The West is responsible for the genocide of the Syrian people

Syria – unending bloodbath

By Dr Kamal Mirawdeli:

This is the text of a – still very relevant –  letter on Syria sent by Kurdish writer Dr Kamal Mirawdeli to the British Prime Minister David Cameron on 8th February 2013.

Dear Sir,

Kurdish People in Syria and Turkey

I am writing to express my deep concern about the continued genocide of Syrian people and strongly condemn Britain and other Western countries, for condoning and encouraging Turkey’s sponsorship of the destruction of Syria and massacre of its peoples, and in particular, Turkey’s unnecessary and aggressive dispatch of gangs of murders and looters to attack Kurdish towns liberated from Bashar Assad’s criminal regime especially the town of Sere Kane (ra’s al’ein).

Before I express any further opinion I would like to attract your kind attention to an interesting and important article by Mr Paddy Ashdown in the Times Opinion page (12.12.12); entitled ‘Who Should we back in this Sunni-Shia War?’  Mr Ashdown looking back at the previous experiences of the West’s involvement in Middle-Eastern conflicts writes:

“The history of Western policy in the Islamic world is rich in examples where we act on what we hope is happening, rather than what actually is. In the 1980s we hoped we were throwing the Soviet invaders out of Afghanistan, but ended up unwittingly funding and arming a deadly Islamic global insurgency. In Iraq during the 1980s we first helped secular Saddam Hussein against Shia mullahs of Iran, then we removed him as a brutal dictator. Now we discover that we have enabled the expansion of Tehran’s influence in ways we wouldn’t have wanted.” Later, on Syria, Ashdown says: “WE hope for a peace in Syria. But even if Assad were to fall soon, there is one very big reason why a wider peace is unlikely. Syria itself is not the conflict; it is only the front line in something much bigger- a widening long-term struggle between Sunni and Shia to define the future Middle East.”

There is another relevant item in the same issue of the Times about Syria and Obama’s decision to recognize the Syrian opposition as the legitimate representation of the Syrian people excluding the al-Nusra group who are described as a terrorist extremist Islamist group. The report points out that Britain does not share this American position. The reason for this is shocking. The reporter Martin Fletcher writes:

“Britain has yet to decide whether to proscribe al-Nusra, but appears to be cooling on the idea. Officials deplore the group’s alleged links with al-Qaeda, its use of suicide bombs, and its summary executions of captured regime soldiers and sympathisers. BUT THEY RECOGNISE ITS GROWING POPULARITY AMONG REBELS AND THE FORCE IT HAS LENT THE INSURGENCY. ITS FIGHTERS ARE DISCIPLINED AND WELL-ARMRD WITH WEAPONS SUPPLIED BY SAUDI-ARABIA AND QATAR. MOST ARE SYRIAN, SOME ARE FOREIGN, AND MANY ARE BATTLE-HARDENED AFTER FIGHTING AGAINST U.S. TROOPS IN IRAQ.’’ (Dr M’s capitals)

I am not so naïve to think that any of the above will add  a bit to your understanding of the previous or current realities, as Britain has not been just an observer and after-event actor  but, as Ashdown explains, the original engineers of these realities, events and after events whether they went according to the intended plot or not.

But Mr Ashdown just tackles the upper surface of the realities, avoiding explaining deeper causes, interests and actors behind these continuous tragedies for affected peoples. Even his Shia/Sunni Islamic dichotomy, though real in its historic roots and dimensions, is not a reality created and sustained away from Western, especially British and now Israeli-American, military and political strategy in the Middle East, using Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf mini-states as means and fronts. It is clear that unfortunately the British policy was dictated by its interests in the Gulf and its petro-dollars and capital, maintaining the tribal order of Saudi and other gulf mini-sates at the expense of developing institutionalised democracies that Britain and the West could deal with through their legitimate representatives and progressive emerging forces.

The most brutal aspect of this outdated policy has been an arbitrary irrational oppressive US/THEM dichotomy: those who sustain and support OUR interests and those who oppose and endanger them. In this dichotomy, without any rational and moral justification, the Kurds have always been considered as trouble flashpoints and hostile elements that threaten the security and stability of OUR allies and thus routinely deserve to be subjugated, silenced, oppressed or eliminated.

