Iraq war 'tragedy' for Christians in entire Middle East

By Indipendent Catholic News

 

'War has sown the seeds of religious violence for a generation. The future looks bleak for Christians in Iraq, as the Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict spreads across the Middle East.'

The Iraq war has been a tragedy for Christians in Iraq and the Middle East, leading to a massive exodus of historic communities from the lands of the Bible Release International said in a statement this morning.
Iraq once boasted one of the most established Christian minorities in the region, dating back to the birth of the faith. But Christians have left in their droves since the war against Saddam Hussein in 2003.
"Christians have lost their trust in the land and the future," Chaldean Archbishop Bashar M Warda told the UK-based Release International. "The attack on Christians has been immense. Pray for their safety in this chaotic situation."As the haemorrhage from Iraq continues, observers say just a quarter of a million Christians remain - while upwards of four-fifths have fled the country. Iraq is now considered one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian, ranking close to the top of the persecution watch lists. The exodus gathered pace when law and order broke down after the invasion of Iraq.
Today the Christian presence itself is now dwindling, not only in Iraq, but in the surrounding nations. Christians have been driven out by extremists who have flourished in the power vacuum created by the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
"In our visits to help persecuted Christians, many ordinary Iraqis told us that things had been better for believers under Saddam Hussein," says Release Chief Executive, Paul Robinson."Few had fond words for the dictator, who kept the church under tight surveillance and imprisoned some evangelicals, but the constant refrain was that Iraq had been safer under Saddam."When the allies removed Saddam and dismantled his army and system of government they kicked open a door to chaos, extremism and religious cleansing. Significant numbers of Iraqi children have been traumatised by conflict and are considered easy prey for radicalisation.
"The war has sown the seeds of religious violence for a generation," says Paul Robinson, looking back on the Chilcott Report into the Iraq war.
Even though the Iraqi army has been gaining ground, large swathes of the country remain under the control of Islamic State, the terror group that sprang from al-Qaeda.
IS has demolished churches and confiscated Christian property. Their fighters have abducted Christian and Yazidi women as sex slaves.
The collapse of government in Syria and insurgency in Iraq have allowed IS to extend its so-called caliphate from Syria to Iraq.
IS militants have given Christians the ultimatum: convert, submit, or die. Thousands have been stripped of their belongings and forced from their homes to trek through the desert to Kurdistan.And religious conservatism and intolerance is spreading to areas beyond IS control.
In Basra, which was formerly under British control, Christian women have been threatened in the workplace and forced to wear headscarves. Many have been driven out.
Lena told Release: "People were threatening us. My daughter received a letter with a bullet in it.' Another daughter, Dahlia added: The extremists said we had to leave or we will shoot you. We were very scared."Lena said: "We had no choice. We left." They, too, headed for Kurdistan.
Much the same has been happening in Baghdad, where many of the remaining Christian women have been forced to wear headscarves and up to two thirds of the homes belonging to Christians have been taken.
So what about areas of Iraq under government control? Reports persist of low-level persecution against Christians under the government and its Shia-dominated army.
Another threat to Christians is lawlessness. Kidnapping is now commonplace."
"The future looks bleak for Christians in Iraq," says Paul Robinson of Release, 'as the Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict spreads across the Middle East. Christians, as ever, are caught in the crossfire.'Shia areas of Baghdad are frequently targeted by IS suicide bombers, who killed more than 280 in a single attack last weekend. And Sunni Kurdistan is constantly on the alert against infiltration from Shia Iran on its border.
Baghdad once had a thriving Christian community. Now most have left. The'ar and his family fled Baghdad after extremists bombed their church, killing 58, including two members of their family.
They headed north to the Christian village of Qaraqosh in the hope of finding safety. But they had to flee again when it was captured by Islamic State.
"There is no hope," The'ar told Release. "Since [the invasion in] 2003, we have all this bombing and fighting. We have no future. Our prayer is to leave this country, just to be human and to raise our kids with dignity."Despite the turmoil, there are some rays of light. One is the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, which has declared itself a safe haven for Christian refugees. It is one of the few areas of the Middle East where churches for Muslim-background believers are flourishing. In other areas dominated by extremists, Muslim converts are killed as heretics.
However, some Christians in Kurdistan complain that their lands and houses are being seized, and Kurds, who are Sunni, fear being caught up in a sectarian conflict with neighbouring Iran, which is Shia.
"Kurdistan is a place of relative safety for Christians - please pray for them," says Paul Robinson of Release. "Another encouraging sign is that Muslims, sickened by the violence being carried out in the name of religion, are coming to faith in Christ across the Middle East.
"So please pray that that Christian faith both survives and thrives in this region. Pray also that Christian refugees are afforded the same aid and treatment as others."
Release is working in Iraq to support Christian refugees by providing relief aid and training. Through its international network of missions Release serves persecuted Christians in 30 countries around the world, by supporting pastors and Christian prisoners, and their families; supplying Christian literature and Bibles, and working for justice. Release is a member of the UK organisations Global Connections and the Evangelical Alliance.

Oriente Medio, el trabajo que falta

By Páginas Digital

 

En un reciente coloquio sobre la situación de los cristianos en Oriente Medio, el Nuncio apostólico en Bagdad, Alberto Ortega, comentaba el shock que provocan en muchos musulmanes sencillos las terribles matanzas cometidas invocando el nombre de Alá y la enseñanza del Corán. Personas que trabajan y cuidan a sus familias, que rezan y ayudan a los necesitados, que se sienten parte de una comunidad y herederas de una sabiduría de siglos, se encuentran de pronto con la aberración de que algunos invocan la religión a la que ellos pertenecen para justificar la inhumanidad más absoluta. Pero es preciso ir al fondo de esa conmoción y extraer consecuencias.

Los últimos días han sido terribles en la región, como si la furia asesina ya experimentada tantas veces hubiese desbordado cualquier pesadilla. Primero el atentado en el aeropuerto de Estambul, después el asesinato a sangre fría de rehenes en un restaurante de Dacca, y por último el aquelarre sangriento en un barrio chií de Bagdad, que ha provocado doscientos muertos entre una población que había salido a la calle para festejar el final del Ramadán. Hay algo demoníaco en esta orgía sangrienta, como ha dejado ver el Patriarca de los caldeos, Louis Raphael Sako, que acudió al lugar de los hechos para rezar y consolar a las familias. Es la pretensión de dominar el mundo mediante la eliminación de cualquier obstáculo, el odio convertido en palanca de un delirante proceso histórico.

Mar Sako, que ha prodigado todo tipo de gestos de cercanía y solidaridad práctica con los musulmanes de Irak, no ha dejado de advertir que este cáncer amenaza desde dentro al propio islam, y requiere por tanto un combate mucho más decidido, compacto y tajante. La intervención del patriarca caldeo ha sido, como siempre, concreta y aguda, señalando la necesidad de una condena sin fisuras del uso de la violencia, que no puede quedar restringida al momento de shock provocado por los atentados. La condena de la violencia requiere una traducción educativa sostenida en el tiempo y apoyada en medidas concretas. Es necesaria una relectura auténticamente religiosa de la tradición musulmana, una nueva forma de educación, reclamada insistentemente en Egipto por el presidente Al Sisi; una apertura a la experiencia de ciudadanía, que implica mucho más que la mera tolerancia, implica cancelar definitivamente el sectarismo y emprender la cooperación con los miembros de otras comunidades. Sako ha hablado de construir un verdadero “Estado laico” que custodie el mosaico cultural y religioso de Irak. Y no hay otro camino, aunque sea largo y fatigoso.

