The Betrayal of the Powerless: Assyrians After the 2003 Us Invasion of Iraq

By Frederick Aprim

The indigenous Assyrians, Yezidis and the other smaller groups in Iraq were jubilant listening to U.S. President Bush explain the objectives behind the 2003 war on Iraq, promising to end the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein and securing freedom for all Iraqi people, regardless of their ethnicity or religious belief. It did not take long before the Assyrians began witnessing a genocide and yet another betrayal (the first was that promise made by of the British post World War I) when the U.S. deserted the indigenous Assyrians and Yezidis and surrendered to the demands of the Shi'a Arabs and the Kurds. The continuous attacks on the Christians in Iraq and bombing of churches started in 2004 and intensified through 2011. In 2014, ISIS invaded the Assyrian and Yezidi towns in northern Iraq and caused a new tragedy and genocide while the Kurds and Shi’a strengthened their positions in the new Iraq.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664157941

Frederick Aprim

Frederick Aprim was born in the ancient Assyrian city of Arrapha, modern Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. He is a graduate of Mosul University with a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering. He left Iraq in 1980 and became a U.S. citizen in 1986. Fred’s family, like many Assyrian families, experienced its own share of oppression and persecution. While in Iraq, both his father and teenage brother were imprisoned unfairly and tortured. In 2003, Fred published a booklet titled "Indigenous People in Distress". In 2004, his book "Assyrians: The Continuous Saga" followed. In 2006 his next book "Assyrians: From Bedr Khan to Saddam Hussein" was published. Fred has a website where he publishes his work. Please visit https://www.fredaprim.com  to read more. His articles are also posted on https://www.atour.com, http://www.zindamagazine.com , http://www.AINA.org , and http://www.nineveh.com . Fred has published many articles in magazines such as "Nineveh" and "Renyo Hiro".

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Frederick Aprim.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

The lower part of the book’s front cover is a painting by the Assyrian artist, Paul Batou (paulbatou.com). The words on the individuals’ traditional customs are written in Assyrian (Syriac), and the Assyrian martyr being carried is wrapped in the Assyrian flag.

Rev. date: 02/24/2021

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Preface

Introduction

1 Background

Power Struggle Between the Caliphate and the Twelvers

Texas Tea in Kirkuk

Kurdish Nationalism and the Assyrian Question

The Great Confronter

A Return to the Caliphate

Iraq Torn Amid the Many Faces of Islam

2 Transitional Administrative Law

President Bush’s Free Iraq for All

Iraqi Opposition Groups Meetings

Fall of Saddam Hussein

CPA and the Path to TAL

The ChaldoAssyrian Identity in TAL

Churches and Barzani Undermine Unifying Identity

Land Seizures

Assyrian Diaspora in Action

3 Iraqi and KRG Constitutions and Elections

Early Iraqi Constitutions

The Interim Iraqi Parliament of 2004

The Iraqi Constitution of 2005

Iraqi Minorities Council (IMC)

The KRG Constitution

Article 140 of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution

The 2005 Iraqi and KRG Elections

Article 50 of the Provincial Elections Law of 2008

The 2010 Iraqi and 2009 KRG Elections

The 2014 Iraqi and 2013 KRG Elections

The 2018 Iraqi and KRG Elections

Iraqi Youth Demand Change

4 Assyrians in Distress

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2015

5 KRG Treatment of Assyrians and Yezidis

Illegal Land Grabbing

Attacks on the Assyrian Villages

Khabur River Region

Political, Administrative, and Human Rights Abuse

Kurdification Policy and the Marginalization of Non-Kurds

Neglecting and Abusing Assyrian Archaeological Sites

Undermining Assyrian History of Northern Iraq (Historic Assyria)

Yezidis (Ezidis)

Final Reflections

6 ISIS and the Unfinished Genocide

A Brief Timeline of the Rise of ISIS

Syria

Iraq

Targeting Archaeological Sites

The Ancient Wall of Nineveh

Nimrud (Kalhu)

Hatra

Ashur (Assur)

