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The Assyrian Statehood: Yesterday’s Denial and
Today’s Moral Obligation
By Fred Aprim
November 12, 2002
As WWI came to
an end, preparations began to settle all disputes between the
winning Allied Powers and the losing Central Powers. At the 1919
Paris Peace Conference, under Article 22 of the League of Nations
Covenant, Iraq was formally made a Class “A” mandate country
entrusted to Britain. This award was completed during the April
18-27, 1920, San Remo Conference in Italy. Here the British
continued to show the Assyrians that they were going to keep their
promise they have made to the Assyrians, who served the Allies
throughout the Great War, including the issue of a homeland. Even
when the new Arab country under the name of Iraq was established in
1921, with borders almost identical to those of today with minor
adjustments made in the next few years, the thought of a betrayal
did not trigger the Assyrians’ mind. But it would become clear in
1932 when the mandate was terminated and Iraq was admitted to the
League of Nations that the policy of the Colonial Britain has been
anything but honorable, as admitted by many British officials. Most
recently, Mr. Jack Straw,
United Kingdom’s Foreign Minister, in an interview with a British
magazine spoke of quite serious mistakes made, especially during the
last decades of the empire. Straw blamed many territorial disputes
on the illogical borders created by colonial powers. He added:
“The odd lines for Iraq's borders were drawn by Brits.” [BBC
News,
Friday, 15 November, 2002, under header “British
Empire blamed for modern conflicts”]
Those
Assyrians, who were driven from their homes in Hakkari, Turkey, and
Urmia, Iran, to help the Allies, were now kept in refugee camps and
were told to await the negotiations of peace between Britain and
Iraq from one side and Turkey from the other. That peace process
took some four long years. When all was set and done, the report of
the League of Nations special Commission to Mosul gave Hakkari
region to Turkey in exchange for a territory in north of Mosul that
was to become an autonomous home for the Assyrians. [Dr. David B.
Perley, “The Middle East in the Post-War World National and
Religious Minorities: The Assyrians”, paper presented at New York
University-School of Education on June 6, 1947] The Harvard
Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups attested to this when it
wrote that the Assyrians fought on the Allied side and against the
Turks during WWI. The Assyrians were led to believe that their
efforts would win them the homeland they wanted for so long. The
Mosul Commission appointed in 1924 by the League of Nations advised
that the Assyrians be settled in a homogenous bloc in Mosul with a
measure of local autonomy. [Stephan Thernstrom, editor, “Harvard
Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups”, Harvard University Press,
p. 161]
The
participation of Assyrians in WWI came after certain events that
took place in the Middle East. First, simultaneously with the
outbreak of WWI, the Turks attacked the Assyrian villages of Albaq
and Gawar in southeast Turkey and thousands were massacred. Hormizd
d’ Mar Shimun, the Patriarch’s brother, who was studying in
Constantinople at the time, was imprisoned, transferred to Mosul,
and then executed. The Allied Governments asked for the Assyrians’
help, and the Assyrians obliged because the Assyrians could not
stand the Turkish Army on their own; they had no other alternative
specially when they needed military and financial assistance.
The Assyrians
had assurances of freedom, peace, and brighter future. These
assurances came through various meetings with officials representing
the Allies. First, Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun traveled to Tiflis
to meet with the Russian Grand Duke Nicholai Nichalovich, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Western Armies on the Turkish-Russian
frontiers. Then the Patriarch continued on into the heart of Russia
to meet with the Russian Czar. Through these meetings and others
like that meeting with the Russian Council in Urmia, the Assyrians
were given such assurances.
In the very
late parts of 1917, Captain Gracey, a well-known British Officer
during and after WWI, met the Assyrians in Urmia, Iran. He stated at
a gathering attended by Rev. Dr. John Shedd, the American
Vice-Council in Urmia, and the British army officer, the official
mouthpiece of the British Government: “…Let the hopes of a
glorious future make you patient and persevering to the end.
Remember, we are fighting for your freedom; and you must also
continue to contribute toward that final goal.” [Rev. Joel E.
Werda, “The Flickering Light of Asia”, first edition 1924, second
edition 1990, Chicago, p. 88]
There are two
important testimonial letters that back up this fact:
Letter
No. 1
Docteur Paul Caujole,
3, rue Lemoine,
Boulogne-sur-Seine. (Seine)
Boulogne, Dated 19th
January 1934
“In reply to your letter of 18th
January, 1934. I have precisely preserved, as a souvenir, the
Conference to which you allude without, of course, being able to
state the date.
