World Council of Arameans [Syriacs]

YPG using Christian front organizations as mouthpiece for fearmongering messages regarding Northeast Syria

 A few Syriac organizations claiming to represent the Christians of Northeast Syria while basically being front organizations of the YPG, have recently been causing quite a stir online. Being aligned with Kurdish communist separatists from Syria, their fearmongering messages deliberately portray an aggressive Turkish invasion that will exterminate the last Christians in this region. Certain news agencies have picked up and further spread this perceived fear. However, what does the majority of Aramean (Syriac) Christians in Northeast Syria believe?

 Aramean (Syriac) proxies of the YPG demonstrating in Sweden and carrying their own flags with a picture of the jailed PKK leader.
Swedish texts: "Stop Turkish invasion in Kurdistan" and "Boycott Turkey." Source photo: unknown. 

A few Syriac organizations claiming to represent the Christians of Northeast Syria while basically being front organizations of the YPG, have recently been causing quite a stir online. Being aligned with Kurdish communist separatists from Syria, their fearmongering messages deliberately portray an aggressive Turkish invasion that will exterminate the last Christians in this region. Certain news agencies have picked up and further spread this perceived fear. However, what does the majority of Aramean (Syriac) Christians in Northeast Syria believe?

Two days ago marked the International Day of Remembrance of and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism. Such a memorial day provides a fitting moment to differentiate the victims from the perpetrators in Northeast Syria. This statement may sound like a surprise to many people, since the mainstream media rarely reports on this subject, but arguably the biggest threat to the Christians of Northeast Syria in the past years up to the present has actually come from the Kurdish nationalists.

Let us allow the following cold hard facts sink in to fathom the harsh realities on the ground in the self-proclaimed and idealized autonomous region of Rojava (“Western” Kurdistan). The military arm, the security forces or the proxies of the Kurdish PYD/YPG/Asayesh have murdered young Arameans, while beating up elderly teachers almost to the point of death. They have intimidated, threatened and fired warning shots at the residences of the region’s Syriac Orthodox (in 2016) and Syriac Catholic Bishops. They have frequently kidnapped, tortured and exploited Christian youths. They have illegally seized lands, properties and villages of defenseless Arameans and Armenians. And more than once, they have attempted to close down, seize and Kurdify Christian schools.

These and other acts of terror are all carried out to tacitly cleanse the area of its native populations and to transform Northeast Syria into a Kurdish region, inspired by the example of North Iraq. Against this background, many local Aramean Christians are of the belief that the armed Kurdish nationalists were also behind the failed assassination attempt of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch and the recent car bomb explosion in front of the Syriac Orthodox St. Mary Church in Qamishli (Kurdish secessionists have proclaimed it as the capital of their self-declared autonomous region). Last year, the local Syriac Catholic Archbishop, being a voice in the desert, was recorded saying: “For years I have been saying that the Kurds are trying to eliminate the Christian presence in this part of Syria. … Kurds make up only 20 percent of the population, but, thanks to Western support, [they] are disproportionately represented in the local government. … The West cannot keep silent.”

Clearly, the portrayal of this ‘Rojava’ as a model of governance and a safe haven for the persecuted Christians in the Middle East is highly misleading. This begs the question as to the motives of those Syriacs promoting this deceptive narrative.

Initially, the masters and their puppets promoted an autonomous Kurdish region. Owing to military interventions by Turkey, which disconnected their envisioned independent cantons of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira, they changed their strategy and language, while still covertly pursuing their unchanged nationalist aspirations to achieve their “Rojava Revolution” or “project” of an independent Western Kurdistan. Heeding the advice of one of America’s most senior generals in 2015, the YPG Kurds transfigured themselves the next day into the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF). “I thought it was a stroke of brilliance to put democracy in there somewhere,” U.S. Army General Raymond Thomas, the head of Special Operations Command, recalled, because “it gave them a little bit of credibility.”

Indeed, the Kurds and their Arab and Syriac comrades are prone to use and promote catchy words such as democracy, pluralism, equality, religious freedom, gender equality and similar terms. They are well-aware that these words sound like music in the ears of Western nations. That is also why, seeing that the Kurdish nationalist and expansionist agenda in Syria might be threatened either soon by Turkey or later by the Syrian government, they began a deceptive campaign of instilling fear in the hearts and minds of those who are genuinely concerned about the wellbeing and fate of Syria’s already halved Christians. “Turkey aims to kill and destroy us and to finish the genocide against our people” in Northeast Syria, these Syriac proxies of the PYD/YPG recently claimed, adding that “more than 100,000 Syriac Christians…will be killed or driven away if Turkey invades.”

