Kurds display self-reliance and unity in the midst of world apathy
[TamilNet, Monday, 11 August 2014, 08:53 GMT]
During the course of the siege and following the takeover of the City of Sinjar in Southern Kurdistan by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), coordinated policies of eradicating the Yazidi and the Kurdish population were unleashed, forcing a mass exodus of people from the city of 300000 towards the inhospitable mountains adjoining the city. However, Kurdish forces from other parts of Kurdistan have displayed a historic and phenomenal cooperation in coordinating the Kurdish national resistance. On 4th August, the PKK issued a statement on its website “All Kurds in the north, east, south and west must rise up against the attack on Kurds in Sinjar.” On Friday, Kurdish diaspora from all these regions demonstrated in Oslo, condemning ISIS brutalities and the silence of the International Community.
The PKK has been engaged in a three decade war of national liberation against the Turkish state. The latter is also accused of having trained and aided the ISIS and other Islamists in Syria such as the Al-Nusra front that are also renowned for their anti Kurd-atrocities in the ongoing Syrian war.
Meanwhile seasoned Kurdish fighters from Rojava (Western Kurdistan) belonging to the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the PYD have crossed the borders to assist their kin across the border, the Peshmerga fighters in fighting of the Islamists. The PYG was as recent as last month, involved in fierce battles with the ISIS in the province of Kobane in Rojava. They have now been involved alongside the Pesmerga in battling the ISIS alongside their shared border.
YPG spokesman Polat Can said in a statement “ISIS wants to attacks Zuma and Sengal (Sinjar) with a large force to separate it from Zaxo. We are here to prevent that. We have erased the borders between us. We moved to the south with great force in order to protect our brothers in the south from ISIS gangs”.
Reports also confirms that the armed wing of the PKK, the People’s Defense Force (HPG) have also been involved in fierce battles alongside the YPG and KRG in fighting the ISIS.
On Friday, reflecting the call from PKK and furthering the historic cooperation in the homeland, Kurdish people hailing from all the four regions of the traditional Kurdish homeland gathered in Oslo to hold a protest march calling the international community to halt the ongoing genocide committed by the ISIS against the Kurds and Yezidis in South Kurdistan.
The protestors, also waving the various flags of Kurdistan and their liberation fighters, demanded the recognition and establishment of an independent Kurdistan.
The previous tension between the Rojava Kurdistan movement and the KRG seemed to have been sidelined or even mended as Kurds both in the homelands and in the diaspora converged in a display of national unity as they resisted the genocidal onslaught coordinated by the ISIS with the backing of several establishments in the region, observers said.
More than 500 people had gathered in central Oslo, holding flags of the PYD and Rojava, the flag of Southern Kurdistan and the KRG, the flag of PKK and HPG as well as flags carrying the portrait of the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The protestors marched up till the Norwegian parliament and in front of it the Kurdish activists sung songs of liberation, slogans and speeches hailing the Peshmerga and the Kurdish armed resistance.
Kurdish activists at the protest expressing solidarity to the Tamil cause told TamilNet that a stronger global cooperation between the Kurdish and Tamil activists is needed as international solidarity today is sadly reserved for only a few and leaves a range of oppressed nations and their political struggles in the dark.
Likewise, Tamil observers of the protest also remarked that the unity, cooperation and solidarity expressed between the Kurds are strategic lessons to Tamils who like the Kurds constitute an oppressed transnational people.