The Conference was held in Urumia in
December 1917 or early in January 1918.
I was invited to the Conference in
question and took part in it as did Mr. Nikitine, the Russian
Vice-Consul in Urumia.
Captain Gracey who was acting under
the orders of the Intelligence Service came specially for the
purpose from Van, his headquarters, to encourage the Assyrians to
organize their resistance of the Turks.
In the name of England, he undeetook
to furnish immediately funds necessary for the payment of the troops
and Non-commissioned officers. For the future, he promised the
proclamation of the Independence of the Assyrian people.”
Sd. Paul Caujole,
Ex-Médecin-Chef de I’Ambulance
Française du Caucase.
Letter No. 2
Basile Nikitine,
Ancien Consul.
29 rue George-Sand, Paris (16).
Dated January 31st, 1934.
“I
certify that Captain Gracy, committed for Armenia and Kurdistan, of
the British Military Mission, attached to the General Staff of the
Caucasian army, came from Van at the end of the year 1917 and held
in Urumia a special meeting of the Assyrian and foreign
representatives and invited the Assyrian people to take up arms. He
solemnly promised them financial and political assistance of his
Government, both during the War and after the final regulation of
the peace.
Requested by Captain Gracey, I
attended the meeting in my capacity as Russian Consul and together
with the other Foreign Representatives, I declared that if the
Assyrians took up arms against the enemies, they could count after
the war on making them obtain their independence which they would
have well merited.”
Sd. Basile Nikitine
[Annemasse (Mar Eshai Shimun),
“The Assyrian Tragedy”, 1934, pp. 15-16]
After the
Great War came to an end and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919
began its deliberations, several Assyrian deputations put their
claims in front of the Conference for the Assyrian self-ruled region
(Assyrian State). Certain Assyrian groups included the regions of
northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, Southeastern Turkey and a strip
all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, as part of this new Assyrian
State. [Joseph Yacoub, Prof. Of Polotical Science at the Catholic
University, Lyon, France, “The Assyrian Question”, Chicago, 1986, p.
8] This reference of Prof. Yacoub of course is to the claim of
the Assyrians of the USA presented by Rev. Joel E. Werda, who sailed
to Paris and presented the Assyrian case before the conference of
the preliminaries of peace. The Assyrian State territorial
boundaries in this Assyrian Claim was defined as the area below the
lower Zab in the south; up to and including Diyar-Bakir in the
north; and from the Euphrates in the west to the Armenian Mountains
to the east, with an access to the sea. [Rev. Joel E. Werda, “The
Flickering Light of Asia”, first edition 1924, second edition 1990,
Chicago, p. 205]
The Assyrians
were making their argument on another front. In July 1920, the
French authorities in Syria (acting as the protector of the
Catholics) approached Malik Kambar Warda, one of the Assyrian
leaders during WWI. Later, Malik Kambar, accompanied by the
Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, met with General Gouru,
the Chief of Staff of the French Forces in the Middle East. General
Gouru handed Malik Kambar a letter from the French Prime Minister
about an autonomous Assyrian state in the Upper al-Jazeera,
northeastern Syria. Many components of this project came to be
established like an Assyrian flag, and an army, but it seems that
the British Government influenced the French to abandon the project
around 1922. [Sam Parhad, “Beyond the Call of Duty: The Biography
of Malik Kambar of Jeelu”, Metropolitan Press, USA, 1986, p. 25-28]
It was obvious too that it was the British again who caused this
project and the Assyrian Ghab settlement project in northern Lebanon
to fail, since the British wanted to use the Assyrians in the
oil-rich Iraq.
Other Assyrians
pursuing an autonomous Assyrian State was Agha Potrus. Despite much
controversy around Agha Potrus, his efforts in this regard are
undisputed. In confidential letters between the periods April 1921
and March 1922, the offices of the High Commissioner, Baghdad, the
Director of Repatriation, Mosul, and the Divisional Advisor, Mosul,
these officials discussed Agha Potrus’ proposal for an Assyrian
state, a complete proposal that was accompanied with a map. [Yusuf
Malek (of the Iraqi Civil Service 1917-1930) “The British Betrayal
of the Assyrians”, Chicago, 1935, pp. 312-313]
Agha Potrus at
the Lausanne Conference 1923 submitted the request for an Assyrian
autonomous state bordered around the Mosul Province and as follows:
The southern
line: north of the 36th latitude,
The Eastern
line: The Zab River where it flows into the Tigris River and through
the city of Rawandoz all the way to Iran,
The western
line: The 42nd longitude,
The northern
line: The region of Van, Turkey.
