Amnesty accuses Syria Kurdish forces of 'war crimes'

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / AFP

Beirut (AFP) - Waves of forced displacement and home demolitions carried out by Kurdish forces operating in Syria's north and northeast amount to "war crimes," a rights group said on Tuesday.

Amnesty International said a fact-finding mission to 14 towns and villages in northern and northeast Syria "has uncovered a wave of forced displacement and home demolitions amounting to war crimes carried out by the autonomous administration" led by Syrian Kurds.

"By deliberately demolishing civilian homes, in some cases razing and burning entire villages, displacing their inhabitants with no justifiable military grounds, the Autonomous Administration is abusing its authority and brazenly flouting international humanitarian law," said Lama Fakih, Amnesty's senior crisis adviser.

After Syrian government troops withdrew from majority-Kurdish areas in 2012, a Kurdish-led autonomous administration stepped in to fill the void.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/amnesty-accuses-syria-kurdish-forces-war-crimes-231149408.html

[oberliner]

1. Very few who engage in war do not engage in war crimes

Or so it seems.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Likewise those who engage in extended occupations. n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. I think these are the guys we just sent 45 tons of arms to.

[oberliner]

4. Or it's the guys Russia just bombed the hell out of

Hard to keep track of who is killing who.

[newthinking]

5. The Kurds are (mostly) fighting ISIS

so far we have not seemed to favor them (they are actually the only somewhat "moderate" group in reality). They are not jihadists while the others are all pretty much "holy warriors" of one kind of another.

[oberliner]

6. Are they on the side of Assad?

Or are they fighting his forces as well?

[newthinking]

7. I don't believe so.

From what I have read they have been heavily persecuted in Turkey and they have fought against ISIS and essentially ran them out of some regions of what used to be Syria and have settled in those regions. Turkey has been subtly aiding ISIS against the Kurds.

Someone can correct me if they have actually been fighting the syrian government directly. If they haven't surely it will happen at some point if there is not an agreement created. As far as I can tell the Kurds have not been mentioned by Russia so I am not sure their position on them.

It is definitely all confusing: Especially since there is a lot of covert activity and informational warfare around what is happening there. The press coverage has been absolutely abysmal and as often happens these days has basically been narratives fed by interested parties.

[LanternWaste]

10. Not persecuted in Turkey or by Turkey.

Not persecuted in Turkey or by Turkey. The Kurdish population in the southern border provinces are however, seeking independence from Ankara, and Ankara resists that.


" Turkey has been subtly aiding ISIS against the Kurds."
You of course, have objective, peer-reviewed evidence to support this allegation?

[newthinking]

11. Where are you getting your information?

Even Wikipedia has details on the persecution of the Kurdish.

From Wikipedia:

Massacres, such as the Dersim massacre and the Zilan massacre, have periodically occurred against the Kurds since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. In an attempt to deny their existence, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until 1991,[7][8][9] and the words "Kurds", "Kurdistan", or "Kurdish" were officially banned by the Turkish government.[10] Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life.[11] Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned.[12] Since lifting of the ban in 1991, the Kurdish population of Turkey has long sought to have Kurdish included as a language of instruction in public schools as well as a subject.

Since the 1980s, Kurdish movements included both peaceful political activities for basic civil rights for Kurds in Turkey as well as armed rebellion and guerrilla warfare, including military attacks aimed at civilians[13] and Turkish military bases, demanding a separate Kurdish state.[14] According to a Turkish opinion poll, 59% of self-identified Kurds in Turkey think that Kurds in Turkey do not seek a separate state (while 71.3% of self-identified Turks think they do).[15]

During the Turkey–PKK conflict, food embargoes were placed on Kurdish villages and towns.[16][17] There were many instances of Kurds being forcibly expelled from their villages by Turkish security forces.[18] Many villages were reportedly set on fire or destroyed.[19][18] Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, political parties that represented Kurdish interests were banned.[10] In 2013, a ceasefire effectively ended the violence until June 2015, when hostilities renewed between the PKK and the Turkish government over Turkey's involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Violence was widely reported against ordinary Kurdish citizens and the headquarters and branches of the pro-Kurdish rights Peoples' Democratic Party were attacked by mobs.[20]

There have been lots of stories about Turkey providing aid to ISIS in the western media Here is a pretty exhaustive list.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-l-phillips/research-paper-isis-turke_b_6128950.html

[JackRiddler]

9. No.

The Kurdish militias are the one set of groups that's actually on their own side and precedes the conflict by decades.

[JackRiddler]

8. Unfortunately not. They would keep it.

Those 45 tons will end up in the hands of Al-Qaeda or Daesh.

Anyway, if you can believe any war news at this point. They "airdropped 45 tons of weapons" to the "rebels," or they didn't, who knows. The bulk of the gear is no doubt being supplied through Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Either way, your tax dollars, but it's okay, it's a fraction of the recycled petrodollars in t-bills. Everybody wins!