An Assyrian Palace beneath Nebi Yunis (Biblical Prophet Jonah)

Khorsabad (Dur-Sharrukin)

Mosul Museum

The Liberation

Nineveh Plain Protection Unit (NPU)

ISIS Atrocities Recognized as Genocide

7 Final Thoughts

Devastation under KDP and the Islamist Governments

ISIS Defeated, Still a Struggle to Return

Lack of Support for Self-governance

US Intervention

Looking Forward

Appendices

Appendix A –An Indigenous People in Distress

Appendix B –Details of the So-Called Disputed Territories

Appendix C –Nineveh Governor Orders Lara Yousif to Vacate Her Position

Appendix D –The Rules Set by ISIS to Govern the City of Mosul

Appendix E –ISIS: Christians to Convert to Islam, Pay Tax or Be Killed

Appendix F –ISIS: Price List for the Ccaptured Christian and Yezidi Wwomen

Appendix G –Kurdish Orders to the Assyrians to Surrender Arms

Appendix H –Iraqi Correspondence Letter regarding the Assyrian Force

Appendix I –The Imposed KDP Loyalty Declaration

Appendix J –Letter from Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV to Masoud Barazani, June 2015

Appendix K –The Final Declaration by the Assyrian Groups Meeting in London, November 2002

Appendix L –The Bet Nahrain Party Rejects the Compound Name

Appendix M –The Assyrian Universal Alliance Rejects the Compound Name

Appendix N –The ADM Communique to the Kurdish Leaders, Nov. 8, 2002

Appendix P –The Final Statement of the Iraqi Opposition Groups Meeting in Beirut, Lebanon, March 1991

Appendix Q – The Unauthorized English Translation of the Final Statement of the ChaldoAssyrian National Conference, Baghdad, October 2003

Bibliography

Further Readings

DEDICATION

T o the hundreds of thousands of Assyrians who have perished because of the treachery of the West and the brutality of the Kurdish, Arab and Islamists leaders since WWI, to every Assyrian refugee around the world suffering in silence, and to those unjustly displaced on their ancestral lands in the Occupied Assyria.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

T he completion of this undertaking could not have been possible without the endless encouragement of my mother Gladys Aprim specially during the very difficult period of the COVID pandemic. I am also indebted to the following for their comments and feedback or for providing the related images: Sargon Aprim, Juliana Taimoorazy, Emmanuel Yacoub, Renya Benjamen, Sofian Badel Alias, Ashur Giwargis, Nahren Anweya, Zaya Yaro, Paul Batou, Savina Dawood, Marodeen Ebrahimzadeh, Yousiph Canon, Ishaia Isho, Sargoun Issa, Mariam Qasrany, Susan Patto and Wilfred Bet-Alkhas.

PREFACE

A prim’s book is a courageous attempt in revealing the calamitous events after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein, which resulted in the most deplorable treatment of the ‘powerless’ ethnic and religious minorities in that country. He begins with the history of the conquests- empires against empires, religions against religions and ethnicities against each other. The hatred, now openly on display among the different people, sects, tribes, and even neighborhoods of Iraq, has been cemented further with every new internal strife and foreign invasion. When the reign of one dictator ended, a new autocratic rule began immediately after. Using different labels - kings, caliphs, sultans, presidents, prime ministers - every political actor has followed the same script, from one dynasty and caliphate to another regime and republic. Aprim reminds us that the Americans were meant to end this cycle of tyranny and usher in a new beginning for the Iraqi people. Instead Washington’s failed policy in Iraq betrayed the Iraqi people, leaving them vulnerable to Iranian, Turkish and ISIS warlords. In turn the new sultans of the three former Ottoman vilayets are now betraying their own powerless citizens. The result has been ghastly especially for the Assyrian Christian minority of this war-fatigued nation of 40 million.

