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Pillars of Assyrian Politics A Guest Editorial Paul Isaac How much do we actually know about what happens to Assyrians in Iraq today? And I mean with factual certainty. And on whom do we rely on for our information? We, here in the Diaspora, depend on a pathetically small set of sources to form our opinions and pledge our support. Is it accurate to use headlines that report violence against Assyrians (unknown if politically organized or not) as evidence of “marginalization” of certain political parties? On what basis do we accuse Assyrians who have open dialogue with other groups of treason? I doubt many of us know what the true dynamics are. We should never, ever forget the crimes that were committed against our ancestors and by whom. These are part of our identity, and the world must bear witness. And we cannot ignore crimes that continue today. If some of these are politically organized, our political representative should speak out on the floor of the Iraqi and KRG parliaments (Ask yourself why this has not been done). However, we cannot refuse to work with or negotiate with the ancestors of those who did wrong in the past. We simply do not have that luxury. We cannot afford to become the Palestinians of Iraq; have the “moral” stand, pride and intransigence of the Palestinians’ achieved anything but squalor, hopelessness and generations of wasted potential? I wish our homeland was not dominated by Arabs, Kurds, Turks and Persians, but this is the reality our Assyrians live in. Those of us whose emotions will not allow them to “bury the hatchet” and make the most of current opportunities need to step aside and allow those who are able to do so. I have read many estimates in this magazine and elsewhere of how the current situation between Turkey and the KRG will play out. Unfortunately, many Assyrians seem to salivate at the prospect of Turkey’s annihilation of “Kurdistan.” They have allowed their hatred for Kurds overtake their love for Assyrians. If the above scenario were to take place, we cannot be sure what the resolution will be. We can, however, be fairly certain that our cause would be extinguished. Assyrians fortunate enough to escape the destruction would flee, and almost certainly for good. I agree with previous assertions that certain “lines” exist that must not be crossed, negotiated, or compromised. And I am all for unity among our political groups. But these key areas of priority need to be clearly defined, and all groups need to openly, through words and actions, signal their stance. From my perspective, the key, incontestable aspects of Assyrian politics that must be defended and promoted under all circumstances are:
These should be the pillars of Assyrian politics at this moment in history. Political parties may differ on other issues, and other areas are open for negotiation with our neighbors. But any group that upholds these pillars should be defended by all Assyrian groups, under all circumstances. Any political party that does not actively accept these tenets and work towards their realization I consider in opposition to our nation and should be treated as such. No effort at unity should be attempted to encompass such groups. Where have our political parties been on the Nineveh Plains? Do you even know where ADM stands on this central issue? I would say ambivalent would be the kindest term (and probably far too much so). How often do we see an official statement or press release from party headquarters even mentioning the topic? And in my view, indifference is even more damaging than outright opposition, because it has prevented those willing to take up the flag and advance this cause from being heard. Every day that passes without the words “Nineveh Plains” in the press is an opportunity inexcusably wasted. As for our Assyrian identity, we know all too well the disaster that was the compound name. I am willing to suspend better judgment and believe that the major proponents of the name had the best of intentions. But this failure, and the campaigns of undermining and attacking those who criticized the party line, has done us much damage. There must be accountability. Our nation is far too vulnerable to trust these leaders with our political future ever again. Change must occur and it must be complete. Demand of the political parties you support explanations of where they stand on these issues. And force them to offer proof in the form of both consistent speech and a track record of action. Support those who pass the test, and never allow these parties to be undermined by any voice, external or internal. Any attempt to do so should be met with a single, united line of condemnation. Never forget that political parties are tools used to achieve clearly established goals. They are not ends in their own right. Support those parties that have the prospect, and the intention, of success.
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In the Interest of the Assyrian Cause Frederick P. Isaac The overall picture of certain Assyrian political parties is very disappointing. Their performance is grim. Three years on, since the demise of the brutish Ba’ath regime, in Iraq, the Assyrian leaders have failed to unshackle themselves from their adversaries. They are still struggling to free themselves from (1) Arab domination, (2) Kurdish dictates, and (3) influence of the Vatican on their Assyrian Catholic brethren for restoration of their genuine national identity to Assyrian. All because they failed to meet the hopes and expectations of their Assyrian people. They failed to unify their ranks, and work under one united leadership, to meet their agenda. The above three adversaries are keen on demeaning the historic significance of the Assyrian Nation, relegating its surviving people to an insignificant remnant group. They allege that the Assyrians are diminishing towards total extinction. They have cast them away on the heap of the minority residues, as fringe dwellers. They call them by their religious name, denying them the right to their Assyrian national identity and to their native land. The Assyrians where expecting their leaders to free them from their adversaries, towards full autonomy. They are still far off the mark. The Assyrian political parties were supposed to join hands, close ranks and work shoulder to shoulder, together, by forming a coalition front, - one name, one flag, and one agenda. Their ultimate aim was to unite and work to meet aspirations of the whole segments of the Assyrian people, regardless of phratry. Instead, each party worked alone and went on its own. They acted independently, contradicting each other’s agenda. Their performance was very embarrassingly disappointing. They failed to meet the aspirations of the people they supposedly represent. They worked in isolation of each other, promoting their party’s name over and above the interest of the sacred name of Assyria and her suffering people. Their shortsightedness led to their failure, causing the Assyrian populace to lose complete faith in such fragmented and selfish leadership. Unless they relent and reconsider working jointly, in one accord, as Assyrians for the Assyrian people and Assyrian Nation, they will remain losers, unworthy of the role entrusted to them by their people. The root cause for their refusal to work together seems to be the tribal tradition of old feuds and vengeance. Many say that they are civilized, advocate democracy and believe in modernity. They have yet to prove it, by cherishing the name of Assyria and speaking in one voice. It is still not too late. The Assyrians (with all their segments) need to unite. The Assyrians need to have their own separate electoral slate, all of their own, detaching their names from non-Assyrian electoral slates, forming one separate slate independent of all others. They need to know where they stand in regard to their loyalty to their electorate and country. And as to whether they are recognized as full citizens of the Republic of Iraq or disenfranchised subjects. In this case, they need to choose as to whether they wish to remain as second-class nationals of ambiguity, living on fringe benefits, or take a venturesome course of action worthy of their self-esteem. It is hoped that the Assyrians on the ground (in the north) will not oppose such a move by considering it as in conflict of their interest. Since the Assyrians are ignorant of their future, in the formation of the forthcoming state of Iraq, they have the legal right to stir up the issue and present it to the world body of nations in the hope of reaching an acceptable outcome, or at least find out the truth. The clergy of the (Chaldean) Catholic brethren have already stormed the high head of the EU states, the United States and the Vatican, deliberating on their future. The Iraqi Christian officials, on the other hand, seem to be doing it in dribs and drabs, behind the Assyrian back, yet hardly successfully – keeping the Assyrians in the dark. Not all the parties are necessarily sincere in promoting the Assyrian name in their agenda. There are some, who are reluctant to relate their racial identity or antecedent to Assyria and its history. There are certain groups that do not cherish the true aspiration of the overall majority of the Assyrian people. They would rather continue as they are, blend in and fuse with the whole surrounding majority, than risk facing an unpredictable outcome for an ominous future. Perhaps their suppressed lot and dire