[Ninos
Nirari, “Agha Potrus”, Chicago, 1989, p. 179]
As the above
suggestion failed to gain approval, Agha Potrus tried again
desperately; this time he submitted another letter to the British
authorities, dated October 26, 1923. Agha Potrus’ suggestion for the
Assyrian enclave this time was the land between the Rivers Tigris
and Zab, and Mount Sinjar [Ninos Nirari, “Agha Potrus”, Chicago,
1989, p. 191]
Agha Potrus
proposed Assyrian State covers in reality the Assyrian Christian
historical homelands, lands that have been inhabited by the Assyrian
Christians, including Nestorians, Chaldeans, and Jacobites, for 2000
years. The well-known Father Jacques Rhétoré (1841-1921)
comprehensively described the region of the Assyrian Christians and
visited all their churches and monasteries as he journeyed the
region in 1891. The Assyrians, according to Rhétoré were stated to
have lived in an area confined generally within these boundaries:
North: the area
under an imaginary line from Lake Van to Lake Urmia.
West: a line
just west of the 42nd longitude near Seert, where the
rivers Tigris and Bitlis meet.
South: the 36th
latitude.
East: the Great
Zab.
[Dr. J. C.
J. Sanders, “Assyrian-Chaldean Christians in Eastern Turkey and
Iran: Their last homeland re-charted”, The Netherlands, 1997, p. 31]
The massacres
of the Assyrians in 1842-1847 and World War I genocide have taught
the Assyrians a hard lesson. When the Special Commission conducted a
voting among the population of Mosul regarding whether they
preferred to be under a Turk or Arab rule, the Assyrians were one of
the main reasons why Mosul was rewarded to Iraq because the
Assyrians have refused to be under Turkish rule. Having failed to
resolve the Mosul Province (Vilayet) issue at the Treaty of Lausanne
(November 1922 - July 1923), British and Turkish delegates met in a
Conference at Constantinople May 19, 1924. The British delegation
under Sir Percy Cox (former high commissioner in Iraq) insisted on
the inseparability of Mosul from Iraq and asked yet to attach the
Hakkari Vilayet to Mosul too. The Assyrians were laying claims at
this time for this whole region to be as a buffer zone between
Turkey and Iraq. [Harry N. Howard, “The Partition of Turkey: A
Diplomatic History 1913-1923”, University of Oklahoma Press, 1931,
p. 337] During the proceedings of the conference, Fathi Beg, the
Turks chief negotiator, stated that no cession of land to the
Assyrians was necessary as they could still live in peace in Turkey!
To this Sir Percy Cox replied that Fathi Beg’s assertion did not
square with the Assyrians’ own views and that they had the most
vivid memory of the treatment they have suffered in the past at the
hands of the Turks. In a letter from Dr. Rev. W. A. Wigram to the
editor of “The Near East and India”, wrote that if the British were
not going to return the Assyrians to their original homes, then the
Assyrians were to be provided with, and as Lord Curzon put it in the
House of Lords on 17-12-1919, “either an enclave, or
arrangements for a safe and decent existence.” The League of
Nations promised the Assyrians “all their rights, including
autonomy…” as the reward for assigning Mosul to Iraq (Turko-Iraq
frontier. C. 400. M. 147. 1925. VII. P. 90) [Yusuf Malek (of the
Iraqi Civil Service 1917-1930) “The British Betrayal of the
Assyrians”, Chicago, 1935, p. 327]
The Iraq
Levies, which was a British Force first comprising mainly of Arabs,
Kurds and Turkomans, did not impress the British, later this force
became predominantly Assyrian, who practiced great discipline. This
force had helped to bring stability to the newly born state of Iraq.
The levy flushed north of Iraq region from the sporadic Kurdish
insurrection and the expulsion of the Turkish irregulars in 1923.
For these reasons, among others, the Iraqi Government pledged
assurances to provide lands for the Assyrians in north Iraq. Sir
Henry Dobbs, His Britannic Majesty’s Government representative in
Iraq, quoted one of these assurances, which appeared in the Letters
of Gertrude Bell, under statement by Sir Henry Dobbs. The letter
says:
“…In
order to reassure them (the Assyrians) as to their future, two
successive Iraqi cabinets, those of Jafar Pasha and Yasin Pasha,
officially pledged the Government of Iraq to provide lands in Iraq
for those Assyrians who might be dispossessed of their original
homes by the decision of the League of Nations and to devise a
system of administration for them which would ensure to them the
utmost possible freedom from interference. It can hardly be doubted
that this liberal attitude on the part of the Government of Iraq had
its influence on the deliberations of the Frontier Commission.”
