August 17, 2023 • 40 mins
James is joined by Meghan Bodette to discuss how the AANES has been left to deal with the thousands of ISIS fighters in its territory after the defeat of the territorial ‘caliphate’ and the impact of drone strikes on the region.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi everyone. It's me James today and I'm joined by
Meghan Bodette, who's the director of research at the Kurdish
Peace Institute. We're picking up where we left off at
the end of last week to discuss more about the
Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria and perhaps more specifically,
to talk about the detainees, the ISIS detainees in the
(00:29):
Al Whole camp and in other camps around there. How
are you, Megan, I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you, James. Thank you for having me on for
this important conversation about a really critical security and humanitarian
issue that we're seeing in North East Syria these days. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Thanks, thanks for joining us. So I think to start
out with, would you be comfortable giving us sort of
baseline explanation of what's happening with these ISIS detainees and
why despite the fact that many of them are citizens
of other countries, they haven't been a returned there.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, that's a very important place to start with. So essentially,
after the territorial defeat of ISIS in twenty and nineteen
by the Syrian Democratic Forces and the international coalition, the
Syrian Democratic Forces and the Autonomous Administration, which is the
political body governing northeast Syria ended up with tens of
thousands of ISIS detainees and the family members of these
(01:28):
ISIS members as well. And in the Alhol camp you
now have a population of essentially ISIS affiliated women and
the children of ISIS members who are now housed in
that camp as well. And this camp is a serious
humanitarian issue. You have these children who are in very
(01:48):
difficult conditions. It's a massive security problem for the surrounding
Syrian and Iraqi communities that were victimized by ISIS, and
the world ISIS openly wants to reconstitute itself. It is
operating inside the camp clandestinely to reconstitute itself. It wants
to break prisoners out and go right back to its
genocidal policies against minorities in the region like Yazidis and Christians,
(02:12):
and to continue terror attacks not only in Iraq and Syria,
but around the world. It's also a real drain on
the resources of the Autonomous Administration and the SDF themselves,
who we have to remember are not a state actor,
but are dealing with the sort of problems that even
the wealthiest and most militarily established state actors would have
trouble with, so they've ended up in this unenviable position
(02:33):
of having to take care of essentially criminals from around
the world who came to their country to commit mass atrocities,
while the victims of these ISIS crimes across Northern and
Eastern Syria and victims of the subsequent Turkish invasions that
a Northern and Eastern Syria suffered during and after the
fight against ISIS really lack basic resources. Now, this is
(02:55):
something I heard a lot on the ground when I
was in the region in February and March, speaking to
people from off which was invaded and occupied by Turkey
in twenty eighteen, and to people from Sera, Kanya and
Tel Abyad which were invaded and occupied by Turkey in
twenty nineteen. Many of them asked rightly why there were
so many resources from international bodies and NGOs and governments
(03:18):
provided towards the ISIS detainees in al Hole and the
ISIS affiliated individuals there when they're communities, their families who
had done nothing other than simply living in areas that
Turkey decided to invade and occupy, who were displaced because
of that. In what experts, including myself, would refer to
as ethnic cleansing. These communities are receiving nothing from the
(03:39):
international community. You know, they feel forgotten and they have
some serious questions about that. Of course, the Autonomous Administration
has many needs and many pressing security problems that it
simply can't devote enough resources to when it's tasked with
managing the world's ISIS members. So in a recent study
that we published at the Kurdish Peace Institute by journalist
(04:00):
Matt Broomfield, who spent a lot of time on the
ground in North East Syria during and after the defeat
of ISIS, he found that just four percent of foreign
ISIS fighters held by Syrian Kurdish authorities have been repatriated
since twenty nineteen four percent. The most of the repatriations
have been women and children, not the fighters themselves who
are housed in prisons. But of course the women and
(04:22):
children are a humanitarian issue and a security issue too,
so think about that. Those are really dangerous numbers.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, I think that differentiation between like fighters and women
and children is interesting and perhaps one we should like
pick apart a little bit, because there's a bit we
talked about this before. We recorded, like there's a betrayal
certainly of like Western women who went to join ISIS
as having been sort of victims in their own right,
(04:52):
which some of them were very young, right and might
not have been making like adult choices at that time.
And that's that's one thing. But like a lot of
these people willingly participated in an extremely oppressive and violent
regime and they sort of a being that they're often
not portrayed as such in the press. Is that fair
to say?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Absolutely? Look, what I always go back to when I
talk about this issue is reading accounts from UZD women
and children who survived ISIS captivity, who've said on multiple
occasions that the women were no less brutal than the men,
and that they were willing participants in every aspect of
the worst of ISIS crimes of genocide, of crimes against humanity,
(05:34):
against the ZD people and of course all the other
peoples that ISIS targeted. So that I think when you
have these genocide survivors saying that no, these women participated
fully in these crimes, they facilitated these crimes, They made
this system of genocide of crimes against humanity possible. That's
something we have to listen to and I'm glad that
(05:56):
you bring up the Western media portrayal because you really
see this idea that the women could not have been
perpetrators themselves, when what we hear on the ground is
that that's not true, and what legal cases have begun
to find is that that's not true either. There's been
trials in Europe for ISIS affiliated women for their complicity
(06:18):
in acts of genocide against the Uzdi community. And you know,
one point that you hear very commonly on the ground
is that how can there have only been one or two,
just a handful of trials. I'm not sure the exact number.
But after all of these people missing, all of these
people killed, how are all of these ISIS members? And
(06:39):
that's why I said, you know ISIS affiliated women, because
I don't think I do agree with you. It's a
disservice to just refer to them as ISIS brides or
whatever sensationalistic media framing you have. These people simply aren't
being put on trial. And one of the reasons for
that is that when we come to female members of ISIS,
there is this perception, both in media and from governance,
(07:00):
from international institutions that these women are victims that because
they're women, because they subscribed willingly to a political and
ideological system that was very very oppressive of women, that
puts women only into certain roles as housewives, as mothers
of the next generation of ISIS. That these women couldn't
(07:22):
have committed atrocities, but they have. They did, And you
know what we're hearing right now, and some of the
reporting that's coming out of Northeast Syria is that even
within the camps, these women have continued to commit some
of the most serious abuses that ISIS has been committing.
There's reports that they have raped, sexually assaulted the teenage
(07:47):
boys who are in the camp in order to essentially
become pregnant and raise more children to create that next
generation of ISIS that they seek to create. This continued
perpetration of sexual violence against these boys who've done nothing
other than had the misfortune to have their parents be
members of ISIS. You know, this is a very very
(08:10):
serious allegation. The reporting about this is something that needs
to be taken very seriously. Like I said, this is
a massive human rights crisis for these children, and it
is you know, these women are no less dangerous and
no less culpable for their crimes than their male counterparts
who joined isis.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, I think that's just very fair to say, and
it's somewhat of a like sexist outlook to be like
a women couldn't have had agency in the way that
men clearly have been held accountable for. And I think
it's that the last issue you rate. It's obviously pretty horrible,
but also we should at least dig into a little bit.