situation obliges them to override venturing into the field of taking the challenge to revealing their warm feelings and close identity with their Assyrian brethren. The so-called Chaldeans seem to have abjured by suppressing their subconscious mind, unable to free themselves from bondage. They are hiding behind an identity that does not relate to them. They have picked geographical locations and historical names and labeled them on themselves. They are unwarrantable. They are so remote and distant in time and place that they do not relate to their Assyrian originality. It is sad that they live in bewilderment. They are living in a make-believe world of deceit, not of conviction but for survival. Until they come to term, each with one’ self, and lift and clear the pressure, from their repressed conscience, time will continue ticking, jabbing their conscience until judgment day. Some parties and groups prefer to choose and cherish some specious names that, though familiar, have long past their usefulness. They are either ancient or derivatives of the name of Assyria proper but have since served their purpose and are no longer useful. In order to reach out to people, who cling to such archaic terms, the Assyrian parties need to unite, form one political body, under a well-organized leadership, to speak in one voice to reflect the true meaning of the Assyrian name, in order to aspire its entire nation towards statehood. Such representation would help resolve the name issue in their efforts towards attaining their goal more effectively. This would help the person involved in the name issue to make a clear-cut decision as to whether to stick to the adopted derivative, or accept Assyria as the name of his nation and national identity. Many such derivatives have reached the point of becoming fictitious and their non-existent nations a myth. They hang on to such antiquated derivates, not because of choice, but because of the long-tern adaptation to them and the necessity to survive. Recently, the Kurds have been seriously lobbying in the corridors of the UN to gain recognition as being the indigenous people of Iraq. They, the Kurds, claim that they have historically inhabited Assyria earlier than the Assyrians! Wow, what a fallacy! In later years, with the emergence of the religion of Islam, the Kurds accepting the Islamic faith helped the invading conquerors of the Middle East to annihilate the Assyrians bringing them on the brink of extinction – self-confessed Kurd! Perhaps the Kurds imply that the Assyrians were massacred at the hands of their enemies (in participation with the Kurd) in the early years of Anno Domini for embracing Christianity, and later became extinct. Witty Kurd. With such wit, no one can beat the Kurd – not even the Irish. (With due respect to the Irish people. I respect, admire and love the Irish people for their courage, resilience, and love of their country, and of course for their witty and humorous jokes.) Going back into history, in the aftermath of WW I, and after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the State of Turkey was established in its place. It emerged as The State of Modern Turkey, partly at the expense of the Armenians and the Assyrians and the Greeks. The Assyrians were evicted from their original dwellings and lost their land. Their territory was annexed to Turkey and included in the newly modified borders of Modern Turkey. The Assyrians lost all their Hakkari territory, partly to Turkey, and partly to the newly created states of Iraq and Syria. The Assyrians were prevented from returning to their homes. In the process, they were all prevented from doing so, including 400 thousand Armenians. Not considered as refugees, they were abandoned and left stranded. Many headed to big cities and towns like Aleppo, Damascus, Tripoli, Beirut, Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk, Baghdad, and surrounding villages. Assyria’s usurped land was added to Turkey’s landmass, under the newly re-established government as the State of the Republic of Modern Turkey. Turkey’s plan was to seize Assyria’s land and annex it to its landmass. In return Turkey would withdraw from Vilayet Mosul for the rehabilitation of the Assyrians as a compensation for the loss of their territories of Hakkari and Urmia. Thus, following expulsion of the Assyrians from their native land, Modern Turkey acceded to the British proposal over Vilayet Mosul. It excluded it from Modern Turkey. It withdrew from Mosul and handed the Vilayet over to the British Mandatory Power. Turkey extricated itself from the Assyrian problem. Concerning the Assyrian unresolved question, Turkey described it as irrelevant and no longer related to it, since its handing over of Vilayet Mosul to the British through the defunct League of Nations. The finger points at the mandates of the Anglo-French Power at the time. Assyria until its dismemberment was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. In Post WW I, Turkey and Persia absorbed N and NE of Assyria. Since August 1914, the majority of the Assyrians that had been expelled from their homeland live in neighbouring countries or abroad. Turkmen and Kurds have since overwhelmed their number, in north of Assyria (Iraq). Since Post WW I, the Kurds have been drifting from the surrounding countries, deliberately seizing Assyrian land, and populating their villages. The Kurds have been feasting on the misery of the Assyrian displaced people, with the full knowledge and blessings of the warring parties of the two World Wars. Though doubtful, yet if democracy could be tailored, in Iraq, as is the case now with the Arab Sunnite, Arab Shiite and the Kurds, the current Iraqi Government could surely include the Assyrians in the political equation and allocate an adequate province for them in the northern part of the country. It is against human decency to abandon the Assyrians and treat them as throwaway, driving them away to live on the outskirts of the cities as fringe dwellers. Several Assyrian families, who have escaped to the north, live in the open, under trees and in cemetery yards, with little food and shelter and less so, other amenities. In order to help democratise the country, the Iraqi Government is called upon (1) to restore the national identity of the Assyrian, (2) to recognise the Assyrians as the indigenous people of Iraq, (3) and to return them to Iraq to re-own their land in the north. The Assyrians, being part of the majority of the people of Iraq, are entitled to their province of an administrative region, in line with the Arabs and Kurds. Nineveh Province, being the historical land of their forefathers, it is appropriate to delineate it to the Assyrians, considering them as part of the existing peoples of the Middle East. Their history is deeply rooted in the Middle Eastern region, particularly in northern Iraq. Inclusion of the Assyrians in the political equation would bring to success and satisfaction the establishment of Iraq on sound democratic principles. Assyrians cannot remain living in limbo. Assyrians are not asking for more than their rightful share. Being of Assyrian nationality and indigenous to the Middle East, it is astonishing that these very two points have until now been ignored, trivialized and wavered. The Iraqi Government has to decide as to whether the Assyrians are IN or OUT, and make a final decision as to their future political status in the Federal State of Iraq. They are no less deserving than the Kurds. The desire of the Assyrians to live as true Iraqis, equal to the rest of the citizens of the country, seems to be a far-fetched wish. There will be no peace in the Middle East. Islam’s plan is to suck in Lebanon into the Arab League as a Moslem state. Moreover, unless Israel accepts the one-man-one-vote principle, the Palestinians will ultimately reject any other solution to statehood and end up in a catastrophe. It would be either all or nothing. The Assyrians, on the other hand, are asking for only a share of their rightful entitlement. They have fared worse than the Christian Arab and the Israelites. At least, the Christian Arabs and Jews are officially recognized as such and identified by their national identity; the Assyrians are not. They are called Nestorian, Christian, Iraqi, Chaldeanassyrian, and ChaldeanAssryianSyriani. To continue to be insulting and rub it in, Kurd has recently been added to the list of name calls. Yet, neither of the two above states (Lebanon and Israel) is considered as fully independent. Not because they are not legitimate, both are legitimate, but because security and peace are absent. Though Israel is stable and its economy marginally surviving, its surrounding enemies would love to ravage it to utter destruction. While Lebanon is being toyed with, flung from side to side, like a sea lion playing with a ball, flinging it up high then resting it on its nose or into the pool, with no prospect of ever freeing itself from its rival that is growing in strength by the day. Lebanon is the victim of the wild beast of Hezbullah, Syria and Iran: the tail, the body and the head. The recent incident between Lebanon and Israel was just the wagging of the tail. The body has not yet moved, feeding itself, by stacking more deadly weaponry and the head, (Aql-Al-Muddabbir) the schemer has not yet sneered to show its fangs and spit its venom. It is a matter of time. The whole of the native inhabitants of the Middle East will eventually have to show reverence or genuflect to the god of their state to survive.
