by Meredith Tax
The military front was progressing more rapidly than reconstruction. In October 2015, the PYD announced the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a new unified military grouping comprised of the YPG-YPJ, new Yazidi militias formed under the leadership of the PKK, and Arab brigades, including the Euphrates Volcano. The US Congress had already appropriated $721 million to supply Syrian rebels; the formation of the SDF permitted some of these supplies to get to the Kurds. On October 12, US planes dropped the first 50,000 tons of ammunition. There was speculation that one of the new force’s first tasks might be to capture Raqqa.41
Sinjar had already been recaptured on November 12, 2015, after fifteen months in the hands of Daesh. It was taken by a combined force of the Iraqi KDP peshmerga, Syrian YPG-YPJ, and the new Yazidi militias. The victory was not without its problems, as reported by The New York Times: “The head of the Iraqi Kurdish government, President Masoud Barzani, held a news conference on Mount Sinjar to hail the retaking of the town and made clear that it would formally be incorporated into Kurdistan. ‘Aside from the Kurdistan flag, no other flag will rise in Sinjar.’ As he uttered those words, however, a different flag was also prominently displayed in Sinjar—that of the rival PKK separatist movement, along with the banners of its Syrian Kurdish offshoot. After weeks of efforts by the Kurdistan government to sideline the PKK during the Sinjar campaign, the rival fighters bitterly insisted that they had in fact led the fighting . . . for months.”42
Retaking Sinjar had been in the works for some time, but was held up by the rivalry between the PKK and the KDP. Nor were the Iraqi Kurds happy that the Yazidi had formed their own militias and were talking about setting up a canton. To Barzani’s people this clearly meant that they were under PKK influence. According to Siddik Hasan Sukru, a political analyst in Erbil, Turkey was stirring the pot to keep the disagreement going, partly for logistical reasons: “If Sinjar stays in the hands of the PKK or its partisans, it will . . . provide Rojava with an outlet to the outside world. But if the KDP dominates Sinjar . . . the YPG and the PYD will be encircled.”43
The Backlash Begins
After the battle of Kobane, an ideological and political war heated up, led by Turkey, with support from its allies in the KDP and the Syrian opposition.
In 2012, after all the Kurdish groups walked out of the Syrian opposition’s coalition, Masoud Barzani, in an attempt to become the major Kurdish power broker in Syria, put together a Kurdish National Council. It consisted of sixteen very small parties, most of them close to Barzani’s KDP in Iraq. Despite major political differences, the PYD also joined this coalition and signed what was known as the Erbil Agreement that June, committing to form a united Kurdish front against the Syrian government.
Joining a coalition was one thing; agreeing on its structure was another. Integration of militias became a major issue; the tribal leaders of the small parties wanted to keep their own militias, which were classically a source of revenue. Remembering the fratricidal war between the Iraqi Kurdish parties in the nineties, as well as past KDP attacks on the PKK, the PYD insisted that any Kurdish militia that wanted to operate in Rojava had to come under a unified YPG-YPJ command. (Barzani has had his own problems with similar issues in Iraq; despite considerable US pressure to form a single professionalized army, the KDP and PUK peshmerga have both remained under the control of their separate political parties, and a newly-formed Yazidi militia in Sinjar has struggled to remain independent from the KDP command.)44
In May 2012, a delegation from the Kurdish National Council visited Washington and met with former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, and Frederic Hof, the US envoy to the Syrian opposition. According to Ford, the KNC asked the US for military aid that would “allow them to challenge the PYD as the preeminent force in Syria’s Kurdish areas, as well as megaphones, equipment for home hospitals, generators, satellite phones, and help setting up satellite TV channels.” When asked by Foreign Policy if the KNC also wanted American weapons, Ford said, “Of course they did,” but added that Washington did not offer to provide any. The KNC also asked for money to counter Muslim Brotherhood influence within the Syrian opposition, saying that the Brotherhood was buying people’s votes and they needed to be able to do the same. This wish was not fulfilled either. At some point in 2012, the US realized the KNC had no base and opened up a back channel to negotiate directly with the PYD.45