Reading such spine-chilling statements and terrifying headlines makes the shocking reactions of the readers understandable. This ‘Christian’ group further emphasized that an additional cross-border operation by Turkey may lead to another mass slaughter against Christians, just like last year “when the churches of Afrin were burned and the Christians and Yazidis there were hunted down.”

However, there was no Syriac church in Afrin and Syria’s Arameans also doubt the veracity of the “500 Kurdish Christian families” there and wonder about these timely converts to Christianity. If there indeed had been Christian victims in Afrin, it could have been Aramean teens snatched from the streets in the Hasakah province by the YPG/Asayesh and sent against their will to Afrin as human shields into a fight against Turkey. The call for ‘prayers’ to ‘fellow Christians’ in the West is also noteworthy, considering that the core ideology of this Syriac group is communist, anti-religion and violent (even against their fellow people). More significantly, they never speak about the fact that numerous Arameans (Syriacs) have already left Syria because of the YPG tyranny and that many others who are not able to or who do not wish to leave their ancient homeland continue to flee from the YPG’s oppression to find shelter and safety in places outside the Hasakah governorate.

Therefore, the vast majority of (Aramean) Christians in Northeast Syria have been complaining for years about the authoritarianism of the YPG and its separatist agenda, which runs against the spirit of national unity in the country and against UN charters. They are still eagerly hoping and waiting for Damascus to restore order and stability in their province. However, when Ankara threatened to clear its borders from these armed nationalists, who are ideologically and militarily in unison with the PKK, the YPG panicked and their pawns expressed this fear. Many of the region’s Aramean Christians, who typically are against foreign interventions, rather unexpectedly entertained a latent hope that Turkey will cross the border to finally halt the nationalist Kurdistan “project” (as the YPG leaders call it), teach the Kurdish separatists lessons of humility and give them a reality check, even hoping that governance will be returned to the local populations including the Arabs (the majority), the non-YPG allied Kurds and the non-YPG affiliated Aramean (Syriac) Christians.

One may acknowledge the Kurdish nationalists for joining in the fight against ISIS, but they were not the only ones combating this menace. However, this can no longer be the reason to arm and empower them as a distinct entity while speaking of ensuring Syria’s peace, security and territorial integrity, nor should it ever justify their dictatorial conduct against the local vulnerable groups.

In this region, the Kurds are betting high stakes involving serious perils for their own people if they lose. They may be willing and ready to pay the price for risking a strong Turkish or Syrian reaction. However, a grave concern, which America, France and the UK have not recognized yet, is that the Kurdish players are also throwing in priceless stakes which they do not own. Namely, non-Kurdish lives such as those of the Arameans (Syriacs), who are the only people in Syria having a continuous and well-documented presence of more than 3,000 years in Northeast Syria and Southeast Turkey. Those who are not able to distinguish between the victims and the perpetrators in this volatile region, are weakening those who already suffer and are strengthening the villains.

Click here to download this statement (pdf).

Press conference in Northeast Syria. Flags representing various groups, including the YPG and its counterpart the "Syriac" Military Council. 
Source photo: Nadie Harbieh. 

Agricultural Lands of Arameans Burned to Ashes in Tur-Abdin, Southeast Turkey

In the last two weeks, agricultural land of Aramean villages in three different areas in Southeast Turkey was completely burned. Although nobody got injured, the local population suffered a huge material loss after four years of growing various fruit trees went up in flames. The causes of these distinct fires during this summer-dry climate vary from place to place.

Local Aramean extinguishing the fires in Tur-Abdin. 

In the night of 25 July, a nearby land of the Saffron or St. Ananias (Mor Hananyo) Monastery was consumed by fire (the convent, founded in 493 AD, was the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch from 1166 to 1923 and lies a few kilometers east of Mardin). This fertile place, called ‘Ayn-ı Crun because it is rich in water, has a well where locals regularly meet in the evenings. The firemen who extinguished the fire claim that the land was set on fire. A local Aramean leader commented as follows: “Earlier this year, it rained a lot and the grass has grown high. Currently, it is hot and the dry grass may have caught fire from a dropped or tossed cigarette butt. However, it cannot be said whether it was deliberate or not.” Up to 350 olive and almond trees have been burned with their sprinkler irrigation systems. This is a great blow, because the Monastery invested four years to grow these trees and it will take four more years to recover from this material loss.

