New Hope of Syrian Minorities: Ripple Effect of Iraqi Politics

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the NYTimes, December 29, 2004

REGIONAL FALLOUT

New Hope of Syrian Minorities: Ripple Effect of Iraqi Politics
By KATHERINE ZOEPF

QAMISHLI, Syria, Dec. 28 - The Iraqi election next month may be evoking
skepticism in much of the world, but here in northeastern Syria, home to
concentrations of several ethnic minorities, it is evoking a kind of
earnest hope. "I believe democracy in Iraq must succeed," Vahan Kirakos, a
Syrian of Armenian ethnicity, said recently. "Iraq is like the stone
thrown into the pool."

Though Syria's Constitution grants equal opportunity to all ethnic and
religious groups in this very diverse country, minority activists say
their rights are far from equal. They may not form legal political parties
or publish newspapers in minority languages. More than 150,000 members of
Syria's largest minority, the Kurds, are denied citizenship. Minority
issues remain one of the infamous "red lines," the litany of forbidden
topics that Syrians have long avoided mentioning in public.

But in the year and a half since Saddam Hussein was removed from power in
Iraq, that has begun to change, with minority activists beginning to speak
openly of their hopes that a ripple effect from next door may bring
changes at home. And here in Syria's far northeastern province of Hasakah,
which borders Turkey and Iraq, there are signs of a new restlessness.

In March, more than 3,000 Kurds in Qamishli, a city in Hasakah Province on
the Turkish border, took part in antigovernment protests, which led to
clashes with Syrian security forces and more than 25 deaths. In late
October, more than 2,000 Assyrian Christians in the provincial capital,
Hasakah City, held a demonstration calling for equal treatment by the
local police. The demonstration, which Hasakah residents say was the first
time Assyrians in Syria held a public protest, followed an episode in
which two Christians were killed by Muslims who called them "Bush
supporters," and "Christian dogs."

Nimrod Sulayman, a former member of the Syrian Communist Party's central
committee, said Hasakah's proximity to Iraq and demographic diversity
meant that residents of the province were watching events in Iraq and
taking inspiration from the freedoms being introduced there. "This
Assyrian protest in Hasakah was caused by a personal dispute, but the way
the people wanted their problem solved was a result of the Iraqi impact,"
Mr. Sulayman said. "They see that demonstrating is a civilized way to
express a position."

"Since the war in Iraq, this complex of fear has been broken, and we feel
greater freedom to express ourselves," he added. Mr. Sulayman noted that
members of minorities in Hasakah had also been energized by a sense of
brotherhood with their counterparts in Iraq. "For example, when Massoud
Barzani announced that Kurdish would be officially recognized as one of
the main languages in Iraq, the Kurds in Hasakah were out in the streets
celebrating, expressing their joy," Mr.  Sulayman said, referring to the
leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq.

Taher Sfog, the secretary general of Syria's illegal Kurdish Democratic
National Party, suggested that in some sense, Iraq and Syria were mirror
images of each other, as they shared a roughly similar ethnic composition
and a political heritage of Baathism, the secular Arab nationalist policy
of Mr. Hussein and Bashar Assad, the Syrian president. "Kurds in Syria
feel relieved when we see Kurds in Iraq getting their rights and holding
news conferences," Mr. Sfog said in his home in Qamishli. "Democracy there
will lead to a push in Syria, too."

In fact, the Hussein government had long been estranged from Syria's.
Before the American invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi politicians who opposed
Mr. Hussein made their homes in Damascus. Basil Dahdouh, a member of the
illegal Syrian Nationalist Social Party who represents Damascus in Syria's
Parliament as an independent, said renewed contact with Iraq, as well as
the chance to observe the changes taking place there, was leading many
Syrians to actively question their own political ideals. "The Iraq
question has raised the idea of what kind of state we want," he said.
Emmanuel Khosaba, a spokesman for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a
political party representing Iraq's Assyrian Christian minority, said
Syrian political life could not help but be influenced by Iraq.

"In Syria, gradually it's becoming safer to talk about minority rights and
human rights," he said. But he cautioned against seeing a single "Iraq
effect" on the very different aspirations of Syria's minorities . "The
interaction between minorities in Iraq and its neighboring countries
really depends on how particular minorities view their own situation," Mr.
Khosaba said. "For example the Assyrians in Syria are seeking a national
solution within a democratic framework, while some of the Kurds seek
separation."

Despite their sometimes startling optimism about an Iraqi democracy's
longer-term prospects, the Syrian minority leaders became more sober when
discussing the violence in Iraq. Not only is it painful to see Iraq
convulsed with strife, they said, but instability in Iraq is causing
problems closer to home. Bachir Isaac Saadi, the chairman of the political
bureau of the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said that throughout
Syria, anger over the American presence in Iraq had set off a sharp rise
in Islamist sentiment, which was creating difficulties for Syria's
Christian minority.

"Christians in Syria aren't afraid of the government any longer," Mr.
Saadi said. "They're afraid of their neighbors." Though the increase in
Islamist feeling is troubling, minority activists say, fear of the
government and of publicly discussing minority rights has eased to a
degree which would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

Mr. Kirakos, the Armenian activist, has even begun a bid for Syria's
presidency, an astoundingly brazen gesture in a country where the Assad
family has ruled unchallenged for more than 30 years.

The Christian Mr. Kirakos's presidential run - which he announced in
September on www.elaph.com, a pro-democracy Web site - is illegal, as
Syria's Constitution stipulates that the president must be a Muslim. But
though he lost his engineering job as a result of his activism and his
family has received uncomfortable phone calls from the secret police, Mr.
Kirakos is unfazed.

"I carry a Syrian citizenship which is not equal to Ahmed's citizenship,"
he said, using the common Muslim name as shorthand for Syria's Sunni
majority. "It is the Syrian Constitution that must change. We should be
writing a constitution that guarantees equal rights for everyone."



http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/international/middleeast/29syria.html