Post by Moses on Apr 11, 2005 6:51:03 GMT -5
indiamonitor.com/news/readNews.jsp?ni=6806
Today's News <br>US designs on Syria's Kurds
By Sami Moubayed
Saturday, April 09, 2005,DAMASCUS:One of the overriding fears in the Middle East is how Kurds might be manipulated by outside forces to create havoc in the region, as has happened before.
On May 29, 1945, while the French were trying to topple the Syrian government, they bombed Damascus and ignited violence in the Hay al-Akrad neighborhood of the Syrian capital, where the city's Kurds resided.
The French told the Kurds that acting prime minister Jamil Mardam Bey had fled to Jordan, spreading a rumor that president Shukri al-Quwatli had been killed, leaving Syria in chaos. It was now up to the Kurds to take matters into their own hands, the French said. The Kurds quickly took to the streets, occupying police stations, destroying government offices, and raising the Kurdish flag to replace the Syrian one. They were calmed, and brought back to order by Mardam Bey.
The event, which took place exactly 60 years ago, explains how easily some Kurds can be incited to cause trouble. The story, mentioned in the memoirs of Mardam Bey, was confirmed by an observer of the events of 1945, but challenged by a Kurdish gentleman who said, "Absolutely untrue. An officer in the Syrian army, who was a Kurd, called on us to carry our weapons, and to defend Shukri al-Quwatli."
This shows the degree of division in Syria over the Kurdish issue, with some insisting to denigrate the Kurds as separatists who have no loyalty to Syria, and others insisting that they are a part of the Syrian identity, just like any Syrian Arab, who shaped Syria's history and culture over the centuries, and are Syrian nationalists at heart. The truth, another camp argues, is somewhere in between.
The de-Syriafication of 1962
Nothing shows this division better than the violence that rocked Syria in March 2004, conducted, once again, by some - but not all - Kurds, and generally believed in Syria to be the dirty work of the US. The event led to the killing of some Kurds and to the arrest of hundreds.
In March this year, President Bashar Assad released 312 Kurds, all arrested during the disturbances of 2004, promising to grant Syrian citizenship to 300,000 Kurds who were stripped of it in 1962.
Currently, 25,000 Kurds are unregistered in Syria, and another 225,000 are registered as "foreigners" with no Syrian passports but red IDs, granted by the Ministry of Interior. They have restrictions on travel, marriage and owning property. Exaggeration in the Western media says that they are discriminated against at schools, in hospitals and in government employment and wages. In July 1996, the Syrian government told Human Rights Watch that the number of Kurds with such status was only 67,465.
Assad today wants to be nice to the Syrian Kurds, fearing that inspired by the autonomy and grand concessions, they are gaining in Iraq, they will make similar demands for autonomy in Syria. The truth is that the Kurds of Syria are very different from those of Iraq. They want citizenship, not autonomy.
Ahmad Barakat, of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party, confirmed this to the Christian Science Monitor, saying, "Our problem is very different from that of the Kurds in Iraq. Their aim in Iraq is to get a state of their own. But in Syria, we just want our culture and freedom as Syrian nationals."
The US media, however, and some US-backed Kurdish activists, in Syria and abroad, insist on marketing a story of Kurdish plight, unrest and separatism in Syria, claiming that the Syrian Kurds are oppressed and deserve autonomy, just like their Iraqi counterparts. Many see this as part of a grand US smear campaign against Damascus.
The London-based al-Hayat published an article on April 3 saying that Syria "was putting the last touches on a law that will give citizenship to roughly 300,000 Kurds". Most of them had come to Syria in the 1920s, fleeing persecution in neighboring Turkey. Everybody who came to Syria during the French Mandate, Kurdish, Armenian, etc, were given Syrian nationality as a part of France's plan to create diversity in Syria. Nobody was turned away between 1920 and 1946.
These Kurds had their citizenship revoked in August 1962 during a highly controversial census conducted under president Nazim al-Qudsi, a civilian pre-Ba'ath leader of Syria. The Qudsi regime came to power when Syria dissolved its merger with Egypt in September 1961, and was coming under daily fire by president Gamal Abd Nasser, who accused the new leaders of Damascus of being opponents of Arab nationalism.
To prove their Arab zeal, Syria's new leaders passed decree number 93, stripping about 120,000 Syrian Kurds of their Syrian citizenship. The argument of the authorities in 1962 was that the census was aimed at identifying "alien infiltrators" in Syria; those who had illegally crossed the border from Turkey. Kurds had to prove that they had lived in Syria at least since 1945, or lose any claim to Syrian citizenship. The census was rigged, and led to the fiasco of Kurdish "unrest" in Syria, which exploded in 2004.
