LEYLA ZANA SPEAKS IN UK PARLIAMENT

“Kurds are fire, if approached correctly they get warm but if approached wrongly they burn.”
~ Leyla Zana.

The only thing that's really worth your time today is to stop over at Hevallo's place and check out his post on his trip to London to hear Leyla Zana speak in the British Parliament.

Zana defended the Kurdish people, the Kurdish freedom movement, and Abdullah Öcalan's proposals for a political solution to the Kurdish situation. I have no doubt that Zana would also defend PKK's offer of a democratic solution from August 2006, and PKK's ceasefire, which was offered in October 2006.

Zana also calls out the members of the Kurdish Diaspora to remind them of their duties.

Anyway, go check out Hevallo's excellent piece and see for yourself.

TRAGEDY IN CALIFORNIA

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next."
~ Gilda Radner.

Tragedy has struck for Kurdish activist Kani Xulam. Six members of his family were killed in an airplane crash in Kern County, California on Friday, 31 August. From the LATimes:

It was a typical end-of-summer outing. Having never been to the lake area near Bakersfield, the family members decided to fly up for the long holiday weekend.

"They were supposed to have fun," Sal Yaman, nephew of the Santa Monica resident who piloted the plane, said Saturday. "Now they're all dead. There's no fun left."

The six, including two small children, were killed Friday when a private plane that took off from Santa Monica Airport crashed near Kern Valley Airport in the Sierra foothills, authorities said.

The victims, according to Yaman, included Adam Pasori, 56, the pilot; David Pasori, his brother, in his early 40s; Mila Kuygusuz, a sister also in her 40s; Kuygusuz's two daughters, Nasrin, 5 months old, and Meriem, 2 years old; and Sibel, Adam Pasori's wife, in her 30s.

[ . . . ]

"They were going to a lake in Bakersfield," said Yaman, at an apartment in Santa Monica where at least 20 family members and friends had gathered to mourn. "According to the fire department, Adam wanted to land but had to turn around. When he went to make a U-turn. . . all of a sudden he loses control. He was 300 feet in the air."

Yaman said Kuygusuz's husband, Adam, was driving to Kern County to meet them.

"When he got there, the tragedy had already happened," said Yaman. "An hour earlier, he was calling the family to see how they were, but there was no answer. When he sees all that activity [near the airport], he says, 'This is it.' The cops tell him no one survived."

More at KurdishMedia.

I wish to express my deepest sympathy for Kani Xulam and his surviving family at this time of such terrible tragedy. This kind of loss seems to be much worse because of the sudden and total end to so many lives.

Xodê efû aza bi ketîn. Serê yet mayî sax bin.

Allah rahmet eylesin. Başınız sağolsun.