In the case of Israel, the only way for Israel to ensure its survival is to apportion the parliamentary seats of their Knesset. To guarantee itself an overwhelming majority, Israel would be obliged to allocate two thirds of the seats to the JEWISH nationals. It would thus secure sixty six percent plus (66.3%) of the seats – an overwhelming majority to enable it to control its government and guarantee its survival. The remaining one third (33.3%) may be apportioned among the remaining factions such as Arab Christians, Druze, Arab Moslems, etc. This lobbying on the part of the Palestinians is now being enhanced. Islam will never allow the emergence of a non-Moslem state in the Middle East or in any other part of the Abode of Peace of the Umma Nation. The one-man-one-vote system would be dead in its tracks. Whether the Palestinians will accept this apportionment is yet to be seen. Religious groups, conflict of interest and clash of cultures are savaging Lebanon. Establishment of its national assembly is based on apportionment of seats on ethnic and religious basis. Increase in the census of a certain faction, causes tremor, tipping the balance in its favour, prompting its interest over and above the interest of the people at large. It is the root cause of instability of its so-called democratic system. This scenario has been going on since its establishment in 1946. To stabilize the country, elections should be run on secular basis, civil law, and true and meaningful democracy. Those who promote religion to gain office, target the gullible. Gullibility in the parliament leads to a rise in internal conflicts and recurrence of violence. This leads to chaos, coercion, and resistance, ending in armed confrontation, upheaval, destruction, and loss of life and ruin of the country and its economy - known as the vicious cycle of Lebanon. In addition to their massacre, and continued persecution during the past century, at the hands of their neighbouring countries and roving Kurds, over 400 thousand Armenians and Assyrians were driven out of their homes. They were forced to walk the long journey of the death march to the end. Following declaration of the November 1918 Truce, the Ottomans abandoned the death march of elimination. Long columns of hundreds of thousands of civilian “evacuees” of men, women and children were suddenly halted. They terminated their march and just dumped them at the point where they had stopped in their tracks, at whatever point they had reached, in the middle of the desert, on the outskirt of cities, towns and villages, in rugged mountains and along riverbanks and the roadside. They were left to their miserable fate without aid, food or shelter. Starving and exhausted, the irregulars preyed on them. Their children were kidnapped and their elderly killed for trying to hide and shield their children. The Turks stopped all the expelled Armenians and Assyrians (now termed “evacuees”) from returning to their original dwellings. They threatened them with death if they attempted to return to their homes. The ejected Armenians and Assyrians were all abandoned and left to a miserable fate. They remained stranded, left to fend for themselves. None of the stranded Armenians and Assyrians was allowed to return to his native home. Plans had already been drawn up by the two-warring-party signatories of the Truce to fragment and assimilate the stranded Armenians and Assyrians with the Arab Islamic majority in the newly created Islamic states. The present Armenians of Aleppo and Assyrians of Khabur are testimony to that. In the aftermath of WWI, all the Balkan states that had been under the yoke of the Turkic rule eventually regained their independence one way or another. The four non-Moslem Middle Eastern colonized states were not. They were dismembered and annexed to the neighbouring Islamic countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The traditional rights of the Assyrians and Israelis were completely ignored. Their ancestral homeland was not restored to them. They were not liberated in the true sense of the word. They remained shackled under the “Millet” Rule of Islam. None of the Western victorious countries gave a hoot, about the dire state of Biblical Israel and the state of Assyria and their surviving peoples. It would be appropriate and legitimate for the Federal State of Iraq to agree to designate, in the North, a demarcated Assyrian Region, in line with that of the Arab and Kurdish Governorate Regions, within the Federal State of Iraq. Assyrians are indigenous to the Middle East, in particular to the northern part of Iraq. They are, by right, entitled to have part of their homeland restored to them. They are dissimilar from the Arab and Kurd in racial identity, language, religion and culture. Yet, though a minority the Assyrians are part of the majority of the Iraqi populace. To survive and thrive, Assyria needs to have its own exclusive Assyrian delimitated region. They have the criteria that entitle them to return to their homes as Assyrian Iraqi. They are not asking for more than their rightful share of entitlement. Seizing other people’s land by force contravenes international conventions. The key issue here is Moslem seizure and usurpation of other people’s land. When or by whom, yesteryear or centuries ago, by Arabs or Persians, Turks, or Kurds, is irrelevant. The surviving Israelis and Assyrians are the traditional and rightful owners of their land. They have the legitimate right to retrieve it, with the assistance and support of the international community and world body of the United Nations. No one, be it a person or nation, rich or poor, sleazy politician or naïve non-professional, should be above the law. Assyrians are not demanding ‘a pound of flesh’. They are not seeking vengeance. The Assyrians are asking for part of their traditional land to be returned to them. Like the Palestinians, racially, the Kurds do not relate to the Middle East. They are Arian in race. The Assyrians, Jews and Arabs are Semitic. Their roots are deeply seated in the Middle East. The historical homelands of Assyria, Israel and Arabia had exited there for millennia. Not so, with the Kurds. How long would the world keep on denying it, and why deny it? The difference between the two peoples is that, the Kurds allege that the Assyrians are infinitesimal, phasing out, and on the brink of extinction. The Palestinians, having been arabised, deny their Aegean origin and call the whole of the Biblical Land of Israel “Palestine”, thus denying their Aegean roots. The majority of the Assyrians have been expelled from their homeland. While the whole Palestinians have been assimilated with the Arab invading forces. They have since lost their original identity, melted into the Arab-Islamic pot. The name “Palestine” is a political term more than a physical reality. How long will this world continue eluding itself and live on deception? A case in point, if the four neighbouring countries, namely, Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq, plus the future prospect of a so-called “Kurdistan” is added, they would in the end, arrogate nearly seventy percent (70%) of Assyria. What more do these greedy states want? Or is the West determined to vanquish Assyria and its surviving people altogether, just to endear itself to Islam. Does this mean that Islam has really instilled fear in the heart of the Western world, leaving it gutless? How and why does so-called Kurds, a people of ARIAN ORIGIN become acceptable and included in the political equation of a SEMITIC equation, while one of the most ancient, deep-rooted people of the Semitic race, namely, Assyrian, be excluded from its historical and rightful place of the equation? Is the world heading towards dividing itself, each according to its whim, ending in destroying itself to oblivion? Whoever claims to be virtuous is wicked. And the world is filled with wickedness. Otherwise, mankind would not have invented a multitude of different religions and dumb gods to expiate his sins. The Assyrians and Israelis are part of this world family. They did not just mushroom haphazardly from underneath the earth, or drop from the skies. They want the hub and heartland of their homeland returned to them. As the indigenous people of Mesopotamia and native inhabitants of northern present-day Iraq, the Assyrians have every right to reclaim, if not all, at least part of their ancestral land up north. The Assyrians and the Israelis have the right to their historical land, to return and live in their traditional homeland, free and under their sovereign rule. The Assyrians are not prepared to sacrifice the remaining portion of their ancestral land to the Kurds. The Assyrians need to be specific in their demands, one of which should be urging the Kurds, through the world body nations, to return, hundreds of Assyrian villages and land parcels which they have seized since the early sixties, and hundreds more in earlier years, since Post WW I, to their Assyrian rightful owners. The displaced Assyrians, now living in diaspora, must be guaranteed their return to their original dwellings. Well, if it is (HALAL) lawful, after a period of over five centuries, for the so-called Albanians, to return to Kossovo, Serbia, and claim it as home for themselves, why is not the same law being applied to help the return of the Assyrians to their homes? The Assyrians of Hakkari-Van, Turkey and Urmia, Iran were evicted from their native land in the past century. They ended up in the Province of Nineveh (Mosul). Some were rehabilitated in isolation of their kinfolk in Iraq and Syria. Others were dispersed into the Moslem majority and the rest were left stranded. They were scattered all over the Middle East and left to fend for themselves with a view to their gradual assimilation with the Islamic majority to phase out their identity to extinction. The two warring parties deliberately did so to deny the Assyrians the right to return to their original dwellings. The warring nations concluded peace treaties at the expense of the Middle East non-Moslem nations, using them, at times, as bargaining chips and at other times, as a scapegoat. The Assyrians, being racially different from the Persian, Arab, Turk and the roving Kurd, need to be recognized as the native inhabitants of former Mesopotamia. Historically, the hub of Assyria was the Province of Nineveh. Their country covered the whole region of the Middle East. In its zenith, its demography extended from Urmia (Iran) E, all the way through to Hakkari (Turkey) W, down to the borders of present-day State of Syria SW, and to the Persian Gulf SE. In the latter years of Rome’s waning power and influence, and fading glory, and shrinkage, the Euphrates River became the dividing borderline that separated Assyria between the two warring nations of Persia and Rome. East of the