La sensación que uno tiene es que el coro de las meras condenas resulta ya estéril y cansino, lo cual explica en este caso la ira de la población contra unas estructuras institucionales que no terminan de poner el dedo en la llaga. Estos días terribles de sangre y de fuego han tenido su momentáneo epílogo con varios atentados en Arabia Saudí, junto al corazón mismo del islam sunní, lo que demuestra que el monstruo no acepta territorios protegidos. El complejo mundo saudí sabe mucho de la génesis de esta monstruosidad que se llama Daesh y que ahora también le golpea. Y desde Teherán ha llegado una extraña invitación a cerrar filas, sunníes y chiíes contra un terror sin fronteras que ha desbordado ya todas las líneas imaginables. No es mala pista, siempre que exista verdadera voluntad de afrontar la raíz de este mal. Porque una cosa está clara, nuestro mundo no está haciendo lo suficiente, no está acertando con la tecla para afrontar este terrible mal.

Quizás nos vendría bien a todos (países occidentales y árabes, musulmanes y laicos secularizados, intelectuales, periodistas y autoridades religiosas, incluso militares y agentes de inteligencia) refrescar aquella vieja lección de Benedicto XVI en Ratisbona. Tanta sangre inocente reclama algo más que agitación y condenas formales. Frente a un gran mal, también las palabras tienen que recobrar su peso y su filo.

Iraqi Catholics journey to England's Nazareth

By Indipendent Catholic News

 

The Chaldean Catholic mission in the United Kingdom began its 30-Year anniversary celebration with their first pilgrimage to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.
On July 2, 2016 more than 200 Iraqi Chaldean pilgrims were joined by the Lebanese Melkite church parishioners.They were led by Father Nadheer Dako and Father Shafiq Abouzayd.The pilgrims visited several sacred places and afterwards carried the statue of Our Lady in a procession along the 'Holy Mile' which extends from the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham to the Roman Catholic Slipper Chapel. Mgr John Armitage, Rector of the Shrine of Our Lady, greeted the pilgrims and gave an interesting and informative talk about the shrine of Our lady of Walsingham. A solemn Catholic Mass was celebrated in Arabic and Aramaic, which was the language of Jesus Christ. The congregation commended the needs of their suffering brethren in Iraq and Syria to Our Lady of Walsingham.
Fr Nadheer Dako was very pleased with the pilgrimage. He said: "This was a wonderful day where our parishioners shared their faith, their kindness and time with each other. This was a highly spiritually-charged and joyous event. He added: "We have laid our spiritual corner-stone in order to buy our own church in the United Kingdom."The event attracted a wide range of ages, with the youngest pilgrim being under two and the oldest being more than 80 years of age.

The Chaldean and the Melkite churches are one of the Oriental Catholic Churches that are in full communion with Rome.

Visit ICN's Facebook page for more pictures.
See: https://www.facebook.com/Independent-Catholic-News-ICN-195368037167900/

Iraq’s minorities on ‘verge of disappearance’

By Rudaw

 

Iraq’s minority communities are under threat and on the verge of disappearing altogether says a new report from a group of human rights monitoring and advocacy organizations.
Christian, Yezidi, Kaka’i, Turkmen, and Shabak minority groups in Iraq have been subjected to murder, abduction, forced marriage, genocide, rape, torture, mutilation, cruel treatment, forcible recruitment of children, chemical weapons, destruction of property and cultural and religious heritage, displacement, and looting, according to the report.
“Thirteen years of war have had devastating long-term consequences for Iraqi society. The impact on minorities has been catastrophic,” said Mark Lattimer, Executive Director of Minority Rights Group, one of the authors of the report. “Saddam was terrible; the situation since is worse. Tens of thousands of religious and ethnic minorities have been killed and millions have fled for their lives.”The Christian population has dropped from 1.4 million before 2003 to under 250,000. And Yezidi, Kaka’i, Turkmen, and Shabak communities have been forced from their lands.
‘Families are destroyed. Homes, businesses and farms have been looted. Heritage is either demolished or sold,” said William ‘Spence’ Spencer of the Institute for International Law and Human Rights, another author of the report. “Survivors will have nothing to return to, unless Iraq and the international community take more robust action to address the crushing needs of minorities.”Many of those who have been displaced do not intend to their home areas once security and living conditions improve. Of the internally displaced (IDPs) in central and southern Iraq, 42 percent told the UN they intend to go home and another 35 percent are waiting to decide the matter.
In the Kurdistan Region and areas in northern Iraq under Kurdish control, only 22 percent, mainly Christians and Yezidis from Nineveh, have stated they intend to return to their homes.
Christian leaders said they no longer believed it possible to live a “dignified life” in Iraq. In Baghdad, only 15 percent of its Christian community remains. The rest are displaced internally or fled the country altogether.
Many Yezidis reported being too afraid to return to their homes despite wanting to be back on their lands. The Yezidi population is severely traumatized from the genocide carried out against their people.
Some minority groups are forming their own militias, trained by the Peshmerga and international forces, to participate in battles against the Islamic State and to protect their own communities. There are now Christian and Yezidi brigades within the Peshmerga.
Others believe their communities no longer have a home in Iraq, particularly outside of the Kurdistan Region, the report stated, and many are going abroad. Iraq was the third highest country of origin for refugees arriving in Europe in 2015 and 2016.
While the report says that the Islamic State is the main perpetrator of these crimes, it also accuses the Iraqi security forces, Popular Mobilization Units (include sectarian militia groups), and the Kurdish Peshmerga of all committing crimes against Iraq’s Christian, Yezidi, Kaka’i, Turkmen, and Shabak groups since Mosul fell to the Islamic State in June 2014.
The report, citing Amnesty International, accuses the Kurdistan Regional Government, through its Peshmerga and Asayesh, of destroying homes and shops in Ninewa, Kirkuk, and Diyala governorates after they came under Peshmerga control upon the defeat of ISIS.
It also says that Kurdish security forces have conducted raids and arbitrary arrests in Kirkuk, forcibly moving internally displaced families and destroying shelters, some of which were reportedly in retaliation for families’ perceived support of ISIS.
The report also raised concerns over conditions in camps for the internally displaced (IDP), citing reports of insufficient housing and supplies of basic necessities as well as lack of access to medical care and education, and restriction of movement by the armed forces.
The authors accuse the governments of Baghdad and Erbil of placing low priority on the needs of minority groups and addressing issues of justice and reconciliation. They urge local and international authorities to immediately begin planning for post-ISIS in order to re-establish security and allow minorities to return to their homes and livelihoods.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has responded previously to accusations of rights violations by its security forces, denying a systematic policy of discrimination against minority and Arab populations and indicating its readiness to cooperate with international organizations to investigate individual cases of violations and bring perpetrators to justice.
The Kurdistan Region is hosting nearly 1.8 million Iraqi IDPs and Syrian refugees, resulting in a 30% increase in its population. At the same time, the Region has seen its revenues drop as oil prices hit rock bottom prices and Baghdad stopped giving the KRG its share of the national budget.
International agencies assisting with IDPs and refugees in the Region are also facing a funding crisis. The United Nation’s funding appeal is only 33 percent funded and the UN has had to close some of its services including frontline medical care programmes.
Some minority group members interviewed for the report stated they were disappointed with the Iraqi and Kurdish governments as well as international agencies including the United Nations.