The author quickly shifts our attention from Washington’s failure in Iraq to the emerging power in the north, the historic Assyrian lands between ancient Nineveh (modern Mosul), Arbil (Erbil) and Kirkuk. To over three million Assyrians worldwide (also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs) this is the heartland of their historic claim to their inheritance as the descendants of Nineveh and Babylon. The new Kurdish masters in Arbil, emboldened by Washington’s indifference and Israel’s support, have laid claim over the lands, oil, history and the future of the ‘Occupied Assyria’. Aprim takes us to the regional and national elections to show us how KRG and KDP used their political pawns - members of the Assyrian communities - to influence political agenda and the judiciary.

Article 117 of Iraq’s ‘2005 Constitution’ recognizes the northern region as a federal semi-autonomous region called the Kurdistan Region of Iraq or KRI. Two articles later this same document defines how other federally recognized semi-autonomous regions may be formed in Iraq. One such proposed territory is the Nineveh Plain - a region to be mostly inhabited by the ethno-sectarian minority populations of Iraq. Aprim meticulously describes every Kurdish undertaking since 2003 to eradicate the creation of such a region, while pushing ahead for the complete annexation of this same region to the three governorates under Kurdish control.

Assyrians are both religiously and ethnically different from any other non-Christian groups in Iraq. They even speak a different language and use a different alphabet, precursors to other modern Semitic languages. In a time when the winds of change are once again sweeping through the Middle East, Aprim’s book is a must-read for anyone interested in the study of ethno-religious conflicts in the Moslem countries. It openly suggests how the U.S. and Israel’s involvement in the creation of the fragile and unstable governments in Baghdad has led to the current conditions.

However, the more provocative sections of Aprim’s book deal with the Assyrian Churches acting in favor of the plans drawn in Arbil and Baghdad against the formation of the Nineveh Plain semi-autonomous region and the advancement of the independent Assyrian political parties. He calls attention to the internal strife among the bishops of these churches in the diaspora, the efforts to create a new national identity out of a religious name, and the overt support of the five major Assyrian Churches for an Assyrian member of the KRG. The latter was appointed to demolish the Nineveh Plain agenda. Aprim is fearless in mentioning names and events, and gutsy in pointing out that these ‘emperors’ of the Christian faith were not wearing any ‘new clothes’ when their loyalty and encouragement was much needed.

Aprim offers a compelling narrative of resistance to Kurdish occupation and KDP’s undermining of any Assyrian legitimacy to self-rule under a federal structure. The Assyrian grievances are real and must be resolved. This book is a good starting point and critical to the formulation of an Assyrian policy toward the opportunities and challenges rising in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran.

Wilfred Bet-Alkhas

Editor of Zinda Magazine.

INTRODUCTION

O n May 4, 2020, during a briefing on COVID-19, Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, used the derogatory Turkish phrase, the leftovers of the sword, in reference to the Assyrian, Armenian, and Greek Christian survivors of the genocide, which took place during the First World War, commonly called the Armenian Genocide. He said, We do not allow terrorist leftovers of the sword in our country to attempt to carry out [terrorist] activities. Their number has decreased greatly but they still remain. ¹

While enjoying the friendly European and American policies, the Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq and Syria brag about their friendly policy toward the Christians under their control. However, their daily actions against the Assyrians (also known by their denominational names Chaldeans, Nestorians, and Jacobites)²a, b as an ethnic group manifest their adverse intention to eradicate the indigenous Assyrians from their ancestral lands. The 2003 US invasion of Iraq gave the Kurds ample opportunity to implement their devious plans set since the commencement of the First Gulf War in 1991 and earlier.

Assyrians, Yezidis, and the other smaller groups were jubilant, listening to US President Bush explain the objectives behind the 2003 war on Iraq, promising to end the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein and securing freedom for all Iraqi people regardless of their ethnicity or religious belief. It did not take long before the Assyrians began witnessing another genocide and yet another betrayal when the US deserted the indigenous Assyrians and surrendered to the demands of the Shi’a Arabs and the Kurds. Even worse, the rest of the world remains unaffected by what has been happening in Iraq. The survival of the Assyrians in the Middle East is implausible as their persecution and oppression by their Kurdish and Arab neighbors continue.