Although since a breathing space and a safe haven was grudgingly afforded to the Kurds in Iraq in the wake of the First Gulf war in 1991, and the Kurds have proved that they are the most pro-Western and forces for stability, protection of minorities and secularism in the region, this hostile view of the Kurds has continued, this time by differentiating the good Kurds from the bad Kurds. Over twenty million Kurds in Turkey are labelled as bad Kurds and supporters of terrorism and the PKK are unjustifiably, repressively and immorally listed as a terrorist organisation although they represent the authentic will of a large section of Kurdish nation, not just in Turkey but also in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Europe. If we really believe in democracy and peaceful processes and civilised political methods, then recognising the Kurds in the Turkish Constitution and allowing the PKK to disarm and turn into a legalised political party is the only thing needed to allow people elect their legitimate representatives and let democracy decide the route and course of events instead of immoral policy and aggressive force.

I whole-heartedly supported Bush/Blair’s invasion of Iraq thinking that at least they would topple a dictator and pave the way for constitutional democracy, culture of citizenship, rule of law, economic growth and prosperity and civil institutions. But the invasion brought nothing to Iraq but criminality, unprecedented colossal corruption, dehumanising cruelty, death and destruction. A ruined country and civilization, at least 500,000 dead, two million orphans, uprooting of Christian communities, enslavement of women, creating the most corrupt family plutocracy in Kurdistan and throwing away Kurdish people’s opportunity for independence. Children of Fallujah are still born deformed, partially human as a result of the now proved use of uranium-enriched weapons by the American army in Iraq. And sectarian conflict, instability, poverty and criminality and frightening spectres of further wars, are going on. Please, for the sake of our common humanity, imagine if this has happened in   any part of Britain and Europe, how would you think, feel and act? Yet, more has to come.

In Syria there are already over 75,000 dead, over 140,000 injured and maimed, 7500, 0000 external refugees, two million internally-displaced people, uprooted communities, starving children, ruined historical cities, towns, neighbourhood and markets. Normal life and social order is replaced by the marauding activity of murderous gangs looting deserted shops and homes and institutions, arresting, torturing and killing anyone they suspect and accuse to be pro-Assad. Normal economy is replaced by war economy fuelled by money poured from your Saudi and Qatari client states. I can attach tens of video clips that make any human heart shutter except those hearts filled with oil instead of blood.  Yet Obama, France and Britain have been prepared to accept all this, support Turkey, encourage more killing, amounting to perpetrating pre-meditated genocide; and shamelessly doing this in the name of supporting Syrian people and fighting tyranny. Britain, France and the CIA did not give a decent and noble example either in the way they intervened in Libya and, in particular, worked to end the life of Qaddafi in the inhuman and barbaric way it happened and spreading arms and gangs all over North Africa. What is happening in Mali now and the instability that you think takes decades to deal with are the results of these short-term morality-lacking thinking and politics. After the disaster of Iraq one thought at least Britain and US would have learnt at least one main lesson: Before you invade any country militarily and end its regime, plan for the aftermath and the management of the consequences and crises that you will unleash. Sadly all what you have been doing was no more than destroying a basic sacred principle of democracy: that representatives of a people must directly be elected by people and not be imposed by any foreign powers to serve their interests.

And now with your actions and support for the murderous gangs of al-Nusra and others, what do you really wish to achieve, as Mr Paddy Ashdown may have wanted to know?  What have you learnt from the destruction of a nation and civilization in Iraq? What is the point of politics, economic gain, and diplomacy if they are conducted in such horridly immoral inhuman ways?  How can humanity as a whole survive without minimum standards of universal morality, honesty, truth and justice?  There is at least one group of human beings whose very smiles, tears and pains should erase any shades of discriminative prejudice or selfishness in our minds: Children. How can any human soul fail to feel that with the death of any innocent child a part of our humanity and human soul dies? Do you wish that your children were born and living in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Kurdistan?