The report, No Way Home: Iraq’s minorities on the verge of disappearance, was researched and authored by Minority Rights Group International, the Institute for International Law and Human Rights, No Peace Without Justice, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, and the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights.

Iraq invasion 'sounded death knell for Iraqi Christians'

By Christian Today

James Macintyre

 

Amid the flood of Chilcot report coverage focusing on the build-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, there has been little attention on Iraqi Christians, whose perilous plight echoes that of displaced and persecuted Christians in the Middle East more widely.

The ongoing turmoil since the war in Iraq came to a head for Christians there in July 2014, when some 80,000 of them fled the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Nineveh Plain after ISIS issued a deadly ultimatum.

The 2,000-year-old Christian population of Iraq has shrunk from 1.4 million to around 250,000 in the aftermath of the war, with many of those who are left now living in disused steel containers or hiding out in churches.

According to one senior charity worker familiar with the country, Iraqi Christians are doomed as a result of the war.
Mark Lattimer, the head of Minority Rights Group, tells Christian Today: "We can see now that the 2003 invasion sounded a death knell for Christianity in Iraq. The warnings were certainly there before the invasion, but it was the coalition support for sectarian policies after Saddam fell which made Iraq's decline unstoppable. In 2006 the Iraqi human rights minister told me that Christians' days were numbered in Iraq. We're now down to a population of just 250,000 and some Christian leaders in Iraq have told me that they don't believe the population can survive outside of Kurdistan. The situation for other minorities –  Yezidis, Turkmen, Mandaeans – has been equally catastrophic."

On the west's role, Lattimer says that the British Government is "turning a blind eye" to a new rise in sectarian attacks because of the war against Isis. "It isn't just about [George W] Bush and [Tony] Blair. Maybe of the mistakes highlighted in Chilcot are still being made today. The war on ISIS is causing the British government and other members of the international coalition to turn a blind eye to a new rise in sectarian attacks, including against Sunni Arabs."

However, a spokesperson for the charity Open Doors says that despite the "chaos and extreme difficulty," many Christians who are left want to stay and help rebuild the country. The spokesperson told Christian Today: "Whatever has happened that has brought us to this point, many church leaders in the Middle East tell us that they want to be actively involved in the rebuilding of their countries and that they believe they have an important role to play in shaping their future societies. Whilst there is chaos and extreme difficulty many are choosing to stay, to support their fellow Christians and to bring a message of hope amidst the darkness. Open Doors is committed to the long term support of persecuted Christians both in the Middle East and around the world."

The Chilcot report does repeatedly highlight warnings about the fate of Iraqi Christians, as the Catholic Herald has reported.

For example, Chilcot underlines a report by a junior British embassy official in Amman in January 2002: "The Iraqi Christian community was concerned that it risked marginalisation, with some senior figures worrying about what would happen to their community if the current Iraqi regime fell or changed."

In May 2002, the embassy went on to warn as follows: "The May update contained some insights into both social and infrastructure issues. It highlighted Saddam Hussein's 'scare tactics' over what would happen in the event of a coalition invasion of Iraq and the possibility of Iraqi and regional instability thereafter: 'This line plays on real fears of the unknown and of religious instability. For all his faults, Saddam does, for now, mean stability and peace.'"

And the report points out French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin's warning in March 2003 to the UN Security Council that: "... War would only increase it [terrorism], and we could then be faced with a new wave of violence. Let us beware of playing into the hands of those who want a clash of civilisations or a clash of religions."

In January this year, a delegation of senior Bishops highlighted the plight of Iraqi Christians on a visit to Gaza and Jordan. The Bishops, all Catholics apart from the Anglican Bishop of Southwark Christopher Chessun, emphasised the cause of the "forgotten" Christians of the Middle East.

Christians in Iraqi Kurdistan complain about land seizure

By Al Monitor
Omar al-Jaffal

 

Christian citizens in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq issued complaints in court June 15 that Kurdish residents are attacking and seizing their villages in the provinces of Dahuk and Erbil. They also accused the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of neglecting the crisis and failing to take serious action to resolve an issue that has been going on for some time.

On April 13, the KRG had prohibited residents from eight Christian villages in the Nahla area in Dahuk province from accessing the KRG's headquarters to protest and demand that an end be put to the encroachment upon their land on the part of Kurdish individuals and populations. However, some of them managed to make it to the sit-in location and stage a protest as they held a banner that reflected the deep sorrow plaguing Christians in the region. “Our [Christian] people’s lands are encroached upon across the Kurdistan Region,” the banner read.

On April 22, a Human Rights Watch report highlighted the hardships facing Christian citizens in the Kurdistan Region amid restrictions by the Kurdish authorities preventing them from peacefully claiming their right to restore these territories.

Kurdish individuals and tribes have been seizing lands and properties belonging to Christians since the 1980s. In 1986, Saddam Hussein's regime demolished these villages, leading to the displacement of the residents. However, as soon as the military operations of the former regime had finished, the Kurds returned to these villages and many seized Christian territory, taking advantage of the residents' forced absence, as per the testimonies of Christian residents of those villages.

What prompted residents of the villages of the Nahla area to protest is a set of new encroachments made by Kurdish citizens on their land. Earlier this year, several houses were built on these lands in the Nahla area.

The director of the Ninevah Studies Center, Michael Benjamin, told Al-Monitor that the KRG is seemingly aware of the problem, as it has put forward several initiatives between 2001 and 2010 to resolve the crisis, “but nothing has changed.”

Benjamin is an activist interested in the issues of minorities and indigenous peoples, and he relentlessly examines and follows up on the issue of Christian lands in the Kurdistan Region. Benjamin said the seized Christian lands in the various regions, towns and villages of the provinces of Dahuk and Erbil are estimated to measure “thousands of acres.”

He said, “In the Dahuk governorate alone, there is a list of 56 villages where the area of seized land is estimated at 47,000 acres. This list only includes villages whose residents have filed complaints with the relevant courts.”

He added, “There are villages whose residents were forced to abandon them from the early 1930s onward due to instability, persecution and infringement upon their rights.” These lands include “agricultural fields, pastures, springs and real estate properties.”

Yonadam Kanna, the chairman of the Rafidain Christian parliamentary bloc in the federal parliament, told Al-Monitor, “The seizure of Christian lands is part of the process of demographic change.”

He said, “There are more than 60 Christian villages inhabited by non-Christians across the Kurdistan Region, and this is part of the demographic change. We stressed the need to restore those villages and properties, but the KRG measures were not serious, which delayed the issue."

In this vein, Benjamin pointed to the role of “partisan and tribal relations,” saying, “The rights of small groups and minorities will be undoubtedly violated as they are the weakest link and lack any strong partisan, political or tribal support.”

