04/08/2020

Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe, Rapporteur Pieter Omtzigt demand justice for Yezidi victims of 2014 genocide by ISIS

STRASBOURG – On the sixth anniversary of the Yezidi Genocide in Shengal, Iraq by the Islamic State (ISIS), Special Rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Dutch MP for the Christen Democrats Pieter Omtzigt recalled the August 2014 atrocities. In that month, ISIS swept through parts of northern Iraq, leaving a trail of destruction, misery, and genocide.

The Islamic State explicitly targeted Yezidis, and Chaldeans–Syriacs–Assyrians, killing thousands and enslaving many more. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee leave their homes in search of safety. In Resolution 2091 (2016), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recognized the genocidal character of the ISIS atrocities and crimes against humanity.

Rapporteur Pieter Omtzigt yesterday recalled the August 2014 atrocities and said that:

“Six years on, justice has still not been done, neither at the international level, nor in national courts. During the belated military intervention by the United States and others against Daesh, many possible perpetrators or accessories of these atrocities were captured. But with the passage of time, evidence is being lost.

Numerous imprisoned Daesh fighters have escaped or were released since the Turkish military intervention in Kurdish areas in northern Iraq and Syria. Many have returned to their countries of origin, including in Europe, or intend to do so. We must be vigilant and make every effort to hold to account all those who were involved in the Yazidi genocide six years ago. Business as usual is not an option, if we do not want such atrocities to be repeated.”


Dutch MP Pieter Omztigt at the June 2017 Brussels Conference: “A future for Christians in Iraq: A proposal by Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian political parties

The European Parliament, in a July 2018 Resolution, declared that ISIS committed acts of genocide against the Yezidis and non-Muslim minorities and elaborated that:

“… whereas thousands of Iraqi citizens, including from minority communities, and in particular women and girls, were inhumanly exterminated or enslaved by Daesh in acts of war crimes and crimes against humanity … whereas more than 1,5 million Christian Iraqi citizens (Chaldeans, Syriacs, Assyrians and members of other Christian minorities) were living in Iraq in 2003, and whereas they constitute an ancient, native population group which is in serious danger of persecution and exile; whereas millions of Iraqi citizens, including Christians, were forced to flee the violence, either leaving their country completely or being displaced within its borders.”

The quick advance of ISIS in northern Iraq and the taking of Nineveh Plains and Shengal region marked another grave and dark period in the miserable history of the indigenous Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian and Yezidi peoples of Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein and his Baath Regime in 2003.

The rise and growth of ISIS in the 2010s was embedded in prior years’ instability, inequality, corruption, and the irresponsibly quick dismantling of the Baath state apparatus without a proper framework in place to replace it. Combined with a society riddled with weapons, sectarian strife, and an incompetent central government, regional powers and proxies quickly stepped in to take control of parts of the country of Iraq and its government.

With the June–August 2014 onslaught by ISIS on the city of Mosul, Shengal, and Nineveh Plains, Yezidis and Chaldeans–Syriacs–Assyrians were confronted with a violent and extremely inhumane enemy. With ISIS in sight and the unexpected and unannounced withdrawal of the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga, a mass exodus of the Chaldean–Syriac–Assyrian and Yezidi peoples from their heartlands in Nineveh Plains and Shengal followed.

Little has improved since 2014. Yezidis and Chaldean–Syriac–Assyrians have suffered lasting individual and social psychological trauma. Reconstruction is slow, displaced people have not yet been able to return, security in the region continues to deteriorate, and demographic change ongoing.

Yezidis and Chaldeans–Syriacs–Assyrians have, separately and jointly, demanded justice, sustainable security, equality, and fundamental rights for their peoples in Iraq. As Iraq remains highly unstable, violent, sectarian, and influenced from outside forces, ensuring the safety of returning displaced peoples.  For Yezidis and Chaldeans–Syriacs–Assyrians to feel at home in their homeland, say organizations advocating for these minorities, stability, security, reconstruction, and a reasonable degree of self-government in line with the Iraqi constitution is a prerequisite.

Six years on from the beginning of one of the regions darkest periods, the future of Yezidis and Chaldeans–Syriacs–Assyrians in Iraq looks bleak. As Rapporteur Pieter Omztigt remarked, “six years on, justice has still not been done, neither at the international level, nor in national courts.”