Latif Serhildan
Bashar al Assad has done it again: killed, tortured, committed brutality against his own population and therefore he must go as soon as possible. There is no more room for dictators in the Middle East. At a recent meeting held in Istanbul, organised by the Turkish government, the so-called National Transition Council of Syria was represented by a handful of people who are not credible representatives of all of the people of Syria. There were not any Kurds in the National Transition Council. What kind of democracy and progress is being planned in Turkey for the people of Syria?
Once more the Turkish regime has shown that democracy in the Middle East, especially in Syria, Iraq, or Iran, is against its own national interests. More than two million Kurds in the Kurdish regions of North East Syria are not being considered as part of the opposition to the Syrian regime. This is similar to Turkey’s treatment of the Kurdish region and Kurdish population of 20 million within its own borders.
Denial of Kurdish identity is a denial of real democracy. Once more Turkey has intervened in the internal affairs of another country. But no one may dare to tell Turkey how it should treat its own Kurdish population. Typically whenever Turkey encounters criticism at an international level for its human rights record and its failure to address the constitutional denial of civil rights to Kurdish citizens of Turkey, Turkish leaders are quick to say that no one has a right to intervene in their internal affairs. Does Turkey have the right to intervene in Syrian internal affairs? Or Iraqi internal affairs?
The murder of the Kurdish opposition figure Mashal Tamo has provoked a series of drastic reactions in Europe. It is believed that the killers include Turkish and Syrian secret service agents. Not only have people openly shown their disapproval concerning the Syrian regime’s actions in the German cities of Hamburg and Berlin, but also in Geneva, Vienna, London and Dublin. The death of the advocate of democracy and pluralism has been condemned by Germany’s foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, and international opinion is against the ongoing violence in Syria.
The Middle East is going through many changes at the moment; among the very obvious is the so-called Arab spring. It has taken over as number one international news around the world. The fact is the Kurds in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran have been on the streets for more than 40 years protesting against these bloody dictatorial regimes, day in day out, and suffered state violence in all these countries as a result. However their voices have been ignored by the EU and USA. It is only when Arabs began to protest that it became newsworthy.
In 1994 the Syrian regime killed dozens of Kurdish opposition in protests; hundreds of people were taken into custody, tortured and killed by the Syrian regime. None of these events ever made news in Europe or USA, or Turkey. The real representatives of the peoples of Syria, Iran and Turkey must be taken into consideration. They must all be given chances to build their newly formed democratic Syria including the most popular Kurdish opposition party PYD.