This is
a full transcript of my interview with Mirza Dinnayi, advisor for the Kurdish
Regional Government and Yazidi activist, who spends his time between Iraq and
Germany. The news report, in Portuguese, is here.
Transcrição integral da minha entrevista a Mirza Dinnayi,
conselheiro do Governo Regional Curdo e activista pela causa dos yazidi, que
passa o seu tempo entre o Iraque e a Alemanha. A reportagem
pode ser lida aqui.
Who are the
yazidis?
The Yazidis
are an ancient religion, about 5000 years old, they are about 500,000 in Iraq
and outside of Iraq there are communities in Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Georgia
and also a big community in Germany and other countries. Altogether there are
about 1 million, half of them are in Iraq. The biggest community is from the
Sinjar region – where there are about 320.000 – which was attacked by ISIS.
Because
the Yazidi religion is one of the oldest monotheistic religions, believing in
one God, although different from Islam and Christianity, they were attacked by
Islamic State, which killed more than 3000, kidnapped more than 5000 and raped
and enslaved thousands of girls and women. They they say the Yazidis are
infidels, in the eyes of the Islamic State, because they are not mentioned in
the Koran, which is why they kill them. Now we have more than 400,000 who
escaped from their houses from Sinjar and the other areas of the Ninevah plains
which are now under the control of ISIS.
What has happened to the communities which had to
flee, did they all find refuge with the Kurds?
Yes, we
have 400,000 Yazidi refugees in Kurdistan.
What conditions are they living in?
The
conditions are very bad, because most of the tents in these camps are very
simple tents, which are not prepared for the Winter or the cold. Also the tents
which were distributed by UNHCR are not fireproof, they burn in 45 seconds,
they are made of nylon so with a simple fire they are gone in 45 seconds.
Every
week there are fire accidents in the tents, there are health problems. They are
living in a very bad situation, there are no economic perspectives for the
people, the people have no resources, no houses, and the local and Iraqi
government cannot help them because they are too many. The international
organizations are not enough because the situation is very bad and they cannot fill
all the needs.
We are talking in general about refugees, but
of course many of these people are your friends and family…
Yes, of
course. My own town of 35 thousand people, all of them escaped and all of them
are living in these tents.
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| Yazidis being evacuated from Sinjar |
Did the fact that they were persecuted bring
the Christians and the Yazidis closer together?
The
Yazidi and Christian communities are still friends. In this situation they have
the same problem with ISIS, with one difference; the Christians were not
immediately attacked. During the occupation of Mosul they were given three
choices, to convert, flee or pay a tax, the Yazidis were only given two
choices: convert or be killed.
Also,
ISIS did not take hostages from the Christian population, because they say the
Christian religion is mentioned in the Koran, so they can be treated a little
bit better than the Yazidis. But both Christians and Yazidis are suffering very
much at the hands of ISIS.
What solution do you think is possible for
minorities in Iraq? Do you defend the creation of a safe haven, as some defend,
or do you believe that these minorities should have their own defence forces?
I think
the international community is now responsible for finding a solution for these
minorities in Iraq and there are two solutions which should be done, one of
them at least. The first is to establish an autonomous region with
international support and international peacekeeping forces support in this
area of Sinjar and Nineveh plains, or otherwise to help these people leave
Islamic countries, because we don't know what will happen in the coming years.
We don't know if a new Islamic group will be established. ISIS had roots in Al-Qaeda
and Al-Qaeda had roots in Iraq...
Every
day there is another radical Islamist group and if there is no solution for
this area, to protect these people and to establish peace in this country, it
will be impossible to remain.
It is
very difficult, most of the people there are helpless and the international
community has unfortunately been silent and has not supported these minorities
in Iraq.
We know that some Yazidis have chosen to remain
in Sinjar mountain and some have taken up arms to defend themselves. Why have
they decided to remain in this mountain, where they are more exposed to the
Islamic State?*
In the mountain
we have some religious heritage, some Yazidi temples. We have some fighters,
because they are sure that nobody will help them, the situation of the IDPs in
Kurdistan is already very bad so they decided to stay.
We have
about 8000 people, some of them are fighters. We have 1250 families, or more,
there. They decided to stay because they have no perspectives in Kurdistan or
outside. They think it is better to die there than to be refugees in a camp, in
a tent, without perspectives, without anything.
