Having written extensively about the authoritarian structure in the areas run by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in northern Syria, and the problems of media, local and Western, in covering this, it was very interesting to see a report in The Wall Street Journal underlining some of these points.
The Journal notes that the PYD and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), have engaged in a ruthless consolidation of power within a single party, despite claims to be governing in a democratic way. This has included: heavy pressure on all non-pro-PYD media via various Soviet-style accusations of subversion; demographic engineering by a refusal to allow Arab inhabitants to return to homes or actively expelling them; forced conscription, including of children; the imposition of an ideological curriculum in schools; and the suppression and/or expulsion of all opposition.
As the Journal puts it:
[A]s Rojava gets mightier and realizes long-held ambitions of self-rule for Kurds, some of its own people feel alienated by what they claim are heavy-handed tactics that feel reminiscent of the Syrian regime. …
Since late 2014, at least 6,000 young Syrian Kurds have been compelled to serve in the military … In addition, … Rojava officials have arrested and forced into military service a total of 1,178 civilians, including 217 minors and 69 women. …
Opposition parties say Kurdish leaders have arrested and beaten dissenters and shut down rival party headquarters. Rojava officials also banned two independent media outlets from operating freely. Elections originally scheduled for 2014 have been repeatedly postponed.
“Anything that has the hint of not working for their benefit, they ban it,” says Imaad Omar Yusuf, general coordinator for the opposition Kurd Youth Movement. “Seventy percent of Kurds are against them.”
On Aug. 13, Rojava’s police force arrested the president of the Kurdish National Council, … deported him to Iraq and threatened to kill him if he returns …
Sinam Mohamad, foreign representative for Rojava, … [says that] people detained or deported were guilty of criminal offenses … The independent media outlets were engaged in “intelligence gathering” and “antagonizing the autonomous administration,” Ms. Mohamad adds. “And this is against the law.”
In some villages, Sunni Arab residents who fled as the YPG pushed out the … Islamic State have been banned from returning to their homes … Officials defend the ban on the grounds that Rojava is vulnerable to continuing attacks from Islamic State sleeper cells and sympathizers. Mass expulsions also are justified under tribal customs if one or two people in a family are members of Islamic State, say some Kurdish administration officials. …
Marwan Hussein says his sister was lured into joining the [all-female] YPJ by friends when she was 15. She was taken to the Qandil Mountains in Iraq, where the … PKK maintains a base. … She was allowed to come home for a visit late last year, and Mr. Hussein took his sister into hiding. YPG officials have said minors joined the militia without parental consent, though some were fleeing unstable homes. …
At the start of the 2015-16 school year, the Kurdish administration instituted a new curriculum mandating that Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians all be taught in their native language.
Most teacher salaries are still paid by the Syrian regime, though, and it told teachers not to follow the new curriculum. … Teachers say they signed in every day during the school year to get paid but didn’t teach any students. Syrian Kurdish officials brought in replacement teachers, but they were poorly trained. … Salha Abdulrahman, the mother of Jude Hamo, who fled to Germany to avoid the draft, says the Kurdish curriculum hurts students because universities across Syria still teach solely in Arabic. …
Even with her son safely in Germany, the family has continued pushing back against what they call the authoritarian Kurdish administration.
All of these points were raised in the post a couple of weeks ago:
The fleeing of civilians from combat zones is inevitable, but the PYD has taken steps toward preventing the return of Arab inhabitants, sometimes by threats of live fire, more often by demolishing homes. Amnesty International has also reported incidents of direct ethnic cleansing of Arabs …
Anti-PKK Kurdish demonstrations have been violently quelled by the PYD. Journalists face stern restrictions in PYD-held areas. Political opponents are arrested and there is torture in the prisons to extract confessions. Aid is exploited as a means of social control. Conscription is enforced, including for child soldiers. Artefacts are looted.
Continued.....
Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
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