NO GREEN ZONE OF ETHNIC MINORITIES IN IRAQ
Bill Weinberg
New California Media, CA
May 15 2007
Editor’s Note: Last month the massacre of 23 Yazidis — one of Iraq’s
numerous micro-ethnic groups– spotlighted a little known aspect of war
in that country: how more and more minority groups are now threatened
with extinction. Iraq now ranks second to Sudan as the country where
minorities are at greatest risk, according to the London-Minority
Rights Group International. Bill Weinberg, edits the online journal
World War 4 Report.com.
NEW YORK — Amid daily media body counts and analyses of whether the
"surge" is "working," there is an even more horrific reality in Iraq,
almost universally overlooked.
The latest annual report by the London-based Minority Rights
Group International, released earlier this year, places Iraq
second as the country where minorities are most under threat-after
Somalia. Sudan is third. More people may be dying in Darfur than Iraq,
but Iraq’s multiple micro-ethnicities-Turcomans, Assyrians, Mandeans,
Yazidis-place it at the top of the list.
While the mutual slaughter of Shi’ite and Sunni makes world headlines,
Iraq is home to numerous smaller faiths and peoples-now faced with
actual extinction. Turcomans are the Turkic people of northern Iraq,
caught in the middle of the Arab-Kurdish struggle over Kirkuk and its
critical oilfields. Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, now targeted
for attack, trace their origins in Mesopotamia to before the arrival
of the Arabs in the seventh century. So do the Mandeans, followers of
the world’s last surviving indigenous Gnostic faith-now also facing
a campaign of threats, violence and kidnapping. The situation has
recently escalated to outright massacre.
In late April, a grim story appeared on the wire services about
another such small ethnic group in northern Iraq. Twenty-three
textile factory workers from the Yazidi community were taken from a
mini-bus in Mosul by unknown gunmen, placed against a wall and shot
down execution-style. Three who survived were critically injured.
Yazidis, although linguistic Kurds, are followers of a pre-Islamic
faith which holds that earth is ruled by a fallen angel. For this, they
have been assailed by their Muslim neighbors as "devil-worshippers"
and are often subject to persecution.
The wire accounts portrayed the attack as retaliation for the stoning
death of a Yazidi woman who had eloped with a Muslim man and converted
to Islam. After the killings, hundreds of Yazidis took to the streets
of Bashika, their principal village in the Mosul area.
Shops were shuttered and Muslim residents locked themselves in their
homes, fearing reprisals.
Yazidis have often been the target of calumnies, and the stoning story
may or may not be true. If it is, it says much about the condition
of women in ‘liberated’ Iraq, where ‘honor killings’ witness a huge
resurgence. In any case, it says much about the precarious situation
of minorities in post-Saddam Iraq.
By eerie coincidence, April 24, the day the story of the massacre
appeared on the wire agencies, also marked the 92nd anniversary of
the start of the Armenian genocide, commemorated in solemn ceremony
by Armenians worldwide. Following the mass arrests of that day
in 1915, some 1.5 million met their deaths in massacres and forced
deportations at the hands of Ottoman Turkish authorities. The Yazidis,
whose territory straddles contemporary Turkey and Iraq, were targeted
for extermination in the same campaign.
The Yazidis may be targeted for extermination again. After the Mosul
massacre, a statement from the League of Yazidi Intellectuals said
that 192 Yazidis have been killed since the US invaded Iraq-not
including the most recent 23 victims. It is telling that the United
States refuses to officially acknowledge the Armenian genocide, out
of a need to appease NATO ally Turkey. More disturbingly, the United
States is now presiding over the re-emergence of genocide in the same
part of the planet.
The United States went into Iraq in 2003 to put an end to a regime
that had committed genocide against the Kurds in 1988 (when, lest
we forget, it was still being supported by Washington). Even if
the aim was to control Iraq’s oil under a stable, compliant regime,
the result has been Yazidis massacred, Assyrian churches bombed, the
majority of the Mandeans forced into exile in neighboring countries.
The armed insurgency and the forces collaborating with the occupation
seem equally bent on exterminating perceived religious and ethnic
enemies. In April 2004, the Mahdi Army of Shi’ite militant cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr burned down the Roma ("Gypsy") village of Qawliya,
accused of "un-Islamic" behavior-like music and dance. Last year, the
usually pacifistic Sufis, followers of Islam’s esoteric tradition,
announced formation of a militia to defend against the Shi’ite
supremacists in both opposition and collaboration. "We will not wait
for the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade to enter our houses," read
the statement from the Qadiri Sufis. "We will fight the Americans and
the Shi’ites who are against [the United States]." Suicide bombers
have also struck Sufi tekiyas (gathering places).
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio recently stated without
irony: "We can walk out of Iraq, just like we did in Lebanon,
just like we did in Vietnam, just like we did in Somalia and we
will leave chaos in our wake." He may be right. But the alternative
may be staying-presiding over, and fueling chaos. Boehner ignores
the inescapable reality that United States intervention created the
current chaos, now approaching the genocidal threshold. It has only
escalated throughout the occupation.
This reality raises tough questions for those calling for military
intervention in Darfur: will this end the genocide there-or inflame
it? And the United States failure to even impose sanctions on Sudan,
despite four years of threats, again points to oil and realpolitik
as imperial motives, rather than humanitarian concerns. Even the
renewed warfare in Somalia, topping the Minority Rights Group list,
was sparked by the U.S.-backed Ethiopian intervention late last year.
There are secular progressive forces in Iraq who oppose both
the occupation and the ethno-exterminators in collaboration and
insurgency alike. These groups, such as the Iraq Freedom Congress and
the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, support a multi-ethnic
Iraq, and constitute a civil resistance. Their voices have been lost
to the world media amid the spectacular violence.
Such voices may have little chance in the escalating crisis. But
looking to the United States occupation as the guarantor of stability
is at least equally deluded. Above all, Iraq’s minorities will likely
be struggling for survival in the immediate future, whether the United
States stays or goes. We owe them, at least, the solidarity of knowing
about them.
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