Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06DAMASCUS1058
2006-03-09 14:58:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Damascus
Cable title:  

TWO YEARS AFTER QAMISHLI RIOTS, WHERE ARE THE

Tags:  PGOV PHUM SY 
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VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDM #1058/01 0681458
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 091458Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7627
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 0691
C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 001058 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

LONDON FOR TSOU, PARIS FOR ZEYA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/08/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SY
SUBJECT: TWO YEARS AFTER QAMISHLI RIOTS, WHERE ARE THE
KURDS GOING?

REF: (A) DAM 929 (B) DAM 421 (C) 2004 DAMASCUS 006504

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Stephen A. Seche for reasons 1.4(b)/(d
)

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 001058

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

LONDON FOR TSOU, PARIS FOR ZEYA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/08/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SY
SUBJECT: TWO YEARS AFTER QAMISHLI RIOTS, WHERE ARE THE
KURDS GOING?

REF: (A) DAM 929 (B) DAM 421 (C) 2004 DAMASCUS 006504

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Stephen A. Seche for reasons 1.4(b)/(d
)


1. (C) SUMMARY: As the March 12 anniversary of the 2004
Kurdish riots in northeastern Syria nears, multiple issues
regarding Syria's Kurdish minority remain unresolved.
Several hundred thousand Kurds in Syria remain without
citizenship resulting in serious socioeconomic consequences;
linguistic and cultural rights are still severely curbed;
and, as with most of the opposition, political activism has
been sharply curtailed by regime authorities. Meanwhile,
Kurdish activists continue to develop ideas about a Kurdish
role in a future Syrian democracy, taking many cues from
their Kurdish brethren in Iraq. Kurdish activists also
continue to find cooperation with each other and with other
Syrian opposition factions difficult, a conflict which some
Arab activists see as being of the Kurds' own making. END
SUMMARY.


2. (C) Kurdish contacts have spent the last several weeks
preparing for the commemoration of the March 2004 riots,
which took place throughout Hassekah province, as well as in
Aleppo and Damascus, in reaction to Syrian police opening
fire on a crowd at a soccer match following clashes between
Arab and Kurdish fans. Kurdish groups have organized
demonstrations to be held on March 12 in Qamishli, the
capital city of Hassekah province, and possibly also
Damascus. The SARG has also prepared by strengthening
security levels, according to embassy contacts (ref A).

3. (C) SARG'S REPRESSION OF KURDISH POPULATION STILL
INTENSE, DESPITE PROMISES OF IMPROVEMENTS: The list of
discriminatory SARG policies against Kurds remains long,
including the lack of citizenship for 350,000 Kurds
(according to a recent Refugees International report and the
figure commonly used by Kurdish groups),the ban on any
publications in and the teaching of the Kurdish language, and
severe cultural repression. As noted in ref B, the SARG
made multiple promises in 2005 and early 2006 to resolve the
Kurdish citizenship issue imminently, but concrete action has
yet to been taken. (NOTE: The lack of citizenship

effectively prevents international travel, ownership of
property, many types of employment, as well as limited access
to university-level education. END NOTE.) At the same time,
Kurds (both activists and average citizens) continue to be
arrested on a variety of charges, ranging from accused
membership in the Kongra Gel to possessing Kurdish cultural
material. For example, in January, two Kurdish men were
arrested and remain detained after being caught selling
calendars depicting scenes from Kurdish folklore.
Prosecution of Kurdish citizens remains a fixture of Supreme
State Security Court charges, mainly on charges of membership
in the Kongra Gel (successor organization to the PKK) or
another secret organization seeking to annex part of Syria to
another country.


4. (C) KURDISH POLITICAL LANDSCAPE REMAINS FRAGMENTED, BUT
COOPERATION MAY BE AHEAD: There are currently twelve Kurdish
domestic political parties, each with varying levels of
organization and membership. While officially illegal, the
SARG tolerates the parties' existence (like their Arab
counterparts) to varying and sometimes dangerously
unpredictable degrees. Two loose coalitions exist, the
Kurdish Democratic Front (which is aligned with Iraqi Kurd
leader Masoud Barzani) and the Kurdish Democratic Alliance
(aligned with Iraqi Kurd leader Jalal Talabani) (ref C). In
addition, there are four independent parties: the Azadi
Party, the Yekiti Party, the PKK-affiliated Democratic Union,
and the recently formed Kurdish Future Movement. While the
two coalitions signed the Damascus Declaration, the Azadi,
Yekiti, and Future Movement parties held out, complaining of
the emphasis on the Arab and Islamic identity of Syria.
Compared to the independent parties, the two coalitions,
however, are not nearly as popular in the Kurdish community,
according to Arab human rights activist Rezan Zeituneh, who
characterized the coalition parties as politically inactive,
small, and close to the authorities.