Now I come to my main point, and aim, in writing yet another pointless letter to your Excellency.

Al-Nusra along with many other Jihadist groups sponsored by the Saudis, Qatar an Turkey, are  certainly  blood-thirsty murderous extremist groups responsible for most suicide bombings, killing of civilians, looting and destruction in Syria and promoting even more destructive and murderous responses by the Assad regime.  There is real danger that Syria will become another Somalia or Mali where murderous al-Qaida jihadist will indulge in destruction and indoctrination. Syrian non-Sunni constituents Christians, Kurds including Yazidis, and Alawites would be really in danger unless there would be orderly, controlled transition of power. This will have unpredictable long-term tragic consequences for the whole region and the West.

Yet, in the tradition of the notorious British rational pragmatism and civilized decency the British government is prepared to give al-Nusra and other murderous gangs the benefit of doubt and the bonanza of two or three more months of killing spree because ‘they are popular’, not with the Syrian people who are fed up with all murderers and destroyers wherever they come from, but with their friends, Turkey, Saudi, and Qatar.  While the Kurds including, and now especially, the PKK, who have always been the victims of Sate terrorism, Islamic Terrorism and Ethnic Terrorism have to be  labelled terrorists and anti-democratic. Throughout the PKK struggle from 1984 until now, an estimated 30,000 have been killed, most of whom have been victims of the Turkish state military and security operations. Most terrorist acts were masterminded and sponsored by the Turkish MIT, including Hezbollah terrorism in the 1990s most of whose victims were Kurdish political activists and PKK sympathisers.

Last month three PKK political activists including PKK co-founder Sakine Cansiz were murdered in Paris in a terrorist assassination. It is clear now that Turkey, perhaps with the collaboration of French security, have been involved in this murder. For, although the Kurds, facing the option of genocide or resistance, have always looked for Europe for hope, sympathy and support for their peaceful and democratic demands, even in Europe Kurdish politicians and communities have been victims of repressive measures, and serious restrictions of their freedom of expression and civil rights together with fabricated allegations of terrorism, especially against PKK politicians, many of whom have been elected representatives in Turkey facing persecution for their peaceful campaign for basic human rights: the right to speak Kurdish, educate children in Kurdish and enjoy peace and citizenship rights. Understandably this crime shocked the Kurdish communities everywhere and there were huge emotional demonstrations in Paris and many European cities, including London and Kurdish cites in Turkey but, in all this, whether in Europe, or Turkey, there has not been one single act of violence or disorder. The Kurds displayed both their sadness as well as national determination in the most civilized way. In Iraq, both the US and UK exploited the Kurds to the full for the reconstruction of the vanished Iraqi state, and without the support and role of the Kurds British and US casualties and the cost of Iraqi invasion would have been much higher and the time of engagement much longer.

No British or US soldier was lost even by accident in Kurdistan. Compare this to what has been happening in Afghanistan. You train Afghani soldiers to be competent to defend their land but many turn their guns on their American and British trainers.  The US and Britain made a great mistake by surrendering to a century-old prejudice against the Kurds, and to Turkish and Israeli lobbies, by leaving south Kurdistan and the Kurdish question as an unfinished business. As I suggested in another letter to the Foreign Office in 2011, Britain and the US could have supported the implementation of article 140 and then worked to hold a UN-sponsored South-Sudanese-style Kurdish referendum for independence or a con-federal state  in all Kurdish areas including Kirkuk , Khanaqin and Mosul Kurdish areas, all rich with oil. The advantages for the West would not just have been in terms of oil and resources, but also in terms of the very strong constructive role that the Kurds could certainly have played as a force of peaceful coexistence, stability and secular plural democracy in the Middle East. The US and Britain could be sure they would never lose a soldier in Kurdistan unless God wished so.

It is obvious that, in addition to the established prejudices, the influence of Turkey and Israel as her ally, could have been a major factor in the West’s indifference and reluctance to support Kurdish nationalism, which for over a century everyone has unjustifiably wished it would be dead and buried by now, especially in Turkey and Syria, whose Kurds are considered by some Western observers as surprising new species appearing in the process of Assad’s collapsing regime and not as a genuine people of over three million people who have been suffering persecution , assimilation and denial of all national and political rights including citizenship, for over half a century.