Euphrates became a Satrapy and fell under the Persian political sphere of influence. Up to the West of the Euphrates became a Roman Vassal. Until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Assyria had been functioning as semi-autonomous, under the traditional system of tribal rule. During the Armistice of 11 November 1918, the two warring parties of WW I ended their armed conflict, by signing an armistice truce, to the mutual benefit of the belligerents, less the Oriental colonized states. They ignored the basic human and traditional rights of the four colonized non-Moslem nations that had been living under the archaic millet rule of the Islamic Shari’a Law. They preyed on them. Like ravening wolves, they all ganged up and turned on the four non-Moslem colonized nations, tore them apart and cut them to pieces like ‘mieces’ and wiped their nations off the map. Those that survived the carnage were isolated from the world scene and treated as throwaway. The slaughterers’ hands are still socked in the warm blood of millions of innocent Armenians, Jews, Assyrians, and Arab Christian men women and children. It was, indeed, crime of the century, kept under wrap, which the belligerents refuse until today to admit of having ever occurred. Imagine them now being active members of the UN and having the power to cast their vote – Democracy? I have yet to see that. To safeguard and defend its borders, during the outbreak of WW I, the Ottoman Empire decided to mass over 60 to 120 thousand Turkish troops alongside its eastern front with Iran. Turkey, at the behest of the German intelligence, incited the Moslem Kurds to attack the Assyrians and drive them off, away from their Assyrian native land, of the district of Hakkari. Turkey sought the assistance of the marauding Kurds to eliminate the Assyrians by declaring on them the traditional Islamic Jihad. After expelling them, Turkey annexed the usurped Assyrian territory to its newly created eastern border of Modern Turkey. Turkey has since extricated itself from the Assyrian question, denying any wrong doing against them. Since their internal displacement, in the Middle East, in Post WW I, the Assyrians have been leading a miserable life, uncertain of their future. Ninety years on and the Assyrians are seeking a solution to their unresolved problem. It is hoped that the western countries, would not fall again into the same trap and rely on the Kurds or cunning diplomacy of certain greedy countries for control of the Middle East. The Kurds and a number of Western countries are infamous for their deception and illicit dealings. The Kurds are now raising their heads high for being partners in their crimes against humanity, under the pretext of liberation movements. The Kurd’s policy in Assyria, present-day Northern Iraq, is to ensure that the reins of Power of the Moslem Kurds remain wholly in their hands, similar to what is currently happening in the Serbian Province of Kossovo. The Kurds are intent on reining-in the Assyrians at all cost. Their ultimate objective is to marginalize them from public office and rob them of their land to curb their influence and discourage them from striking deeper roots to remain on their soil and land as true citizens of their Assyrian homeland. One of their main aims is to annul the name ASSYRIA and replace it with the factious so-called name “Kurdistan.” The Kurds, by insisting, that Assyria be termed “Kurdistan”, is an indication that the Islamic Dar Al-Silm States of the Abode of Peace would cede the whole of Northern Iraq to the Kurds. The so-called Kurdistan would emerge as an Islamic State, rather than allow a non-Moslem native Assyrian rehabilitate in his traditional homeland. The Kurds being traditionally Moslem would be accepted as part of the Abode of Peace. Islamic religion is one of the criteria that guarantee preference of the Moslem Kurd to the Assyrian Christian. By Kurdifying Assyria, “Kurdistan” becomes an Islamic State part of the Abode of Peace. The Kurds, who do not have an historical link to Assyria, are entrenched in usurping Assyria proper. They arrogate it under the fictitious name "Kurdistan". Kurdistan Mountains have, since time immemorial, acted as the outpost landmark, separating Assyria Proper from the Kurdistan Mountains. The marked mountain range - a crescent-like chain of mountains, extending from Toros, Turkey southwest, through south Asia northward, to Zagros southeast Iran also acted as a buffer zone. This is an historical fact. It is a travesty that the international community does not admonish such rebellious and reckless claim on the part of the Kurds. Unless, of course, Dar Al-Silm states have willingly included the Kurds in their agenda as part of their strategy to become and Islamic State and be added to the Abode of Peace – a loss to democracy; a gain to neo-colonial expansionism. The whole of present-day northern Iraq is admittedly part of Assyria’s historical and geographical landscape and expanse. While the Biblical land of Israel encompassed an expanse, over four times its present size. People of the dismembered nations of Israel and Assyria are not extinct, as many are led to believe. Assyrians, Jews, Copts and the Christian Arabs make scores of millions. Although the Arabs and Kurds have reduced their number in the north due to constant harassment and abuse, the Assyrians do exist. They are alive and kicking. The West claims to be aiming at breaking new barriers, to pioneer and reach for the stars. If so, let them first clean their act, here on earth, put their house in order, then aim at the universe to reach out for other planets. First let them love their neighbour as themselves then go on goodwill missions, to spread amity beyond their world, if they are so keen and well intended on doing.
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Assyrian Shepherd Killed By KDP Member in North Iraq (ZNDA: Mosul) According to a report from Dohuk in north Iraq, Mr. Akhiqar Gewargis Odisho, from the village of Gonda Kosa was killed last week by a Kurdish man, named Sheerdel Tahir Khalid. The alleged killer is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and lives in the village of Ekmala. For nearly two decades, the residents of the Assyrian village of Gonda Kosa (click here) have been complaining about the trespasses of the Kurdish men from the nearby Ekmala village. Gonda Kosa is blessed with lush pastors and water, and Kurdish farmers and livestock owners have freely moved in and out of the Assyrian lands, causing occasional fights - similar to the one which ended in the death of Mr. Odisho.
The complaints from the Assyrian villagers continue to fall on deaf ears, even after the deliberate destruction of two water pumps in Gonda Kosa by the Ekmala villagers. Recently, before the murder of Mr. Odisho, the Gonda Kosa residents had discovered the Ekmala villagers had mixed strong pesticides in the soil of the Gonda Kosa farms which has resulted in the destruction of acres of vegetation - including melons. The local authorities, including the Deputy Governor of Dohuk - an Assyrian - were informed, yet no investigation was conducted into this matter. Some believe that Mr. Abdul Rahman, the Director of Agriculture in the city of Mangish, was informed of this event and the sabotage of the water pumps. Around 7:30 pm on August 8th, Mr. Sheerdel Tahir Khalid and two friends ambushed the victim, while many village men were in Dohuk asking for help from the office of the Deputy Governor, and shot Mr. Odisho in the chest using a Kalashnikov rifle. The incident was reported by another Assyrian, tending to his sheep nearby, who ran off to ask for help. The villagers rushed to the aid of Mr. Odisho and discovered the murderers' car. The attackers had ran away to another village. As he was being taken to the main hospital in Dohuk, Mr. Odisho was repeatedly calling the name of his murderers. He died at 3 a.m. due to injuries sustained in his heart and lungs. The local police soon arrive in the Gonda Kosa village and confiscate the alleged killers' car. At press time the whereabouts of the alleged murderers is unknown. Assyrian Liquor Store Owner is Kidnapped & Killed (ZNDA: Baghdad) On 1 August, Mr. Bassam Shimun Hakim, 33, was kidnapped in front of his large liquor shop in Baghdad. The kidnappers demanded a ransom for his safe release. They were paid $30,000 in cash, in addition to a BMW worth $10,000 that was parked at the business address where Mr. Hakim was kidnapped. Mr. Hakim's dead body was discovered by the Baghdad police on 6 August. Mr. Hakim was from the town of Alqosh, and is survived by his wife and two children. Assyrians Forced to Leave Two Villages in North Iraq Courtesy of Nirgalgate.com (ZNDA: Dohuk) In a very dangerous precedent, the Kurdish inhabitants in the villages of Sawar and Spendar forbade the Assyrian inhabitants of the Mizeh village (in the Lower Barwari area) from returning to their homes and threatened to kill them. One of the Mizeh inhabitants who refused to mention his name said:" Some 25 families wanted to go back to their village when their circumstances allowed them to, as they had submitted applications to the re-building committee headed by Mr. Sarkis Aghajan. The committee gave its approval for the re-building of 25 homes, and before even the start of the project, it was given to a Kurdish contractor because the inhabitants wanted to avoid any problems on the part of the Sawar and Spendar villagers. As the plans began, a group of men threatened to kill the workers and the contractor if they did not leave the site, so they left and notified Mr. Fransu Jadidi who heads the Construction Committee in Dohuk (Nohadra), who told them: "Leave this issue alone. We don't want any problems". The citizen of Mizeh added:" What's our fault? We want to return to our village; it's the authorities' responsibility to help us. Why do they neglect us? Aren't we citizens as well? Didn't we sacrifice like every one else in order to have our rights on our lands or we're asked to sacrifice only?" Another resident of Mizeh stated that the trespassing Kurdish villagers of Sawar and Spendar gave the inhabitants of Mizeh two options: "Either we buy our own village and lands from the Kurds for three billion Iraqi dinars, telling us that the village is no longer ours, or we sell our village and lands to the Kurds for two billion Iraqi dinars." " The resident continued: "Where is the rationality to buy our own lands and village for three billions or sell them to the Kurds for two billions? Is there more oppression than this? We are calling upon humanity's conscience to give us back what's rightfully ours on the lands which we were born on, and we call upon the Kurdish authorities controlling the North of Iraq to intervene, it's enough with them only watching all that afflicts us as if we are not citizens".
