Yazidi Council for a Democratic Autonomous Administration in Shingal calls for protests against Baghdad-Erbil agreement
GERMANY / IRAQ – The Shingal Council for a Democratic Autonomous Administration this week issued a call to all Yazidis in the world to organize protests against the agreement signed on Shingal between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government. The KRG was represented in the deal by the KDP, the political party of the ruling Turkish-backed Barzani family.
The Shingal Council called on all Yazidi social organizations and political parties to protect the Yazidi people as Shingal “faces grave danger following the agreement.” The call is for protests to be held in front of embassies and representations of the Iraqi government, the Kurdish Region in Iraq, and the United Nations. The Council said dialogue efforts have failed as it seems that the two sides are pushing for implementation of the agreement. Hence protests will be organized this Friday across Germany and Europe.
The Yazidi call comes after the Baghdad and Erbil agreement signed in early October to install a new administration with bi-partisan committees and an independent major in the formerly disputed Shingal district. The new unelected mayor is Khidir Rasho.
The agreement also stipulates that “No other entity, other than the Federal Police, the National Security and Intelligence agencies will be in charge of security inside the district.” This demand can be seen as an indirect reference to the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBŞ), affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, which fought ISIS in Shingal.
According to the statement of the Shingal Council for a Democratic Autonomous Administration, the Iraqi authorities have already started to send security forces to Shingal with an aimed presence of up to 10 thousand Iraqi security forces.
The Council rejects the Baghdad-Erbil agreement, and sees it as a top-down imposition without having involved the Yazidi people and their organizations on the ground. A day after the singing of the Baghdad-Erbil agreement, the Shingal Democratic Autonomous Administration said that it “will not accept any agreement in any way if the people of Shingal are not consulted; this agreement is a political move which most of Shingal’s residents were not aware of.”
The Democratic Autonomous Council for Shingal stressed that it is not in favor of any conflict but said it would use its right to self-defense in the event of an attack on the Yazidi people.
The Bethnahrain Patriotic Union (HBA), a political party representing the Suroyo people (Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians), also rejected the handling of the Shingal file. It said Baghdad and Erbil did not hear Yazidi and Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian political parties and the population of Shingal in taking this important decision. The HBA considered it “unfair to marginalize their opinion” and said the indigenous components have been neglected and kept out of this agreement. HBA calls for inclusive joint committees and full participation of the affected indigenous components and their political parties in the process.
Yazidi Shingal was occupied by ISIS in 2014 which subsequently carried out a genocidal campaign of massacre, enslavement, displacement and rape against Yazidis and other components as the Suroye. According to the U.N., there are still an estimated 3,000 women and girls missing.
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