I think, like the ongoing like not only the abuse
(08:53):
of children, but like the sort of attempt to indoctrinate
children into that same like extremist ideology to even like
I've seen videos of kids training with little wooden guns,
and yeah, I'm sort of raising another generation of people
who believe in this kind of painful outlook. And can
you talk a little bit about how common that is
(09:14):
or I guess you don't know entirely, but can you
speak to that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, I mean that is something that none of us
know how common it is because of the sort of
difficulty of accessing that information. But if you look at
what is coming in from sources from North and East Syria,
from international reporting on the camp, these women are indoctrinating
their children into the ISIS ideology. They have said many
(09:41):
times over in many of their communications that their goal
is to raise the next generation of ISIS fighters. There's
no reason to believe that the majority of these women
have given up on their beliefs, and there is evidence
that this is what they're trying to do. And of course,
when you look at the broader situation that these children
are in, it's a situation that's exceedingly conducive to radicalization
(10:04):
because of the poor conditions in the camps, because of
the fact that they remain with their mothers, many of
whom believe firmly in ISIS ideology and who see the
role of women in ISIS as doing exactly that, as
passing down this ideology. And you know, when these children
they can't be safely repatriated to their countries, they can't
(10:26):
be put into safe environments where they can receive the
support they need, the positive influences, they need, any kind
of medical or psychological help that they need. In these conditions,
it's inevitable that you're going to have the continuation of
this ISIS ideology being perpetrated and the adults there, these
women continuing to pass this down on these children, who
(10:52):
again have done nothing to be put in the situation
that they're in. They're continuing to be victimized by the
actions of their parents and the other ISIS members. So
and the international community too as a fault here for
refusing to repatriate at least these children and to try
ISIS perpetrators of war crimes, kinds against humanity and genocide.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, in some cases they've even been like had their
citizenship striped from them of the countries that they came from.
The UK have done that for example, right, which is
kind of just failing to do anything to acknowledge it,
like this is an international problem that they have completely.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And that's something we can get into, is the international
dynamic surrounding these issues, because it's obviously very closely related
to the ISIS issue, but it touches on so many
other very internationalized conflicts as well.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, let's do that. Perhaps before we explain the way
the nations that are more distant from this are engaging
with it, we should talk about how nations that are
(12:07):
more proximal to this are engaging within specifically, how at
times it seems like Turkish drone strikes, which we've discussed
previously on our podcasts, so people be familiar with them,
have the very least not helped the SDF to keep
these camps secure, right, And in some cases it's you
(12:29):
can see, like there's a video that the YPJ have
of like these people celebrating a drone strike inside the camp,
and can you talk about the impact these drone strikes have.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Look Something that has been reported by journalists, by local sources,
and by all sorts of international researchers and experts since
the earliest days of the war against ISIS is that
Turkey wanted ISIS to succeed in its mission of taking
over Northern Iraq and Northern State area in order to
(13:02):
not only destroy Kurdish political and military structures operating there,
including the YPG, the YPJ, the later the SDF, and
the Autonomous Administration, but also to destroy the social base
for any form of Kurdish autonomy, any kind of multi
ethnic project to potentially be able to exist there, either
(13:22):
now or in the future. And this facilitation of the
rise of ISIS reached such a level that you've had
legal experts through the Yazidi Justice Committee, which published an
in depth report on this last year find based on
a review of the evidence that Turkey was quote complicit
(13:43):
in the commission of genocide end quote by ISIS by
allowing fighters to cross its borders to join the group,
allowing ISIS related economic activity to go on, and other
forms of facilitation of the rise of ISIS when it
was committing its most serious crimes. So this is not
something new. The way that these drone strikes specifically impact
(14:05):
this issue. They're part of the broader Turkish campaign of
aggression against northeast Syria. Obviously, the two ground invasions of
Afrin and of Sera Kanya and Talabyad had very negative
impacts on the fight against ISIS. And the drone strikes now,
first of all, they make it difficult for any SDF
or autonomous administration structure to simply do the day to
(14:27):
day work of providing security and providing the government. You know,
if a government official or a member of the local
security forces has to modify their behavior, has to modify
where they go, how they interact with their constituents. You know,
what kind of missions they can conduct to avoid being
assassinated in a drone strike. They're simply not going to
be as effective. Right, So this is a problem in
(14:51):
many areas. It certainly impacts the counter ISIS mission, and
Turkey has specifically started to increasingly target ans, SDF and
Asayish internal security forces personnel who are directly engaged in
counter ISIS missions. We saw this in late twenty twenty
two when there were severe Turkish air operations following a
(15:14):
bombing in Istanbul that Turkey, based on all evidence, falsely
attempted to attribute to Kurdish groups despite there being no
real evidence supporting that claim. These attacks targeted civilians, civilian infrastructure,
and SDF forces engaged in key counter ISIS missions, including
(15:36):
SDF forces involved in securing the Alhole camp. And now
we've even started to see in addition to these anti
SDF anti autonomous administration drone strikes, Turkey's been using drones
to fire essentially warning shots at the international coalition led
by the US and the other coalition countries itself. We
saw this in November when there was a drone strike
(15:58):
on the joint SDF coalition base where the SDF and
the international community worked together to plan ongoing counter ISIS missions,
and earlier this year, in i believe April of this year,
the drone strike on Sulimania International Airport in Iraqi Kurdastan,
where there was a joint SDF coalition convoy where SDF
(16:18):
Commander in Chief Muslim Kobani was present and US forces
were also present. That strike, for all intents and purposes,
was Turkey's attempt not only to threaten the SDF and
the Autonomous Administration, but to threaten the coalition as well,
specifically for its continuing counter ISIS partnership with Syrian Kurds.
(16:39):
So this has risen to a level where Turkey is
not only using these to disrupt governance and security at
the local level in the Autonomous Administration, it's not only
using them against locally led SDFYPG led counter ISIS missions,
but Turkey is using drones to threaten the entire global
counter ISIS campaign, of which on paper is formally a member.
(17:02):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, and Turkey is kind of it's We've talked about
this again before, how it pressured like newer NATO members
Finland and Sweden to even stop accepting Kurdish refugees. Right,
It's yeah, while at the same time being a member
of NATO and as you say, also like drone striking
(17:24):
other members of NATO. It's certainly like it's making it
as hard as possible for people in this part of
the world to have the stability and peace and the
things that they fought so hard for for such a
long time. I wonder if you can talk about, like, so,
what is the into as far as the international community exists,
(17:45):
which is a pretty nebulous thing to really kind of
pin down, but is what is specifically like this US
led coalition to the fea isis. I think they call
it doing to help and like I guess a little
more broadly, building on that, this coalition has a very
narrow focus in a place where there are a lot
(18:05):
of different aggresses to include various other Islamist groups, to
include the Turkish State and obviously the day the state
in Syria. Can you explain a little bit about how
the mission of this coalition is narrow in a way
that helps it doing the things that people on the
ground they need to ensure peace and stability.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, exactly. That's a really important question because, as you said,
this international relationship with North Eastyria is very narrowly built
on a counter Isis focus, which means a military focus.
So there's relationships between security forces and security forces. What
we don't see our political relationships. And this connects to
(18:50):
a wide variety of issues related to this immediate problem
of ISIS, of securing ISIS prisoners, of bringing ISIS perpetrators
of genocide and war crimes to justice. But it also
connects to the deeper problem of the kind of long
term stability in Syria that's necessary to end this ongoing
civil war, to bring justice to the victims of ISIS
(19:11):
and to all other abuses and atrocities during the twelve
years of conflict in Syria, and to prevent the next
endless war in this region from inevitably taking place in
the future. So we have this narrow military partnership. The
reason that this relationship evolved in this way was going
back to the role of Turkey, because the United States
(19:34):
and its European allies had no other option but to
partner with Kurdish groups if they wanted to achieve a
territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. There was
no force other than the SDF and the YPG and
the YPGA at that time that would be capable of
the military responsibility of defeating ISIS. It was essentially, if
(19:58):
people remember the resistance the YPG and the YPJ at
Kobani in northeast northeastern Syria that held out long enough
where the United States and the international Coalition realized that
their only option if they wanted to defeat ISIS on
the ground was to partner with these forces. Before that, also,
we're recording this in August, the situation in Sinjar where
(20:22):
ISIS had gone in, had committed genocide against the Azdi community,
and we're the only people who were able to actually
come in and help Uzidis defend themselves and evacuate refugees
to safety in Syria, where again the YPG, the YPJ
and the PKK gorillas as well. Because these Kurdish forces
were able to help local civilians in Sinjar defend themselves
(20:45):
and evacuate so many refugees to safety, it forced the
international community's hand to act. The PKK intervened in Sinjar
to start that humanitarian mission on August fourth. US air
strikes began on August seventh. It was this local response
from these non state actors that forced the international community.