Some of the sixteen parties in the Kurdish National Council eventually decided to work with the PYD and joined TEV-DEM, while others remained outside. None were very large, nor did they have the reputation of being able to get a lot done, while the PYD was seen as efficient, especially on security matters. Siamend Hajo, one of the editors of KurdWatch, an online human rights monitor, described the PYD as clearly having more experience “than the other Syrian Kurdish parties; they make the youth feel involved by giving them responsibilities, such as taking care of security in neighbourhoods. They have sold gasoline at a discounted price; they have paid house visits to poor families and provided similar services. By contrast, several youths complained that the KNC had squandered money it had received from the KRG [Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq]. They sent a representative to the KRG to complain about its decision to give money to KNC individuals instead of to the KNC as an institution, and then this representative was given money . . . and he also took it for himself.”46
Meanwhile, Turkey was using its NATO position and the threat of loosing more refugees into Europe to create diplomatic and ideological opposition to Rojava. It made unfulfilled promises of participation in the war against Daesh to win Western support for its anti-Rojava position, and maintained a fleet of lobbyists to the tune of $5 million a year. In the summer of 2015 it hired former director of the CIA Porter Goss, among others, to make its war on the Kurds more palatable to the US.
According to Harut Sassounian, an Armenian-American journalist, Ankara’s roster of lobbyists in 2016 included the law firm Squire Patton Boggs, which it paid $32,000 a month. Former Senators Trent Lott and John Breaux, and former White House official Robert Kapla were all on the payroll. But Squire Patton Boggs was merely a subcontractor to the powerful lobbying firm The Gephardt Group, whose team for Turkey also consisted of other subcontractors, such as Greenberg Traurig, Brian Forni, Lydia Borland, and Dickstein Shapiro LLP (where Porter Goss worked). Other firms hired by Turkey, according to Sassounian, were: “Goldin Solutions, Alpaytac, Finn Partners, Ferah Ozbek, and Golin/Harris International. . . . Furthermore, several US nonprofit organizations serve as fronts for the Turkish government to promote its interests in the United States and take members of Congress and journalists on all-expense paid junkets to Turkey.”47
While Turkey has spent millions on lobbyists, the Rojava self-administration has not even had the resources to set up a Washington office. It is thus no surprise that Salih Muslim has been unable to get a US visa since 2012, despite numerous speaking invitations.48 Nor has Washington been alone in its deference to Turkey. The EU gave Erdogan strong, if unstated, support in his November 1 electoral campaign for absolute power, despite his countless violations of democratic norms, as Robert Ellis pointed out in The Independent:
“The AKP interim government’s conduct prior to the elections has, by any democratic standards, been outrageous. Under the leadership of Erdogan’s stooge, former foreign minister and now prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, it has instigated attacks on what is left of the free press, culminating in the takeover of the Koza Ipek media group, including two dailies and two TV stations, five days before the elections, converting it into a propaganda outlet for the government. . . . The EU’s role in the whole business is entirely shameful. In an attempt to appease Erdogan, the publication of a critical progress report on Turkey has been delayed by the EU Commission until after the elections, and a fortnight before the elections Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, paid a visit to Turkey, which was seen as tacit support for Erdogan’s
regime. In an attempt to stem the flood of refugees heading for Europe, the EU has offered a number of incentives to Turkey: €3 billion in aid, the restart of membership talks, visa-free travel to the Schengen area from 2016, and an invitation to Turkish leaders to EU summits.”49
After the battle of Kobane, an anti-Rojava narrative of war crimes and ethnic cleansing began to make the rounds among Western governments and NGOs. In 2015, the German Foreign Office funded a strategic report on dealing with Rojava by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, who had previously reported for Reuters and had good contacts in the Syrian opposition.50 Entitled “The West’s Darling in Syria,” the report was subheaded “Seeking Support, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party Brandishes an Anti-Jihadist Image,” and presented the PYD as a sinister force. The report warned that the US, despite the risks of “deepening an Arab Sunni backlash that has fanned radicalization,” was set on the PYD retaking “mostly Arab Territory captured by the Islamic State.” It dismisses the PYD’s project of democratic autonomy as a mixture of Marxist jargon and “a vague form of social democracy,” with emphasis on women’s and minority rights.51