[Lady Bell, “The Letters of Gertrude Bell”, Vol. II, New York,
1927, p. 552] Read also, Annemasse (Mar Eshai Shimun), “The
Assyrian Tragedy”, 1934, pp. 18-19.
The disputed
Iraqi-Turkish frontiers (known as the Mosul Province Dispute)
prompted the League of Nations to send a Commission of Enquiry to
the region in 1925. The Commission submitted its report to the
League and here is an abstract from the report:
“It is not
within our competence to enumerate all the conditions which would
have to be imposed on the Sovereign State for the protection of
these minorities. We feel it our duty, however, to point out that
the Assyrians should be guaranteed the re-establishment of the
ancient privileges, which they possessed in practice, if not
officially, before the war. Whichever may be the Sovereign State, it
ought to grant these Assyrians a certain local autonomy, recognizing
their right to appoint their own officials and contenting itself
with a tribute from them, paid through the agency of their Patriarch
… The status of minorities would necessarily have to be adapted to
the special conditions of the country; we think, however, that the
arrangements made for the benefit of minorities might remain a dead
letter if no effective supervision were exercised locally.”
[League of Nations document C. 400. m. 147. 1925. VII. P. 90]
Read also Annemasse (Mar Eshai Shimun), “The Assyrian Tragedy”,
1934, p. 19
Finally, Mosul
was awarded to Iraq in December 16, 1925, and the Assyrians waited
for the League’s commission recommendations and the British promises
to be delivered, but the British delayed.
In September
1929, the British Government announced its intentions to end its
mandate over Iraq in 1932 and facilitate the entrance of Iraq into
the League of Nations without addressing the Assyrian issue
thoroughly. This meant to the Assyrians the end of their semi
autonomy they have enjoyed in the past few years in northern Iraq.
In June 1932, the Assyrians presented a petition to Sir F. H.
Humphrys, British High Commissioner, who forwarded it to the British
Secretary of State and the British Government. The Assyrian
petitions asked to settle the Assyrians in a compacted community in
a sub-division of the Mosul Province. The British Government
rejected this stating that Iraq does not have a free space whereon
the Assyrians could be settled as an autonomous community. [Annemasse
(Mar Eshai Shimun), “The Assyrian Tragedy”, 1934, pp. 33-34]
In fact the
League of Nations received many petitions from several Assyrian
groups demanding autonomy, each group with its own underlined
specified region. In December 1932, the Council of the League of
Nations assigned five of its members to investigate the petitions
but they rejected the Assyrians’ demands. [Joseph Yacoub, Prof.
Of Political Science at the Catholic University, Lyon, France, “The
Assyrian Question”, Chicago, 1986, p. 122] The Assyrians
indicated several times that they would not be treated fairly by the
Iraqi government, but to no avail. Only months after the end of the
British mandate and the admittance of Iraq in to the League of
Nations in 1932 the Assyrians’ fears became a reality. The Iraqi
Army brutally and in cold blood massacred some 3000 unarmed
Assyrians, including elderly, women, and children in Semile and
other neighboring villages in August 1933. The massacre was
accompanied by grand looting of Assyrian villages by Arab and
Kurdish tribes that continued for days while the Patriarch was under
detention in Baghdad and after the massacre He and His entire family
were exiled to Cyprus.
The petition of
the Rev. Shlaimun Abraham and other Assyrian National Committeemen,
signed in September 1st, 1933, and sent to The Consul
General, (Great Britain), New York, had underlined the Assyrian
region. In that petition the Assyrians demanded their homeland to be
comprised of the regions of Amadia, Zakho, Dohuk, and Aqra, and to
be known as New Assyria. [Yusuf Malek (of the Iraqi Civil Service
1917-1930) “The British Betrayal of the Assyrians”, Chicago, 1935,
p. 357] The above petition was based on the pattern of the
Assyrian settlements after the closure of the Mindan refugee Camp
near Mosul in 1921.
Stafford tells
us that the Assyrian refugee settlement distribution in north of
Iraq at that time was as follows:
In north of
Amadia 6,950; in Amadia itself 1,100; and in Dohuk, Zakho, Aqra, and
Sheikhan 7,450 Assyrian refugees were settled.
[Lt.-Col. R.