You know, these states with actual treaty obligations to respond
(21:07):
to and prevent massatrocities, to take action. But because Turkey
views the PKK as a terrorist group, it views the
YPG and the YPG as indistinguishable from the PKK and
therefore as a terrorist group. The entire counter ISIS mission
from the very beginning was faced with this question of
how these states that wanted to fight ISIS could do
(21:27):
so without offending their relationships with Turkey as a member
of NATO and an ally in other respects. So this
connects specifically to the ISIS issue, not only because the
contradiction here dates back to the counter ISIS campaign, but
because actual international trials for ISIS members, actual security policies
(21:49):
that could address the problems in al Hole would legitimize
the SDF and the autonomous administration on the international stage
and would legitimize the political philosophies behind what they're doing,
all of which Turkey deems to be a very serious
national security threat to its existence. I mean, imagine you
have a Kurdish woman judge questioning an ISIS member responsible
(22:12):
for potentially European and American casualties, certainly responsible for casualties
and all sorts of abuses across Iraq and Syria, about
the evidence that we have, that the international community has,
that North East Syria has, about how Turkey facilitated ISIS actions,
you know, with the YPG and the YPG there for security,
with international observers from the US and other coalition countries
(22:34):
facilitating providing legal and security support, that would absolutely destroy
Turkey's narrative about what individuals and entities are terrorists and
which ones have actually contributed not only to the territorial
militarily defeat of ISIS, but to social and political and
governance projects that are able to prevent, you know, the
(22:55):
resurgence of the next ISIS. So, you know, this kind
of fear of building political relationships with the Autonomous administration
with legitimate this fear of legitimizing the autonomous administration project
and helping it address security problems in a way that
would you know, both increase its standing and legitimacy locally
(23:16):
and internationally, and would show how the actions of states
like Turkey contributed to prolonging and intensifying the civil war
in Syria. States simply don't want to do that yet.
But you know, when we look at the long term
consequences of whether it's allowing Turkey to continue aggressive actions
(23:37):
against North East Syria and more broadly, to pursue a
military solution to its Kurdish conflict, whether it's allowing ISIS
atrocities to go unpunished, you know, leaving communities that were
impacted by ISIS to be essentially re traumatized and left
to live in difficult conditions, you know, not receiving justice,
and allowing these ISIS members to continue to have the
(23:59):
space to attempt to reconstitute their group and go back
to the kind of atrocities they were committing and attacks
they were carrying out worldwide in twenty fourteen twenty fifteen.
In the long run, this sort of appeasement of Turkey
over the issue of the Kurdish question and the role
of the Autonomous Administration, it's going to create the start
(24:20):
of the next endless war in the Middle East. And
you know, if policymakers want to avoid that, they need
to be addressing these problems from a pro peace perspective,
from a perspective that brings about justice. You know, political
solutions based on democracy, on gender equality, on the equality
of all communities in the region, all of these values
that while imperfectly the autonomous administration is really trying to
(24:42):
fight for.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, I think it's super important to point out that
this isn't a necessarily a like Turkey versus Kurdish people
like you dichotomy or like those aren't the only people
impacted by this, right, Like the I think the majority
of the ANS is not Kurdish people, right, And we
are an FDF also are not Kurdish.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I mean, there's a very good paper by doctor Amy
Austen Holmes who wrote in an analysis of this conflict
and the sort of Turkey SDF security dynamics, that what
we would refer to as the Turkish Kurdish conflict or
the Turkey PKK conflict is actually a conflict that impacts
every ethnic and religious group in Turkey, Iraq and Syria.
(25:26):
And of course you have and we could do an
entire other episode on this. You know, there are certainly
Kurds who support Erdwan in the AKP, whether from an
Islamist perspective or on the basis of class interests. And
you have Turks, ethnic Turkish people who went to North
East Syria during the height of the fight against ISIS
as members of socialist groups to provide humanitarian aid and
to join Kurdish forces in their fight against ISIS. On
(25:49):
the ground, you have Yuzids, Christians, Syriacs, Assyrians, Armenians, Arabs,
all different ethnic groups in Iraq and Syria that are
very much impacted by this conflict, and particularly because of
the Autonomous Administration's multi ethnic and multi religious model. And
while the Autonomous Administration system certainly hasn't shortcomings and hasn't
been able to perfectly overcome years and years of sectarian
(26:12):
and religious and ethnic challenges, it has made a real
attempt at including all of the peoples of the region.
And that's one of the reasons why despite all of
these Turkish attacks, despite the DEVISIS, you know, these communities
have continued to band together and participate in SDF and
Autonomous Administration structures in order to try to build governance
(26:32):
and real post ISIS security. So it's certainly not just
a very narrowly defined Turkish Kurdish issue. It's an issue
of civil rights, of political rights, of long term security
and stability, of what kind of society and what kind
of governance can and should exist in this region where
many Kurds and many other ethnic and religious minorities would
(26:55):
argue the European imposition of artificial borders and nation states
onto areas that were multi ethnic and multi religious for
thousands and thousands of years was the source of a
lot of these problems that we see today, not only
with ISIS, not only with the Syrian War, with the
(27:16):
Kurdish conflict in Turkey as well with many of the
issues that we're seeing in Iraq, in Iran, all over
the region. So it goes much deeper than that. And
I think that understanding, you know, the very deep historical
roots of these issues is what can start to point
us to the actual, very radical solutions that would be
(27:36):
necessary to get long term peace and security.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, and that goes on. I think solutions like you said,
many nation states still exercising kind of pseudocolonial control over
these places or trying to or trying to at least
sort of use force to extract wealth, are really open to.
So it creates this sort of half assed, like you've
said that, this sort of limited support for only some
(28:02):
parts of a project, which it doesn't work if you
only support part of this project right as we're seeing,
I wonder if people are interested in following more about this.
(28:23):
I think it's something that like so much of the
coverage of this whole area focuses on, like specifically women
in our whole right or women who went to join ICEIS.
Where can people find out more about like the What
sources would you suggest for following goings on in this area?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
So yeah, I would say following local Syrian and Kurdish
news sources would be a good place to start. You
have sites like north Press, where I've written before, that
provide good perspectives from Syrian Kurdish writers. You have a
human rights organizations working on the ground, groups like Seriance
for Truth and Justice that's done a lot of documentation
(29:03):
of issues like for example, ISIS members who've joined Turkey
backed groups in the occupied areas. You have arguably one
of the best English language resources, not only for their
own publications, but for researchers and journalists to reach out to,
the Ulsheva Information Center that does a lot of good
work on their own and also a lot of really
incredible work to facilitate the work of international researchers and journalists.
(29:28):
You have the Kurdish media sites like Koar News that
will give good updates on what the Autonomous Administration is
doing and saying from their perspective. Of course, there are
a lot of official pages and sites for Autonomous Administration
and SDF institutions as well. Those tend to be in
Kurdish or Arabic, so of course if you know either
of those languages, you can follow them. For English, you
(29:51):
have some of the SDF affiliated sites that have been translated.
