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Kurds, Emboldened by Lebanon, Rise Up in Tense Syria |
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Kurds, Emboldened by Lebanon, Rise Up in
Tense Syria
2.7.2005
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QAMISHLI, Syria -
Here on the fringes of Syria's agricultural
heartland, the veneer of normalcy is all around.
A statue of former President Hafez al-Assad, which
was brought down during riots last year, has been
rebuilt in a traffic circle. Slogans scrawled on
walls still call out for him. Few signs remain of
the violence that struck the city just weeks ago. |
Photo: AP - Qamishli
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But as Syria endures heavy international and
domestic pressure to change, storm clouds are
gathering here once again. In this predominantly
Kurdish city on Syria's border with Turkey, a
growing movement of Kurds is demanding recognition
and representation in Syria's government.
Emboldened by their brethren in Iraq and inspired by
Lebanon's opposition movement, which helped force
Syria out of that country, some advocates are even
calling for Kurdish administration of Kurdish areas.
"There is a kind of anxiety and restlessness now,"
said Hassan Salih, secretary general of the Yekiti
Kurdish party based in Qamishli. "We are
disappointed with all the unfulfilled promises."
Tensions in this city of 150,000 reached new levels
this month after the body of a prominent cleric,
Sheik Muhammad Mashouk al-Khaznawi, was found
halfway between here and Damascus. Days later,
protesters calling for an international
investigation of the sheik's killing clashed with
security forces, who beat women and fired at
demonstrators, Kurdish politicians say.
One police officer was killed, a dozen protesters
were wounded, dozens more remain in custody, and
Kurdish businesses were looted, they say. A day
after, Kurdish hopes were dashed when Syria's
governing Baath Party passed on calls to grant Kurds
more rights and freedoms at its 10th Congress,
ending the meeting with little more than platitudes,
Mr. Salih said.
"Lebanon affected us a lot, and we learned from it
that demonstrating can achieve many things without
violence," he said. After riots flared in Qamishli
in 2004 after a brawl at a soccer match, he said,
"the regime sought to frighten us, but the
assassination of the sheik has made us rise up
again."
Syria's 1.5 million Kurds are the country's largest
ethnic minority and historically its most
downtrodden. Eschewing the Arab identity at the core
of the Baath Party, the Kurds have become the most
organized opposition to the embattled government.
But tensions have simmered since 1962, when a census
taken by the government left out tens of thousands
of Kurds, leaving them and their children - now
hundreds of thousands in all - without citizenship
and denying them the right to obtain government jobs
or to own property. They now carry red
identification cards identifying them as
"foreigner."
The government also resettled thousands of Arabs
from other parts of the country into areas along the
border to build a buffer with Kurdish areas in
neighboring Iran, Iraq and Turkey, pitting Kurds
against Arabs. A long-running drought has not
helped, as many in the farming region, especially
Arab sharecroppers, have seen their incomes and
tolerance for one another plummet.
In 2004, a soccer game incited the brawl between
Arab and Kurdish fans that grew into the country's
worst civil unrest in decades, spreading to many
other cities in Syria and leaving at least 36 people
dead, some of them policemen. President Bashar al-Assad,
in an effort to cool tempers, visited the region for
the first time and called for national unity, while
pardoning 312 Kurds who were accused of taking part
in the violence. But Kurds say the ethnic rifts
remain.
Sheik Khaznawi, a charismatic 47-year-old cleric who
began denouncing the Syrian government in sermons in
recent months, came to embody the Kurdish political
opposition. To some, he was a reformer who pushed a
more thoughtful, inclusive brand of Islam; to
others, he was an apostate willing to reach out to
other faiths and challenge long-held Islamic mores.
But to Syria's government, he was the ultimate
threat: a religious figure who appeared to be
seeking to tie Syria's listless Kurds to the feared
Muslim Brotherhood, which led a ferocious revolt in
Syria in the 1980's.
"He was able to play a moderating role and create
dialogue between Kurds and Arabs," said Ammar
Abdelhamid, a Syrian political analyst. "They saw
him setting up a real opposition to the regime."
Sheik Khaznawi rattled nerves in February when he
met with leaders of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood in
Brussels, signaling even deeper collusion between
the two forces.
"The sheik used to say that he was surrounded by a
minefield and that his role was to dismantle the
mines," said Murshid al-Khaznawi, the sheik's son.
"He crossed many red lines that others did not
cross."
On May 10, the sheik disappeared while on a trip to
Damascus. Rumors circulated that he had been
arrested by the Syrian secret police, and
demonstrators in Qamishli called for his release.
But the government denied having him in custody.
Then on June 1, the authorities led his sons to a
grave in the predominantly Sunni Arab town of Deir
ez Zor. A government statement said the sheik had
been kidnapped and killed by radical Islamists who
were against his reformist approach.
Days later, the authorities broadcast a 15-minute
recording of interviews with two suspects in the
killing, one identifying himself as an imam from
Deir ez Zor and a graduate of Sheik Khaznawi's
institute. They said they had smothered the sheik
with a pillow and buried him at the cemetery.
"There wasn't just one reason for his kidnapping;
there were many," said Muhammad Habash, a member of
Syria's Parliament and confidant of the sheik, who
pointed to differences between the sheik and his
relatives as one possible reason. Mr. Habash added
that the political parties in Qamishli were
capitalizing on the death of the sheik, insisting
that there are few clear indications of a government
hand in the killing.
But the sheik's sons, who acknowledge that there
have been financial disagreements in the family,
countered that Mr. Habash was serving the interests
of the government, which they blame for the killing.
They said, for instance, that the sheik's body
showed few signs of decomposition, though the
government has said he had been buried for more than
two weeks. They added that his teeth were broken and
his skin burned when they found him, not the signs
of suffocation.
Days later, the demonstration in Qamishli met fierce
resistance from the government. The Khaznawi sons
and others said security forces encouraged an Arab
mob to help beat the protesters and loot Kurdish
storefronts, though there was no confirmation of
those assertions.
"There are issues and problems, and it's time they
are solved," Mr. Salih said. "As a Kurdish society,
we have gotten past the culture of fear."
Even the sheik's sons, who said they were not
overtly political before, have taken a hard
political stand.
"After the assassination of the sheik, we have begun
to support Kurdish movements from the bottom of our
hearts," Mr. Khaznawi said.
www.nytimes.com
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