However, Kanna pointed out that “a Christian delegation recently met with Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani, who asked for details about the issue and promised to restore the Christian lands.”

Benjamin said, "The ongoing violation of Chaldeo-Assyrian and Christian property rights for nearly 25 years since the founding of the Kurdistan Region is one of the prime reasons that leads indigenous citizens to feel abused and lose confidence in the government, and this forces them to opt for migration.”

Mariwan Naqshbandi, the Ministry of Endowments (Awqaf) spokesperson in the Kurdistan Region, attributed the crisis to migration. He told Al-Monitor, “When Saddam bombed areas of the region with chemicals in the 1980s, Christian families fled from their villages and homes. While Muslims returned to the devastated areas, Christians traveled abroad.”

Naqshbandi said that even after the change of regime under the US occupation in April 2003 “only few Christians returned, thus allowing Muslim families to cultivate and build homes on Christian lands.”

He added that Christians returned in the past few years “and reclaimed their villages and houses. But Muslims said they would not leave unless they are compensated for their cultivation and development of those lands.”

Consequently, after Kurdish citizens clung to the lands they seized, the Ministry of Awqaf was forced to issue a fatwa prohibiting such practices,” Naqshbandi said.

However, Mikhail responded to the fatwa by saying, “I do not think that this fatwa has helped or will help Christians restore their lands. There are many complicated issues related to several sides and ministries that date back many years. With all due respect, we believe that the fatwa will not be implemented unless the highest authorities  have a real political and legal will to enforce the law, bring about justice and ensure the rights of minorities in the region.”

The seizing of territories, especially when accompanied by the tribal force that governs social relations in the Kurdistan Region — particularly in the provinces of Dahuk and Erbil, where the population is known to hold on to tribal traditions — may lead Christians to migrate, as occurred in Baghdad and other provinces in Iraq.

Posta a Erbil la prima pietra della “Casa della misericordia”, per l'accoglienza agli anziani

By Fides

 

“Sarebbe bello che come ricordo di questo Giubileo restasse in ogni diocesi un monumento vivente, un’opera strutturale di misericordia... Una scuola, un ospedale, una casa per anziani, un centro di recupero per persone sole e abbandonate”.
Così si era espresso Papa Francesco lo scorso 2 aprile, parlando a braccio alla fine del suo intervento durante la veglia giubilare nella festa della Divina Misericordia. Prendendo ispirazione da quelle parole del Successore di Pietro, nella giornata di martedì 5 luglio è stata posta a Erbil la prima pietra della “Casa della Misericordia”, la struttura che la locale arcidiocesi caldea riserverà all'accoglienza degli anziani. Alla cerimonia inaugurale che ha segnato l'inizio concreto del nuovo progetto diocesano ha preso parte l'Arcivescovo Bashar Warda, insieme a rappresentanti di istituzioni e forze politiche locali.
La “Casa della Misericordia” - riferiscono le fonti ufficiali del Patriarcato caldeo, consultate dall'Agenzia Fides - sorgerà su terreni appartenenti alla Chiesa caldea a Ankawa, sobborgo di Erbil abitato in maggioranza da cristiani, dove sono rifugiati ancora migliaia di cristiani fuggiti dai villaggi della Piana di Ninive davanti all'avanzata dei miliziani dell'autoproclamato Stato Islamico (Daesh).

When exodus is the only answer

By UCObsever

Patricia Clarke

 

Terma Harrak had lived all of her 94 years in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. She was devoted to her Assyrian Christian church, spoke the language that Jesus spoke, communed at peace with her Muslim neighbours.
Then the U.S. invasion toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003 and plunged her city into chaos. Three times, Islamist fanatics forced her to flee. Three times, she came back. But then the Islamic State known as ISIS or Daesh captured the city in 2014. Convert to Islam, they told her, or pay a fee (far more than she could afford) — or die.
It was not really a choice. With her daughter and her family, she collected identity papers and her jewels and escaped to Lebanon in the family car. They were lucky. Only hours later, other fleeing Christians were intercepted by jihadists who took everything they had, even their shoes.
Mosul used to be the largest Christian city in Iraq, with some two dozen churches in town and many more in the villages of the Nineveh Plains around it. All are abandoned. The 1,800-year-old Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Ephraim, emptied of its Christian symbols, has become a mosque.
“There’s no more room for Christians in Mosul,” ISIS publicly announced, according to Syrian Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan.Nor is there room in many other places in the Middle East. The proportion of Christians in the region has dropped from 13.6 percent in 1910 to 4.2 percent in 2010. Projections published in the Harvard Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy in 2014 predict Christians will be down to 3.6 percent in 2025. Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church joined in February in warning of a “massive exodus of Christians from the land in which our faith was first disseminated and in which they have lived since the time of the Apostles. . . . whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being exterminated.” If the killing and the exodus continue, Christianity will all but disappear from its cradle.
How much does that matter? The Middle East was a battleground before and after the rise of Christianity. Some of its most important centres, such as Jerusalem, were under Muslim control by the ninth century. And descriptions of the reported ghastly treatment of Christians in Jerusalem stirred up support for the Crusades, just as the atrocities of the Islamic State have prompted the bombings of today.
Christians have been deserting the Middle East for decades, originally for economic reasons. Nobody noticed, until videos of jihadists cutting off Christian heads appeared on television. Now Christians are suffering — from invasions, civil war, militant Islamists — but no more than others, and less than Shia Muslims. Sometimes, they are just collateral damage in the sectarian struggle between Sunni and Shia Muslims. The Middle East isn’t even the most dangerous place to be a Christian: that honour goes to Nigeria. More Christians were killed there because of their faith last year than in all the rest of the world, according to Open Doors, a non-denominational agency.
And yet, the Christian population in the Middle East matters to Ashraf Tannous, a Lutheran pastor in Palestine. A living Christian presence helps to preserve the biblical sites.
It also matters to Wendy Gichuru, the United Church’s program co-ordinator for Africa and the Middle East who is in regular touch with Middle East church leaders. She calls the situation “dire. . . . It’s a small community, and it’s frightened, like the small community 2,000 years ago.” The Middle East church is a “bridge between Islam and Christianity,” she adds.
And it matters to Phyllis Airhart, professor of the history of Christianity at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto, not so much because of the loss of Christianity’s “cradle” as the “loss of Christianity’s narrative of universality. . . . Its disappearance in a whole region is a symbolic blow.”

Iraq
It was the apostle St. Thomas who brought Christianity in the first century to a region of Iraq then known as Assyria. Its people spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. They still do. Massacres are nothing new to them. When the Turco-Mongol conqueror Tamerlane came through in the early 14th century, he butchered tens of thousands of Assyrian Christians. The Ottoman Empire killed still more. “Some historians call our church the martyred church,” says Mar Emmanuel Yosip, bishop of Canada of the Assyrian Church of the East. “We can’t force anyone to stay. Everyone is free. But it’s a matter of the existence of the church.”What’s happening to the Assyrian church now, under ISIS, means its death, says Amir Harrak, professor of Near Eastern studies at the University of Toronto (and the son of Terma Harrak). It’s more than a loss of religion, he says. “It’s loss of a way of living, of language, of culture, of mentality.” As its people are assimilated into other societies, he fears the Aramaic language they have preserved for 3,000 years will be lost.
Iraq’s 1.4 million Christians were no fans of former president Saddam Hussein, but under his rule they were safe. Since the U.S. invasion, more than a million have gone, and they’re not coming back. They have nothing to go back to, says Aneki Nissan of the Centre for Canadian-Assyrian Relations in Toronto. “Their homes are burned down; their churches are burned down. When a million Christians have been displaced or disappeared, that’s genocide by definition,” he tells me. But the problem is deeper than whether Christian villages can be rebuilt. It’s whether a Christian minority can ever again live peacefully with its neighbours in Iraq.
Christians aren’t the only victims in Iraq. Shia Muslims, seen as infidels, are the major target for fanatic Islamists, along with Shabaks, Sabaeans and especially the Yazidis, an 11th-century sect in northern Iraq that worships a peacock angel.