Every
Yazidi is now waiting to know what the international community ca do for them.
Will they support us politically? But until now it has not happened,
unfortunately.
Do you believe the Islamic State can be
defeated, and how?
What has
been done against the Islamic State until now has been very week. We cannot win
the war against the Islamic State with only airstrikes. We need forces on the
ground, not only from the international community, we need them also from the Sunni
world, they should fight ISIS, they should stand against the Islamic State
because it was established with a background of Islamic Religion. Now it is the
responsibility of the Islamic world, especially the Sunnis, to define
themselves, they work against ISIS and the fundamentalist Islam. This is their
responsibility, to fight, not only through air raids, but on the ground. We need
forces on the ground, otherwise it is not possible to fight ISIS.
ISIS was able to flourish because of widespread
discontent among the Sunni population. Do you foresee a future in which Sunnis
and Shia can live in peace in Iraq?
I am
pessimistic. I don't think that the Sunni and Shia will be together in a closed
centralized country. I think the best solution is for them to establish a
federal system, governed by moderate people, not radicals, who can serve their
population and represent them.
The
problem now in Iraq is that most of the Sunni politicians are not representing
their communities, the ones in Baghdad, most of them are corrupt, they are
working in the Government for their own profits, for their own benefits, and
therefore they cannot represent their community.
The
people don't know who represents the Sunni community in Iraq, we don't know. Is
it ISIS? A radical group? The Ba’ath party remnants? Or the politicians sitting
in parliament? We don't know.
Most of
the Sunni regions are outside of the control of the Iraqi government, outside
of the control of Sunni politicians, and therefore they cannot represent their
communities. They should choose Sunni politicians who are not criminals, who
are not ISIS supporters, who are not Al-Qaeda supporters, who can serve their
citizens and serve the country. This is the problem we have now in Iraq.
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| Yazidis no monte Sinjar, cercados pelo Estado Islâmico |
They have also taken in thousands of refugees,
do the minorities feel gratitude towards the Kurds? How are relations between
them?
The
Kurdish government are doing what they can to support these IDPs and refugees.
I think the situation now is that there is no conflict between the Yazidis, or
the Christians, and the Kurds.
You can
imagine if you have a country with a population of 5 million people and you
send them two million refugees, it is a catastrophe. They cannot manage the
problem. We know this. But as I said the best solution for these minorities,
the Yazidis, the Christians and the Shabak is to establish a type of autonomous
area for them. This solution should be implemented with the cooperation of the
Iraqi government.
Kurds are, mostly, Sunni. Is there also danger
of radical Islam taking hold among the Kurds?
Yes, of
course. We, the members of the minorities are afraid of radical people in
Kurdistan. We are happy that the Government is secular, but in the community
there are radicals and the Government should speak out against them.
It may
be a small number, but over the last 20 years there was a type of islamization
of the street, and this led to big problems, so that whereas the Kurdish people
in the past were not very religious, there are now some religious people in the
community.
There
are some Kurds from the KRG who joined ISIS, a small amount, I don't know the
number, maybe 300 or 500 fighters, more or less. There is fundamentalism in
Kurdistan and we are trying to fight it, to become a liberal community in
Kurdistan. We hope for this and we are working towards it, all of us.
What is your opinion on Turkey in the midst of
all this?
The
negative role of Turkey in support of the Islamic State is well known.
Everybody knows that at the beginning Turkey played a very negative role in
support of the Islamic groups, especially Jhabat al-Nusra, and other Islamic
groups against Bashar al-Assad.
So now
we have this problem: Turkey is under a big question mark, will it cooperate
with the international community, first to stop the resources of ISIS and to
stay in a positive situation? Until now its role has not been positive. Turkey
cannot say "I will be independent about the issue of ISIS", because
Turkey played a negative role and now they should change their policies and be
positive, rather than negative.
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| Yazidi refugees in Erbil |
All this instability has its roots in the
Syrian civil war. Is there an end in sight?
They
should find an outcome for the situation in Syria, peace should be established
between all groups, with all opposition groups and non-opposition groups,
otherwise we will have a massacre against the Alawites, for example.
All the
Syrian players should work together, without Assad in power, but the Alawites
should participate in planning the new country in a democratic way.
*Since
this interview was conducted, the siege of Sinjar has been broken by Kurdish
forces.
