What is happening in Syrian Kurdistan? In the world media, this question is being snowed under by the recent gas attack in Damascus and the drums of war in the United States. Yet, it is a question that urgently needs to be answered: Are reports about the alleged atrocities against the Kurds true? Are the jihadists fighting in Syria guilty of massacring Kurds, kidnapping Kurdish women and children and beheading the men.”
The problem is that we do not really know. All we have are stories of people, as well as reports intentionally made to make us believe something terrible happened, but without offering actual proof. For journalists, that is not sufficient, and the same goes for Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani, who called for an independent investigation into what happened.
Kurdicide Watch, a Berlin-based Kurdish human rights organization, says that people sent to areas cited in the reports found no evidence of a massacre.
That is when I, as a journalist, seriously start to doubt. So who to ask?
I went to the people who might have seen something: Syrian refugees who have just arrived in Kurdistan. I hardly found any witnesses of the violence. Most people heard the stories, but like us, from media, friends or others.
Some said they saw the “beards” – meaning the Islamic fighters. Some saw the fighting between them and the Kurds. Some heard the bombings by the Syrian authorities. Some said the hospital of Derik was full – but Derik is mainly the victim of attacks by government troops. A few had a relative who was involved in the fighting.
They told me they had heard about a fatwa, permitting the “beards” to kill all Kurds, and take their wives and possessions.
I listened to horrible stories that were repeated by different people, about beheadings, kidnapping. Again and again I asked: did you see it? Was anyone you know involved?
The only killing one person saw was of his neighbor, a leader of the dominant Kurdish group in Syrian Kurdistan; another said his neighbor’s son was kidnapped; the International Red Cross reports speaking to an old man who saw a number of men beheaded.
But I did not find witnesses of the massacre that is frightening people so much that they flee in the thousands. The alleged incident that had people talking about genocide – the murder in a village of 450 inhabitants -- does not seem to have been witnessed by anyone.
So what have we got? A lot of propaganda and stories that scare people. “We do not want to live under Islamic control,” one Syrian Kurdish lady said to me. That, plus the growing poverty, rising prices and unemployment led to the stream of over 43,000 refugees in one week into Iraqi Kurdistan.
There is fighting going on in Syrian Kurdistan, there is no doubt about that. But who wants us to think there are massacres and genocide? There are a couple of things to consider. Firstly, the fighting in Syrian Kurdistan had hardly received any attention in the world media and among leaders. Syrian parties are calling for a no-fly zone, just like the West put into place over Iraq in 1991. We all know that the pictures of tens of thousands fleeing made the politicians act. Is the propaganda now meant to get the world to repeat this?
There is the other theory, that if Syrian President Bashar Assad can be seen as the saviour of his people from Islamic rule, he will be able to stay. And there is the complaint of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) that Turkey is sending ‘beards’ to flush them out of Syrian Kurdistan.
When I tried to find PYD members in the camps, I failed. Perhaps they are in cities like Erbil or Duhok, but it seems to me they did not flee in numbers equal the members of other parties. That is strange, as the PYD is said to have the support of at least a third of all Syrian Kurds.
Fact is, the loss of some 200,000 inhabitants from a total of some two million Kurds in Syria is damaging for a region that wants to become autonomous. Kurdish politicians in Iraq are also worrying about that. Many Syrian Kurds are looking for jobs in Iraqi Kurdistan and will not want to return anytime soon. This will have an effect on the society. Who could want this?
Dear readers, I am trying give you facts to help you make your own conclusions. Not all what you read or see on the Internet is true, and some is even meant to mislead you. I do not have the answers on this issue, I have mainly questions. But the questions need to be noticed. They demand answers.
