Afrin and the polices of Democratic Union Party
By: Zaher Baher
March 2018
Afrin is one of the district in north of Syria that commonly known as Rojava. Afrin until 17/03/2018 was one of the Rojava’s canton that the civil war of seven years in Syria did not reach there. It was the safest place in whole Syria until 20th of Jan, before Turkish state invasion. Around 200,000 people from different places in Syria especially from Aleppo moved to there. They found peace, safety, equality, dignity and humanity there.
There were many reasons for the invasion of Afrin by Turkish state. The most important one are: defeating Isis militarily almost completely who fought against Syrian troops and Kurdish forces on behalf of Turkish state, closeness of Afrin and mixture of its citizens, Erdogan wants to change the demography of the area by settling Arab refugees who are currently in Turkey and also its closeness to Idlib and Aleppo means controlling the roads to reach weapons and other aids from Turkey to the terrorist groups. In addition there is unconfirmed information stated there was a deal between Erdogan and Assad. The deal was Erdogan leaves East Ghouta alone not to support the rebels there. In return Erdogan can attack Kurdish in Afrin.
However, whatever reasons for Erdogan to invade Afrin I believe Turkish state cannot stay there for very long as in the end there will be bargaining chip between Assad and Erdogan.
On early dawn of 19th of March the Turkish troops with the state’s mercenaries, Syrian Free Army (SFA), managed to enter Afrin after paying a heavy costs. In the meantime the invasion costed Syrian Democratic Forces, (SDF), 1500 fighters killed and many injured as well. Around 400 from civilians killed and over 2000 people were injured and also over 150,000 people left and headed toward Aleppo.
For the last 3 years the Turkish President Rajab Erdogan, managed to play a very successful game, using almost whoever involved in the war. That including: Isis, keeping good diplomatic relationship with many of the regional governments including Iraq and Iran. He kept balance and played very well between Russia and United State and also satisfied Europe for blocking refugees to enter their countries through Turkey. One of his cleverest policy was imposing war on PKK and forced them to enter this war. Erdogan knew very well the peace process helps PKK and the Kurdish more than helping his political party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and his government. Erdogan through this war weakened Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), destroyed many cities, towns and villages in Turkey Kurdistan, Baker.
There is no doubt that US does not like some of Erdogan’s policies. It does not like a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to ally itself with Russia, having a very good relationship with Iran and threating Iraq whose Shia government is US ally in fighting Isis. All these are not acceptable by US, but there is nothing US can do about it. There is not alternative of AKP in Turkey at all, there has been no political movement there for the US to support and promote it in order to be alternative to replace AKP. In this case US has to rely on general’s military coup d’état. This choice also is not possible at least at the present situation.
The vast majority of people from writers, academics, and politicians to even ordinary supporters of the Kurdish people are blaming US, UN, UK and the rest of European countries for being silent in face of the brutal attack on Afrin and its citizens by Turkish State. They believe that the above have betrayed the Kurdish in Rojava while it was them defeated Isis and made the threat of terrorist attack on the streets and public places lessen and lessen. They think instead of being silence, these powerful states, should have rewarded Kurdish by stopping the Turkish troops slaughtering the civilians, destroying their homes and lands and displacing them.
I was neither shocked nor surprised about the position of the above states. We should all know things better especially for those of us know well the history of UK and US. US and UK have either have no history or rarely protected Human rights and liberating any nations from their allies. They never ever supported any leftist, communist, socialist let alone anarchist movement. Their history shows they have been only concern about their own interest. They always have been lined up with the most dictators and brutal states in the world. It is them are planning war in advance and causing the terrible, miserable lives for the majority of people in many, many countries.
We should also know there have been the major power struggle in Middle East and entering US in the war that commonly known to support Kurdish in Kobane was the last effort and hope for US to save its skin in the region. Entering the war was the only chance for US before completely been kicked out of the region.
I personally always believed it was not Rojava wanted US and Russia but it was them in that circumstance actually wanted Kurdish especially when Kurdish proved themselves. When US entered the war in Kobane mainly was symbolic and morally boosted the spirit of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) at the time. US forces never seriously fought Isis in Kobane, never threating them truly because US never wanted to hit them crucially. By entering the war the US destroyed whatever left intact from the attack of Isis in Kobane. Before it was only 30% of Kobane destroyed but by the end of the war this has increased to 70%. I never had a doubt that was deliberate to make Kobane and Rojava weaker politically and economically so that they can ask US and the European big corporations to go there to help in rebuilding it.
Few months after defeating Isis in Kobane was obvious Syria and Rojava became the battle fields or the war zone for Russia and US. It was the political, economical and strategical power struggle between these two big states. At this stage both of them were looking for a proxy war trying to finds some groups to fight on behalf of each of them. Democratic Union Party (PYD) was among them but PYD tried to keep balance between both of them. Alas in the end PYD could not play a good game and has to line up itself with US and put the future of Rojava in the hands of US.
This has disturbed Russia, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group, and also Turkey as a member of NATO.
In such circumstance the only winner was Erdogan who was played the game to this moment very well. And the loser was clearly the Kurdish people in Rojava.
Have PYD committed the right policies or correctly have it played the game well to protect what has been achieved in Rojava?
Before coming to this point I would like to say I have written quite a lot about Rojava and Bakur in which I criticised the polices of PKK and PYD. If anybody interested in reading them, please see the links in the end of the article.
In my opinion PYD had three chances/ cards in its hand to use, While each of US and Russia had only one. PYD could ally itself with Russia or US or simply stay out of the war and be neutral. It could work with the Movement for a Democratic Society (Tev-Dem) and the Democratic Self-administration (DSA) in bringing more international support and solidarity in rebuilding Rojava. In the same time work on YPG and YPJ to make them more powerful defence force and stay independent of PYD itself , in other words they should serve the interest of whole Rojava not just the PYD. PYD should have stuck with Ojalan’s principle “ if we have world’s forces, we will not attack anywhere. If all world attacks us we will defend ourselves and not surrender “.