The US invasion proved disastrous for the Assyrian Christians. It weakened the Assyrian political position and depopulated Baghdad, Kirkuk, and the Nineveh governorates of their Christian inhabitants. The Assyrians of Iraq, as the indigenous inhabitants of this land, expected equal protection under the new constitutions of Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). But the Shi’a in the south, supported by Iran and the Kurdish leaders in the north; empowered by the US, Europe, and Israel; and enriched by the sale of oil, had a different plan for the Assyrians and their ancestral claims to Nineveh Province.

For the Kurds, the 2003 invasion was a green light to actualize the old scheme of local autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish areas lying east of the Euphrates, south of the southern boundary of Armenia as it may be hereafter determined, and north of the frontier of Turkey with Syria and Mesopotamia as decided in Section III, Article 62 of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres. The scheme had also called for full safeguards for the protection of the Assyro-Chaldeans and other racial or religious minorities within these areas… Since neither Turkey, nor the Allied Powers, reiterated their commitment to a Kurdish or Assyrian autonomous region afterward (see the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne), the Kurdish people remained steadfast in the implementation of that scheme. The Assyrian nationalist movement, which emerged from the ashes of the 1915 genocide, has since pursued the protection of the Assyro-Chaldeans in the shape of a self-governing area within the Mosul Vilayet (later Nineveh province), an area that includes the Nineveh Plain in Iraq.

The Treaty of Sèvres also called for a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Twenty-eight years later, Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel, an event that immediately prompted the Arab-Israeli conflict and several wars in the Middle East. The treaty stressed that it should be clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. History has proven that such a statement was far difficult to accomplish. Since 1948, the survival of the Jewish state has depended on its nuclear arsenal, military and financial support from the US, and a dynamic economy. It has also depended on other equally important, yet unspoken, factors: support for non-Arab regional powers and, more surprisingly, the undermining of the non-Islamic populations in the Middle East. The first factor involves the support for the governments in Ankara, Tehran, and now Arbil (Erbil). The latter regional factor has reduced the Assyrians in the Middle East to a religious minority group while diminishing their national identity and ambitions to the mere rights of second-class dhimmi people.

The safety of Israel and the survival of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) are currently behind all major Middle East policies of the western Christian states. Therefore, the animus of the United States and Europe is not directed at assisting the Assyrians to establish a Christian region in the Middle East. The reason is obvious. Israel and the KRG cannot afford a Christian state or enclave in the Middle East that may compete for the financial and moral resources of the West, drawing the focus of over a billion Christians around the world away from Israel and the Kurds and toward the greater Nineveh. This would also cause friction between the United States and the Muslim world represented by the oil-producing Arab Gulf countries, as well as Turkey, and Pakistan.

Northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran and northeast Syria are the Assyrians’ ancestral lands. Most of these regions have slowly become dominated by the Kurds in the last few centuries. In northern Iraq, the 2003 invasion and the removal of the Ba’athist regime in Baghdad was an opportunity for the establishment of a new independent nation-state built upon democratic principles and reverence toward the rights of every Kurdish and non-Kurdish citizen. To date, nothing is further from the truth. For the Assyrians and Yezidis alike, anguish, fear, and hopelessness have engulfed the streets in northern Iraq. Even the Turkomans (remnants of the Ottoman Turks), who are supported by Ankara, cannot escape the wrath of the KRG. The aspirations of the freedom-loving people of Iraq are crushed as the overcrowded prisons in Duhok, Arbil and Sulaymaniyah receive more political prisoners, human rights advocates, and journalists every day.