5. (C) There are signs that the Kurdish parties are trying
to move closer together, despite divisions over the Damascus
Declaration. According to Azadi Party activist Luqman Ois,
the Azadi Party has begun promoting a dialogue among the
Kurdish parties, with the goals of forming a unified message
and acting upon it; creating a political document discussing
democracy, Kurdish and nationality issues, and relations with
Arabs; and working to form a unified political "Front" that
includes all Kurdish parties. Other post contacts have also
taken notice of improved intra-Kurdish relations. According

to prominent opposition figure Riad Seif, divisions among the
Kurds existed in the past, but he said they are now "more
reasonable" and are working together more closely.


6. (C) KURDISH CIVIL SOCIETY ALSO BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE: In
addition to the continued existence of 12 outlawed Kurdish
political parties, the Kurds are also slowly organizing
underground civil society institutions. The Kurdish Human
Rights Committee (KHRC) and the Committee to Defend Stateless
Kurds are both active in monitoring and publishing statements
on the Kurdish human rights situation. The KHRC, together
with a German NGO, has also recently launched a European
Commission-sponsored day-care center for street children in
Qamishli. The Yekiti Party has started developing a women's
NGO, focusing on organizing Kurdish women. Kurdish
organizations continue to be at the forefront of public
protests in Syria, staging a variety of small, organized
sit-ins and demonstrations over the last two years. At least
one Kurdish organization, the Yekiti Party, claims to
actively train its members in nonviolent tactics, using
literature written by veteran civil disobedience trainers
Gene Sharp and Robert Helvey.


7. (C) KURDISH GOALS: TO RESOLVE ISSUES AND ATTAIN
RECOGNITION AND AUTONOMY IN FUTURE DEMOCRATIC SYRIA: While
Kurds are quick to enunciate clear goals on resolving the
issues of citizenship as well as linguistic and cultural
freedoms, they also demand, somewhat more circumspectly, the
granting of "national" rights. In discussions with a number
of Kurdish interlocutors, the definition of "national" rights
remains amorphous, focusing more on the need to overcome Arab
preconceptions about the Kurdish population of Syria.
"(Syrian) Arabs must recognize that we did not migrate here
from elsewhere, but have lived in these lands for a very long
time," says Faisl Badr, a human rights lawyer and Yekiti
Party board member. (NOTE: The Kurdish claim of a long-term
historical presence of all Kurds in Syria is debatable; even
some Syrian human rights activists find the Kurdish claim
exaggerated. Human rights activist and Damascus Declaration
signatory Haithem al-Maleh, for example, told Poloff that
many of the stateless Kurds had moved to Syria from Iraq and
Turkey early in the 20th century, when borders were more
porous. END NOTE.)


8. (C) Representatives of both the Yekiti and Azadi parties
usually claim that they have resigned themselves to not
achieving separatist autonomy for Kurds in Syria, and thus
discuss the Kurdish role as part of a pan-Syrian identity.
They have clear ideas about the freedoms that should be
granted to Kurds in a democratic system, as well as what
historical SARG measures should be undone. Ois told Poloff
that any future democratic constitution must acknowledge that
the Kurds are the second "nation" in Syria. Kurds do not
like being considered as a minority-rights issue in Syria.
Because the Damascus Declaration relegated Kurds to this
secondary status, rather than addressing their concerns as a
"national" rights issue, most Kurdish activists refused to
sign it. In a February meeting, Yekiti Party General
Secretary Hassan Saleh highlighted Kurdish resentment over

SIPDIS
SARG Arabization efforts aimed over the past fifty years at
attenuating any sense of developing Kurdish nationhood in
northeastern Syria. He called for a return to the
governorate borders used during the French mandate and for a
federal system like Iraq's. Saleh went so far as to draw a
map, indicating territories across northern Syria which had
been subjected to Arabization programs since the 1970s. When
asked about the fate of the region's sizable non-Kurdish
population in a future democratic Syria, Saleh answered that
Arabs who had lived traditionally in the region were welcome
to stay, but anyone who had benefited from Arabization
programs in the past four decades had to be transferred out,
"like they're doing in Kirkuk," where he said Kurds are using
financial enticements to persuade relatively recently settled
Arabs (brought by Saddam) to leave Kirkuk.