Now the Kurds in Western Kurdistan (Syria) have liberated their areas, protected civilian population Kurds, Alawites, Christians, Sunni Arabs from both the regime’s brutality and murderous jihadist gangs. They have established impressive order and civil administration. They have established local councils, developed local police and security forces, giving the biggest role in all this to girls and women. Yet, succumbing to Turkish essentially Fascist designs, it seems that again Britain is willing to betray both Kurds and her own rational, moral and democratic principles and long-term stability and secularism of the region by accepting the exclusion of YPG forces, the biggest political force in Western Kurdistan.

Erdogan, like his notorious predecessor Kamal Ataturk, is a war criminal as he is solely responsible for initiating the murderous activities of jihadists and the occupation and destruction of densely populated cities and towns leading to a slow and steady process of the genocide of a whole people. Shocked by both the power and different moral and democratic example that the Kurds have given in Syrian Kurdistan, and the ever-developing Kurdish nationalism in Turkey, Erdogan is playing hypocritical games to buy time and maintain his fascist control over Kurdistan and achieving the dream of a new Ottoman Empire.

Erdogan’s negotiation with Ocalan and the PKK is not sincere and serious. If he were, there is even no need for any negotiation. He can take initiatives and Kurds would respond. The demands of the Kurdish nation are clear. Erdogan can amend the Turkish Constitution to ensure that Turkey would become an inclusive diverse democracy by recognising the Kurdish people and their linguistic, national and political rights. There is no need for a prolonged process of so-called negotiations acted out by the MIT while committing murder in Paris and bombing Kurds in Turkey and Iraq and keeping tens of thousands in prisons. He could release Ocalan and negotiate with him as a Free Man and unifying voice of his people. He could release thousands of political prisoners.

Dear Prime Minister,

Like Mr Blair, it seems that your Excellency is also interested in foreign interventionist adventures. But I sincerely hope that you will create and leave a much better legacy:

1. Please stop Turkey and fascist jihadists’ threat to the Kurdish people in Syria and ensure that people of Western Kurdistan should be recognised and their democratic will respected. Kurds can become a force of good, peace and plural democracy in Syria. But, to avoid the faulty process of Iraq, any new Syrian Constitution must recognise federalism and local democratic administration for various Syrian groups: Arab Sunnis, Alawites, Kurds and Christians.
2. UK can take the initiative and lead Europe in decriminalising the PKK and recognising it as a genuine democratic representative of Kurdish people and pressurize the Turkish government to, as a brave sign of good will, release Abdulla Ocalan and negotiate with him as a Free Man rather than a helpless captive. Turkey should also release all Kurdish political prisoners and take steps to facilitate education in Kurdish in primary schools and expedite the democratic amendment of its Constitution.
3. Britain should rethink and re-evaluate it Kurdish policy and assess the real political power and role that the Kurds as a peaceful, democratically-oriental, politically secular and tolerant nation with a country of important strategic and geopolitical position and huge natural resources can play in the 21st century politics of the Middle East.
4. Britain should play a more pro-active role in the politics of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq and ensure that the next parliamentary and presidential elections due in July 2013 would be free and fair and stop its blind support to the criminal plutocracy of the Barzani family and developing them as another criminal, autocratic Gulf-style family rule in a pluralist and politically diverse Kurdistan.
5. Your government should ensure that any previous, present and future oil contacts with the KRG are legitimate, legal, transparent and fair. Any contract not known to have been debated and approved by Kurdistan parliament should be considered illegitimate and fraudulent. Any contract about any oil resource should include a significant proportion of revenues dedicated for the compensation of the people in their areas and developing it economically, socially and culturally.

I hope these thoughts will deserve kind attention of your Excellency and result in some positive action.

Kamal Mirawdeli (Dr)

Kurdish writer and presidential candidate in KRG elections in 2009 (winning in the regions of Kirkuk, Sulaymaniyah and Koye where no vote-rigging occurred).