Oweis’s main line of attack was clearly drawn from the Syrian opposition and, ignoring the fact that most Kurds are Sunnis, albeit secular ones, mobilized the same Sunni grievance narrative that is gospel to Daesh and other Islamists. He accused the PYD of building a “militia which could be allied to Assad from the country’s minorities,” and said people in the Syrian opposition preferred the Islamists as a “bulwark against perceived Kurdish expansionism at the expense of Arab Sunnis.” He accused the PYD of having killed at least thirty Kurds who opposed them, and, recycling an old accusation that had been long since proven false, said the PYD murdered Mashaal Tammo, an activist who wanted the Kurds to stay in the Syrian National Council and was assassinated by Assad’s intelligence service in October 2011.52
Although Tammo’s murder had been publicly laid at the door of the Assad government, Oweis used this and other accusations of human rights abuses to discredit Rojava and try to persuade Europeans not to support the Syrian Kurds. He wrote that “it would be a mistake for Berlin to toe the US line and support the PYD/YPG in the fight against the Islamic State beyond the Kurdish areas. The PYD has not only silenced other Kurdish voices, it has also been accused of ethnic cleansing in villages and towns inhabited mainly by Arabs, and it maintains cooperation with the Assad regime. Too strong a support will also further antagonize Turkey as well as rebel formations.”53
This tone of alarm at US aid to the Kurds was also, surprisingly, echoed in attacks on the PYD by Amnesty International. The press release for a report posted on October 13, 2015, by Lama Fakih, a Senior Crisis Advisor, was headlined, “Syria: US ally’s razing of villages amounts to war crimes.” The story alleged “a wave of forced displacement and home demolitions amounting to war crimes” committed by YPG-YPJ troops in villages recaptured from Daesh.
The second sentence says, “The Autonomous Administration is a key ally, on the ground, of the US-led coalition fighting against the armed group calling itself the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.” But rather than directing its demands for redress of violations at the accused offender, as is normally done, the press release goes on:
“‘It is critical that the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and all other states supporting the Autonomous Administration, or coordinating with it militarily, do not turn a blind eye to such abuses. They must take a public stand condemning forced displacement and unlawful demolitions and ensure their military assistance is not contributing to violations of international humanitarian law,’ said Lama Fakih. ‘In its fight against IS, the Autonomous Administration appears to be trampling all over the rights of civilians who are caught in the middle. We saw extensive displacement and destruction that did not occur as a result of fighting. This report uncovers clear evidence of a deliberate, co-ordinated campaign of collective punishment of civilians in villages previously captured by IS, or where a small minority were suspected of supporting the group.’”54
The report spread like wildfire through the media but, though it was taken as credible, a close examination of its approach raised many red flags. It is highly unusual for recommendations in a human rights report to be addressed to a third party, in this case the US, rather than the people who committed the alleged offenses. This alone would suggest a political agenda. Such was the conclusion of YPG commander Sipan Hemo, who forcefully rebutted the suggestions of ethnic cleansing in an interview two days after the Amnesty report was released:
“I can tell you that the timing and wording of this report is a bit suspicious. . . . [It] comes right after the coalition forces are giving us significant aid. . . . Thirty percent of YPG [is] made up of Arabs. . . . If such things were true, would they fight alongside us in Jazira and Kobane? We believe such reports want to harm our image. In our opinion, [the] Syrian National Coalition and forces behind it have a lot to do with this.”55
The allegations in the Amnesty report were also challenged by the head of Dutch Catholic Charities who had been on the spot; by Macer Gifford, a British volunteer with the YPG; and by the YPG High Command, which offered a line-by-line rebuttal, calling the report “arbitrary, biased, unprofessional and politicized.” The YPG noted that the report relied on aerial photos featured on Syrian coalition websites hostile to the Kurds, and that the destruction shown could easily have been the result of shelling or buildings being blown up by Daesh. “Under IS . . . village houses were looted, demolished, filled with oil tanks and burned to create smokescreens to mislead the coalition forces’ jets and our fighters, before retreating from an area in which they were dispelled, leaving behind complete destruction.”56 The YPG also alleged that information for the report was provided by one Anwar Al Katav, the commander of an Islamic battalion, who was involved in deporting Kurds and looting their properties in Tal Abyad and its surrounding villages, and who now worked for the Syrian National Council in Turkey. Amnesty has not responded to the allegation that its report relied on tainted sources.
