[August 11, 2014; Links online magazine]
The Kurdish people are facing an unprecedented challenge. Across a vast swathe of northern Syria and Iraq, the region's Kurds are locked in a desperate and heroic struggle with the genocidal forces of the so-called Islamic State (IS). Fighting is raging from Aleppo and Kobanê in Syria to Mosul and Kirkuk in Iraq — and all points in between. (The 'front' is enormous: for example, the direct distance from Aleppo to Kirkuk is over 650km.)
Flush with money seized from banks in Mosul and US-supplied heavy weapons abandoned by the fleeing Iraqi army, the IS (formerly ISIL — the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) now has a formidable military capability. The relatively lightly armed Kurds are now up against a murderous and determined opponent equipped with armoured personnel carriers, tanks, artillery, heavy mortars and rocket launchers.
With financial support from the Iraqi government no longer coming through, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has even had trouble securing sufficient ammunition and paying their peshmerga fighters (who still have to support their families).
A big loser from the post-World War I big-power settlement, the Kurds are the world's largest ethnic group without a state of their own. They are divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran with a large diaspora in Europe (mainly Germany). Whether directly or indirectly, the entire Kurdish people is being drawn into the conflict.
Kobane resists IS assault
In Syria the Kurds mainly live in the north of the country. Over the last few years the Syrian army has largely pulled back from the area and last year the Kurds declared an autonomous region there called Rojava (West Kurdistan).
A militia called the Peoples Defence Units (YPG) has been established. With more than 45,000 fighters, strongly linked to and supported by the community, disciplined and well-led, it has proven to be a very effective force. It includes the Women's Protection Units (YPJ).
The dominant Syrian Kurdish political group (though not the only one) is the Democratic Union Party (PYD) co-chaired by Saleh Muslim and Asiyah Abdullah. It has strong links with the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of Abdullah Öcalan (currently jailed for life in Turkey).
For some two years the Kurdish area has been under sustained attack by IS forces, now strengthened with their captured US weaponry. A flashpoint of the fight is the town of Kobanê (Arabic name: Ayn Al-Arab), hard up against the Turkish border, 135km north-east of Aleppo. The town and about 100 surrounding villages are under sustained attack by 5000 IS fighters. The district's normal population is about 200,000 but today holds perhaps 500,000 due to an influx of refugees.
Kobanê is important to IS because they want to be able to freely move between areas they control, especially Raqqa in the east and Aleppo in the west. At the moment they have to make a big detour. Also, if Kobanê falls, the IS will move in force against other Kurdish towns.
The YPG-YPJ has so far held off the IS gangs and dealt them some very heavy blows (claiming to have killed almost 700 jihadis in July alone). But many Kurdish fighters have also fallen.
Kurds in Turkey rally for Kobane
Abdullah Öcalan has issued a call for Kurds everywhere to mobilise to defend Rojava.
From July 9 thousands of Kurds in Turkey flocked to the border near Kobanê and established four tent camps, including one directly opposite the besieged town. They used megaphones to shout encouragement to their compatriots. Another purpose of the camps was to stop wounded IS fighters entering Turkey for medical treatment. Turkish police and soldiers attacked the camps with water cannon and tear gas but were repulsed.
Responding to the mobilisation call by Öcalan, in mid-July at least 800 fighters entered Kobanê from Turkey to join the YPG's defence effort. Most were from Turkey but Kurds from Europe have also returned to help defend the 'Rojava revolution'.
Demonstrations in support of Rojava and Kobanê have been held in Germany and other European countries in the last two months.
Rojava struggle deeply progressive
Although it is a war zone, the struggle in Rojava is deeply progressive.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the efforts it is making to empower women. They serve in large numbers in the militia — both in mixed units of the YPG and in the YPJ, the Women's Defence Units — and have provided their share of martyrs to the cause.
British human rights lawyer Margaret Owen reported after a visit to Rojava in February that:
Everything I learned about the PYD administration had impressed me. There is an all-women's party, the Star Union, and all other institutions, not just the PYD, but all associations, political, educational, medical, military, police, social and financial services, are headed always by two co-chairs, one man and one woman: an excellent method of ensuring gender equality across the whole spectrum of society, from the top echelons to the grassroots.
