.jpg)
By Arian Mufid:
It is seven weeks since the architect of the Afrin invasion, Turkish leader Erdogan, invaded the west of Kurdistan, Rojava. For these seven weeks, one of the largest armies in the world has without mercy bombarded Afrin and its YPG defensive forces throughout the area on the false pretext of national security protection. Turkish forces hoped in a few days to take control of Afrin and displace its citizens, but instead they have suffered heavy casualties to themselves and their proxy forces such as ISIS and the Free Syrian Army. The people of Afrin have defended the city well, without air cover and facing the artillery and heavy weaponry used by the Turkish invader. Turkish forces and their proxies have inflicted disaster on Afrin environmentally and politically. R T Erdogan, the butcher of Turkey, needs to be brought to the International Criminal Court of Justice for two reasons:
First, thousands of civilians have been forced to abandon their houses and their city under the bombardment of Turkish forces. Second, so far hundreds of innocent people of Afrin including woman and children have died as the result of Erdogan’s bombing without warning of the city centre and main residential areas. Erdogan is one of the most disastrous and dictatorial presidents ever seen in the history of Turkey. The Turkish military junta has committed atrocities against the people of Afrin, with mass murder, the reported use of chemical weapons and a programme of ethnic cleaning. That the world stands by and does nothing will be most painful memory of the people of Afrin for generations.
The crucial question is not how we can prove Erdogan’s atrocities against humanity and the people of Afrin, but whether the world powers, which until now have sided with the butcher of Turkey, can determine to bring him to justice. The world should organise a court for Erdogan similar the ones for Saddam Hussein the butcher of Iraq and Slobodan Milosevic the butcher of Yugoslavia.