The YPG Information and Documentation Office have done a lot
of work on this issue of ISIS and the related
security challenges. They publish in English. They provide good information
from that security perspective, and then really, I think any
(30:13):
sources on social media online that provide good perspectives from
people who are on the ground, who are providing reputable information,
whether it's from a human rights side of things, from
the security side of things, from the administration side of things,
it's good to get that full spectrum of perspectives of
(30:33):
what different actors are doing and seeing. And then, of
course I'd be remiss if I did not promote my
own institution. We have published coverage of certainly the ISIS
issue in North East Syria, but also a lot on
the wider political, humanitarian and security challenges related to these
interlocking conflicts in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan that have sort
(30:59):
of formed the very unstable basis on which these developments
relevant to global security issues like ISIS are taking place.
So you can certainly read what we've been publishing.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, I think that's an excellent list of resources, and
lots of the ones that I've been using, other ones
that you've mentioned. I would just I suppose warned people,
especially the latest YPJ Information and Documentation Center video and
our whole comes with a heavy content warning for violence
that you will see there, which is it's documenting things
(31:34):
that happen. It's not like they are doing the violence.
They're not. But still, if that's something you don't want
to see, that's probably a video you don't want to watch. Megan,
is there anything people can do to help like this?
I was thinking when we were talking of like I
met a Kurdish man a month ago at the border
being held by immigrats and customs enforcement. But it's not
(31:58):
a topic that gets much coverage in the US, and
as a result, like people both there and people coming
here don't get the compassion. Then let's say Ukrainian people
who are also fleeing conflict, do get and you can
see that in a way that they're literally treated differently
in immigration laws. So is there anything people can do
to help?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Well, I would say that the first thing is exactly
like we're doing now on this discussion, and like you
as a listener listening to this conversation are doing by
hearing from us and following this issue. Encourage media research,
human rights groups, analysts, and all others who do work
in any of these fields to cover this issue in
(32:39):
its full political and security context. Look, we can't only
talk about North and ew Syria when there's a crisis.
Isis did not come out of nowhere in twenty fourteen.
The Turkish invasion did not come out of nowhere in
twenty nineteen. And had we as a society and certainly
our institutions been more informed, more aware of the root
(33:01):
conditions causing these outbursts of violence, these outbursts of violence
may not have happened. They might have been addressed before
they happened. And so what does it mean to build
that awareness? That means everything from writing a letter to
your local newspaper to producing a report at your university
with input from institutions in North East Syria, some of
these local media and human rights organizations that we've talked
(33:23):
about to hosting an event for your community group on
the state of this broadly defined conflict in Turkey and
Iraq and Syria in Kurdistan between the Turkish state and
these Kurdish groups that, in addition to fighting against ISIS,
have been struggling for autonomy, self determination, equality between men
and women, equality of people of different religious beliefs, of
(33:45):
different ethnic backgrounds. Long before ISIS was on the agenda
and Northeast Syria it was on the agenda. We at
the Kurdish Peace Institute are always available to help you
do this. You can reach out to us on our
contact page. We have information on everything from submitting content
of your own to resources for reaching out to us
for media appearances. Of course, there's all the sources I
(34:06):
mentioned as well, and there are other episodes of this
wonderful podcast with very talented expert speakers and interviewers as
well who've spoken about issues related to Syria, Turkey and Kurdistan.
You can advocate for greater political support for the Autonomous Administration,
for an end to Turkey's aggressive actions against Northeast Syria
(34:28):
and its ongoing human rights violations in the occupied areas
of Afriin and russ a line, and for international political
support for a democratic, just peaceful solution to the Turkish
Kurdish conflict. This is, i think, at the end of
the day, the root of all of these problems that
we're seeing here, and if this conflict were to be resolved,
(34:51):
if Turkey were no longer to take an aggressive militaristic
approach to the very concept of Kurdish autonomy, the very
social base of Kurdish communities that has the capacity to
seek and organize for autonomy itself, this would mean an
end to authoritarianism in Turkey, which has been leading Turkey
to all sorts of destabilizing behavior and certainly and miserating
(35:13):
countless Turkish citizens. This is one of the reasons why
not only Kurbs, but many Turkish people of all ethnicities
as well have been fleeing Turkey to Europe and even
to the United States. Has been the escalating persecution, poverty,
and difficulty of life under Erdowan, which is directly connected
to air Dowan's choice in twenty fifteen to end piece
(35:34):
talks with the Kurdish movement in order to consolidate his
total power over the state using war and far right nationalism.
This would end not only these difficult conditions within Turkey,
this persecution, this economic devastation, this oppression of all oppressed
segments of society. It would end Turkey's aggressive foreign policy
in the region as well, which would be hugely important
(35:56):
for allowing North East Syria the stability. It means to
put ISIS members on trial, hold them accountable for what
they've done, begin to rebuild, give post Isis communities a future,
allow these people who have suffered so much to defeat
this group, of course for themselves, but really for all
humanity to be able to build new lives, recover and
(36:17):
have a say in their future, and by doing that,
to pursue a political solution to the Syrian conflict. Right now,
North Assyria is the only major part of Syria outside
of government control that has a system that is semi
functional despite all of the setbacks of the war and
(36:37):
the economic crisis, which again could be a whole other episode.
Which has empowered women, which has empowered different ethnic and
religious communities. They could be part of a political solution
in Syria. Turkey's war on the Kurdish movement, you know,
is preventing that. This goes into a lot of challenges
in Iraq as well, with increasing Turkish military operations there
related to the conflict that have made life extremely difficult
(36:59):
for many different Iraqi communities. But again all of this,
this conflict, you could argue, is the largest and most
impactful and certainly one of the longest running, you know,
for forty years now of the modern Middle East. It
is an international conflict. The United States European governments, like
we saw with the example of the US and European
(37:20):
position on NATO accession and the concessions to Turkey made there,
have been very involved in supporting militarily and politically Turkey's
efforts to resolve this conflict militarily and to deny the
Kurdish people their rights by force. And we you listening
to this are communities in all of these different countries
that have a stake in this conflict. We're the ones
(37:42):
you can change that, and you can do that on
two different tracks. So one, you can build awareness in
your own community. You can build connections between your community
groups and institutions in North East Syria, in Turkey, in
different places impacted by this conflict in order to find
ways that you can help respond to specific needs, work
specific projects together, and two, in the long run, use
(38:04):
those connections, your knowledge you gain from those connections, the
resources you create, as you reach out to the media,
as you meet different people working on this, to reach
out to decision makers and show this is an issue
that their constituents care about. This is an issue that's
not something that governments can do without a response from
(38:24):
public opinion. And this is an issue where there is
organized pressure to change policy, you know, in favor of peace,
in favor of stability, in favor of political solutions. Because
when we do that, and there's lots of examples of
how different communities and organizations have done that, when we
do that on a large enough scale, we're not only
addressing a humanitarian problem, we're not only contributing to peace
(38:48):
and stability in the region. But at the end of
the day, we can find solutions for these conflicts that
mean that there won't be another rise of Isis, there
won't be another Turkish invasion in ocup patient of northern Syria,
and there will be models for political and social transformation
that can help us end conflicts in other parts of
(39:08):
the world as well, So there's lots of ways to contribute.
I hope you're inspired to do so. And I think
that just listening to this conversation, hearing about what's going
on and thinking about what you can do, that's already
the first step. You're already there and that's the most
important thing.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, great, thanks Bigain. That's a really good, I think
place to end because it gives some people something to do.
I think far too often that it's really easy in
the immedia to just point at something and say it's
bad and then walk away and not sort of leave
people a way to help or do something. So I
really appreciate you doing that. Is there any where people
can find you on the internet, So you can.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Find all of my research and writing at kurdishpace dot org,
as well as all of the research and writing of
our brilliant contributors, many of whom are on the ground
in Northern Syria themselves, in other parts of the region,
or who have ex de sensibly traveled to that region
for their work. I encourage you to read all of
our content and to follow our social media pages as
(40:09):
well at kurdishpiece org. On Twitter, and yes you can
read not only my work but the work of a
lot of other really great people. But I'm very lucky
to collaborate.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
With amazing Thanks so much for your time, Megan, Thank you, James.