Southeast in the Mardin province lies Mount Izlo, close to Turkey’s borders with Syria and Iraq. This ancient place is still entirely populated by some of its native Arameans. As a result of the struggle between the Kurdish separatist organization PKK and the state in the 1980s and 1990s, Turkish security forces evacuated all Aramean villages except Arkah (Ücköy) from this hilly area to prevent the PKK from establishing itself there. Changing developments since the early 2000s, led to permanent and temporary remigration of tens of Aramean families in this former no-entry zone. As they began to rebuild their houses, lands, churches and villages in the last two decades, during some of the summers many fertile lands were destroyed by fire – sometimes on purpose by Kurdish neighboring villagers who didn’t appreciate the return of Arameans, sometimes as a result of an unreliable electric network combined with the summer-dry climate, a strong wind and the lack of resources and modern fire equipment to quickly and effectively put out a fire.

Recently, around 10 am on 28 July, the latter was the case. The account of a WCA Member from the Netherlands, who is visiting his village with his family during the summer, is in agreement with explanations given to WCA by other Arameans who returned to their villages. He explained that in his own backyard, in the village of Sederi (Üçyol), “a dove hit the transformer and caused a spark. This ignited a fire and the wind blew it out of control. My neighbor witnessed how this happened.”

From there, the fire spread to neighboring villages such as Harabemishka (Dağiçi), Arkah/Harabale (Üçköy) and Lower Kafro (Elbeğendi), where it even reached the houses. Even with the help of nearby places, the fire was contained no earlier than the next morning. A substantial part of forest land and this year’s crop, including cultivated fields and vineyards, has been reduced to ashes. The economic loss of the Arameans is colossal and should be measured soon.

Northeast of Mount Izlo and in the adjacent province of Şırnak, a fire broke out twice in Miden (Turkish Öğündük), one of a handful of villages in the Tur-Abdin region that are still exclusively inhabited by its indigenous Arameans. The first one was on 17 July and the 40-year-old electric grid may have triggered the fire; this outdated power grid has also caused fires in earlier summers. The second blaze was on 27 July and either may have had a similar cause or, as some local Arameans tend to believe, the dry land may have intentionally been set on fire to destroy their crop and to instill fear in them. That same day, Miden’s 50 Aramean families, assisted by surrounding villages, were able to quench the fire. The village leader estimates that “the first fire destroyed 200,000 m2 (square meters) of land, of which 150,000 m2 consisted of agricultural lands and vineyards where grapes, pistachio, figs, pomegranates and more were grown in the last four years. In addition, the second blaze was difficult to control and almost 4,000,000 m2 (400 hectares) of forest land was destroyed. Now that we have lost everything, we must start all over again.”

The WCA President, Johny Messo, responded to these latest incidents as follows: “We call upon the local authorities, NGOs and fellow Arameans worldwide to aid Tur-Abdin’s last Arameans. First, to compensate them for their enormous loss, while investigating the causes of the fires. Secondly, to provide them with the necessary resources to extinguish such fires more effectively in the future.”

Less than 2,000 Arameans have remained in Tur-Abdin, which is Aramaic for “Mountain of the Servants” of God. This formerly Aramean Christian region in Southeast Turkey is sometimes called ‘The Mount Athos of the East’. Between the mid-1960s and 1990s, tens of thousands of Arameans from the Tur-Abdin region, who speak the ‘language of Jesus’, have left their ancestral homeland.

Click here to download this press release (pdf).

WCA welcomes new American act regarding Arameans in Syria and Iraq

On 11 December 2018, U.S. President Trump signed a significant Act, recognizing that ISIS has committed genocide against the Arameans and Yezidis in Syria and Iraq, while also calling for the restoration of these affected indigenous peoples and their livelihoods.

On President Trump’s right: H.E. Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Catholic Church from Erbil, Iraq (Photo: White House).

