baklawa
New member
It's a very long, detailed report, and I know most of you won't read it all, so I took the liberty of including the "interesting" parts. To read more about the attacks on our churches, and about the murder of Father Raho and who is responsible for it, read the report here (pages 23-30.) http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/middle_east___north_africa/iraq_iran_gulf/90_iraqs_new_battlefront___the_struggle_over_ninewa_web.pdf
The complex and varied geographic landscape (including in some cases differences within minority groups depending on whether its members hail from mountainous areas or the plain) has made it easier for Arab and Kurdish politicians to manipulate and co-opt minority groups. Traditionally, they have tended to use state ? and in particular oil ? resources to establish and lubricate patron-client relations, purchase loyalty and punish dissent. A civil society activist dubbed this an ?oil-for-ethnicity program?. The process has provoked serious divisions among minorities, including in some cases the
crumbling of their leadership, affecting the groups? sense of loyalty and identity.
With mounting insecurity and fearful of a further deterioration of their situation amid their countrymen?s broad indifference, Christians have been drawn to more extreme views. Some take refuge in nostalgia for the Baathist regime: "We should give the former regime its due: Saddam Hussein did for the Christians what no other Arab leader has done. He ensured coexistence among all Iraqi groups beneath a common national roof. He managed to suppress communal resentments and intolerance. We all were Iraqis, whether willingly or under duress. Today, Christians are caught between Kurdish territorial aspirations and al-Qaeda?s fanaticism."
Others harbour the dream of living in seclusion, isolated from both Arabs and Kurds. A Christian intellectual said: "We live on a land of extremism and intolerance among communities. This is the legacy of history. [Arab] Muslims at best treat us as lepers and only care about us to the extent it affects their battle with the Kurds. And, historically, our relationship with the Kurds has been bloody. All they want is our land. From 1961 onwards, they have sought to expand their territory at our expense. They moved into our villages, claiming they were forced to due to their fight against the Arabs, but the real reason lies elsewhere. It has to do with demographic and socio-economic pressure and their quest for better land. They came to our homes, dislodged Christian families and made them move as far as al-Anbar, Diwaniya or Basra."
Anxiety and insecurity also have exacerbated intra-Christian divisions, primarily between Chaldeans and Assyrians but also within each group. There are several reasons, including the growing role of the diaspora ? which, as mentioned, has tended to magnify intracommunal differences ? and of European and U.S. churches.
But the principal cause emanates from competing efforts by Arab and Kurdish authorities to pressure Christians, whether clerics or politicians, into taking sides in the Arab-Kurdish conflict. Well-organised and benefiting from diaspora financial support, the first important Assyrian political party, the
Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), emerged in 1979. It soon established a presence in Kurdistan and within Iraqi exiled opposition ranks. It helped politicise the community, while strengthening the notion of a specific Assyrian ethnicity. After 2003, it came to dominate the Christian political scene; its secretary-general, Yonadam Kanna, was the only Christian appointed to the Interim Governing Council.
Over time, the ADM confronted two challenges. First, Chaldeans kept their distance, rejecting the ?Chaldo-Assyrian? label that political leaders began employing after 2003. An historian commented: "The ADM would like all Christians to be considered Assyrian. But Chaldeans, who in turn claimed that
their own prestigious history goes back to Nebuchadnezzar and the Kingdom of Babylon, have a different perception and different interests."
Their own principal party, the Chaldean Democratic Union, was founded with KRG help after 2003. Breaking with the Chaldean community?s traditional stance, it called for incorporation of Ninewa?s Christian population into the Kurdistan region, a position the ADM expressly rejects. As the Democratic Union sees it, minority rights are more likely to be secured within the KRG than in violence-wracked Iraq.
The ADM?s second, more serious problem originates in Kurdistan. Sarkis Aghajan, an Assyrian who served as the KRG?s economy and finance minister from 1999 to April 2009, eclipsed both the ADM and the Chaldean Democratic Union, emerging as the foremost regional Christian political actor. In 2007, he created the Assyrian Syriac Chaldean Popular Council, which brought together several Christian parties and associations hostile to the ADM. With Kurdish support, it has championed self-determination for Christians residing in the Ninewa plain, but with a clear understanding that a Christian entity would exist under KRG tutelage and protection in what are KRG-controlled disputed territories. A sympathiser said, ?Mosul discriminates against us. We want to govern ourselves. We cannot live in Muslim villages, and we don?t want foreigners to live in our regions. Iraq is a federation and that must be respected?.