Syria
Christians have been in Syria for 2,000 years. Before the civil war broke out in 2011, they made up about five percent of the country’s population of 22 million. Jesus was known there even before Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus in AD 34, and it was Paul who established the first organized Christian church at Antioch, part of ancient Syria. It’s the purported home of the head of John the Baptist (which is also said to be resting in Rome, Turkey and France), the chapel of Ananias where Ananias cured Paul’s blindness, and the church of St. Simeon Stylites.
“We belong to all this history and all this civilization,” Jean-Clément Jeanbart, the Greek Melkite Catholic Archbishop of Aleppo, declared to the media last fall. “More than half of the city’s population left over the last four or five years.” Describing the daily onslaught violence, he told Express.co.uk: “If nothing is done, it is not impossible that all the Christians in Syria may be wiped out. There is a fundamental threat to Christianity from ISIS. They have killed plenty of us. There is an existential crisis.”The Greek Catholic patriarch Gregorios III Lahan told the BBC last year the future of Christian Syria “is threatened not by Muslims but by . . . chaos . . . and uncontrollable fanatical, fundamentalist groups. . . . There is no safe place left in Syria.”While the civil war imperils Muslim and Christian alike, it was the Islamic State that wiped out the Christian Assyrian villages near the Iraqi border. Homes and churches were burned, an estimated thousand people were killed and hundreds were captured for ransom or as slaves. Those who escaped fled to territory under government control. The constitution of Syria provides for religious freedom, and under its ruler Bashar al-Assad, that was more or less observed. In return, Christians, who tended to be better educated and more affluent, generally supported the government.
Thousands of Christians and Muslims have fled from Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and commercial centre, and from Homs, its third-largest. The Catholic news service Agenzia Fides reports “ongoing ethnic cleansing of Christians” by the Free Syrian Army. It claims over 90 percent of the Christians in Homs had been expelled by militant Islamists going door to door, confiscating homes and belongings. Both cities have been bombed into rubble by all sides and have lost most of their infrastructure. Some Christian parishes in both are still functioning and providing services to the survivors, says Carl Hétu, director of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association in Ottawa.
Whether the churches can ever recover is a question for Marie-Claude Lalonde, Canadian director of the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. “Almost everyone wants to leave,” she says. “Everybody used to get along. Can the relationship be reset?”

Israel and Occupied Palestinian territories
In Israel and occupied Palestine, it’s not the Islamic State, or the periodic violence, that is driving Christians out. It’s harassment. Life under military occupation is hard, perhaps deliberately so. Christians and Muslims in the West Bank face the same oppression, says Nora Carmi, peace activist and retired Kairos Palestine staffer in Jerusalem. Attacks by settlers on both churches and mosques have increased in the past year. The Sea of Galilee church, where Jesus is said to have fed the 5,000, was defaced by Hebrew graffiti and set afire last year. Systematic closure of entrances to Jerusalem at Easter this year made it impossible for Christians coming from the West Bank to worship as they wished.
Palestinian Christians in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem now number 50,000. About 120,000 Christians, mostly of Palestinian origin, live in Israel proper.
Jerusalem itself has seen a major exodus. In 1966, Christians numbered 25,000 in the city; today, there are fewer than 9,000. If right-wing groups in Israel had their way, there would be none. Last Christmas, Benzi Gopstein, leader of the far-right Jewish organization Lehava, who had previously called for the burning of Christian churches, called on “impure” Christians to leave the Holy Land “before they drink our blood again.”Many who leave do so with regret, reluctant to abandon their people but believing it is hopeless to stay. The result is a voluntary ethnic cleansing that suits both the Israeli government and North American Christian fundamentalists who believe Jesus will return once Jewish people take over the Holy Land.
But they’re not all going. “The church in the Holy Land started with 12 disciples,” says Carmi. “It will survive. Though small in numbers, we continue to witness our faith. . . . What is needed is ecumenical unity and a steadfast prophetic voice condemning injustice and working for a just peace.”

Egypt
The largest population of Christians in the Middle East is in Egypt, nearly all of them members of the Coptic Church. Mark the Evangelist founded it early in the first century, and Coptic scholars in Alexandria were dominant theologians in its early years. It too has its holy sites, including the crypt where the holy family is said to have sheltered on the flight into Egypt.
Over the last century, Christians have been immigrating to Egypt, mostly for economic and social reasons; the Christian population is now estimated at nearly eight million, or 10 percent. A branch of al-Qaida has chased Christians out of north Sinai, but in the rest of the country they are uneasily safe under the current strongman, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose polls indicate has high Christian support. While freedom of religion is guaranteed in the constitution, that does not include freedom to proselytize or to accept converts, and it doesn’t necessarily apply in rural areas where, in widespread attacks by Sunni Muslims in 2013, 40 churches were burned down and dozens of others heavily damaged, sometimes while police stood by.

Are Christians in Christianity’s historic homes experiencing genocide? The parliament of the European Union thinks so. In February, it voted almost unanimously that the Islamic State is “committing genocide amongst Christians and Yazidis” and “other religious and ethnic minorities,” and adopted a resolution calling for “urgent action.” It didn’t say what that might be.
Standing up for Christians in an election year was a no-brainer for the U.S. House of Representatives. It voted unanimously in March — the only time this year it has agreed about anything — to declare Middle East Christians and other minorities victims of genocide. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed, though there wasn’t any indication he would do anything about it.
Canada waffled. In March, Chantal Gagnon, press secretary for Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, stopped short of calling the situation a genocide, saying only that “Canada strongly condemns the crimes perpetrated by the so-called Islamic State, including those committed against religious and ethnic minorities.” In general terms, she added that Canada “is committed to preventing and halting genocide.” As for Canada’s ambassador for religious freedom — a post created with much fanfare by the previous government three years ago — he hadn’t been heard from before his job was quietly abolished at the end of March.
And the United Church? In several statements over the last three years, jointly with other churches, it has deplored the “displacement and murder of historic Christian communities” and warned that for its Middle East partners the answer is not “violence that further fractures society.” Genocide is defined in a UN convention as acts “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The catch is that, under the convention, if a state calls something genocide, then it has to do something about it. The convention also assumes that it is states that commit genocide. But what if the perpetrator is a non-state movement like ISIS? And when others are suffering as much, or more, as Christians, how can a prosecution avoid looking like a Christian crusade against Islam?
Like most things in the Middle East, it’s complicated. There’s a “level of nuance,” Gichuru says, that is not easy to deal with. “It’s not just good guys versus bad.” Dictators in Iraq and Syria protected Christians; when the U.S. toppled or attacked the strongmen, violence against ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians, ensued. And now, in offering Christian refugees sanctuary in Canada, we may be inadvertently helping to empty Middle Eastern churches.
Gichuru says church leaders in the region are telling their people, “Do what is right for you, but stay if you can.” And they’re telling those of us in the West that the best way to help is to call off the bombs, work for peace and reconciliation, and support those who are struggling on the scene.
Pastor Tannous puts it this way: “The churches are dead stones. We are the living stones who are carrying the treasure Jesus conferred to us. If we leave, who is going to keep and save all these holy places? I am afraid they will become museums for tourists to visit.”What disturbs Airhart is “the loss of hope that different faiths can coexist without fear of reprisal. I worry that the alternative is ‘winner take all’ for the dominant religion and persecution of others. Christianity in the Middle East, and in many countries where it is the minority, will not fare well under that scenario. . . . Those of us who take freedom of religion for granted may not fully appreciate their loss — and ours, if we take seriously the notion of the church as the body of Christ.”As for Terma Harrak, she’ll never go back to Mosul. Safe in Lebanon, she waits for permission to join a son and two daughters in Canada. She is 96 now. Her visa interview is scheduled for next year.

