|
Syria: For many Kurds, statelessness remains a way
of life
21.11.2005
|
|
|
|
HASSAKE/DAMASCUS,
20 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - When Gamal Mohammed Kassem, a
32-year old Kurdish farmer born and raised in the
north eastern Syrian city of Hassake, needed to
travel south to Hama city for surgery, he had to ask
a Syrian friend to provide the authorities with a
written promise he would return.
He is one of an estimated 75,000 Kurds living in
Syria without an official identification card
proving citizenship, and is therefore, technically,
stateless.
"The only thing that proves who I am is my face,"
said Kassem, one of 27 children whose father lost
his Syrian citizenship in the late 1960s after
working for the Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria.
"When I took my daughter to school to have her
registered, the schoolmaster approved her age by
looking at her teeth," he recalled.
Because his Kurdish wife, Rojine, is registered as a
Syrian citizen while Kassem is not, their children
aren't even eligible for the orange card given to
the some 220,000 Syrian Kurds still officially
deemed "foreigners."
"They don't accept my sons into school, and I can't
teach them because I'm uneducated myself," said
Rojine, sitting in the brightly-lit reception room
of the family house in Hassake.
Syria's "Kurdish question" has long been one of the
most sensitive issues facing the ruling Ba'ath
party. In 1962, a year before the party came to
power, a survey of Syria's north-eastern Hassake
governorate deprived some 120,000 Kurds of
citizenship on the grounds that they had not been
born in Syria.
Hassake lies on the borders of both Iran and Turkey.
Since then, Syria's total Kurdish population has
trebled to approximately 1.5 million, making Kurds
by far the second largest minority in the country.
Of these, the vast majority are recognised as
citizens, while even those officially classified as
foreigners have access to state education and
healthcare.
But the ruling party, founded on an ideology of
pan-Arabism and a strong central government, and
fearful of Kurdish demands for autonomy, has until
recently made no move to resolve the issue of the
roughly 300,000 stateless Kurds born outside of
Syria.
This is despite the fact that, under Syrian law,
foreigners living in the country for more than five
years are entitled to citizenship.
In a November 10 address at Damascus University,
Syrian President Bahsar al-Assad said the issue had
been solved in 2002, when he himself visited Hassake.
Implementation, however, had been delayed due to
massive riots in March 2004 between Arabs and Kurds
in Qamishli, a city 80 km north of Hassake.
"Now, state authorities are dealing with the issue,
which we will solve soon, in an expression of the
importance of Syrian national unity," the president
said.
Kurdish reactions to the president's promise,
however, were sceptical.
"We need actions, not words," said Mustafa Osso,
spokesman for the Kurdish Freedom Party in Hassake.
"Citizenship is a right for the Kurds to take back,
not a gift for the Syrian government to give."
In Damascus, Hyam Murad, a 23-year old Kurdish
engineering student, and a bearer of the orange
card, said: "I need citizenship. I might not be able
to get a job in the public sector because I am
classed as a foreigner."
In an effort to resolve the issue, Information
Minister Mehdi Daklallah announced this summer that
the government was considering granting citizenship
to 120,000 Kurds.
Kurdish political leaders, however, point out that
this figure is unrealistically low.
"Daklallah's figure is from a 1962 census," said
Hassan Saleh, Head of the Kurdish-oriented Yakiti
Party. "We won't accept any half-measures, because
Kurds are original inhabitants of this land."
Other Kurdish leaders point out that the citizenship
issue is only one of several Kurdish concerns.
"Granting citizenship will not satisfy all Kurdish
demands," said Kher Adeen Murad, Secretary General
of the Kurdish Leftist Party.
"We want the government to change the constitution
to recognise Kurds as a second nationality, and
grant us cultural and linguistic autonomy."
Kurds often look to a federal model of self-rule,
under which their Iraqi counterparts live, as a
desirable alternative. Officially, however, they
maintain that autonomy is not on their agenda.
Privately, though, many admit they would like to
live in an independent state of Kurdistan.
"My own personal aspiration is to establish an
independent Kurdish state," said Murad.
Questions of constitutional change aside, Syrian
Kurds are also faced with a new law banning
ethnicity-based political parties. Currently, there
are 12 Kurdish political parties based in Syria.
In hopes of getting around the new legislation, some
have suggested converting the current Kurdish
political groupings into parties based on Arab
nationalism.
Some, like Ismail Amo, head of the Kurdish Unitarian
Democratic Party in Syria, feel confident that Kurds
can work within the new limitations. "When democracy
comes to Syria, the Kurds will not just demand their
rights, but will also participate in the political
process," he said.
Others, however, are less sanguine.
"If they drop the Kurdish cause, the Kurdish parties
will lose their credibility," said Mohammad Nazir
Mustafa, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party in
Syria. He went on to cite the example Turkey, where
Kurdish parties collapsed under the strain of
similar constraints.
While their leaders attempt to come to grips with
new political realities, however, most stateless
Kurds remain in limbo.
"Although both my grandfathers lived in Syria, I'm
still considered a foreigner," said Ibrahim
Mohammad, a 44-year old tailor from Malekeya, 20 km
west of Qamishli.
"My four sons have no papers to prove their names or
nationality, and they can't study at university
because the government won't grant them high school
certificates."
He added, with considerable melancholy: "For me it's
too late – I'm an old man. I can't get a passport or
own a house. But I'll be happy if my sons can study
at university, and maybe get a job working for the
state."
IRIN
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 