What precisely is meant by self-determination is unclear. Christian critics, notably the ADM, dismiss the claim as a mere cover for Kurdish expansionist aims. Gevara Zia, a former Ninewa provincial council member and former ADM central committee member, asserted: "Kurds see the Ninewa plain as a strategic space, with both significant agricultural potential and the ability to serve as a buffer between them and the Arabs. That?s why they want to forcefully Kurdicise it, establishing irreversible facts on the ground. The self-determination they pretend to support is the same as Saddam?s: it is purely formal."
Instead, the ADM advocates administrative autonomy at the local level under the central government?s authority, based on Article 125 of the constitution. Many Arabs express a fear similar to the ADM?s, that self-determination is a tactical ploy under which Christians ? co-opted by the Kurds ? at some point will demand integration into the KRG.
There is little doubt that the KRG?s largesse, along with the greater prosperity and security enjoyed by Christians within its territory (notably in Ein Kawa, a former village now a suburb of Erbil), have made self-determination more attractive to many Christians desperate for a powerful protector. This largely explains Sarkis Aghajan?s political rise. Indeed, signs of his munificence ? and of KRG investment ? abound in towns and villages that dot the Ninewa plain: refurbished churches, new housing (dubbed ?Sarkis apartments? by the local population), aid distribution (e.g., kitchen utensils, food) and
financial assistance to the needy and displaced families. New sports clubs and cultural associations provide organised structures for Christian youths. An armed self-defence militia, ?the Churches? Guardians?, is deployed at the entrance of many of the villages and around churches, checking identities and searching cars. According to some reports, Aghajan pays approximately 1,000 militiamen.
Aghajan?s followers have used other means to enlist members of the Ninewa-plain Christian community, notably by founding several ?councils of notables?.
These often act as proto-states, providing constituency services such as supplemental schooling and medical care and playing a role in the appointment of civil servants and police at both the local and national levels by providing lists of candidates who are then endorsed by Kurdish parties They also intervene on behalf of individuals who suffered under the Baath regime (for example, from land confiscation), demanding compensation from the central government. (Although they appear to be mute when it comes to seeking the same from the KRG. Although if you ask KDP/APP member Nimrod Baito, the Kurds never took any land from Assyrians.) This patronage system has yielded remarkable electoral results: in January 2009, the list presented by the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council, the Patriotic Ishtar List, 180 won the designated Christian seat in Ninewa with 66.1 per cent of the vote.
But in Ninewa?s complex ethnic politics not even this success was unambiguous. The victor, Saad Tannios, who had forcefully campaigned on behalf of ?Christian self-determination in all of their historic regions?, swiftly moderated his stance upon entering office. At the provincial council?s first meeting, he sided with the strongest party, al-Hadbaa and its Sunni Arab constituency. He has since been forced in effect into seclusion. Indeed, al-Hadbaa?s impressive triumph has prompted some rethinking and repositioning among Christians ? several of whom figured prominently in the Baathist regime. Sarkis Aghajan?s disappearance from public view for several months184 added to the confusion and weakened the KRG?s position in the disputed territories.
All this underscores the degree to which efforts to co-opt minorities are fragile and reversible, hostage to the shifting balance of power in the emerging political order. This partially reflects a failure of the minority groups? leaders themselves, whose loyalties too often appear to be determined primarily by the purse that has that has purchased them and who readily switch camps as power and money dictate, while claiming to do so to protect their group and advance its interests in a complex communal and sectarian mosaic. (How freakin embarrassing that we now have a reputation as nothing but traitors willing to hop into bed with whomever pays us the most.) But it also reflects their constituents? own ambivalence and confusion given the dangerous and vulnerable situation in which they live. Many are torn between wanting effective representation by a leadership that is adept at playing power games and wishing to lie low and to play down identity politics while playing up their less risky cultural and religious identities through rites, rituals and celebrations. As much as leadership shortcomings, this uncertainty (which with the exception of hardcore, chiefly diaspora-based Assyrian nationalists is largely shared) helps explain Christian behaviour.