Patricia Clarke is a writer and editor in Toronto.

Message of H.B., the Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako to Muslims on the Occasion of Eid El-Fitr

By Chaldean Patriarchate

 

I would like to send my sincere congratulations and best wishes to Muslims on the occasion of Eid Al-Fitr that coincided with the liberation of several Iraqi cities from ISIS. I also salute with pride the Iraqi Army, Peshmerga Forces, Popular Mobilization Army and the Tribal Forces for their victories. I sincerely hope that all Iraqi territories will be liberated soon and the displaced can return happily to their homes and towns. 

 On this occasion, we call on our fellow Muslims to raise their voices and condemn officially the crimes committed in the name of religion including the latest massacre of Sunday 3 July 2016 that took place in Karrada, Baghdad. Such horrible extremism is in fact a deviation and distortion of religion and should be rejected by promoting moderate Islam that accept others and endorsing co-existence.

We hope that the actual meaning of fasting Ramadan, celebrating Eid Al-Fitr, the liberation victories and the recent shocking attack in Baghdad lead to a serious national stance that will put the political process back on track and lead to a comprehensive reforms in all state institutions. This is the only way to relief Iraqis from such a burden that they have been carrying for so many years. Additionally, it will help them to build a better and thriving future, where the values of freedom are respected, and the equality ensures the sustainability of the beautiful mosaic diversity of our beloved country.

Attentati Baghdad. Sako: strage terribile, ma "geografia" Is è finita

By Radiovaticana

 

Un messaggio di pace e riflessione ai “fratelli musulmani” per la festa di Eid al-fitr, che segna la fine del Ramadan. A lanciarlo, dall’Iraq, il patriarca caldeo Louis Raphael I Sako, a pochi giorni dal triplice attentato suicida di domenica a Baghdad, il più sanguinoso degli ultimi anni, rivendicato dal sedicente Stato islamico (Is), che ha provocato almeno 175 morti, tra cui molti bambini e ragazzi: si tratta di un bilancio ufficiale ma ancora provvisorio, che secondo fonti di stampa avrebbe già superato le 200 vittime. Ascoltiamo il patriarca Sako, nell’intervista di Giada Aquilino:

 Condanniamo questi attacchi, è stata veramente una strage. Tante famiglie sono distrutte. Ieri sono andato a pregare sui luoghi degli attentati e ho acceso delle candele insieme ad alcuni preti. C’era una donna che ha detto: “Ho perso sette figli”. È dunque una cosa terribile, un’offesa per tutta l’umanità, contro tutti i valori. Anche i fedeli delle nostre parrocchie, uno dopo l’altro, sono andati a pregare: più di cento persone - donne, suore, uomini - hanno camminato per venti minuti a piedi, per pregare e mostrare a tutti la nostra presenza, vicinanza e solidarietà verso tutte queste famiglie.
A cosa punta Daesh, il sedicente Stato islamico? Starebbe perdendo il controllo del territorio…
È chiaro che per loro è finita, la “geografia” è finita. Pensano alla loro ideologia secondo la quale il mondo intero è di loro dominio. Vogliono attaccare qualsiasi posto e città e uccidere più persone possibili, per provocare. Penso che tutto il mondo debba fare qualcosa per sconfiggere tale ideologia, non solo attraverso azioni militari, ma anche con una nuova cultura per l’islam, un islam moderato.
Lei ha avuto contatti con le autorità irachene, sia civili sia religiose. Cosa ha auspicato?
Loro sono offesi da tutto questo, sono scoraggiati. Ho detto che è il momento di superare tutte le differenze, riconciliarsi, pensare alla vita dei cittadini e proteggere le loro proprietà. Ci vuole la pace perché la guerra e la vendetta non hanno futuro. Ma la pace è dono di Dio, è un dono per noi tutti, per la convivenza, il rispetto, i valori umani e i diritti dell’uomo. Ci vuole una nuova posizione, un cambiamento di mentalità ma anche di comportamento.
Lei ha avuto contatti anche con leader religiosi musulmani? C’è sta una condanna di questa e delle altre azioni violente da parte del mondo musulmano?
Sì, tanti, anche da al-Azhar. È uno shock per il mondo intero.
Cosa servirebbe?
Non solo discorsi o condanne, ma azioni sul posto.
Il Papa ha chiesto che il Signore converta il cuore dei violenti accecati dall’odio. A cosa si può arrivare? 
Questo è molto importante. Noi dobbiamo pregare per queste persone che sono cieche, che non vedono. Che il Signore illumini tutti affinché possano convertirsi al bene, alla pace, alla convivenza, al rispetto. Ci vuole un miracolo.
In queste ore si festeggia l’Eid al-Fitr, la festa islamica che conclude il Ramadan, il mese sacro per i musulmani. Qual è il messaggio della Chiesa?
Ho indirizzato un messaggio a tutti i musulmani ricordando che il digiuno è un momento forte per la conversione, per fare una valutazione della situazione anche alla luce di questi attacchi, ma pure della vittoria dell’esercito iracheno che ha liberato Falluja e Ramadi. Adesso ci vuole una nuova posizione per superare tutte queste differenze, andare al di là degli interessi personali e presentare una “magna charta” per il futuro dell’Iraq unito, dove ci sia sicurezza, pace e prosperità.

Patriarca caldeo: I musulmani rispondano alle violenze commesse in nome della religione

By Asia News

 

In occasione della festa di Eid al-Fitr “ci rivolgiamo ai nostri fratelli musulmani” chiedendo loro di “alzare la voce” per “condannare i crimini commessi in nome della religione”. Una fede nella sua visione “deviata e distorta”, come è avvenuto in occasione del “massacro di Karrada, a Baghdad, all’alba di domenica 3 luglio”. È quanto scrive il patriarca caldeo Mar Louis Raphael Sako, in un messaggio alla comunità islamica irakena - e inviato per conoscenza ad AsiaNews - in occasione della fine del mese sacro di digiuno e preghiera.

