ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Maintaining a commitment to human rights is of utmost importance if Kurdistan is to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS) – the group known locally as daesh -- a top United States diplomat warned.
“As we fight daesh we have to respect human rights,” Tom Malinowski, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor said at a conference in Erbil on Wednesday.
“We understand the anger of people who have lost members of their families, but if we want to win this fight we have to be very disciplined,” he said.
Noting the US' own experience in Iraq, where the gross mistreatment and torture of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison became a huge scandal, Malinowski warned: “Compromising your values is a strategic mistake.”
His comments come at a time when many in the Kurdistan Region are coming to terms with an incident late last month, when Kurds in control of the city of Kirkuk dragged the bodies of dead ISIS fighters through the streets after deadly clashes that killed dozens of Peshmerga soldiers.
Malinowski, visiting Iraq for the first time and speaking at a conference organized by the Erbil-based Middle East Research Institute (MERI), specifically warned against mistreating ISIS prisoners.
“If we harm enemy prisoners, daesh will not surrender, they will fight to the death,” he told an audience of journalists, academics and politicians, including the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) head of foreign relations, Hemin Hawrami.
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The US official noted that “the overwhelming majority of Sunnis do not want to live under terrorism of daesh,” and underscored the importance of welcoming Sunni Arab internally displaced people (IDPs), who some fear may include ISIS sympathizers.
A former Washington director of watchdog group Human Rights Watch, Malinowski told the audience, which included several US diplomats: “The best way to beat daesh is to make sure a vision of open and inclusive society wins out in Kurdistan.”
With the potential for a new cycle of violence, he said it is imperative to build state institutions where people with grievances can look for redress through the law, not revenge. In the shorter term, he called on leaders to inspire discipline and restraint. Leaders, he said: “Have to make it clear to everyone who looks up to them that there are limits which they cannot cross and things they cannot do.”
Turning to the reasons for the rise of ISIS in Iraq, Malinowski said that support for the group – also known as ISIL -- arose from feelings of grievance among certain segments of the Iraqi population.
“Daesh did not arise out of nothing, because some people in this country – especially among Sunnis – did not feel included and felt that their most basic human rights were denied,” he said at the conference, titled “Post-ISIL Opportunities for Democracy.”
Malinowski was circumspect when asked to comment on the issue of Kurdish independence, which the US has always opposed.
“Keep building your democracy, keep upholding your values which have made Kurdistan's reputation in the world,” Malinowski said. “It's the best way to gain international support for everything you aspire to.”
The US will remain supporters of Kurdistan until the “fight is finished,” Malinowski vowed. “We can defend your skies but only you can build your nation,” he concluded, referring to the US-led airstrikes that have kept ISIS from overrunning Kurdish territories.