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Hi everyone. It's me James today and I'm joined by
Meghan Bodette, who's the director of research at the Kurdish
Peace Institute. We're picking up where we left off at
the end of last week to discuss more about the
Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria and perhaps more specifically,
to talk about the detainees, the ISIS detainees in the
(00:29):
Al Whole camp and in other camps around there. How
are you, Megan, I'm doing well.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you, James. Thank you for having me on for
this important conversation about a really critical security and humanitarian
issue that we're seeing in North East Syria these days. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Thanks, thanks for joining us. So I think to start
out with, would you be comfortable giving us sort of
baseline explanation of what's happening with these ISIS detainees and
why despite the fact that many of them are citizens
of other countries, they haven't been a returned there.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, that's a very important place to start with. So essentially,
after the territorial defeat of ISIS in twenty and nineteen
by the Syrian Democratic Forces and the international coalition, the
Syrian Democratic Forces and the Autonomous Administration, which is the
political body governing northeast Syria ended up with tens of
thousands of ISIS detainees and the family members of these
(01:28):
ISIS members as well. And in the Alhol camp you
now have a population of essentially ISIS affiliated women and
the children of ISIS members who are now housed in
that camp as well. And this camp is a serious
humanitarian issue. You have these children who are in very
(01:48):
difficult conditions. It's a massive security problem for the surrounding
Syrian and Iraqi communities that were victimized by ISIS, and
the world ISIS openly wants to reconstitute itself. It is
operating inside the camp clandestinely to reconstitute itself. It wants
to break prisoners out and go right back to its
genocidal policies against minorities in the region like Yazidis and Christians,
(02:12):
and to continue terror attacks not only in Iraq and Syria,
but around the world. It's also a real drain on
the resources of the Autonomous Administration and the SDF themselves,
who we have to remember are not a state actor,
but are dealing with the sort of problems that even
the wealthiest and most militarily established state actors would have
trouble with, so they've ended up in this unenviable position
(02:33):
of having to take care of essentially criminals from around
the world who came to their country to commit mass atrocities,
while the victims of these ISIS crimes across Northern and
Eastern Syria and victims of the subsequent Turkish invasions that
a Northern and Eastern Syria suffered during and after the
fight against ISIS really lack basic resources. Now, this is
(02:55):
something I heard a lot on the ground when I
was in the region in February and March, speaking to
people from off which was invaded and occupied by Turkey
in twenty eighteen, and to people from Sera, Kanya and
Tel Abyad which were invaded and occupied by Turkey in
twenty nineteen. Many of them asked rightly why there were
so many resources from international bodies and NGOs and governments
(03:18):
provided towards the ISIS detainees in al Hole and the
ISIS affiliated individuals there when they're communities, their families who
had done nothing other than simply living in areas that
Turkey decided to invade and occupy, who were displaced because
of that. In what experts, including myself, would refer to
as ethnic cleansing. These communities are receiving nothing from the
(03:39):
international community. You know, they feel forgotten and they have
some serious questions about that. Of course, the Autonomous Administration
has many needs and many pressing security problems that it
simply can't devote enough resources to when it's tasked with
managing the world's ISIS members. So in a recent study
that we published at the Kurdish Peace Institute by journalist
(04:00):
Matt Broomfield, who spent a lot of time on the
ground in North East Syria during and after the defeat
of ISIS, he found that just four percent of foreign
ISIS fighters held by Syrian Kurdish authorities have been repatriated
since twenty nineteen four percent. The most of the repatriations
have been women and children, not the fighters themselves who
are housed in prisons. But of course the women and
(04:22):
children are a humanitarian issue and a security issue too,
so think about that. Those are really dangerous numbers.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, I think that differentiation between like fighters and women
and children is interesting and perhaps one we should like
pick apart a little bit, because there's a bit we
talked about this before. We recorded, like there's a betrayal
certainly of like Western women who went to join ISIS
as having been sort of victims in their own right,
(04:52):
which some of them were very young, right and might
not have been making like adult choices at that time.
And that's that's one thing. But like a lot of
these people willingly participated in an extremely oppressive and violent
regime and they sort of a being that they're often
not portrayed as such in the press. Is that fair
to say?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Absolutely? Look, what I always go back to when I
talk about this issue is reading accounts from UZD women
and children who survived ISIS captivity, who've said on multiple
occasions that the women were no less brutal than the men,
and that they were willing participants in every aspect of
the worst of ISIS crimes of genocide, of crimes against humanity,
(05:34):
against the ZD people and of course all the other
peoples that ISIS targeted. So that I think when you
have these genocide survivors saying that no, these women participated
fully in these crimes, they facilitated these crimes, They made
this system of genocide of crimes against humanity possible. That's
something we have to listen to and I'm glad that
(05:56):
you bring up the Western media portrayal because you really
see this idea that the women could not have been
perpetrators themselves, when what we hear on the ground is
that that's not true, and what legal cases have begun
to find is that that's not true either. There's been
trials in Europe for ISIS affiliated women for their complicity
(06:18):
in acts of genocide against the Uzdi community. And you know,
one point that you hear very commonly on the ground
is that how can there have only been one or two,
just a handful of trials. I'm not sure the exact number.
But after all of these people missing, all of these
people killed, how are all of these ISIS members? And
(06:39):
that's why I said, you know ISIS affiliated women, because
I don't think I do agree with you. It's a
disservice to just refer to them as ISIS brides or
whatever sensationalistic media framing you have. These people simply aren't
being put on trial. And one of the reasons for
that is that when we come to female members of ISIS,
there is this perception, both in media and from governance,
(07:00):
from international institutions that these women are victims that because
they're women, because they subscribed willingly to a political and
ideological system that was very very oppressive of women, that
puts women only into certain roles as housewives, as mothers
of the next generation of ISIS. That these women couldn't
(07:22):
have committed atrocities, but they have. They did, And you
know what we're hearing right now, and some of the
reporting that's coming out of Northeast Syria is that even
within the camps, these women have continued to commit some
of the most serious abuses that ISIS has been committing.
There's reports that they have raped, sexually assaulted the teenage
(07:47):
boys who are in the camp in order to essentially
become pregnant and raise more children to create that next
generation of ISIS that they seek to create. This continued
perpetration of sexual violence against these boys who've done nothing
other than had the misfortune to have their parents be
members of ISIS. You know, this is a very very
(08:10):
serious allegation. The reporting about this is something that needs
to be taken very seriously. Like I said, this is
a massive human rights crisis for these children, and it
is you know, these women are no less dangerous and
no less culpable for their crimes than their male counterparts
who joined isis.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, I think that's just very fair to say, and
it's somewhat of a like sexist outlook to be like
a women couldn't have had agency in the way that
men clearly have been held accountable for. And I think
it's that the last issue you rate. It's obviously pretty horrible,
but also we should at least dig into a little bit.