Domani si conclude il periodo di Ramadan, funestato negli ultimi giorni da gravissimi episodi di sangue non solo in Iraq, ma in molte altre parti del mondo come avvenuto a Dhaka (Bangladesh), in Arabia Saudita e prima ancora in Turchia. 

Rivolgendo “ai nostri fratelli” i migliori auguri e le felicitazioni più sincere, scrive sua beatitudine, “vogliamo salutare con rinnovato orgoglio l’esercito irakeno e le forze Peshmerga [i combattenti curdi], la popolazione civile e i gruppi tribali” che hanno lottato contro i jihadisti. In questa occasione di festa, aggiunge, “speriamo davvero” che tutto l’Iraq “possa essere presto liberato” e tutti gli sfollati “possano fare rientro nelle loro case e nelle loro città”. 

Chiedendo alla comunità musulmana maggiore forza nel condannare ogni forma di violenza e terrorismo, Mar Sako auspica al contempo “la promozione di una ideologia moderata” che sia in grado di “accettare l’altro” e “promuovere la convivenza” in tutto il mondo. 

Infine, il patriarca caldeo rivolge l’auspicio che “si possa giungere ad una unità nazionale” e a un “rinnovato processo politico” che porti “riforme ad ampio respiro” e che si risolva una volta per tutte il dramma degli sfollati che “aspettano ancora di poter tornare nelle loro case”. Da ultimo, l’invito a rispettare i valori di “cittadinanza, uguaglianza e libertà” per garantire la continuazione del “mosaico” che costituisce “il nostro amato Paese” e la sua “diversità”.

Patriarca Sako: Dietro la strage di Baghdad c'è il desiderio dell’Isis di dominare il mondo

By Asia News

Foto Patriarcato Caldeo

Lo Stato islamico (SI, ex Isis) non pensa più “alla geografia”, al controllo del territorio, perché “ha perso” sul piano militare; adesso il loro obiettivo “è colpire dappertutto, mietere più vittime possibili”, lanciare il messaggio secondo cui “il mondo intero è di loro dominio. Questa ideologia è una vera e propria bomba atomica”. È quanto afferma ad AsiaNews il patriarca caldeo Mar Louis Raphael I Sako, che questa mattina ha visitato i luoghi teatro della “strage” - come la definisce il patriarca stesso - del fine settimana a Baghdad dove si registrano anche "una o due vittime cristiane". 

“Ho visto - racconta - genitori cercare i propri figli fra le macerie, erano disperati perché non li trovavano. Ho acceso qualche candela, poi ho pregato con loro, con queste famiglie, condannando questa strage contro l’umanità, contro la religione…”. Ieri anche papa Francesco ha manifestato la propria vicinanza alle vittime del doppio attentato in Iraq (e dell'attacco in Bangladesh). Durante l’Angelus, in piazza San Pietro, il pontefice ha espresso con forza “la mia vicinanza ai famigliari delle vittime e dei feriti dell’attentato avvenuto a Dhaka e anche a quello avvenuto a Baghdad”. “Preghiamo insieme per loro, per i defunti - ha aggiunto - e chiediamo al Signore di convertire il cuore dei violenti accecati dall’odio”.

Intanto il governo irakeno ha proclamato tre giorni di lutto nazionale, in seguito al gravissimo attacco bomba che ha investito nella notte fra il 2 e il 3 luglio la capitale, Baghdad, provocando almeno 165 morti e 225 feriti. Secondo alcune fonti le vittime sarebbero 213, uccise da mezzi imbottiti di esplosivo. Dietro la strage di civili, in particolare di bambini, vi sarebbero le milizie dello Stato islamico (SI) che hanno rivendicato in queste ore l’attentato. 

Un kamikaze, a bordo di un mezzo imbottito di esplosivo, si è fatto saltare in aria dopo la mezzanotte nei pressi di un centro commerciale nel quartiere di Karrada, nel centro. A dispetto dell’ora tarda l’area era ancora gremita di persone, impegnate negli acquisti per la festa di Eid al-fitr, in programma domani, che segna la fine del Ramadan. 

Fonti della sicurezza riferiscono che nell’esplosione sono morti interi nuclei familiari; inoltre, diverse vittime sono state seppellite senza nemmeno procedere al riconoscimento del cadavere. 

Poco dopo la prima esplosione al centro commerciale si è registrato un altro attentato in un quartiere a maggioranza sciita a nord della capitale, in cui sono morte altre cinque persone. 

Il Primo Ministro irakeno Haider al-Abadi ha visitato le aree teatro delle violenze, incontrando però l’ira della popolazione locale esasperata da questa striscia di sangue che non sembra avere fine. Il capo dell’esecutivo ha annunciato un rafforzamento delle misure di sicurezza, fra cui un miglioramento delle operazioni di controllo dei veicoli in ingresso nella capitale e nelle principali città del Paese.

Interpellato da AsiaNews il patriarca caldeo si dice “molto colpito e triste” per l’attacco e aggiunge di comprendere “l’ira della popolazione contro il governo e le autorità”. Ho chiesto ai vertici del Paese, aggiunge, “di mettere da parte gli interessi personali e rafforzare l’unità, la coesione nazionale. È necessario proteggere la vita e le proprietà dei cittadini”. “Ho ascoltato il dolore della gente - prosegue Mar Sako - la sua delusione. Ora tocca al governo e alla classe politica promuovere la riconciliazione, andare al di là degli interessi personali, della cultura settaria, della violenza e della vendetta. Il popolo chiede pace, aiuto”. 

Contro questa deriva estremista di sangue, il patriarca caldeo auspica una presa di coscienza forte in seno all’islam stesso. “Il mondo musulmano - avverte - deve condannare questa ideologia e cercare mezzi pratici per superarla. Serve un insegnamento moderato dell’islam, che pratichi la tolleranza e la convivenza, la collaborazione e il rispetto dei diritti umani”. Deve avvenire, aggiunge, “un cambiamento all’interno della stessa religione musulmana, perché il terrorismo e le violenze sono un cancro per l’islam stesso”. 

La propaganda dello SI, ricorda il patriarca, vuol fare credere che “opera per far pulizia nel mondo intero e che tutti sono sotto il loro dominio… Vogliono provocare, infondere il panico e affermare che nessuno può dirsi al sicuro, in nessun posto”. Nelle prossime ore il patriarcato dovrebbe lanciare un messaggio ai “fratelli musulmani per la fine del Ramadan”, mentre continua l’opera della Chiesa irakena a favore degli sfollati: “Ho mandato 50mila dollari alle famiglie di profughi di Fallujah e Anbar - conclude Mar Sako - e abbiamo aiutato almeno 2mila famiglie musulmane. Ora aspettiamo Mosul, dove dobbiamo mostrare anche in quel contesto la nostra solidarietà”.

An uncertain future for minorities in a post-ISIS Iraq

By Open Canada
Evon Sworesho

 

The world first woke up to the increased danger of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in June of 2014 when its fighters swept through Northern Iraq, capturing Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul and reaching the gates of Baghdad and Erbil. The Iraqi Army all but collapsed against the ISIS advance with soldiers simply leaving their posts and military commanders abandoning their troops on the front lines.

