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Yezidis, policies and Kurds
26.3.2007
By Astghik Bedevian & By Vladimir van Wilgenburg,
Journalist, Netherlands |
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March 26, 2007
Armenia’s Yezidis Split Over Elections
The approaching elections seem to be deepening
divisions within Armenia’s sizable Yezidi community
whose often competing leaders have pledged
allegiance to three different parties running for
parliament.
The country’s largest ethnic minority, which numbers
an estimated 40,000 members, has been increasingly
courted by some Armenian parties in recent years.
Three of them are particularly active in doing that,
having included prominent Yezidis on the lists of
their election candidates.
A newspaper report last month said that Samvel
Babayan, the former military leader of
Nagorno-Karabakh, has been named an honorary member
of a Yerevan-based organization that claims to
represent Yezidis scattered around the world. Its
chairman, Aziz Tamoyan, confirmed the report on
Thursday, but insisted that the World Yezidi Union
did not thereby endorse Babayan and his Dashink
(Alliance) party for the May 12 parliamentary
elections.
“If I make an endorsement of a particular political
leader, I will spread feud within our community,”
Tamoyan said. He said he knows which party most
Armenian Yezidis, some of whom consider themselves
non-Muslim Kurds, will vote for but will refrain
from naming it.
However, the fact that Tamoyan’s son, Surik Hajoyan,
is 13th on Dashink’s electoral list is hardly
accidental. Also, a community newspaper edited by
Tamoyan recently ran a front-page article about
Babayan that cast the retired Karabakh Armenian
general in a highly positive light.
Another Yezidi leader, Yerevan’s former Deputy Chief
Prosecutor Tital Jndoyan, is running for the
National Assembly on the ticket of the Prosperous
Armenia Party (BHK), one of the election
frontrunners supporting President Robert Kocharian.
“I think that most members of our Yezidi community
will vote for the Prosperous Armenia Party,” Jndoyan
told RFE/RL.
Two other Yezidis, one of them also a community
leader, are high on the proportional representation
list of another populist party led by Tigran
Karapetian, the owner and top host of the ALM
television station. Karapetian often invites Yezidi
children and youths to sing on his live folk shows
that are popular with rural residents of Armenia.
Tamoyan admitted that he and many other Yezidis hold
the ALM boss in great esteem. But he said this does
not mean they will necessarily vote for Karapetian’s
People’s Party in large numbers.
In
the past it was the policy of Armenia to weaken the
Kurdish identity by setting Yezidi and muslim Kurds
against each other.
"In 1988 when Armenia became involved in the issue
of the Karabagh and its independence from
Azerbaijan, Azeris under duress left the new state.
Thereafter the single remaining obstacle to the
creation of a homogenous Armenia was the presence on
Armenian soil of about 60,000 Yezidi and Muslim
Kurds. In an effort to deal with the problem,
Armenian nationalists initially set these two groups
of Kurds against each other. Newspapers reported
that Yezidi Kurds were not Kurds; but a completely
distinct people.- Kurdish Life"
Now this is accepted as a fact. According to a
recent EU council report the Yezidi minority
continues to face problems with regard to land,
water and grazing issues in Armenia. This report
also separates Kurds and Yezidi's, while Yezidi's
speak a Kurdish dialect.
Also the Yezidi community in Iraqi-Kurdistan is
sometimes used by certain political groups to
agitate against the Kurdish authorities, by
classifying them as non-Kurds. It became known
recently, that the Dutch government will discuss the
recent attack on Yezidi's in Sheikhan with the
Kurdish and Iraqi authorities. This happened after a
politician raised questions about this issue in the
Dutch parliament.
According to a recent Minority Rights report
Yezidi's have fear to be assimilated by Kurds. I
think this conclusion is wrong. Maybe they have fear
that Kurdish political parties takeover their
villages, but this is not assimilation. Because
Yezidi's are Kurdish too. The Minority Report also
says: "Their language, Kurmanji, is considered by
some to be aKurdish dialect." This is also fiction,
everybody considers Kurmanji to be Kurdish.
It's clear that political movements have tried and
are still trying to weaken the Kurdish identity.
vladimirkurdistan blogspot.com | armenialiberty org
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