I think, like the ongoing like not only the abuse
(08:53):
of children, but like the sort of attempt to indoctrinate
children into that same like extremist ideology to even like
I've seen videos of kids training with little wooden guns,
and yeah, I'm sort of raising another generation of people
who believe in this kind of painful outlook. And can
you talk a little bit about how common that is
(09:14):
or I guess you don't know entirely, but can you
speak to that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, I mean that is something that none of us
know how common it is because of the sort of
difficulty of accessing that information. But if you look at
what is coming in from sources from North and East Syria,
from international reporting on the camp, these women are indoctrinating
their children into the ISIS ideology. They have said many
(09:41):
times over in many of their communications that their goal
is to raise the next generation of ISIS fighters. There's
no reason to believe that the majority of these women
have given up on their beliefs, and there is evidence
that this is what they're trying to do. And of course,
when you look at the broader situation that these children
are in, it's a situation that's exceedingly conducive to radicalization
(10:04):
because of the poor conditions in the camps, because of
the fact that they remain with their mothers, many of
whom believe firmly in ISIS ideology and who see the
role of women in ISIS as doing exactly that, as
passing down this ideology. And you know, when these children
they can't be safely repatriated to their countries, they can't
(10:26):
be put into safe environments where they can receive the
support they need, the positive influences, they need, any kind
of medical or psychological help that they need. In these conditions,
it's inevitable that you're going to have the continuation of
this ISIS ideology being perpetrated and the adults there, these
women continuing to pass this down on these children, who
(10:52):
again have done nothing to be put in the situation
that they're in. They're continuing to be victimized by the
actions of their parents and the other ISIS members. So
and the international community too as a fault here for
refusing to repatriate at least these children and to try
ISIS perpetrators of war crimes, kinds against humanity and genocide.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, in some cases they've even been like had their
citizenship striped from them of the countries that they came from.
The UK have done that for example, right, which is
kind of just failing to do anything to acknowledge it,
like this is an international problem that they have completely.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
And that's something we can get into, is the international
dynamic surrounding these issues, because it's obviously very closely related
to the ISIS issue, but it touches on so many
other very internationalized conflicts as well.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, let's do that. Perhaps before we explain the way
the nations that are more distant from this are engaging
with it, we should talk about how nations that are
(12:07):
more proximal to this are engaging within specifically, how at
times it seems like Turkish drone strikes, which we've discussed
previously on our podcasts, so people be familiar with them,
have the very least not helped the SDF to keep
these camps secure, right, And in some cases it's you
(12:29):
can see, like there's a video that the YPJ have
of like these people celebrating a drone strike inside the camp,
and can you talk about the impact these drone strikes have.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Look Something that has been reported by journalists, by local sources,
and by all sorts of international researchers and experts since
the earliest days of the war against ISIS is that
Turkey wanted ISIS to succeed in its mission of taking
over Northern Iraq and Northern State area in order to
(13:02):
not only destroy Kurdish political and military structures operating there,
including the YPG, the YPJ, the later the SDF, and
the Autonomous Administration, but also to destroy the social base
for any form of Kurdish autonomy, any kind of multi
ethnic project to potentially be able to exist there, either
(13:22):
now or in the future. And this facilitation of the
rise of ISIS reached such a level that you've had
legal experts through the Yazidi Justice Committee, which published an
in depth report on this last year find based on
a review of the evidence that Turkey was quote complicit
(13:43):
in the commission of genocide end quote by ISIS by
allowing fighters to cross its borders to join the group,
allowing ISIS related economic activity to go on, and other
forms of facilitation of the rise of ISIS when it
was committing its most serious crimes. So this is not
something new. The way that these drone strikes specifically impact
(14:05):
this issue. They're part of the broader Turkish campaign of
aggression against northeast Syria. Obviously, the two ground invasions of
Afrin and of Sera Kanya and Talabyad had very negative
impacts on the fight against ISIS. And the drone strikes now,
first of all, they make it difficult for any SDF
or autonomous administration structure to simply do the day to
(14:27):
day work of providing security and providing the government. You know,
if a government official or a member of the local
security forces has to modify their behavior, has to modify
where they go, how they interact with their constituents. You know,
what kind of missions they can conduct to avoid being
assassinated in a drone strike. They're simply not going to
be as effective. Right, So this is a problem in
(14:51):
many areas. It certainly impacts the counter ISIS mission, and
Turkey has specifically started to increasingly target ans, SDF and
Asayish internal security forces personnel who are directly engaged in
counter ISIS missions. We saw this in late twenty twenty
two when there were severe Turkish air operations following a
(15:14):
bombing in Istanbul that Turkey, based on all evidence, falsely
attempted to attribute to Kurdish groups despite there being no
real evidence supporting that claim. These attacks targeted civilians, civilian infrastructure,
and SDF forces engaged in key counter ISIS missions, including
(15:36):
SDF forces involved in securing the Alhole camp. And now
we've even started to see in addition to these anti
SDF anti autonomous administration drone strikes, Turkey's been using drones
to fire essentially warning shots at the international coalition led
by the US and the other coalition countries itself. We
saw this in November when there was a drone strike
(15:58):
on the joint SDF coalition base where the SDF and
the international community worked together to plan ongoing counter ISIS missions,
and earlier this year, in i believe April of this year,
the drone strike on Sulimania International Airport in Iraqi Kurdastan,
where there was a joint SDF coalition convoy where SDF
(16:18):
Commander in Chief Muslim Kobani was present and US forces
were also present. That strike, for all intents and purposes,
was Turkey's attempt not only to threaten the SDF and
the Autonomous Administration, but to threaten the coalition as well,
specifically for its continuing counter ISIS partnership with Syrian Kurds.
(16:39):
So this has risen to a level where Turkey is
not only using these to disrupt governance and security at
the local level in the Autonomous Administration, it's not only
using them against locally led SDFYPG led counter ISIS missions,
but Turkey is using drones to threaten the entire global
counter ISIS campaign, of which on paper is formally a member.
(17:02):
So there you go.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Yeah, and Turkey is kind of it's We've talked about
this again before, how it pressured like newer NATO members
Finland and Sweden to even stop accepting Kurdish refugees. Right,
It's yeah, while at the same time being a member
of NATO and as you say, also like drone striking
(17:24):
other members of NATO. It's certainly like it's making it
as hard as possible for people in this part of
the world to have the stability and peace and the
things that they fought so hard for for such a
long time. I wonder if you can talk about, like, so,
what is the into as far as the international community exists,
(17:45):
which is a pretty nebulous thing to really kind of
pin down, but is what is specifically like this US
led coalition to the fea isis. I think they call
it doing to help and like I guess a little
more broadly, building on that, this coalition has a very
narrow focus in a place where there are a lot
(18:05):
of different aggresses to include various other Islamist groups, to
include the Turkish State and obviously the day the state
in Syria. Can you explain a little bit about how
the mission of this coalition is narrow in a way
that helps it doing the things that people on the
ground they need to ensure peace and stability.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, exactly. That's a really important question because, as you said,
this international relationship with North Eastyria is very narrowly built
on a counter Isis focus, which means a military focus.
So there's relationships between security forces and security forces. What
we don't see our political relationships. And this connects to
(18:50):
a wide variety of issues related to this immediate problem
of ISIS, of securing ISIS prisoners, of bringing ISIS perpetrators
of genocide and war crimes to justice. But it also
connects to the deeper problem of the kind of long
term stability in Syria that's necessary to end this ongoing
civil war, to bring justice to the victims of ISIS
(19:11):
and to all other abuses and atrocities during the twelve
years of conflict in Syria, and to prevent the next
endless war in this region from inevitably taking place in
the future. So we have this narrow military partnership. The
reason that this relationship evolved in this way was going
back to the role of Turkey, because the United States
(19:34):
and its European allies had no other option but to
partner with Kurdish groups if they wanted to achieve a
territorial defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. There was
no force other than the SDF and the YPG and
the YPGA at that time that would be capable of
the military responsibility of defeating ISIS. It was essentially, if
(19:58):
people remember the resistance the YPG and the YPJ at
Kobani in northeast northeastern Syria that held out long enough
where the United States and the international Coalition realized that
their only option if they wanted to defeat ISIS on
the ground was to partner with these forces. Before that, also,
we're recording this in August, the situation in Sinjar where
(20:22):
ISIS had gone in, had committed genocide against the Azdi community,
and we're the only people who were able to actually
come in and help Uzidis defend themselves and evacuate refugees
to safety in Syria, where again the YPG, the YPJ
and the PKK gorillas as well. Because these Kurdish forces
were able to help local civilians in Sinjar defend themselves
(20:45):
and evacuate so many refugees to safety, it forced the
international community's hand to act. The PKK intervened in Sinjar
to start that humanitarian mission on August fourth. US air
strikes began on August seventh. It was this local response
from these non state actors that forced the international community.