Assyrians Experience Slow Cultural Revival in Courtesy of the Eurasianet.com (ZNDA: Istanbul) Filled with honey-colored stone homes with exquisite relief carvings, Midyat, located in southeast Turkey, is one of the country’s most beautiful ancient towns. It is also one of its most haunted.
Once almost exclusively populated by Assyrian Christians – an ancient sect that traces its roots back to the earliest days of Christianity and that still uses Aramaic, the language spoken during the time of Jesus, for its liturgy – the town is now almost completely devoid of its original inhabitants. Caught up in the violence that resulted from the separatist war that was fought in the area in the 1980’s and 90’s between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkish security forces, Assyrians from Midyat and several other towns and villages in the area fled to Europe, particularly Germany and Sweden, leaving their ancestral homeland behind. Some 30-40,000 Assyrians lived in the area around Midyat, known as the Tur Abdin Plateau, 40 years ago. Nobody is sure what the population is today, although in Midyat only 100 Christian families remain. Still, there are signs of Assyrian life throughout the region. In Midyat, where the community no longer has a priest and must rotate its Sunday services throughout the town’s churches in order to keep them alive, the Mor Barsaumo church holds regular afternoon classes for local Assyrian children, who learn how to read in Aramaic. On a recent afternoon, about 20 kids of varying ages were in the 1,500-year-old church’s courtyard horsing around during breaks from their lessons. Down the road from the church, behind a high wall, a local Assyrian contractor named Hanna Goze is busy putting the finishing touches on the renovation of a massive stone house, owned by a Christian who now lives in Switzerland. The house is to be used as a summer vacation home, according to Goze.
In fact, Goze said he’s been quite busy doing similar kinds of renovation work, not only for individual Assyrians looking to return for short spells, but also for local churches and monasteries. A few years ago he helped restore a monastery at the edge of Midyat, which had been shut for years, but that now has a monk and two nuns living there. "How do we survive? Well, by the grace of God," says Timotheos Samuel Aktas, the metropolitan (or archbishop) of the Tur Abdin area, who lives in another monastery near Midyat. The monastery the metropolitan lives in, Mor Gabriel, had been shut for decades before reopening in 1952. "Life is better than before," Aktas said, comparing today to the 1980’s and 90’s. "But life in the area is like a ship at sea," he continued, making a waving motion with his hands. "We don’t know what will happen."
Aktas, a somewhat taciturn man, first came to the monastery in 1961 as a monk. He has served as metropolitan since 1985, and says he’s not sure how the Assyrians returning from Europe for short-term stays will impact the local community. "They want to keep two watermelons in one hand," he said. "It’s hard." Still, compared to only a few years ago, there is a sense of slow renewal in several of the traditionally Assyrian villages in the area around Midyat. In the village of Kalit, a collection of old stone houses surrounded by green vineyards, Diaspora funds sent from Germany and Sweden has helped restore the historic church, which dates back to the 4th century.
Felixinos Saliba Ozmen, the metropolitan of Mardin, a town near Midyat that also once had a large Assyrian population, said he believes that a creeping return to the region by Assyrians is underway. "We would like to keep this hope alive. It has something to do with homesickness, homeland sickness," Ozmen said during a visit to the Kalit church with a group of former villagers who now live in Sweden. "It’s very important that we live here," he added. "We have been here for 4,000 years in Mesopotamia, since before Christianity, and it’s very important for our culture, for our church, that we continue to live here."
Pope Awards Sarkis Aghajan For Services to Assyrian community and Catholic Church Courtesy of Ankawa.com
(ZNDA: Arbil) Pope Benedict XVI has honored Sarkis Aghajan by naming him a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great. Mr Aghajan was awarded the title, one of the highest and most widely recognized pontifical orders, for his contributions to the Assyrian community and his work for the Catholic church in Iraq. Pope Benedict XVI bestowed Mr. Aghajan with the distinction through His Beatitude Mar Emmanuel Delly, patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, and Thomas Haleem, Vatican’s Ambassador to Iraq. Mar Delly praised Mr Aghajan by commenting that "your name is engraved in all our hearts, and especially in the hearts of the Christian community. Future generations will remember your name and your generosity. Your work will be remembered and recognized in our books, in our places of worship and our associations.” Pope Benedict XVI said in his message: “… we are aware that the Church has flourished in Iraq. As a sign of our gratitude and appreciation for his work and generosity, we bestow Mr Sarkis Aghajan with the honor of Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great and we grant him all the privileges and powers that come with the title.”
Iraqi Christians on Edge After Priest's Kidnapping Courtesy of Zenit News Agency (ZNDA: Baghdad) Last week's kidnapping at gunpoint of a Chaldean priest in Baghdad has sent shock waves throughout the Christian community in Iraq. On August. 15, the car in which Father Saad Sirop Hanna, 34, was traveling was stopped by three masked gunmen, when he was returning home from celebrating Mass in St. Jacob's Church, in the Baghdad district of Al Dora. With the passing of time, concern grows for his safety, said the charity Aid to the Church in Need. Last Sunday, Benedict XVI expressed his closeness to suffering Iraqi victims and appealed to the kidnappers for the release of the Chaldean priest. Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly of Babylon of the Chaldeans held a meeting last week with the prime minister of Iraq to try to find ways for Father Sirop's release. For his part, Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, in northeastern Iraq, implored on television for the priest's release. Subsequently, during an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, he commented on the distress that the incident has caused in the Christian community. "Christians are living in a panic and they are terrified of more attacks on their priests and their churches," the archbishop said. "When a priest is kidnapped, the Christian community takes it very seriously because he is such an important religious symbol," he explained. Deterioration According to Archbishop Sako, the kidnappers have demanded a ransom of about $1 million. A few days ago they telephoned Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly, informing him that they were holding the priest. Meanwhile, friends and colleagues of Father Sirop have praised his determination to minister to his people as widely as possible during the current crisis. Aid to the Church in Need had agreed to sponsor him to study for a doctorate in philosophy in Rome, starting this autumn. Aid to the Church in Need noted that the kidnapping comes amid a sudden deterioration of life for Christians in Iraq -- a number of lay Christians have been killed in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, another Baghdad Chaldean priest, Father Raad Washan, was kidnapped though he was released 48 hours later. Archbishop Sako mentioned that the lives of other priests have been threatened. Last Sunday, Mass attendance in Baghdad was very low when a 48-hour curfew was introduced after fears of an increase in violence associated with a Shiite pilgrimage. The archbishop described Baghdad as "a jail" from which people are desperate to escape. Donny George Leaves Job, Iraq (ZNDA: Damascus) Dr. Donny George, an Assyrian, is well known internationally for his efforts to recover Iraq's looted antiquities. He is the Director of the Baghdad Museum and recently visited Europe and North America, including several Assyrian communities.