The new law enables the victims of this genocide to finally and directly receive humanitarian aid from the United States. The long-awaited “assistance for humanitarian, stabilization and recovery needs” to these groups has now the legal framework to be implemented. Additionally, the Act will hold terrorist organizations such as ISIS accountable for genocide against ethno-religious minorities such as the Arameans (including Chaldeans, Syriacs and Assyrians) and Yezidis in Iraq and Syria.

“This Act is long due, but we welcome it. For far too long, the victims have been ignored and neglected by the international community,” commented WCA President, Johny Messo. “We hope that this document will be implemented without delay and inspire other governments and the UN to follow suit in helping Arameans, Yezidis and other vulnerable groups to rebuild their lives in their ancestral homeland.”

According to the Department of State’s annual reports on international religious freedom, the number of largely Aramean Christians living in Iraq has dropped from an estimated 1,400,000 in 2002 to fewer than 250,000 in 2017. These reports further suggest that the essentially Aramean Christians living in Syria, which constituted between 8 and 10 percent of Syria’s total population in 2010, are now “considerably” smaller as a result of the civil war that began in 2011.

The bill was first presented in 2017 by House Representative Christopher Smith (New Jersey), whom the WCA President had met with in December 2017 (photo). Until it was signed by President Trump, Congressman Smith had tried to introduce this document on multiple occasions during Obama’s administration. The state of New Jersey has a strong Aramean community, is the place of foundation of WCA in 1983 and is home to WCA’s member, the Aramaic American Association.

Click here to download this press release (pdf).

Co-Chairman, Helsinki Commission, Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ) with WCA President Johny Messo at
the 3rd Archon International Conference on Religious Freedom, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., 5 Dec 2017 

Source: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/390/text

UPDATE: On 12 October 2019, President Trump (video) promised to give 50 million U.S. dollars as emergency financial assistance to Syria's Christians and other minorities! In January 2021, WCA is unaware of Christians receiving any contribution from this pledged assistance and it remains unclear to us whether or not this funding was indeed directed to a governmental agency (if so, which one?). 

Appointment of Special WCA Representative to the Middle East

The World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) (“WCA”) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Antoine Tony Elkhoury from Sweden as the WCA Special Representative to the Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East, particularly Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

PYD/YPG Proxy Failed Murder Attempt on Aramean Teacher in Qamishli, Syria

On Saturday morning, 22 September 2018, an innocent 60-year-old Aramean teacher was critically injured after two men attacked him with baseball bats in a failed murder attempt right in front of his house in Qamishli, Northeast Syria. Mr. Isa Rashid, who is the director of the Nsibin Institute responsible for the Arameans schools, is still treated in a local hospital.

Kurdish YPG Unlawfully Closes Aramean and Armenian Schools

On 28 August 2018, the YPG proxy Sutoro/Syriac Military Council closed four schools in Qamishli, Derik and Darbasiyah (Al-Malikiyah). This comes after the YPG had announced the closure of minority schools earlier this month. However, the people are marching the streets of Qamishli to raise up against the unrecognized YPG government and its cronies.

Aramean People Stand in Solidarity with Sweden Midfielder Jimmy Durmaz After Racial Abuse

Sweden’s Jimmy Durmaz was racially abused on social media for conceding the free-kick that led to Germany’s last minute winner in the World Cup in Sochi on Saturday 23 June 2018. The World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) (“WCA”) strongly condemns racism and supports the midfielder, who stated that he was born to Aramean parents from Turkey and Lebanon.

WCA holds extra-ordinary meeting with Turkey's Foreign Minister

The World Council of Arameans (Syriacs) (“WCA”) had an extra-ordinary meeting with H.E. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, on 29 May 2018 in Düsseldorf, Germany. The high-level delegation consisted of the WCA President Johny Messo, the WCA Vice-President Shleimun Ego, the WCA Director for UN Affairs Sarah Bakir and the Chairman of the Aramean Federation of Switzerland Melki Toprak.

Kurdish YPG/Asayish Forces Once Again Kidnap Christians in Northeast Syria

In the last two weeks, the Kurdish YPG and security (Asayesh) forces kidnapped several young Arameans in Northeast Syria. The armed forces of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) continue to conscript them against their will, sending them to battle fields to fight and risk their lives in the frontline in Syria – not for peace, but for an envisioned ‘West Kurdistan’.