Appeal by Co-chairman of the PYD, Mohamed Saleh Muslim, on behalf of the people in the cantons of Rojava, Qamişlo, 01.09.2014
To the international community,
To the members of the United Nations,
To all international aid organisations,
On the occasion of the World Day of Peace, I want, as someone who has
not lost his hope for peace, to address this letter to you. The purpose
of this letter is not to describe to you the tragic events that have
occurred in Syria over the past three years. However, I hereby appeal to
you to take responsibility to make an end to this tragedy: I also want
to tell you how we are trying to live up to our responsibilities.
In March 2011, the population of Syria for the first time went to the
streets to express their legitimate demands concerning the Assad regime,
and we have attempted to revolt against a system that has for decades
suppressed and tormented our population. We have driven the regime
forces from the Kurdish majority settlement areas in the north of the
country and are determined, as an ethnic group, including the young
people, the women and the men from Rojava, to shape our future ourselves
from now on. Both the regime and various Islamic groups have objections
to our decision - because they started attacking us. Against these
attacks, we have made use of our legitimate right to self-defence.
There was no other choice open to us.
In the last two years, initially Islamists of the Al-Nusra front, and
later the ISIS (or the IS) have taken the leading role in the fight
against us. We have not only had to deal with Islamists from Syria or
Iraq, but with insurgents who have come, and continue to come, not only
from regions and countries such as Chechnya and Egypt, but also from
Europe or even Australia. They are organised in many countries and often
use Turkey as a transit country. We have had to counter the attacks of
these people and we have needed, and still need, to defend ourselves.
But for the people of Rojava, one thing is certain, namely that nothing
will be as it was before the outbreak of the civil war. But what will
the situation be then? To find answers to these questions, we have
developed solutions and initiated related projects. And this right to
self-determination is to us, the population of Rojava, paramount.
We have always said that we are in a revolutionary phase. Our
understanding of revolution, however, is not to do with dividing people
and groups, but concerns bringing them together. The result of this
understanding is that the revolution has resulted in Rojava with the
building of a project of Democratic Autonomy; a project in which the
Syriacs, Armenians, Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds from Rojava are all
involved and in which they participate equally. But this Democratic
Autonomy is also a project, which sees itself as part of a future
democratic and pluralist Syria. The hope for a democratic Syria, for
which the people took to the streets at the beginning of the Syrian
revolution - is today, in northern Syria, in Rojava, an issue that is
fully alive.
The structure of the Democratic Autonomy is not, as it is often
portrayed in the media, the result of a "going alone" of the PYD. More
than 50 parties and organisations involving the Syriacs, Armenians,
Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds have come into this system and participate in
it on a daily basis. In January 2014, those supporting Democratic
Autonomy have decided (with the consent of the population) on the
implementation of this model of society in the three cantons of Afrin,
Kobanê and Cizîrê and they have adopted the social contract.
Rojava currently seems the last glimmer of hope for the Syrian
revolution.. While the rest of the country is dominated by war and
violence, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people being forced to
flee from their homes, in Rojava at least many of these suffering people
from the rest of Syria, are being provided with a safe haven. This is
also a result of our conception of revolution. What happens in Rojava,
is not a "national revolution", it is the expression of the constant
insistence on the principle of the brotherhood of nations, quite
contrary to the philosophy of all of the ethnically and religiously
fuelled conflicts in the region.
But I also have to say that we have been abandoned by the international
community. We have received neither the necessary political support nor
sufficient humanitarian aid.
We currently find ourselves confronted with an even greater flow of
refugees into Rojava. For hundreds of thousands of Kurds from Sengal,
Turkmens from Tal Afar and Syriacs from Karakos have had to leave their
homes in northern Iraq. Also, they were, and are in fact still, exposed
to the attacks of the inhuman "Islamic State" organisation. Since these
groups had no self-defence units, they had, and have, little chance to
oppose their attackers. So they had (and have) no choice but to flee or
to expose themselves to the danger of being massacred.
Had the fighters of the YPG and YPJ responsible for the defense of
Rojava for two years, not hurried over the Iraqi border into Sengal,
possibly as well as thousands of Turkomans and Syriacs, 200,000 Yezidi
Kurds from the city would have not survived the advance of the IS.
They only managed this by fleeing on foot over the Sengal mountains so as to get away from the Islamists.
The YPG and YPJ succeeded in rescuing these people, despite dozens of
losses in their own ranks, by providing a flight corridor over the
mountains and down again so as to bring tens of thousands of them to
safety in Rojava.
Although Rojava looks on the map barely larger than a small,
inconspicuous spot, the social system that we are putting together in
this area currently represents the other face of this region. This
little spot on the map has again played in recent days a vital role in
that tens of thousands of people have been provided with a refuge and
offered protection from inhuman organisations such as the IS.
And we are convinced that with our system we not only give ourselves
protection and shelter but also have much to offer the hundreds of
thousands who have fled to Rojava - if it were not for this war, if the
inhuman and barbaric attacks by the IS were halted and the embargo
against Rojava were swept away. But we are currently exposed to a life
and death situation. Not a day passes without war, without reports of
new deaths, of flight and "ethnic cleansing".
We call upon the world public to finally completely break down the wall
of silence regarding this. For as long as there is silence outside Syria
and Iraq, then the murdering and killing within the two countries will
steadily increase. While possible aid is being debated in the UN, in the
EU and elsewhere, murderous groups of the IS are advancing and
destroying the lives of many more people and families. While you remain
silent, more chapters of a tragedy are being written, in which the
victims are the peoples of the Near and Middle East.
For us it is has long been far too much, that in New York, Geneva,
Brussels, London, Berlin, Paris and Istanbul, discussions do not result
in more than a show of apparent sympathy for the suffering of the
people. If you are in fact genuinely concerned about the sufferings of
the people, then we urge you to act. Together, let us help the people
who are affected by flight and expulsion. To limit the aid alone to
Iraq, stopping at the gates of Rojava, would be fatal. These artificial
boundaries have long lost any significance in the region..
And I have reported from Rojava, despite all attacks, there the
aspiration for a democratic Syria is still very much alive, as it tries
with its very limited resources to provide for tens of thousands of
people in need of protection and shelter. The German Bundestag member
Jan van Aken, who visited the region early 2014, stated that Rojava
provided a glimmer of hope in the Middle East. We share the opinion of
Mr. van Aken and are fully convinced that it is high time that the
international community recognises the autonomy of Democratic Rojava.
On behalf of the people who live in the cantons of Rojava
Co-chairman of the PYD
Mohamed Saleh Muslim
Qamişlo, 01.09.2014