You know, these states with actual treaty obligations to respond
(21:07):
to and prevent massatrocities, to take action. But because Turkey
views the PKK as a terrorist group, it views the
YPG and the YPG as indistinguishable from the PKK and
therefore as a terrorist group. The entire counter ISIS mission
from the very beginning was faced with this question of
how these states that wanted to fight ISIS could do
(21:27):
so without offending their relationships with Turkey as a member
of NATO and an ally in other respects. So this
connects specifically to the ISIS issue, not only because the
contradiction here dates back to the counter ISIS campaign, but
because actual international trials for ISIS members, actual security policies
(21:49):
that could address the problems in al Hole would legitimize
the SDF and the autonomous administration on the international stage
and would legitimize the political philosophies behind what they're doing,
all of which Turkey deems to be a very serious
national security threat to its existence. I mean, imagine you
have a Kurdish woman judge questioning an ISIS member responsible
(22:12):
for potentially European and American casualties, certainly responsible for casualties
and all sorts of abuses across Iraq and Syria, about
the evidence that we have, that the international community has,
that North East Syria has, about how Turkey facilitated ISIS actions,
you know, with the YPG and the YPG there for security,
with international observers from the US and other coalition countries
(22:34):
facilitating providing legal and security support, that would absolutely destroy
Turkey's narrative about what individuals and entities are terrorists and
which ones have actually contributed not only to the territorial
militarily defeat of ISIS, but to social and political and
governance projects that are able to prevent, you know, the
(22:55):
resurgence of the next ISIS. So, you know, this kind
of fear of building political relationships with the Autonomous administration
with legitimate this fear of legitimizing the autonomous administration project
and helping it address security problems in a way that
would you know, both increase its standing and legitimacy locally
(23:16):
and internationally, and would show how the actions of states
like Turkey contributed to prolonging and intensifying the civil war
in Syria. States simply don't want to do that yet.
But you know, when we look at the long term
consequences of whether it's allowing Turkey to continue aggressive actions
(23:37):
against North East Syria and more broadly, to pursue a
military solution to its Kurdish conflict, whether it's allowing ISIS
atrocities to go unpunished, you know, leaving communities that were
impacted by ISIS to be essentially re traumatized and left
to live in difficult conditions, you know, not receiving justice,
and allowing these ISIS members to continue to have the
(23:59):
space to attempt to reconstitute their group and go back
to the kind of atrocities they were committing and attacks
they were carrying out worldwide in twenty fourteen twenty fifteen.
In the long run, this sort of appeasement of Turkey
over the issue of the Kurdish question and the role
of the Autonomous Administration, it's going to create the start
(24:20):
of the next endless war in the Middle East. And
you know, if policymakers want to avoid that, they need
to be addressing these problems from a pro peace perspective,
from a perspective that brings about justice. You know, political
solutions based on democracy, on gender equality, on the equality
of all communities in the region, all of these values
that while imperfectly the autonomous administration is really trying to
(24:42):
fight for.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah, I think it's super important to point out that
this isn't a necessarily a like Turkey versus Kurdish people
like you dichotomy or like those aren't the only people
impacted by this, right, Like the I think the majority
of the ANS is not Kurdish people, right, And we
are an FDF also are not Kurdish.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I mean, there's a very good paper by doctor Amy
Austen Holmes who wrote in an analysis of this conflict
and the sort of Turkey SDF security dynamics, that what
we would refer to as the Turkish Kurdish conflict or
the Turkey PKK conflict is actually a conflict that impacts
every ethnic and religious group in Turkey, Iraq and Syria.
(25:26):
And of course you have and we could do an
entire other episode on this. You know, there are certainly
Kurds who support Erdwan in the AKP, whether from an
Islamist perspective or on the basis of class interests. And
you have Turks, ethnic Turkish people who went to North
East Syria during the height of the fight against ISIS
as members of socialist groups to provide humanitarian aid and
to join Kurdish forces in their fight against ISIS. On
(25:49):
the ground, you have Yuzids, Christians, Syriacs, Assyrians, Armenians, Arabs,
all different ethnic groups in Iraq and Syria that are
very much impacted by this conflict, and particularly because of
the Autonomous Administration's multi ethnic and multi religious model. And
while the Autonomous Administration system certainly hasn't shortcomings and hasn't
been able to perfectly overcome years and years of sectarian
(26:12):
and religious and ethnic challenges, it has made a real
attempt at including all of the peoples of the region.
And that's one of the reasons why despite all of
these Turkish attacks, despite the DEVISIS, you know, these communities
have continued to band together and participate in SDF and
Autonomous Administration structures in order to try to build governance
(26:32):
and real post ISIS security. So it's certainly not just
a very narrowly defined Turkish Kurdish issue. It's an issue
of civil rights, of political rights, of long term security
and stability, of what kind of society and what kind
of governance can and should exist in this region where
many Kurds and many other ethnic and religious minorities would
(26:55):
argue the European imposition of artificial borders and nation states
onto areas that were multi ethnic and multi religious for
thousands and thousands of years was the source of a
lot of these problems that we see today, not only
with ISIS, not only with the Syrian War, with the
(27:16):
Kurdish conflict in Turkey as well with many of the
issues that we're seeing in Iraq, in Iran, all over
the region. So it goes much deeper than that. And
I think that understanding, you know, the very deep historical
roots of these issues is what can start to point
us to the actual, very radical solutions that would be
(27:36):
necessary to get long term peace and security.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, and that goes on. I think solutions like you said,
many nation states still exercising kind of pseudocolonial control over
these places or trying to or trying to at least
sort of use force to extract wealth, are really open to.
So it creates this sort of half assed, like you've
said that, this sort of limited support for only some
(28:02):
parts of a project, which it doesn't work if you
only support part of this project right as we're seeing,
I wonder if people are interested in following more about this.
(28:23):
I think it's something that like so much of the
coverage of this whole area focuses on, like specifically women
in our whole right or women who went to join ICEIS.
Where can people find out more about like the What
sources would you suggest for following goings on in this area?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
So yeah, I would say following local Syrian and Kurdish
news sources would be a good place to start. You
have sites like north Press, where I've written before, that
provide good perspectives from Syrian Kurdish writers. You have a
human rights organizations working on the ground, groups like Seriance
for Truth and Justice that's done a lot of documentation
(29:03):
of issues like for example, ISIS members who've joined Turkey
backed groups in the occupied areas. You have arguably one
of the best English language resources, not only for their
own publications, but for researchers and journalists to reach out to,
the Ulsheva Information Center that does a lot of good
work on their own and also a lot of really
incredible work to facilitate the work of international researchers and journalists.
(29:28):
You have the Kurdish media sites like Koar News that
will give good updates on what the Autonomous Administration is
doing and saying from their perspective. Of course, there are
a lot of official pages and sites for Autonomous Administration
and SDF institutions as well. Those tend to be in
Kurdish or Arabic, so of course if you know either
of those languages, you can follow them. For English, you
(29:51):
have some of the SDF affiliated sites that have been translated.
The YPG Information and Documentation Office have done a lot
of work on this issue of ISIS and the related
security challenges. They publish in English. They provide good information
from that security perspective, and then really, I think any
(30:13):
sources on social media online that provide good perspectives from
people who are on the ground, who are providing reputable information,
whether it's from a human rights side of things, from
the security side of things, from the administration side of things,
it's good to get that full spectrum of perspectives of
(30:33):
what different actors are doing and seeing. And then, of
course I'd be remiss if I did not promote my
own institution. We have published coverage of certainly the ISIS
issue in North East Syria, but also a lot on
the wider political, humanitarian and security challenges related to these
interlocking conflicts in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan that have sort
(30:59):
of formed the very unstable basis on which these developments
relevant to global security issues like ISIS are taking place.