Around the same time, Amnesty also published a report accusing the YPG of arbitrary detention and blatantly unfair trials.57 Feminist human rights activist Gita Sahgal, former head of Amnesty’s gender desk who left the organization in 2010 after a public dispute about their relationship to a UK pro-jihadi organization, responded to the report, noting that the “PYD has engaged extensively with human rights organisations in the middle of an existential human rights struggle for its existence. They have, as Amnesty acknowledged, provided free access and opportunities to talk to prisoners. Governments do sometimes do this—but how many Middle East governments do so? How many can be found free from torture? How many attempt to, in the main, treat prisoners who may be fighters and constitute a wartime threat, humanely? They are not meeting the very highest international standards, but unlike most prisons in the Middle East they are not found to be torturing or ill-treating prisoners and Amnesty is not alleging that they are keeping black sites. In fact, for an armed group which has never had time to properly establish a state they are quite remarkable. The headline for this could very well be ‘Western ally allows human rights access. No torture found though some concerns remain.’”58
In July 2015, Badirkan Ali, drawing on an investigation made by the UN Council for Human Rights, wrote in Jadaliyya that the only ethnic cleansing going on in northern Syria had been done first by Islamist and Arab nationalist groups in the Free Syrian Army and then by Daesh, and it had been directed not at Arabs or Turkmen but at Armenians and Kurds. Elements of the Free Syrian Army had destroyed the Armenian church and driven Kurds from Tel Ahyad and surrounding villages. The false accusations against the Rojava Kurds, he wrote, further cemented “the idea that there is a zero-sum conflict between Kurds and Arabs in Syria. . . and were disseminated as propaganda to cover up what happened earlier, in which Kurds were uprooted from the area even before ISIS emerged in the region.”59
The Oweis and Amnesty reports were part o
f a process of building an anti-Rojava narrative of war crimes and ethnic cleansing that began during the successful YPG-YPJ campaign to drive Daesh out of Tal Abyad. Rami Abdulrahman, founder of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, generally considered the most authoritative source on events in Syria, was asked in June 2015 about such allegations. He replied, “There’s no ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Til Abyad against the Turkmen and Arabic population. If the YPG would have wanted to expel Arabs and Turkmens, it would have done so already during the liberation of the villages. Nevertheless . . . in some villages, like in Dogan or Al Bajela, the inhabitants were prevented from returning to the villages for a longer period of time because IS fighters were still expected to be in the villages. . . . Within the Syrian chaos, people need a perspective. . . . People in Syria have to see examples for a peaceful togetherness in their own country. And North Syria could become an example for [the] whole [of] Syria.”60
Preventing such an example from taking hold may be the point of false human rights accusations, which represent a point of view that finds it inconceivable that different ethnic groups and religions could live together and treat one another decently, at least in the Middle East. This view is held not only by Arab nationalists, Islamists, and Daesh, but also by US conservatives like John Bolton, who said the only solution for Syria and Iraq was partition along ethnic and religious lines, as in the former Yugoslavia.61 As the YPG Command stressed in its response to Amnesty, seeing Rojava through this prism could only “contribute to [the] deepening of ethnic tensions as it portrays the ongoing conflict as sectarian war between the Kurds and Arabs. . . . The reality on the ground is completely different and the area enjoys a peaceful coexistence among different ethnic and religious components.”62