How the PKK saved 28,000 Yazids: Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?
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ISIS (IS/Daesh) intends to “purify” Iraq. It is their goal to get rid of all “unbelievers,” Christians as well as other non-Muslims. In August 2014, they started an attack on the Yazidis, a local religious minority.
The Yazidis are monotheists like Muslims, Christians, and Jews. They believe in God as the creator of the world.
More than 10.000 Yazidis were killed.
5000 women are enslaved and raped, subject to sex slavery, as weapons of war. Once the ISIS-fighters have had sex with the young girls, they just pass them on to other fighters. These women have been treated like cattle.
The Yazidis fled to the mountains to hide, with no water, no shelter, at 40 degrees celsius.
430,000 had to leave their homes.
Nobody came to stop this latest genocide in the 21st century on the ground: Not the United States, nor the European Union, or NATO ally Turkey.
Only the local PKK. They acted.
U.S. President Barack Obama authorized “targeted airstrikes” and airdrops of meals and water to thousands trapped on Mount Sinjar in northwest Iraq, but no troops on the ground.
This is the story of how fighters of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) saved 28,000 entrapped Yazidis, who had been surrounded by Daesh.
The Kurdish people live in a violent world. They see on a daily basis how minorities are being degraded and have to suffer genocide, with no one trying to stop it.
We wanted to know more about this impossible situation and interviewed PKK fighters that had actively taken part in the operation to help the Yazides of Cizre.
Are they good or evil? Freedom Fighters like those who defeated the Russians in Afghanistan during the Reagan administration, or simply terrorists?
We, for our part, were overwhelmed by the amount of self-sacrifice and humanity these people have.
In many countries, including all NATO member states, and the European Union, the PKK is considered a terrorist organization.
To this day PKK fighters are responsible for many acts of violence against the Turkish state. Since 1984, the Kurdish nationalist PKK fighters, under the lead of Abdullah Öcalan, have been involved in a bloody conflict with the government in Istanbul. In 2013, Öcalan and representatives of Turkey negotiated a ceasefire and started a reconciliation process. Unfortunately, the war in Syria and Iraq against Assad and ISIS has put an end to this important peace process.
Since the start of its campaign against ISIS, the Turkish air force has attacked several PKK positions, most notably in the vicinity of Daglica, Hakkari Province.
Kurdish advances to renew the peace agreement have been left unanswered.
During the PKK’s “third insurgency”, which started in July this year, the PKK has conducted many attacks on Turkey, with many soldiers, policemen and civilians killed. In a recent bombing, eight Turkish soldiers were killed by a roadside IED in southeast Turkey.
On the 10th of October, bombings during a peace rally in Ankara for the solution of the Kurdish rebellion killed 97 people and injured more than 400 others. The Turkish branch of ISIS is the chief suspect for the bombings.
In the upcoming Turkish elections, the political party HDP, which is strongly influenced by the Kurdish minority in Turkey and is said to have close links to the PKK, is the only strong opponent of president Recep Erdogan and his Islamic AKP party.
Therefore many observers believe that the Turkish president misuses the attacks on the PKK to hurt the HDP politically. Having gained 13 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary elections, the HDP blocked Erdogan’s ambition to gain absolute power.
America’s best friend and NATO ally bombs the savior of the Yazidis – the only strong fighting force against ISIS: this is a perversion of Realpolitik.
1. The U.S. President and the EU must develop a new aggressive containment policy against ISIS and urge president Erdogan to stop attacking all Kurds fighting Daesh.
2. The U.S. and the EU must push for a re-start of the reconciliation process with the Kurds and the PKK. They should be offered autonomy and all UN minority rights.
3. The PKK must end all terror activities within Turkey.
4. A ceasefire is needed now as a first step, in the interest of humanity and for the containment of ISIS in the region.