That June, the Kurdish Peshmerga forces were also pushed back and ISIS was quickly threatening Erbil, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s capital city. Both advances were held off with help from American Air Force.

Much has changed in the last two years. The Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga are not the same as they were. They both have learned and adapted to the unique military tactics ISIS deploys and are now on the offensive, having recaptured more than 50 percent of ISIS held territory in Iraq.

But the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga are not the only forces engaged in the fight against ISIS in Iraq. The Shi’ite-dominated Al-Hashd Al-Sha’be, or Popular Mobilization Force (PMF), has claimed many victories against ISIS, as has the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Iranian and American Special Forces both operate in Iraq, as do, to a limited capacity, the Canadian Special Forces. 

Many of the aforementioned groups have little love for one another and in the past were openly engaged in battles against one another, however ISIS has brought them all on the same side, for now.

Just as the great Allied powers of World War II were eyeing each other warily even while fighting Nazi Germany, sounds of a future post-ISIS conflict have resonated from various anti-ISIS leaders. Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), has stated that the Kurds will not give back to the Iraqi government one metre of land they capture from ISIS. Similarly, Barzani's son and the chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council, Masrour, has also stated that the future of Iraq will either be a loose confederation of three different states or all out independence of the Kurdistan Region from Iraq.

These threats are not taken lightly by the Iraqi government and Shi’ite militias who try to combat ISIS as well as attempt to quell Kurdish advance into previously Iraqi government controlled lands.

Caught between fragile fault lines

With all these factions, militias and power plays, the minorities are largely ignored. Those minorities include the Yazidis, Assyrian and Armenian Christians, Shabaks, Turkmen, Sabian Mandaeans and more.

What complicates things for Iraq’s minorities is that they live in the fault lines between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Region Government lands. Both the Iraqi Government and the KRG claim the lands and both governments have largely abandoned the minorities that live there.

For example, after the fall of Mosul in June 2014, the Peshmerga entered the Assyrian Christian-dominated Nineveh Plain (east of Mosul) and Yazidi-dominated Sinjar guaranteeing inhabitants they would be protected from any ISIS advance, and that the small militias present would be disbanded. These minority groups were asked to turn over all their personal weapons to authorities. 

Then, on Aug. 2 and Aug. 6, the Peshmerga retreated from their posts in Sinjar and Nineveh Plain respectively. As a result, an ISIS offensive killed 5,000 Yazidis, thousands of Yazidi and Christian women were sold into the sex slave trade, and up to 500,000 Yazidi and Christians from Sinjar and Nineveh Plain were displaced. It was only with the help of PKK (and Syrian YPG) Kurdish forces, with support from the U.S. Air Force, that the remaining Yazidis were saved from starvation and thirst on the Sinjar Mountain.

Since the fall of Nineveh Plain and Sinjar, both the Yazidis and Assyrians have formed their own militias in order to take back their land and provide security for their own people and land.

Realizing the lack of support for the Iraqi Army and Peshmerga amongst the minority groups, the central government, the KRG and even the PKK have begun funding their own minority militia groups in order to shift the region into their sphere of influence. These power plays have resulted in armed conflict in Sinjar as the Yazidi Protection Force, a militia group claiming to be loyal to the KRG, and Sinjar Resistance Units, an offshoot of PKK, have engaged in sporadic engagements against one another.
After tensions between the two Yazidi groups increased, they joined forces and formed a neutral Sinjar Alliance Force. However, this has brought increased criticism from the KRG as it has tried to assert its dominance of Sinjar, asked for PKK and all affiliated groups to leave Sinjar region, and has arrested prominent Yazidi commander Haider Shasho in the past.

Similarly, the Assyrians formed their own militia called the Nineveh Plain Protection Unit (NPU), which has since been partially funded by the central Iraqi government. After the creation of NPU two other Assyrian Christian militias, Nineveh Plain Forces (NPF) and Tiger Guards, were created and funded by the KRG and Peshmerga.

“We want to be the force that will protect our people in our lands and towns,” Athra Kado, a member of the NPU, said in an interview. “The Iraqi Army failed to protect us in Mosul and the Peshmerga failed to protect us in Nineveh Plain, it’s time that Assyrians protect ourselves, it’s our right.”

Neither the Iraqi central government nor the KRG want to lose the vital lands in Nineveh Plain and Sinjar, and both are attempting to divide the fragile communities into their own political spheres of influence in order to shape the future of the regions. Other ethno-religious minorities such as the Shabaks and Turkmen, who also have large demographic concentrations in the disputed territories, are caught in the central and Kurdish governments’ conflicts.

Earlier this year, in the multi-ethnic town of Tuz Khurmatu, which is within the disputed territories, the Peshmerga and Shi’ite Popular Mobilization Forces exchanged intense fire, resulting in many citizens fleeing their homes. The town is one of the remaining areas with a large concentration of Turkmen minorities. After negotiations between the two groups it was ordered that both the Peshmerga and the PMU would leave the town and local citizens would provide security for themselves.
What’s next for Iraq, and for minorities? 

Within Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, a referendum of the inhabitants living in the disputed territories, which include Kirkuk, Ninveveh Plain, Sinjar and other regions, will determine the future of the lands and the minorities within.

The referendum was scheduled to be held before Dec. 31, 2007, but amid security concerns and increasing demographic changes the referendum has still not occurred, nearly nine years later.

The calls for the referendum are once again being heard. Barzani stated in a Rudaw News interview on May 23 that the Kurdistan region will hold a referendum some time in 2016 because it is “ripe for independence.”

However, many minority groups have shared their concerns. They are afraid that the referendum will not reflect their interests, but rather only the interests of the Iraqi and Kurdish governments.

“The referendum will inherently be unrepresentative of the Yazidis and other minority groups if the only choice given is between the Kurdistan Government or the Iraqi Government,” Mirza Ismail, the president of the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, said in an interview. 

“We are demanding an alternative option be give, one where the minority groups in the disputed regions are able to govern themselves as autonomous states and determine their own futures.”

In a future Iraq, there are two models the partition of the country can take. The first and most desirable one would be the Czechoslovakia model. Following the bloodless Velvet Revolution, the state of Czechoslovakia dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which have had an extremely fruitful border ever since.

Although the aforementioned partition is more desirable, the trends in Iraq seem to follow another more popular European partition, Yugoslavia. With ethnic enmity, rampant sectarianism and a history of ethnic cleansing campaigns and genocides, Iraq seems to be following the model which boiled over into an armed conflict resulting in thousands of deaths and continued enmity between all states involved.

 The second model is what the minority groups are most fearful of. If the partition of Iraq is not a peaceful transition then the minority groups will be stuck in the middle of yet another conflict between regional powers, forced to choose a side in a conflict they do not want to be a part of and one where they are not represented.

“I would like for the minorities to be able to protect themselves and determine our own future, not be told by others what our future is,” said Kado, with the Nineveh Plain Protection Unit.

“We have learned that we should protect ourselves because no one else will.”

But some, like Ismail, of Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, feel the international community could do more to understand the plight and ensure the safety of these groups.

“If we aren’t given a place where we can provide our own security, economy and well being…then our future will remain just as it is now, full of fear, emigration and being treated as pawns of others, second class citizens or worse.”