According to a publication called the Art Newspaper, Dr. George is reported to be in Syria with his family. Dr. George is also said to have told the paper the Iraqi state board of antiquities and heritage, which he presided over, had come under the increasing influence of supporters of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr, and he had been trying to counter a growing Islamist and anti-Western agenda.He claimed that people had been put into the antiquities department who were interested only in Islamic sites and not in Iraq's rich earlier heritage. But these and other reported grievances are being vigorously contested by Iraq's minister of state for antiquities, Liwa Sumaysim, a member of Moqtada al Sada's party. "These are lies," he said. The minister insisted that he was interested in all of the archaeology and antiquities of Iraq, not only its Islamic heritage. And he rejected Dr George's reported claim that the 1400-strong special antiquities protection force was running out of funding, risking further looting at Iraq's thousands of archaeological sites. The minister said Dr George had left Iraq without telling him, and despite their differences, he said he would be welcome back. However, according to Basra News and Ankawa.com, Dr. Donny George had rather resigned his position as the Deputy Head of the Iraqi Antiquity and head of Baghdad Museum and then fled to an undisclosed address in Damascus, Syria with his family. On Saturday Iraq's Culture Ministry confirmed the receipt of Dr. George's resignation in early August. According to a report by Ellen Knickmeyer at Washington Post on 26 August, before he quit as head of Iraq's antiquities board, Donny George made a final desperate attempt this summer to safeguard the relics of 5,000 years of history: He ordered the doors of the National Museum plugged with concrete against the near-unbridled looting of ancient artifacts. The Culture Ministry ordered the museum closed and has not announced plans to reopen it. Surrounded by weeds, it now sits behind metal gates, piled sandbags and concertina wire. Wary guards holding pistols and Kalashnikov assault rifles came to a front gate Saturday and confirmed that the museum's front entrance had been sealed. Culture Ministry officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they said they were not authorized to comment, confirmed that Haider Farhan, a member of a Shiite religious party, has become the acting head of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage since George's departure. George told the Art Newspaper that Farhan had no relevant experience for the job. A Culture Ministry official questioned that judgment, saying Harhan was a young official in the department with a master's degree in Islamic manuscripts. Jordan's Royal Court Chief Meets Patriarch Mar Ignatius (ZNDA: Amman) On 28 August, representing His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan, Royal Court Chief Salem Turk met Patriarch Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas, Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Amman, Jordan. During the meeting Mr. Turk expressed King Abdullah appreciation for the Patriarch's visit to Jordan and his efforts to promote tolerance, understanding and cooperation amongst nations. Patriarch Ignatius paid tribute to King Abdullah's policy and efforts to realize peace and stability in the Middle East. He also commended the key role of the Hashemites over the years to safeguard and defend the holy places. On Saturday Patriarch Ignatius, currently on a visit to Jordan, laid the foundation stone of the first Syriac Orthodox Church in Jordan.
U.S. Army Engineers Taste History, Humility Courtesy of the Washington Post
(ZNDA: Baghdad) By mid-afternoon, it had already been a long, hot day for the Army engineers. They had toured a nearly complete water treatment plant and a half-built prison, but they had one more stop to make -- a place where the workmen had finished the job long before anyone had heard of George W. Bush or Saddam Hussein. Or Jesus. Or Alexander the Great. Breathing a little easier as their convoy of armored sport-utility vehicles pulled through the gate of Tallil air base at 3:15 p.m., the engineers headed not for the comfort of their air-conditioned bunks but for an enormous mound of mud and brick tucked inside the base. A few minutes later, they stood at the foot of the 4,100-year-old ziggurat, or temple tower, of Ur. They were no longer two dozen or so tired, sweaty soldiers toiling to rebuild a war-torn country. They were construction wonks returning to their oldest, deepest roots. Their sidearms and holsters could just as easily have been tool belts, their body armor, comfy denim or well-worn flannel. As he clambered up the mud-brick stairs leading to the ziggurat's flat top -- which the ancient Sumerians considered the dwelling place of their moon god, Nanna -- Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock recalled his first visit to Ur. It was 1991, and Strock's Engineer Brigade of the 24th Infantry Division was taking apart Tallil air base, while American air power was doing the same to Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait. Strock, who is now the Army's chief of engineers, found time to visit the ziggurat and toyed with the idea of pocketing one of its bricks as a souvenir. He decided against it. Like Strock 15 years before, the Army engineers scrambling around the ziggurat on this breezy-but-blistering July afternoon seemed content to take in the sights without taking them home. For all the intimations of empire attached to the U.S. presence in Iraq, these troops exhibited none of the rapaciousness associated with armies encountering antiquities, such as Napoleon's in the conquest of Egypt more than 200 years before. The engineers were just having fun, a subdued, compassionately conservative kind of fun. "Okay, who knows the history?" Once posed, the question drew an assortment of answers, all different. No matter -- there was more to see, so the soldiers trooped back down the long stairway and through the surrounding sprawl of ancient ruins largely unearthed by Sir Leonard Woolley in the 1920s and '30s. "I found some asphalt," exclaimed Col. Gary E. Johnson, who commands the Corps of Engineers in southern Iraq. It certainly looked like asphalt, and it was probably pretty old. The ancients bound their bricks with an asphalt-like substance made of bitumen. "Great," someone shouted back. "Boil it down and use it to resurface the roads." As the engineers wended their way around, across and over the maze of foundations, partial walls and narrow archways, Johnson grew reflective. "Just when you think you're real smart," said Johnson, who holds a master's degree in structural engineering from the University of Maryland, "you see something like this and you realize they had real intelligent people a long time ago." As he spoke, Johnson was standing on one side of a rectangular pit that one member of the group identified as the Sumerians' royal tombs. Triangular arches at either end of the bottom of the pit marked the entrances to chambers where kings and queens were once buried. The arches also supported the ledges on which the soldiers stood gazing into the dark pit. How much longer the arches would hold up appeared debatable. Johnson looked across the pit to see the man who will become his boss in October, Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh. The general was standing at the apex of an arch that had seen better days. When Johnson warned the general that his perch might not last many more millennia, Walsh responded that the ledge supporting Johnson and a reporter was severely bowed. Time to move on. It was about 4 p.m. when the engineers reached the end of the trail. Before them stood the roofless structure revered as the home of the prophet Abraham. The Bible refers to "Ur of the Chaldees" as the place where Abraham lived before heading off to the land of Canaan, though many historians say there isn't much evidence that this is the same Ur. Until the 1990s, Abraham's house was nothing but a foundation. But when Pope John Paul II expressed interest in visiting someday, Hussein ordered up the walls, arches and steps that now grace the site. As their day ended, the engineers moved respectfully, from room to room. Johnson again marveled at the genius and skill that made Ur the pride of Sumer. "And," he drawled through a broad grin, "they didn't use a calculator." |
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Assyrians in a New Middle East and the Myth of “Kurdistan” Well, if Israel and the U.S. have done anything in this world, it is to set precedents: Preemption is valid foreign policy, and entering foreign land to take care of your terrorist problems is acceptable. The Kurds in Iraq, busying themselves playing “democracy” – what they are boldly calling “South Kurdistan” – are encouraging foreign investment, paying Israeli contractors to train and arm their peshmergas, marginalizing, killing and kidnapping Assyrians, and annoying to no end their Arab, Turkish, and Persian neighbors. The most bizarre part is that Israel and America seem to think, or had thought in the past, that “ Kurdistan” a good idea. While everyone else in the region is dumbfounded at this unlikely ally, the U.S. says “hmm...yes, Kurds!!! That’s our ticket!” and Israel is simply abiding by its “ANYONE but Arabs – or Christians” general foreign policy. And there is an arrogance in the Western world regarding “nation building”, and what a “better” middle east (for whom, is the main question) would look like. Something like this:
