[machine translation]
Since the beginning of July, the jihadists of the Islamic State launched a major offensive
against the city of Ayn al-Arab (Koban? in Kurdish), besieging several villages in the
canton of Syrian Kurdistan, on the border with Turkey. Fighting rages and caused dozens of
deaths in each camp. Kurds mobilize to resist this wave of extremely violent assaults
launched by galvanized jihadists and better armed for their recent victories in Iraq. ----
Hundreds of Kurdish fighters have recently crossed the Turkish border to help the defense
and push the Koban? attackers. On the night of July 21, Turkish soldiers opened fire on
fighters YPG, the Kurdish militia self-defense countered, showing once again which side is
Turkey. ---- A recent article describes the of the situation and regional upheavals underway.
Kurds, between Islamist attacks and political developments
Syrian Kurdistan, alone against the onslaught jihadist calls for international solidarity.
Elisenda Panad?s / Diagonal (Spanish State)
Any Saturday in July, Place de la Republique in Paris. Tenth arrondissement of the French
capital, dubbed by the media "Little Kurdistan" for the social and community epicenter of
the Kurdish community in the Paris region, one of the largest in Europe. On one side of
the crowded square, under the gaze of the statue of Marianne, we see a sign denouncing the
involvement of Turkey in attacks against Kurdish Islamist groups in Syria. "We are not
Arabs or Persians or Turks or Islamists. We ask the Kurds and international solidarity as
Palestinians " exclaimed a young girl of the Federation of Associations of Kurds in France
showing a rally that takes place in the last few meters against Israeli bombing of Gaza,
while distributing leaflets on the tragic history of Kurdistan. A people of the Middle
East butchered between four states (Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) from the secret
agreements signed between England and France in 1916, following the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire in the region. Approximately 40 million people whose fate is generally not
particularly attracted the attention of major media.
In recent weeks, we again heard the Kurds. This time, it happened after the Islamist
advance in Iraq disintegrating with the conquest of Mosul by Sunni radical group, renamed
the Islamic State, fighting in Syria. And given by the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq
defensive response. A response which consisted, firstly, by taking Kirkuk oil-rich, known
as the Kurdish Jerusalem and which should have been a referendum for its integration in
the Kurdish region, according to the Iraqi constitution established in 2005. And in a
second time, the announcement of the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG),
Massoud Barzani, to conduct a referendum on independence , which Baghdad and Washington
are immediately opposite.
Rojava only against Islamists
However, the Islamist assault, stemming from the war in Syria, is not new information for
the Kurds. Thus, Rojava (literally "west" or "where the sun sets"), as is called the
predominantly Kurdish region of northern Syria, resisted for months attacks by jihadists
fighting in the Syrian conflict, supported by the Gulf countries, among others. Islamists
accuse Kurds of being unfaithful, but that alone does not explain their attacks.
Behind them, there is the desire to conquer a strategic oil-rich territory. Kurds defended
themselves with far Popular militias, YPG, in which notice a strong presence of women .
And they do, unlike the Islamists, without the media spotlight or outside assistance,
except the same Kurds located on the other side of the border with Turkey. Indeed, since
they are declared autonomous region in 2013, outside the Syrian military conflict (they
are not with Bashar al-Assad or with the opposition), little has been said about them and
their autonomy a political project for all peoples of the region inspired by the
"democratic confederalism" Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish icon on both sides of the
Turkish-Syrian border that separated for decades.
Islamist attacks they suffer from the end of 2011 (despite the condemnation of the
European Parliament), with dozens of Kurdish civilians killed, including cases of
beheadings and crucifixions, hundreds of civilians abducted and hands of Islamists, or the
recent attacks with chemical weapons, have received little attention. This was denounced
in a statement this July, the self-coordination of Rojava with renewed fighting in the
Kurdish Township Koban? to the Turkish border, after taking Mosul (Iraq) by Islamic State
(which allowed the Islamists to recover more money and weapons). Kurds are not immune to
the regionalization of the conflict in Syria.
Front of the headquarters of the Islamist Rojava requires urgent international assistance
to cope with the lack of ammunition and food . At the same time, she denounces Turkey not
to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Syrian Kurdistan, keeping its border
closed, and directly support the "obscurantist forces" attacking its population, as
explained there a few months ago during a visit to Paris, one of the main Syrian Kurdish
leaders, Muslim Sahlem, co-chairman of the Party of the Democratic Union, an ally of the PKK.
Turkey, a game in three bands
It is a fact that, for better or for worse, for the Kurds in Turkey is an essential piece
in this puzzle called the Middle East. And conversely, the Kurds - and oil - are for a
Turkey that wants to regain the lost in the region influence. This probably explains why
the Turkish state has come to recognize them. It was last year that, for the first time, a
leader of the Turkish state, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, officially pronounced the word
"Kurdistan" in Turkey . He did in the Kurdish stronghold of Diyarkbakir during a visit of
Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.