In every town and village there is a Women's House, where women and girls can access advice, counselling, protection, and shelter, in the face of many forms of gender based violence, honour killings, post-traumatic stress, and physical and mental health problems. Domestic violence is widespread, especially among the IDPs, and many women have been victims of sexual violence. Everyone I met had experience of traumatic deaths of close relations, in prisons, on the battlefield, and through abductions and torture.
The Women's Houses, the Women's Academies, the 'Families of the Martyrs', the Peace Mothers associations all work together to address this endemic violence and support the displaced without any outside humanitarian aid and on a completely voluntary basis.[1]
The PYD has its critics. One complaint is that it has stopped other Kurdish groups from establishing their own militias. It has insisted that they join the YPG-YPJ. In particular, they have prevented supporters of KRG leader Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) from establishing an armed presence in Rojava. This stance seems completely justified. A desperate struggle is underway and unity of the fighting forces and unity of command is absolutely vital.
As for the PYD's overall record, Rudaw columnist David Romano put it this way in a July 24 opinion piece:
Let us look at the PYD's concrete record of action since it took control of large parts of northern Syria and declared autonomy in the cantons of Kobanê, Cizre and Afrin. They held municipal elections. They provided refuge to Arab, Turkmen, Christian and other refugees from all over Syria. They incorporated not just Kurds, but also Arabs, Turkmen and Christians into the autonomous administrations of all three cantons. They protected all of them from both ISIS and the Assad regime. They empowered women, arming them and placing females into leadership positions of every single municipality the PYD controls. They have committed no massacres, and they continue to insist that they want only good relations with Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds. They did all of this while being isolated, starved economically and pressured militarily from all sides.[2]
Intervention to save Shengal
In early August IS forces seized the town of Shengal (Sinjar) in Western Iraq. Normally inhabited by about 30,000 people, this is the historic centre of the Kurdish-speaking Yezidi community which practices an ancient religion which predates Christianity and Islam. IS regards Yezidis as 'devil worshippers' who should be killed. The IS wanted to control the area so that it would be able to more easily supply their forces in Syria.
The town was defended by peshmerga of Barzani's KDP. The IS forces attacked and at a certain point the peshmerga withdrew from the town. The reasons for this are not yet clear but this collapse of the defence left the people completely exposed. A mass exodus then took place as tens of thousands of terrified people streamed out of the town to seek refuge on stony barren Mount Shengal to the north. Hundreds have since died of thirst, starvation and exposure. The IS has massacred hundreds of Yezidis and kidnapped large numbers of women.
PYD leader Saleh Muslim sharply criticised the withdrawal of the KDP peshmerga from Shengal.
The peshmerga left the people there alone and fled. On such a day such a response was expected of the YPG and they did [what was expected of them] . . . the people said what they saw. The peshmerga left them alone. There were no clashes between the peshmerga and the ISIS in the region. They withdrew without a fight. Of course there must have been a mistake or it is possible the wrong order was given. If not I do not think the peshmerga would have fled from the fighting.[3]
The YPG had long warned the KDP that the town was not adequately defended. In a dramatic intervention a large YPG-YPJ force entered Iraq on August 3 through the border crossing at Til Kocher (Al Yarubiyya), about 100km from Shengal. It first had to clear the border area of the IS gangs. At the same time it pushed toward Mount Shengal and helped escort large numbers of refugees to safety in Rojava and Kurdistan.
The peshmerga have since regrouped and a large force has been sent to retake the town. The PKK has also sent militia units to Shengal from its camps in Kurdistan — the HPG (Peoples Defence Forces) and YJA STAR (Women's Defence Forces). Some 700 Yezidi refugees have joined the YPG and are taking part in the effort to recapture Shengal.
At first ignoring the YPG-YPJ and HPG-YJA STAR, the peshmerga have since been forced to conduct joint operations against the IS killers. The prestige and authority of Barzani and the KDP would seem to have been badly tarnished. (Barzani announced that the military commanders who withdrew would be subject to an investigation.) As of August 10, Shengal has yet to be completely retaken.