(continued)
Today's News <br>US designs on Syria's Kurds
By Sami Moubayed
Saturday, April 09, 2005,DAMASCUS:One of the overriding fears in the Middle East is how Kurds might be manipulated by outside forces to create havoc in the region, as has happened before.
On May 29, 1945, while the French were trying to topple the Syrian government, they bombed Damascus and ignited violence in the Hay al-Akrad neighborhood of the Syrian capital, where the city's Kurds resided.
The French told the Kurds that acting prime minister Jamil Mardam Bey had fled to Jordan, spreading a rumor that president Shukri al-Quwatli had been killed, leaving Syria in chaos. It was now up to the Kurds to take matters into their own hands, the French said. The Kurds quickly took to the streets, occupying police stations, destroying government offices, and raising the Kurdish flag to replace the Syrian one. They were calmed, and brought back to order by Mardam Bey.
The event, which took place exactly 60 years ago, explains how easily some Kurds can be incited to cause trouble. The story, mentioned in the memoirs of Mardam Bey, was confirmed by an observer of the events of 1945, but challenged by a Kurdish gentleman who said, "Absolutely untrue. An officer in the Syrian army, who was a Kurd, called on us to carry our weapons, and to defend Shukri al-Quwatli."
This shows the degree of division in Syria over the Kurdish issue, with some insisting to denigrate the Kurds as separatists who have no loyalty to Syria, and others insisting that they are a part of the Syrian identity, just like any Syrian Arab, who shaped Syria's history and culture over the centuries, and are Syrian nationalists at heart. The truth, another camp argues, is somewhere in between.
The de-Syriafication of 1962
Nothing shows this division better than the violence that rocked Syria in March 2004, conducted, once again, by some - but not all - Kurds, and generally believed in Syria to be the dirty work of the US. The event led to the killing of some Kurds and to the arrest of hundreds.
In March this year, President Bashar Assad released 312 Kurds, all arrested during the disturbances of 2004, promising to grant Syrian citizenship to 300,000 Kurds who were stripped of it in 1962.
Currently, 25,000 Kurds are unregistered in Syria, and another 225,000 are registered as "foreigners" with no Syrian passports but red IDs, granted by the Ministry of Interior. They have restrictions on travel, marriage and owning property. Exaggeration in the Western media says that they are discriminated against at schools, in hospitals and in government employment and wages. In July 1996, the Syrian government told Human Rights Watch that the number of Kurds with such status was only 67,465.
Assad today wants to be nice to the Syrian Kurds, fearing that inspired by the autonomy and grand concessions, they are gaining in Iraq, they will make similar demands for autonomy in Syria. The truth is that the Kurds of Syria are very different from those of Iraq. They want citizenship, not autonomy.
Ahmad Barakat, of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party, confirmed this to the Christian Science Monitor, saying, "Our problem is very different from that of the Kurds in Iraq. Their aim in Iraq is to get a state of their own. But in Syria, we just want our culture and freedom as Syrian nationals."
The US media, however, and some US-backed Kurdish activists, in Syria and abroad, insist on marketing a story of Kurdish plight, unrest and separatism in Syria, claiming that the Syrian Kurds are oppressed and deserve autonomy, just like their Iraqi counterparts. Many see this as part of a grand US smear campaign against Damascus.
The London-based al-Hayat published an article on April 3 saying that Syria "was putting the last touches on a law that will give citizenship to roughly 300,000 Kurds". Most of them had come to Syria in the 1920s, fleeing persecution in neighboring Turkey. Everybody who came to Syria during the French Mandate, Kurdish, Armenian, etc, were given Syrian nationality as a part of France's plan to create diversity in Syria. Nobody was turned away between 1920 and 1946.
These Kurds had their citizenship revoked in August 1962 during a highly controversial census conducted under president Nazim al-Qudsi, a civilian pre-Ba'ath leader of Syria. The Qudsi regime came to power when Syria dissolved its merger with Egypt in September 1961, and was coming under daily fire by president Gamal Abd Nasser, who accused the new leaders of Damascus of being opponents of Arab nationalism.
To prove their Arab zeal, Syria's new leaders passed decree number 93, stripping about 120,000 Syrian Kurds of their Syrian citizenship. The argument of the authorities in 1962 was that the census was aimed at identifying "alien infiltrators" in Syria; those who had illegally crossed the border from Turkey. Kurds had to prove that they had lived in Syria at least since 1945, or lose any claim to Syrian citizenship. The census was rigged, and led to the fiasco of Kurdish "unrest" in Syria, which exploded in 2004.
(continued)