S. Stafford, “The Tragedy of the Assyrians”, London, 1935, p. 45]
On October 8,
1933, the Mar Eshai Shimun submitted his report to the League of
Nations. In it He stated:
“If it should
be possible at this late date to form, as suggested by Lord Curzon
Dec. 17, 1919, a “Kurdish-Assyrian enclave in the north of the
Wilayet of Mosul under special administration, where Kurds and
Assyrians might dwell together we would accept that solution.” [Annemasse
(Mar Eshai Shimun), “The Assyrian Tragedy”, 1934, p. 70]
The 1933 Semile
massacre suppressed the Assyrian spirit. The Assyrians withdrew to
isolation for the next half a century but have some social freedom
especially in Habbaniya, west of Baghdad, where they concentrated
because of the continuous presence of the British Royal Air Force
Base. The Assyrians tempted to establish a political organization in
the mid 1940s, known as “Khait Khait Allap” but the British
undermined their efforts. In 1955 the Levy Force was dismantled and
the Assyrians began with time to move out from Habbaniya into
Baghdad and other cities in north of Iraq, specially the oil rich
Kirkuk.
In most recent
years, the Assyrian national dream have begun to rise, although
somehow quietly, and references to an Assyrian State brought to
surface again. In the Assyrian National Manifesto of 1983, by the
Bet Nahrain Democratic Party, the Assyrian autonomous state was
defined either as the province of Mosul or the province of Dohuk. [Dr.
Sargon Dadesho, “The Assyrian National Question”, Modesto,
California, 1987, p. 275]
There is,
generally speaking, a niche in the Arab and Kurd’s psyche, which has
much to do with enforcing ideology through sheer power, and unless
that is controlled, democracy will never blossom in the Middle East
in general and Iraq in particular. The civilized world have an
obligation towards the Assyrians, just as the Allied Powers helped
other new nations to be established since peace was signed post WWI
and until today.
Bearing in mind
that Iraq became a member in the League of Nations on 3 October
1932, conditioned through its solemn Declaration of 30 May 1932, to
providing strict protection to its ethnic minorities. Article 5 of
the Iraqi Constitution read:
“Iraqi nationals who belong to racial, religious or linguistic
minorities will enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in
fact as other Iraqi nationals. In particular, they shall have an
equal right to maintain, manage and control at their own expense, or
to establish in the future, charitable, religious and social
institutions, schools and other educational establishments, with the
right to use their own language and to exercise their religion
freely therein.”
[Iraq
Declaration of 30 May 1932,
A.17.1932.VII
(VII.Political.1932.VII.9), 16 August 1932]
And bearing in
mind that Iraq, on 21 December 1945, joined the United Nations while
it was still a Member of the League of Nations, and that it has
neither then nor since sought or obtained a change or lifting of any
of the formal conditions attached to its Declaration of 30 May 1932,
thus the protection of Iraq’s ethnic people continue to be an
obligation to the Charter of the United Nations.
and bearing in
mind that the Assembly of the League of Nations, on 18 April 1946,
adopted its last Resolution providing for the transfer to the United
Nations of rights and obligations which were attributed to the
League of Nations in treaties, mandates and declarations, and that
article 37 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice
provides for its jurisdiction in corresponding matters previously
submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice;
Therefore, the United Nations have a moral obligation to undo the
mistakes of its predecessor, the League of Nations, because:
a)
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted and
proclaimed by the United Nations’ General Assembly Resolution 217 A
(III) of 10 December 1948, has not been exercised by the various
Iraqi governments, as thousands of Assyrians have been executed,
assassinated, imprisoned, tortured, deported, and displaced.
b)
The Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or
Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities, adopted by the General
Assembly Resolution 47/135 of 18 December 1992, has not been
implemented by the various Iraqi governments, as Assyrian schools
have been closed and Syriac language prohibited from being taught,
and the Assyrian ethnicity suppressed, undermined, and flat out
rejected. (Iraqi governments have forced the Assyrians to register
only as Arabs or Kurds in the Iraqi National Census of 1977 and
1987).
Therefore, the United Nations must take, under the articles of both
the above Declarations, the necessary measures to protect the ethnic
Assyrian Christians in Iraq. An Assyrian enclave, accordingly, in
northern Iraq in the region of Mosul must be set up to protect the
Assyrians. The Assyrians respect the unity of the State of Iraq and
would prefer at least a governing system that allows them to govern
themselves, the only system that can guarantee them all the articles
of the United Nations Declarations. |
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