So you can certainly read what we've been publishing.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Yeah, I think that's an excellent list of resources, and
lots of the ones that I've been using, other ones
that you've mentioned. I would just I suppose warned people,
especially the latest YPJ Information and Documentation Center video and
our whole comes with a heavy content warning for violence
that you will see there, which is it's documenting things
(31:34):
that happen. It's not like they are doing the violence.
They're not. But still, if that's something you don't want
to see, that's probably a video you don't want to watch. Megan,
is there anything people can do to help like this?
I was thinking when we were talking of like I
met a Kurdish man a month ago at the border
being held by immigrats and customs enforcement. But it's not
(31:58):
a topic that gets much coverage in the US, and
as a result, like people both there and people coming
here don't get the compassion. Then let's say Ukrainian people
who are also fleeing conflict, do get and you can
see that in a way that they're literally treated differently
in immigration laws. So is there anything people can do
to help?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Well, I would say that the first thing is exactly
like we're doing now on this discussion, and like you
as a listener listening to this conversation are doing by
hearing from us and following this issue. Encourage media research,
human rights groups, analysts, and all others who do work
in any of these fields to cover this issue in
(32:39):
its full political and security context. Look, we can't only
talk about North and ew Syria when there's a crisis.
Isis did not come out of nowhere in twenty fourteen.
The Turkish invasion did not come out of nowhere in
twenty nineteen. And had we as a society and certainly
our institutions been more informed, more aware of the root
(33:01):
conditions causing these outbursts of violence, these outbursts of violence
may not have happened. They might have been addressed before
they happened. And so what does it mean to build
that awareness? That means everything from writing a letter to
your local newspaper to producing a report at your university
with input from institutions in North East Syria, some of
these local media and human rights organizations that we've talked
(33:23):
about to hosting an event for your community group on
the state of this broadly defined conflict in Turkey and
Iraq and Syria in Kurdistan between the Turkish state and
these Kurdish groups that, in addition to fighting against ISIS,
have been struggling for autonomy, self determination, equality between men
and women, equality of people of different religious beliefs, of
(33:45):
different ethnic backgrounds. Long before ISIS was on the agenda
and Northeast Syria it was on the agenda. We at
the Kurdish Peace Institute are always available to help you
do this. You can reach out to us on our
contact page. We have information on everything from submitting content
of your own to resources for reaching out to us
for media appearances. Of course, there's all the sources I
(34:06):
mentioned as well, and there are other episodes of this
wonderful podcast with very talented expert speakers and interviewers as
well who've spoken about issues related to Syria, Turkey and Kurdistan.
You can advocate for greater political support for the Autonomous Administration,
for an end to Turkey's aggressive actions against Northeast Syria
(34:28):
and its ongoing human rights violations in the occupied areas
of Afriin and russ a line, and for international political
support for a democratic, just peaceful solution to the Turkish
Kurdish conflict. This is, i think, at the end of
the day, the root of all of these problems that
we're seeing here, and if this conflict were to be resolved,
(34:51):
if Turkey were no longer to take an aggressive militaristic
approach to the very concept of Kurdish autonomy, the very
social base of Kurdish communities that has the capacity to
seek and organize for autonomy itself, this would mean an
end to authoritarianism in Turkey, which has been leading Turkey
to all sorts of destabilizing behavior and certainly and miserating
(35:13):
countless Turkish citizens. This is one of the reasons why
not only Kurbs, but many Turkish people of all ethnicities
as well have been fleeing Turkey to Europe and even
to the United States. Has been the escalating persecution, poverty,
and difficulty of life under Erdowan, which is directly connected
to air Dowan's choice in twenty fifteen to end piece
(35:34):
talks with the Kurdish movement in order to consolidate his
total power over the state using war and far right nationalism.
This would end not only these difficult conditions within Turkey,
this persecution, this economic devastation, this oppression of all oppressed
segments of society. It would end Turkey's aggressive foreign policy
in the region as well, which would be hugely important
(35:56):
for allowing North East Syria the stability. It means to
put ISIS members on trial, hold them accountable for what
they've done, begin to rebuild, give post Isis communities a future,
allow these people who have suffered so much to defeat
this group, of course for themselves, but really for all
humanity to be able to build new lives, recover and
(36:17):
have a say in their future, and by doing that,
to pursue a political solution to the Syrian conflict. Right now,
North Assyria is the only major part of Syria outside
of government control that has a system that is semi
functional despite all of the setbacks of the war and
(36:37):
the economic crisis, which again could be a whole other episode.
Which has empowered women, which has empowered different ethnic and
religious communities. They could be part of a political solution
in Syria. Turkey's war on the Kurdish movement, you know,
is preventing that. This goes into a lot of challenges
in Iraq as well, with increasing Turkish military operations there
related to the conflict that have made life extremely difficult
(36:59):
for many different Iraqi communities. But again all of this,
this conflict, you could argue, is the largest and most
impactful and certainly one of the longest running, you know,
for forty years now of the modern Middle East. It
is an international conflict. The United States European governments, like
we saw with the example of the US and European
(37:20):
position on NATO accession and the concessions to Turkey made there,
have been very involved in supporting militarily and politically Turkey's
efforts to resolve this conflict militarily and to deny the
Kurdish people their rights by force. And we you listening
to this are communities in all of these different countries
that have a stake in this conflict. We're the ones
(37:42):
you can change that, and you can do that on
two different tracks. So one, you can build awareness in
your own community. You can build connections between your community
groups and institutions in North East Syria, in Turkey, in
different places impacted by this conflict in order to find
ways that you can help respond to specific needs, work
specific projects together, and two, in the long run, use
(38:04):
those connections, your knowledge you gain from those connections, the
resources you create, as you reach out to the media,
as you meet different people working on this, to reach
out to decision makers and show this is an issue
that their constituents care about. This is an issue that's
not something that governments can do without a response from
(38:24):
public opinion. And this is an issue where there is
organized pressure to change policy, you know, in favor of peace,
in favor of stability, in favor of political solutions. Because
when we do that, and there's lots of examples of
how different communities and organizations have done that, when we
do that on a large enough scale, we're not only
addressing a humanitarian problem, we're not only contributing to peace
(38:48):
and stability in the region. But at the end of
the day, we can find solutions for these conflicts that
mean that there won't be another rise of Isis, there
won't be another Turkish invasion in ocup patient of northern Syria,
and there will be models for political and social transformation
that can help us end conflicts in other parts of
(39:08):
the world as well, So there's lots of ways to contribute.
I hope you're inspired to do so. And I think
that just listening to this conversation, hearing about what's going
on and thinking about what you can do, that's already
the first step. You're already there and that's the most
important thing.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Yeah, great, thanks Bigain. That's a really good, I think
place to end because it gives some people something to do.
I think far too often that it's really easy in
the immedia to just point at something and say it's
bad and then walk away and not sort of leave
people a way to help or do something. So I
really appreciate you doing that. Is there any where people
can find you on the internet, So you can.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Find all of my research and writing at kurdishpace dot org,
as well as all of the research and writing of
our brilliant contributors, many of whom are on the ground
in Northern Syria themselves, in other parts of the region,
or who have ex de sensibly traveled to that region
for their work. I encourage you to read all of
our content and to follow our social media pages as
(40:09):
well at kurdishpiece org. On Twitter, and yes you can
read not only my work but the work of a
lot of other really great people. But I'm very lucky
to collaborate.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
With amazing Thanks so much for your time, Megan, Thank you, James.
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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