Ankara plays three bands with the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. On the one hand,
Turkey, which is not seen favorably alliance of Syrian Kurds with the PKK or its
autonomist project would support the Islamist groups that attack the Kurdish autonomous
zone Rojava. At the same time, Erdogan campaigning for president this coming August,
maintains the Kurds of Turkey spellbound with a peace process that some denounce as
electioneering (seek the support of the electorate in Kurdish) initiated last year with
the cease-fire the PKK guerrillas and far more moribund than real, but unthinkable there
is little time yet in a country of deep Turkish nationalism. Finally, Turkey has become an
ally of the Kurds in Iraq, without regional partners and no outlet to the sea, need to
export their oil via Turkey. This is why Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq's Kurdish
region, was again received with open arms by Ankara this week, after announcing the path
of independence of Iraqi Kurdistan.
A key regional player
Agree as several experts of the Kurdish question, as Hamit Bozarlsan (Professor at the
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris), the Kurds have become a key
regional player, with increasing force since the 2000s, through the conquest of power to
act of its growing population, which has led to of important political success as
recognized in Iraqi Kurdistan (2005) autonomy, the new self-proclaimed autonomy in Syria
(2013) or the strength of the Kurdish party in Turkey , the PKK and from this in
Parliament in Ankara after his landslide election victory in the Kurdish region (which
represents 20% of the population). That said, the Kurdish movement is far from being a
unified force and act together. This is explained by the fact of belonging to four
different states with stories of struggle and distinct repression and the imposition of
official languages (Arabic, Turkish and Persian) against the common language, Kurdish. A
language systematically hunted with two major dialects very different, two different
alphabets (Latin alphabet in Turkey and Arab Iraq, Iran and Syria) and that most Kurds can
not write. But his lack of unity also reflects a history of disunity and infighting among
the Kurds themselves, a legacy exploited by ancient empires and current states tribal past.
Between autonomy and independence
Product of this history, the Kurdish movement is now politically divided into two main
political actors. On the one hand, that represented the regional government of Iraqi
Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani with the head, which govern themselves in the north of the
country since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the occupation of Iraq. An actor who now
aspires to independence, leaving behind a particularly tragic story, with sad chapters
like the massacre perpetrated by the Iraqi state, with chemical weapons against the
Kurdish population of Halabja in 1988, in the midst of the Iran-Iraq war, at a time when
Saddam Hussein was an ally of the West. After decades of guerrilla warfare, the Iraqi
Kurds have implemented a realpolitik and using oil diplomacy, gained partners in Europe,
Turkey and Israel .
The other major player is led by the guerrillas of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party),
created in 1979 and led since then by Abdullah ?calan, imprisoned for life on an island in
the Sea of Marmara, but charismatic leader of the Kurds in Turkey , which announced a
cease-fire March 21, 2013. PKK has the support of the majority of the Kurds in Turkey and
Syria, although its headquarters is located in the mountainous region of Qandil in Iraqi
Kurdistan. orbit PKK, with its related parties (BDP Turkey, the PYD in Syria or Iran PJAK)
defends the proposal "democratic confederalism" . It is a project of political
decentralization and participatory democracy, claiming the right of minorities and gender
equality, among others. Critical with the model of nation-states, it does not bind the
immediate objective of national independence and even less if it is for only part of
Kurdistan.
Different political views and many rivalries separate the Kurds, but many other issues the
closer , starting with their long history of resistance and the fact that now more than
ever, they are a key regional player in the Middle East despite the many questions that
remain open in a geopolitical space fragile borders, oil-rich and incessant conflicts.
Indeed, the immediate uncertainty for the Kurds are Turkey, the outcome of the
presidential elections in August (where the Kurdish party BDP is in abbreviations of the
new HDP party, created to capture the support of the Turkish minority left with a proposal
policy within Turkey), as well as the progress of the peace process between the PKK and
the Turkish state. In Iraq, the biggest question revolves around the possible
disintegration of the country caused by the sectarian conflict between Shiites and Sunnis
and the consequent (or not) independence of Kurdistan. Meanwhile, in Iran, the Kurdish
situation is linked to the political and democratic development of the country (which
continues to prohibit, with the death penalty, any Kurdish political activity); and
finally, in Syria, it remains to see the outcome of the present war, and with it the
future of Rojava.
In all cases, and knowing that, beyond borders, what happens in a Kurdish area will
necessarily have repercussions in another , it remains to be seen whether the regional map
that will result from the ruins of the current conflicts in the Ancient Mesopotamia will
advance the rights of the people looking to start another story, its own history. With
over borders or without them.
Elisenda Panad?s - Paris
Published July 19, 2014 by Diagonalperi?dico.net
Source: here
https://www.diagonalperiodico.net/global/23546-kurdos-entre-cerco-islamista-y-avances-politicos.html
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