need your help.

Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan are ruled by totalitarian dictatorships who are time and again involved in terrorist attacks abroad and who have committed unspeakable crimes – mass expulsion, starvation and genocide – against their own population. Their victims are all too easily forgotten these days: the population of Black Africa in south Sudan and the Nuba Hills, Kurds and Aramaeans in Northern Iraq, Bahá-í and Jews in Iran, Syrian und Iranian Kurds, Ahmadiyya in Pakistan, Berber in Algeria and the majority of Afghan peoples as well as Uygurs and Tibetans in the Chinese territory and Chechens in the Russian territory. For decades the GfbV has been committed to supporting the human rights of these nations.

The west, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America have talked about democracy all too often but in fact meant business and export of arms. German companies contributed substantially to building up the poisonous gas industry in Iraq which subsequently killed 150.000 Kurds and Assyrian Christians. 1,5 million people in south Sudan were killed by weapons which originated from western countries. For about eight years Iran und Iraq received every murder weapon they asked for to carry out their deadly war between brothers which claimed two million victims. The Taliban and Osama Bin Laden were lead into power by the USA themselves together with Pakistani military forces. The west has watched the dying of Bosnian Muslims in Sarajewo and Srebrenica without taking any action for four years.

By finding a solution to the Palestinian question, the west will become more trustworthy. We have to do whatever we can to outlaw the criminal terror of Hamas and Jihad against the Israeli civilian population. But the Palestinians have to have control over the remaining 22 percent of their territory. To driven them back more and more, to continue building new settlements on their territory, to rule what is left of it with apartheid serving as a model will reinforce resistance movements and be grist on the mills of terrorism.

Whilst numerous governments and political parties give their approval for tough and fast measurements, we urge to remember the human rights, to support victims of terror regimes and to isolate those states. Above all, we have to object to attacks upon Muslims living in our society. Likewise 1400 Muslims have been murdered in the World Trade Center. The Afghan exile community in Germany urgently needs our solidarity as well. Last week we organised a demonstration in Hamburg where thousands of Afghan refugees participated. None of them sympathized with either Taliban or Osama Bin Laden. They mourned the killed people in the USA along with us. Most of them would like to return to a free Afghanistan and they fear bomb attacks against civilians which would endanger their families as well. The GfbV has appealed with open letters to foreign minister Fischer and to the media to do all they can to ensure help and care for these threatened people. By the end of September the Federal Government released 21 million German mark for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan.

Whoever wants to defeat terrorism has to withdraw its basis by means of protecting the human rights. The west must not make agreements with any „villain state“ in order to hunt the assassins of New York and Washington, warned the respected daily paper Washington Post. Russia and China are already attempting to curry favour as partners with the anti-terror coalition by declaring Grosny in Chechnia, which has been razed to the ground, and mass execution of Uygurs in eastern Turkistan or persecution of Tibetans as part of counterterrorism measures.

Yet, it cannot be that dictatorial regimes may redefine state terror as counterterrorism. Therefore please support our human rights work with a donation for the suffering population in Afghanistan, for the victims of dictatorships in the Middle East and in other parts of the world, especially in times like these. Because effective human rights work is the best weapon against terrorism.

Please support our human rights work with a donation addressed to the account 1909 at the Sparkasse Göttingen (BLZ 260 500 01) in Germany or become a member – if you haven’t already done so. Donations and member fees guarantee our political independence. That is why you are so important.

In the name of GfbV thank you very much for your commitments

With kind regards

Tilman Zülch

Secretary General

Translated by Bärbel Heimansberg