9. (C) COOPERATION WITH ARAB CIVIL SOCIETY REMAINS LIMITED:
Much Kurdish action appears to run separately and parallel
to Arab civil society activities. While some cooperation
does take place among individual activists, coordination
between Arab and Kurdish opposition groups appears limited.
The failure of Arab human rights activists to join a December
2005 Human Rights Day demonstration left its Kurdish
organizers particularly bitter, as they expressed frustration
at Arab activists' unwillingness to take risks. Ois noted,
"a year ago, we were able to organize a demonstration
together-- now no Arabs join us." Zeituneh noted that
cooperation started to wane when Kurds starting appearing at
jointly organized events three years ago carrying Kurdish
language posters and chanting in the Kurdish language

Kermanji, turning the protest into "a Kurdish thing."


10. (C) Activist Rezan Zeituneh said that the schism boils
down to "Arab fear of the Kurds and Kurdish distrust of the
Arabs." The Qamishli riots of 2004 forced the Arab
opposition for the first time to pay attention to Kurdish
problems and the power that Kurdish forces have, with
Zeituneh noting "the Kurds don't need the Arabs and are able
to move the street on their own." The conflict is further
reinforced by the Arab perception that Kurds are somewhat
disingenuous about their ultimate goals, and focused more on
independence/autonomy than on developing Syrian democracy.
According to Zeituneh, on the Arab side, some branches of the
opposition contain "disgusting" Arab nationalists who ignore
all ethnic minority concerns, as they focus on strengthening
pan-Arab solidarity as a way to counter what they view as the
threat from the U.S.


11. (C) Arab activists have voiced their frustrations with
their Kurdish counterparts, whose commitment to achieving
democracy seems consistently overshadowed by Kurdish demands
for autonomy, if not outright separation. Arab activists are
particularly troubled by Kurds' unwillingness to address the
presence of a large Arab population in the Kurdish heartland
of Hassekeh Province. Indeed, Syrian Kurds have exacerbated
these Arab fears by continuing to discuss their ideal of
outright independence, while simultaneously throwing back
(justifiable) Arab criticisms of these ideals as hateful and
xenophobic. Key human rights activist Anwar al-Bunni was
critical of what he called "Kurdish stubbornness." While the
Kurds share many of the same ideas as their fellow Arab
activists, "they have to change their language" in order not
to alienate their Arab counterparts. Zeituneh criticized the
Azadi and Yekiti parties for failing to sign the Damascus
Declaration, noting that the Declaration is a work in
progress and a forum for debate and discussion of their
demands: "they should work for democracy, then worry about
their own agenda." Maleh complained to Poloff that it is the
Kurds who are unwilling to work together with the Arabs,
pointing to the existence of a Syrian Kurdish Committee for
Human Rights as an example of Kurdish reluctance to work with
Arab counterparts.


12. (C) Some Arab opposition figures have recognized the
value of bringing the Kurds into the greater opposition fold.
Leading opposition figure Riad Seif noted that he has had
good relations with Syrian Kurds since before his
imprisonment, and feels that he has gained the trust of the
Kurdish groups. Seif also recognizes the political potential
of the Kurds: "if the Kurds gather, they could be a big power
in the future." They are "more involved in politics than
others," and are a true threat to the SARG: "the regime may
try but it cannot manage them."


13. (C) COMMENT: Kurdish activists have certainly gained
the sympathies of their Arab compatriots on human rights
issues like citizenship, linguistic and cultural rights.
However, by refusing to sign the Damascus Declaration, while
simultaneously waxing nostalgic for the ideal of an
independent Kurdistan, the Kurds are alienating some of their
most likely allies. If the Kurds continue to develop
Kurdish-only, parallel civil society structures, the
Arab-Kurdish wedge may continue to grow larger. As with many
of the other splinterings within the opposition, the
Kurdish-Arab divide provides especially fertile ground for
the SARG to use in its "divide and conquer" strategy against
the opposition, holding ready the bargaining chips of
citizenship, language and cultural rights to assuage Kurdish
demands and control the most volatile and mobile part of the
opposition. END COMMENT.
SECHE