The complex and varied geographic landscape (including in some cases differences within minority groups depending on whether its members hail from mountainous areas or the plain) has made it easier for Arab and Kurdish politicians to manipulate and co-opt minority groups. Traditionally, they have tended to use state ? and in particular oil ? resources to establish and lubricate patron-client relations, purchase loyalty and punish dissent. A civil society activist dubbed this an ?oil-for-ethnicity program?. The process has provoked serious divisions among minorities, including in some cases the
crumbling of their leadership, affecting the groups? sense of loyalty and identity.
With mounting insecurity and fearful of a further deterioration of their situation amid their countrymen?s broad indifference, Christians have been drawn to more extreme views. Some take refuge in nostalgia for the Baathist regime: "We should give the former regime its due: Saddam Hussein did for the Christians what no other Arab leader has done. He ensured coexistence among all Iraqi groups beneath a common national roof. He managed to suppress communal resentments and intolerance. We all were Iraqis, whether willingly or under duress. Today, Christians are caught between Kurdish territorial aspirations and al-Qaeda?s fanaticism."
Others harbour the dream of living in seclusion, isolated from both Arabs and Kurds. A Christian intellectual said: "We live on a land of extremism and intolerance among communities. This is the legacy of history. [Arab] Muslims at best treat us as lepers and only care about us to the extent it affects their battle with the Kurds. And, historically, our relationship with the Kurds has been bloody. All they want is our land. From 1961 onwards, they have sought to expand their territory at our expense. They moved into our villages, claiming they were forced to due to their fight against the Arabs, but the real reason lies elsewhere. It has to do with demographic and socio-economic pressure and their quest for better land. They came to our homes, dislodged Christian families and made them move as far as al-Anbar, Diwaniya or Basra."
Anxiety and insecurity also have exacerbated intra-Christian divisions, primarily between Chaldeans and Assyrians but also within each group. There are several reasons, including the growing role of the diaspora ? which, as mentioned, has tended to magnify intracommunal differences ? and of European and U.S. churches.
But the principal cause emanates from competing efforts by Arab and Kurdish authorities to pressure Christians, whether clerics or politicians, into taking sides in the Arab-Kurdish conflict. Well-organised and benefiting from diaspora financial support, the first important Assyrian political party, the
Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), emerged in 1979. It soon established a presence in Kurdistan and within Iraqi exiled opposition ranks. It helped politicise the community, while strengthening the notion of a specific Assyrian ethnicity. After 2003, it came to dominate the Christian political scene; its secretary-general, Yonadam Kanna, was the only Christian appointed to the Interim Governing Council.
Over time, the ADM confronted two challenges. First, Chaldeans kept their distance, rejecting the ?Chaldo-Assyrian? label that political leaders began employing after 2003. An historian commented: "The ADM would like all Christians to be considered Assyrian. But Chaldeans, who in turn claimed that
their own prestigious history goes back to Nebuchadnezzar and the Kingdom of Babylon, have a different perception and different interests."
Their own principal party, the Chaldean Democratic Union, was founded with KRG help after 2003. Breaking with the Chaldean community?s traditional stance, it called for incorporation of Ninewa?s Christian population into the Kurdistan region, a position the ADM expressly rejects. As the Democratic Union sees it, minority rights are more likely to be secured within the KRG than in violence-wracked Iraq.
The ADM?s second, more serious problem originates in Kurdistan. Sarkis Aghajan, an Assyrian who served as the KRG?s economy and finance minister from 1999 to April 2009, eclipsed both the ADM and the Chaldean Democratic Union, emerging as the foremost regional Christian political actor. In 2007, he created the Assyrian Syriac Chaldean Popular Council, which brought together several Christian parties and associations hostile to the ADM. With Kurdish support, it has championed self-determination for Christians residing in the Ninewa plain, but with a clear understanding that a Christian entity would exist under KRG tutelage and protection in what are KRG-controlled disputed territories. A sympathiser said, ?Mosul discriminates against us. We want to govern ourselves. We cannot live in Muslim villages, and we don?t want foreigners to live in our regions. Iraq is a federation and that must be respected?.