A map not likely to happen, but it is gaining popularity in the Western academic and policy circles – as if the solution to a western-carved bungle in the Middle East is ANOTHER western-carved up bungle in the Middle East. It is interesting – and funny – to hear western political analysts try to deal with “Islamism” the way they were dealing with Communists twenty years ago: “Grow the middle class, promote democratic values, and just watch the Islamic world secularize”. While I don’t have the answer to ending Islamism – this approach certainly is not it. Changing loyalty from Karl Marx to Adam Smith is one thing; changing allegiance from Allah to Adam Smith is another thing completely. It seems that it is strategically better for Israel and the U.S. to have the Christians of the Middle East disappear, whether Lebanese, Assyrian, or other. Israel has easier claim to “moral authority” to attack “fanatic Muslims” that surround them, and the U.S. needs an “Islamic threat” in the Middle East in order to contain is power over the region, and keep the American public’s support in what they do over there. If they truly believed in the democratic values they espouse, they would be promoting plurality and protecting minorities – like Assyrians and Lebanese Maronites, against arabization and kurdification, instead of promote new and improved soon-to-be Islamic terrorist havens like “ Kurdistan”. There is no doubt that Islamists represent a threat to the Western world, considering it is one of Islam’s goals to convert the world to Islam (something yet misunderstood by Westerners and denied by Islamist apologists and academics). Assyrians – and indeed any non-Muslim group that lives in Muslim lands – understand this concept better than most, as they have only barely survived Islam and its conquests for the last 1300 years. But it seems like creating more Islamic states, and empowering new ones to emerge, like “Kurdistan”, is exactly the opposite of what should be happening in the Middle East. There is no way Kurds have ever in their history suffered close to what Assyrians have endured. Assyrians have felt the wrath of every Muslim group that surrounds them, including Kurds; they have been abandoned by Western allies, and they have grown so tired of persecution, massacre, and genocide, that there are Assyrians who, amongst other religious and political reasons, would rather be called “Chaldean” or “Syriac” – something Kurds and Arabs welcome, as long as “Assyrian” is never uttered. After all, with the recognition of “Assyrian” comes the inherent logical conclusion – the recognition of indigeneity and land rights. And since Kurds occupy Assyrian villages, the last word they want to hear is “Assyrian”. They are counting on the Western media’s consistent misnomer – “Iraqi Christian”, so we can ultimately be defined as “Kurdistani Christian” and be absorbed into the Kurdish nation. The only sin Assyrians have committed in modern history is having small population numbers in Iraq. And that’s only because the Turks, Kurds, and Arabs took their turn committing massacres against innocent Assyrians. While the world tries to decide whether or not Iraq should stay one country or be divided, the question of whether Assyrians should get their own land remains unanswered, un-discussed, ignored, and peripheral. When constructing Israel, the Jews claimed their 5,000 year struggle for a homeland, having been subjected to severe human rights abuses and guarding jealously their right to self-determination. They claimed that they fit nowhere in the world, and could only survive under their own rule. Assyrians are in the exact same position, except unlike the Jews, do not have the comfort of knowing that an ally like the U.S. will ensure their survival. Israel is one of the most protected countries in the world, even as it faces imminent threat from their Arab neighbors. Assyrians, while older than Jews and with ties to their land dating almost 7,000 years, have no such luck or assurance of their survival. While the occupied Kurdish north of Iraq has been trying fruitlessly to convince the world they are ready for autonomy, the Assyrians are struggling to survive and maintain their identity under Kurdish “rule”, the Sunni and Shia fight each other, insurgents are attacking American and coalition troops everywhere and the Iraq central government are trying to maintain Iraq’s border integrity and govern from Baghdad. Academics and writers like Peter Galbraith, Russel Howe and Gareth Stansfield constantly and consistently write about the importance of partitioning Iraq. In the name of peace, these academics claim, divide up Iraq and let the different groups live separate of each other. My question to these writers is always the same – under whose authority should the country be divided? The same authority that was used to draw Iraq’s convenient border in the first place? If Iraq wants to partition, it is up to Iraq, and those who live in Iraq. Britain and the U.S. have done enough damage in the region to have its academics start spewing “map redrawing” policies all over again. The U.S. simply doesn’t know enough about the region, its history, and its politics to make such drastic changes. They have shown their infantile knowledge by allowing the Kurds to garner as much power as they have in the new Iraq. The Kurds, contrary to people like Mr. Galbraith’s analyses, will not stop at Iraq. That is blatant through the evolving rhetoric coming out of “Kurdistan” now – what used to be “Iraqi Kurdistan” is now being called “South Kurdistan”, implying that Iraq will only be the Southern part of a greater “Kurdistan”, including Southeastern Turkey, or “Northern Kurdistan”. Talk about counting your chickens before they’ve hatched. A Kurdish state makes no buffer in any way between an Islamist Iraq and a secular Turkey. First, the KDP will not have power, at least democratically, for very long. The Kurdish Islamist party is well known to be popular, even more so than the KDP. Second, the KDP is much less popular and powerful in Turkey than the PKK, an established terrorist organization according to the Turkish – and American – government. Third, the KRG is showing its propensity toward Ba’athist like policies toward their ethnic and religious minorities, like the Assyrians, and whose villages are being lost to the Kurds even now. When I wrote in a previous article, “To Hell With Unity”, I explained a simple concept: alliance does not mean full acceptance or even friendship. Assyrians have made mistakes in “alliances”, approaching it like beggars rather than choosers. The nature of relationships has been too one-sided. This has been the wrong approach. It is easy to live in the past and focus on our eternal enemies, it is shrewder to realize mistakes, evolve, and work within the geopolitics of the Middle East to get what we want. It’s true, Assyrians have little to bargain with. We have no real military might. We are not rich (unless the Churches need money for legal battles – suddenly our pockets are full of disposable cash). Our internal dissension, promoted by our KDP-funded churches, is weakening us internally and externally. We have virtually nothing on our side. And yet, in the 3 short years since the removal of Saddam, we have managed to gain the attention of U.S., U. K., Australian, and European politicians, media, academics, and policymakers. It has gotten to the point where the KDP is watching publications like AINA and Zinda, wondering what these “annoying Assyrians in the Diaspora” will say about them next. Frankly, if there is one thing we are slowly learning from the Jews, is that organizing against and complaining about mistreatment and marginalization is more powerful than we think. We just need to organize better and complain more. We are Assyrians. We deserve better than what we are getting. So, what is “The Myth of Kurdistan”? It is that it will be a stable, democratic country with Kurds being all inclusive of minorities (like they’re doing now…right?) The biggest laugh is the Vatican and their Chaldean puppets fighting for the attention of Sarkis Aghajan [1], who they jealously want to pry away from the Assyrian Church of the East. It’s like two schoolgirls battling over the football star – you guys remember what happened to the football star from high school, right? He became completely useless when high school was over, knocked up his high school girlfriend and developed a severe drinking problem. The Myth of Kurdistan will unravel with Turkey and the PKK and frankly, themselves – Kurds have no interest in staying in Iraq, why should they? They want Turkish land, bought and fought for with Iraqi oil money (Ohhh..THAT’S why they want Kirkuk so badly…). Half their population lives in Turkey. Why should they recognize the name Assyrian? That would mean they concede that they are on our land. If you were the KDP, how would you handle the “Assyrian problem”? Maybe the same way the Turks have been dealing with their “Kurdish problem”? How silly of those of us who think otherwise. 1. I guess we have to start telling the Vatican to stay out of our internal political issues? Shame on you Vatican. As if you haven’t caused enough problems within the Assyrian nation.