Turkey's deceptive & contradictory game
Turkey has been giving significant support to the IS. Large numbers of foreign Islamists seeking to join IS have freely transited Turkey. Wounded IS fighters have crossed into Turkey for medical treatment.
But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also wants Kurdish support for his August 2014 presidential bid. Kurds make up possibly 20% of the population. Erdogan has made a number of concessions to the Kurds, mainly on the use of their language, but there is a long way to go.
On the other hand, Turkey has close relations with the Kurdistan Regional Government. Some 1300 Turkish firms are active in the area; each year Turkey exports billions of dollars of goods to Kurdistan and takes most of its oil.
The PKK leadership has called on Turkey to declare publicly where it stands as regards the IS.
Problems in Kurdistan
The recent setbacks for the peshmerga have turned the spotlight on the KRG. The PYD and PKK are socialist-oriented organisations. The KRG is run by two conservative nationalist parties, the KDP of Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani.
A great deal of investment money has poured into Kurdistan in the last period, much of it going into building fancy shopping malls. Corruption is widespread and the gap between rich and poor is growing.
The peshmerga is not a true national army but is largely divided between the KDP and PUK. The KDP is hostile to the PYD. The KDP has tried to establish an armed presence in Rojava but has been blocked by the PYD.
Adding to these tensions, in April the KRG dug a 26km-long trench, two meters deep and three meters wide along its border with northern Syria. The PYD and the PKK denounced it as project to isolate the Kurdish areas of Syria. The KRG says it is aimed at stopping terrorists. There was certainly no prior consultation. Kurds on both sides of the trench protested.
In addition to these problems, the KRG is short of funds since the central Iraqi government has stopped paying its regular regional subsidy. The peshmerga's weapons are old and no match for the new US heavy equipment the IS has acquired.
The PYD has been calling for unity of the Kurdish struggle for a long time. In the face of recent setbacks, the KRG has been forced to recognise that the Kurds face a national crisis of the very first order. It seems that some sort of common front of the YPG-YPJ, HPG-YJA STAR, peshmerga and exiled Iranian Kurds is being established.
US assistance comes with risks
The Kurds desperately need better and heavier weapons to counter the IS threat. Some US supplies have arrived in Kurdistan. The US has carried out limited airstrikes against IS forces threatening the KRG capital of Erbil.
The Kurds have every right to accept aid from whoever will give it. But the US is not the friend of the Kurds. The past is replete with its betrayals of Kurdish national hopes.
For example, Washington continued to deal with Saddam Hussein after he carried out the atrocious March 1988 gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja which killed over 5000 people. In 1991 after the defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, the US encouraged the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam Hussein but when they did it stood back and let the regime's Republican Guard crush the rebellion. The Kurdish uprising in the north was smashed. And in Turkey Washington has supported Turkey's long repression of its Kurdish population and its war against the PKK.
The US may step up the supply of modern heavy weapons to the KRG peshmerga but it is hard to see it helping the far more radical YPG-YPJ forces fighting in Syria.
The Kurdish people face a very challenging future. They need solidarity from all progressive forces.
Woman YPG fighter, Kobanê, Syria.
'I became aware of my humanity and my womanhood'
[Interview with Axin, member of a women's committee from the Cizîre Canton in Rojava, February 2014.]
Before the revolution there was no me. I didn't consider myself to exist. I was married. I could not divorce. I have two children. I had no rights or law. Before the revolution there was no such thing as women's rights. I was married to my husband for eight years. He didn't understand anything about me, nor I him, nor did either of us understanding anything about life. We were very distant from each other. I could not separate from him. I had neither the confidence nor the material circumstances. My family wouldn't look after me. The state would not recognize me. I always went on because of my children . . .
I met some women from the women's organizations. They seemed very strong. I listened to them. Then I also joined in the work around women, and I got to know my identity, my country and my culture which had been stolen from me. My life changed then. I found strength because of this struggle. I took my children and divorced my husband. Now I live separately. War, struggle . . . these concepts now reign both in our home and inside of us, and in our lands. I became aware of my humanity and my womanhood.[4]
Notes