In my opinion there was no excuses or justifications for PYD to try to expand its territory and fight Isis in non-Kurdish lands. The more land they liberated from Isis, the more fighters killed, brought more threat and insecurity from Turkey, Iran and Russia to Rojava, more relying on US financially and militarily in other words less independent and also less focused on rebuilding Rojava economically and socially.
So what was going wrong with PYD?
Unfortunately PYD alone was the main architecture of designing polices, making plans for Rojava without going back to the people in Rojava. In fact all the decisions like any other political parties have made by a circle of a tiny minority of people, its leaders, in a dark room. Since Kobane’s battle PYD made and committed to so many wrong polices. In my opinion these have damaged the mass movement in Rojava instead to take it forward. Here are some of them:
Lining up with US: I already mentioned above the reasons for entering US in the war in Rojava and also mentioned that PYD had three cards in its hand. PYD did not need to analyse deeply or doing many researches for the position of US in supporting any movement or any government in the world. It has been clear at least for a century US known by many of us as a dark forces. In fact any movement is attracted by US, it usually becomes very unpopular, suspicious and had no future outside of US and its big corporation’s interest. This should have been very clear and considered by a very progress and unique movement like one in Rojava.
The Kurdistan Regnal Government, KRG, in the event of being attacked by Iraqi Government on 16/10/2017 with a green light of US and Afrin proved wrong to rely or ally with US. Surely US never drops Turkey, Iraq even Iran or the future Syrian government for Kurdish. These two examples proved again those who thought PYD had no choice but allying itself with US were wrong.
YPG and YPJ: These two forces initially were small volunteer forces but very effective in defending Rojava. PYD gradually made them a very big one. Their strategy from defence changed to an attack forces and have absolute loyalty to PYD rather to the people from whom they emerged from. YPG and YPJ were sharing the commands from PYD and US in attacking Isis. They, both PYD and US commands coordinating and cooperating in sky and ground in fighting Isis.
Constant war with Isis: PYD was insisting in defeating Isis in cooperation with US forces while Isis after Kobane was not a direct threat to Rojava at least while they were engaged in fighting with other forces. Continuation of the war with Isis means digging the grave to themselves. Weakening YPG & YPJ, losing so many fighters, needing more help in every way from US, deepening enmity with Erdogan , putting fighting with Isis as main strategy before rebuilding Rojava, less concerning to form more cooperatives to improve the life of people in Rojava economically, taking off eyes on continuation of revolution on culture and education . These with many more were the consequence of continuing war with Isis.
Syrian Kurdish National Council for Kurdish Opposition Parties (ENKS) : The Syrian opposition political parties in Rojava have never had a deep roots among people in Rojava. They never been popular and having no clean and clear records or background. Having saying that do not mean they cannot have an influences over people or they cannot stand against the Rojava’s people and their movement. ENKS could not launch a movement let alone make a revolution, but certainly they could and can damage and hurt the movement, especially they have been supported in every way by Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Barzani’s Party. They also have a strong connection with Turkey and probably other reginal governments.
In my opinion there was always a room for PYD to compromise with ENKS. They could accept some of political condition apart from letting them to have their own independent military force out of control of SDF. If PYD had a good relation with them then it could affect the attitude of KDP towards PYD as well and probably ENKS could have an influences on Turkey too or at least could stay neutral.
Final US plan and project: When US recently recommended PYD for forming a 30,000 strong fighters among SDF to protect the boarders, PYD should have turned this request down. They should have known better US never wanted SDF to be too big, although any forces that made big by outsider easily it can be vanished or at least can be smaller. PYD should have known that this plan made the State of Turkey very annoying, irritating and try to bring forward its plan to invade Afrin.
When the invasion started on 20/01/18 the PYD instead of begging US ,UK, the rest of Europe or UN should have giving an immediate warning to US : either stop their ally, Turkey, from attacking Afrin, or they would withdraw from fighting Isis and joining SDF in fighting Turkey in Afrin. However, this was not done until almost the last weeks of the operation and that was too late very late.
The question is why PYD faced mistake after mistake or rather all the time made wrong decisions? The answer is very simple as they never ever gone back to people in Rojava. They ignored Ojaln’s principle about making all the decisions by the people. PYD had history of not going back to people in making any decisions. In 2015 when they negotiated with ENKS, they reached an agreement to offer 40 seats of the Democratic Self Administration, DSA, without going back to people in Rojava. However, ENKS later on pulled out of the agreement so they did not share the power in Rojava.
I am sure in all these polices if PYD have gone back to people to make decisions, could save so many lives and save Rojava from any invasion, or at least they would not be as responsible of what happened in Afrin or what may happen in future .
What can we learn from all these?
Well, the only lesson we can learn is we should not trust any political parties and their leaders as they usually represent a tiny minority in the society. They make decisions among very small circle in a dark room. The strangeness of the political parties is always on the expenses of the mass movements, and eventually the mass movement are getting weaker and weaker.
We also should know that building Confederalism or Democratic Confederaism is a work of millions of people in every sections of the society rather than the job of the political parties. The last lessen we should learn is we recognise using weapons as a conditional and solid duty in defending ourselves not attacking others.
Zaherbaher.com
http://zaherbaher.com/2016/02/04/our-attitude-towards-rojava-must-be-critical-solidarity/
http://zaherbaher.com/2017/12/30/where-is-the-kurdistan-workers-party-pkk-heading/