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Head of U.S. Chaldean Group Presses Govt, U.N. on Iraq's Chaldean Exiles Catholic News Service (ZNDA: Arlington) Mr. Joseph Kassab, head of the Chaldean Federation of America, met 25 August for the sixth time this year with officials from the State Department to press the case to allow Chaldeans -- Iraqi Christians -- fleeing their homeland to emigrate to the United States. "We've got their attention," Kassab told Catholic News Service during an interview in his hotel room in Arlington, a Washington suburb, prior to meeting No. 6. After the sixth meeting, he told CNS by telephone, "There's going to be a little help. ... There's a little light at the end of the tunnel." Kassab, whose brother is Chaldean Archbishop Djibrail Kassab of Basra, Iraq, is still waiting for effective action.
He estimated that less than half of the 1.1 million-1.2 million Chaldeans who were in Iraq before the U.S. war began in 2003 remain in Iraq today. Kassab said most of them -- 92 percent -- have fled to Greece, Syria, Turkey and Jordan. Kassab distributed a 44-page report, "Operation R4 -- Wave 1: A Survey Study of Iraqi-Christian Refugees Worldwide," during his State Department meeting. The previous day he gave the report to representatives of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The "R4" in the report's title, Kassab said, stands for research, rescue, relief and resettlement. Kassab said the U.N. response was, "If you have the data and you want to organize it, we'll certainly look into it." Kassab's report documents more than 1,200 cases of Chaldean Christians leaving Iraq, and those interviewed were allowed to give multiple reasons for their departure. In interviews with 368 Chaldean refugees now in Greece, Syria, Turkey and Jordan, the organization found that 85 percent of the cases involved people leaving because of religious persecution. About 6 percent of the cases involved Chaldean women having been sexually assaulted or raped, and 15 percent of the cases included the vulnerability of women and girls in their family as a reason for leaving Iraq. About 23 percent of the cases involved abduction of a relative by members of the Iraqi insurgency, militia or Islamic gangs. Chaldeans have been targeted for violence because "the Iraqi Christians are a peaceful people," Kassab said. "They are not divided into tribes. They don't have a militia to protect them like the Shiites or the Sunnis or the Kurds." Kassab likened the situation facing Iraq's Chaldeans to that of Jews in Iraq in the 1950s. "The Jews were kicked out and their properties seized," he said. Chaldeans who have not left Iraq already "are too poor to get out," he added, noting that when Chaldeans ready to leave put up their houses for sale, they get deliberately low offers. Of all the Chaldean refugees interviewed for the report, "we didn't hear even one of them saying, 'I want to go back.' They left in tears. They left in pain. They left without any desire to go back to their ancestral homeland," he said. Kassab said there are about 250,000 Chaldean-Americans, concentrated largely in the Detroit and Chicago metropolitan areas in the Midwest and in California and Nevada in the West. He added that most Chaldeans leaving Iraq would ordinarily qualify for emigration to the United States, as they can identify a close relative willing to take them in who is a U.S. citizen. However, a federal regulation that was passed as part of the Patriot Act forbids the entry of immigrants determined to have provided material support to the enemy. Paying ransom to kidnappers has been interpreted as providing material aid, Kassab said. Even the Iraqi citizen who helped locate U.S. Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch and aided in her rescue has been denied entry because he had to pose as being sympathetic to the Iraqis, Kassab said. Kassab told the story of a Chaldean woman he identified only as Miriam, whose house was occupied for a week by insurgents. They forced Miriam and her daughters, ages 16 and 15, to cook for them and give them directions. On the last day of their stay, the six insurgents raped Miriam and her daughters and told them they would be killed if they ever said anything. After the ordeal, Miriam and her daughters fled to another country -- the name of which Miriam did not want disclosed for fear of the insurgents' revenge. The family was denied U.S. entry because the cooking and directions under duress were construed by U.S. officials as providing material support. "We need the law, but we don't think it should be applied this way," Kassab said. "The United States government has not budged, not even one millimeter." John Lazar Announces Race for Turlock Mayor (ZNDA: Turlock) Longtime Turlock City Council Member, John Lazar, has announced his intent to run for Mayor of Turlock, California. Lazar currently serving, as Vice Mayor was first elected in 1992.
The son of the late John M. Lazar and Julia Lazar, he was born in Turlock in 1959. His grandparents, Mishial and Supya Lazar immigrated to San Francisco in 1921. Smouel and Shushan Sargis, maternal grandparents, immigrated to New York via France in 1932. Lazar, a member of the Assyrian American Civic Club of Turlock, has been active in the club – involved in its youth organization, dance troupe, and newspaper in the 1970’s and 1980s. He also served as a reporter for the Assyrian Star magazine. A graduate of California State University, Stanislaus in 1981, Lazar has served as legislative staff to federal and state officials. He currently is employed as a broker with Coldwell Banker Endsley and Associates. Lazar also serves on the Stanislaus County Local Agency Formation Commission. He was a member of the Stanislaus County Council of Governments (1999-2000) and the State Mandates Commission in Sacramento (2000-2005). He and his wife, Nellie, have three children. Questions or contributions may be sent to John Lazar for Turlock Mayor, P.O. Box 1633, Turlock, CA 95381. Campaign contact: Maryn Pitt (664-9073)
ADO Statement of the Occasion of the Martyrs Day Assyrian Democratic Organization August 7, 2006 Our Chaldo-Assyrian-Syriac people have gone through very difficult times throughout their long, bitter and turbulent history. Thousands have sacrificed their blood for the sake of their national identify, existence, culture and principles. With the beginning of the 20th century they were subjected to barbaric and ferocious campaigns, most vicious of which was the genocide premeditated and organized by the Turkish "Al-Ittihad wal-Taraki" government with close collaboration with its allies from some countries of then civilized world, mainly against the Chaldo-Assyrians-Syriacs, Armenians, and the Christian population of the Ottoman empire. This genocide, which was called "Al-Seyfo" and the atrocities that followed cost our people about half a million martyrs, they fell in Hakkari, A'med, Raha, Mardin, Azelh, Tor Abedin and other places, victims of hatred, chauvinism, and gruesome terrorism . Then in 1933, one year following Iraq's independence from Britain, while the wounds of our people were still healing, we suffered yet another blow in the peaceful Assyrian town of Simel in Iraq. Five thousand, children, women and elderly were cold-bloodedly slaughtered in the hands of the regular Iraqi army led by commander of the Northern region, Colonel Bakir Sadqi, in one of the ugliest crimes of state terrorism in modern history. These victims were nothing but civilian refugees that had taken refuge in this town fleeing for their life from battles waging between the Iraqi regular army on one hand, and our people's freedom fighters on the other struggling for their legitimate rights in the new Iraq then, similar to the other partners in the country. As a matter of fact, this terrible crime has opened up new chapters for policies of massacres and sectarian ethnic cleansing for the Iraqi upcoming successive regimes. In 1969 this regime perpetrated another massacre in the Assyrian town of "Souriya" in the north, three hundred civilians were massacred. This was followed by other massacres, mass graves and atrocities. Regrettable, the violence and the terrorism still have the upper hand in Iraq, even after the downfall of the dictatorship. Throughout the last century, our people have suffered great oppression and tyranny on the hands of some of their partners as well as some regional governments . This has led to great demographic changes in the historic places of their existence due to the policies of killings, displacement and discrimination, and has resulted in great decline in the number of the Christians and consequently, deprived the region of its spiritual and human richness and diversity, one of its oldest and most important cultural component and the leading source of its development. The sacrifices of our martyrs were not made for death; they sacrificed themselves for life. Most of them were innocent civilians, intellectuals, religious men like His Holiness Mar Benyamin Shimun, Ashour Yousef, Dr. Freidoun Atouraya, Bashar Helmy Bouraji, Bishop Mar Touma Aodo and others who have become symbols of martyrdom and dedication. They did not die for the sake of a sect or personal gains, but for the sake of their people's existence and dignity. The best lesson they have left for the coming generations is, working tirelessly for the fulfillment of the goals they have died for. There is no way of accomplishing these aims, but through national unity that they have called for, the unity of our people with all its denominations, away from na |
Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.