What precisely is meant by self-determination is unclear. Christian critics, notably the ADM, dismiss the claim as a mere cover for Kurdish expansionist aims. Gevara Zia, a former Ninewa provincial council member and former ADM central committee member, asserted: "Kurds see the Ninewa plain as a strategic space, with both significant agricultural potential and the ability to serve as a buffer between them and the Arabs. That?s why they want to forcefully Kurdicise it, establishing irreversible facts on the ground. The self-determination they pretend to support is the same as Saddam?s: it is purely formal."
Instead, the ADM advocates administrative autonomy at the local level under the central government?s authority, based on Article 125 of the constitution. Many Arabs express a fear similar to the ADM?s, that self-determination is a tactical ploy under which Christians ? co-opted by the Kurds ? at some point will demand integration into the KRG.
There is little doubt that the KRG?s largesse, along with the greater prosperity and security enjoyed by Christians within its territory (notably in Ein Kawa, a former village now a suburb of Erbil), have made self-determination more attractive to many Christians desperate for a powerful protector. This largely explains Sarkis Aghajan?s political rise. Indeed, signs of his munificence ? and of KRG investment ? abound in towns and villages that dot the Ninewa plain: refurbished churches, new housing (dubbed ?Sarkis apartments? by the local population), aid distribution (e.g., kitchen utensils, food) and
financial assistance to the needy and displaced families. New sports clubs and cultural associations provide organised structures for Christian youths. An armed self-defence militia, ?the Churches? Guardians?, is deployed at the entrance of many of the villages and around churches, checking identities and searching cars. According to some reports, Aghajan pays approximately 1,000 militiamen.
Aghajan?s followers have used other means to enlist members of the Ninewa-plain Christian community, notably by founding several ?councils of notables?.
These often act as proto-states, providing constituency services such as supplemental schooling and medical care and playing a role in the appointment of civil servants and police at both the local and national levels by providing lists of candidates who are then endorsed by Kurdish parties They also intervene on behalf of individuals who suffered under the Baath regime (for example, from land confiscation), demanding compensation from the central government. (Although they appear to be mute when it comes to seeking the same from the KRG. Although if you ask KDP/APP member Nimrod Baito, the Kurds never took any land from Assyrians.) This patronage system has yielded remarkable electoral results: in January 2009, the list presented by the Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council, the Patriotic Ishtar List, 180 won the designated Christian seat in Ninewa with 66.1 per cent of the vote.
But in Ninewa?s complex ethnic politics not even this success was unambiguous. The victor, Saad Tannios, who had forcefully campaigned on behalf of ?Christian self-determination in all of their historic regions?, swiftly moderated his stance upon entering office. At the provincial council?s first meeting, he sided with the strongest party, al-Hadbaa and its Sunni Arab constituency. He has since been forced in effect into seclusion. Indeed, al-Hadbaa?s impressive triumph has prompted some rethinking and repositioning among Christians ? several of whom figured prominently in the Baathist regime. Sarkis Aghajan?s disappearance from public view for several months184 added to the confusion and weakened the KRG?s position in the disputed territories.
All this underscores the degree to which efforts to co-opt minorities are fragile and reversible, hostage to the shifting balance of power in the emerging political order. This partially reflects a failure of the minority groups? leaders themselves, whose loyalties too often appear to be determined primarily by the purse that has that has purchased them and who readily switch camps as power and money dictate, while claiming to do so to protect their group and advance its interests in a complex communal and sectarian mosaic. (How freakin embarrassing that we now have a reputation as nothing but traitors willing to hop into bed with whomever pays us the most.) But it also reflects their constituents? own ambivalence and confusion given the dangerous and vulnerable situation in which they live. Many are torn between wanting effective representation by a leadership that is adept at playing power games and wishing to lie low and to play down identity politics while playing up their less risky cultural and religious identities through rites, rituals and celebrations. As much as leadership shortcomings, this uncertainty (which with the exception of hardcore, chiefly diaspora-based Assyrian nationalists is largely shared) helps explain Christian behaviour.