After ousting the regime of Saddam Hussein, oil companies piled on in the Kurdish region. The oil production under the KRG, no longer controlled by the central government, threatened the Iraqi oil production plans. For the KRG, the large scale smuggling of oil and the control of the northern borders and tariff translate into steady wealth.³ Masoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) since 1979 and, until recently, the president of the KRG, no longer relies on the military provisions from Baghdad. The Kurds have signed contracts with foreign countries to secure their weapons as they plan for future territorial expansion.⁴

Northern Iraq sits atop vast oil-rich lands, some beneath the Assyrian-dominated Nineveh Plain in the Nineveh Province. The KRG needs the Assyrian Christians for two important economic reasons: firstly, long-term investments from the United States and Europe secured by friendly policies toward humanitarian (pro-religious minority) regimes and secondly, the annexation of the Nineveh Plain, Sinjar, and the areas around Mosul (the administrative center of Nineveh Province) mainly inhabited by a large population of Christians and other minorities. When neither needs were met within a decade after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and even the 2014 ISIS occupation, Barzani announced an independence referendum (September 25, 2017). Turkey immediately threatened to cut off the pipeline that carried oil from the Kurdish region.⁵ World media has commented that an arrogant and tyrannical Barzani paid a high price, gambling with the referendum despite disapproval from the Iraqi government and the rest of the world. He lost his position as the president of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq but remained the head of the KDP. A well-calculated plan by Barzani, the referendum accomplished two important goals: it handed the KRG leadership to the new charismatic younger leaders from within his own Barzani family and paved a clear path for an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq. Iraq became the next location of choice for the Barzanis and other Kurdish leaders to establish their state after their 1946 crushed attempt in Mahabad, northwestern Iran.

The Iranian-born Masoud Barzani orchestrated three decades of internal strife within the Assyrian religious and political factions to weaken their national claims in northern Iraq. The illegal seizure of the Assyrian lands, the abduction and assassination of individuals, the discriminatory treatments in the court of law, and the continuous interference in their internal affairs were but a few of the effective KRG activities against the Assyrians in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Since the Kurdish region is supported by several powerful regional and western governments, most critically Israel, the KRG has continued to escape reprimand for its crimes and the persecution of the Assyrians, Yezidis (Ezidis), and other smaller non-Kurdish groups in the region. The most effective arrangement was the substitution of the Assyrian political parties with the Assyrian Christian faith leaders. KRG infiltrated the Assyrian churches and built new places of worship to gain the trust and cooperation of the Assyrian patriarchs and the local bishops. The Assyrian religious and political leaders, sympathetic toward the KRG, foolishly and blindly ignored the consequences of their collaboration with the Kurdish occupiers at the expense of their own people’s historic national rights and existence. These Kurdish loyalists are pushed forward in the media to make statements in praise of the KRG and on behalf of their oppressed people.

In the upcoming chapters, we will carefully look at the Assyrian situation throughout Iraq in general and within the Kurdish autonomous region in particular post-2003 US invasion. We will address KRG’s inimical actions against the Assyrians and probe into the halls of injustice and scrutinize the records of oppression towards anyone who stands against the Saddam-like terror of KRG. We will equally examine the crushing stresses placed upon the pro-KRG Assyrian elements. Because in the Kurdish region, legitimacy is defined by proximity to the KDP leadership—a lesson learned from a dictatorship that preceded the despots of Arbil.

1

Background

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I n my first book, Assyrians: The Continuous Saga , I addressed and examined the historic factors that make the Assyrians a unique race, different from the Arabs, Turks, Persians, and Kurds. Assyrians are indigenous to northern Mesopotamia (the modern region of northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran, and northeast Syria). They have lived in these regions continuously from time immemorial. After the fall of the Assyrian Empire’s capital city of Nineveh in 612 BC, the area surrounding Mosul remained uninterruptedly the center of the Assyrian cultural and religious presence. The Assyrians converted to Christianity during the time of the a postles of Jesus Christ and have remained a predominantly Christian nation for two thousand years.

In my second book, Assyrians: From Bedr Khan to Saddam Hussein, I covered the tragedies that Assyrians endured from the nineteenth century up to the aftermath of the First Gulf War (February 28, 1991). Until the nineteenth century, the Assyrians inhabited a single, continuous geographical area stretching from the Amid (Diyarbekir) region in Turkey to the shores of Lake Urmia in Iran, and from Lake Van in Turkey to the southern borders of Mosul (Nineveh) province. In the Christian era, this territory came under the control of different powers that included the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Arabs, Mongols, and, finally, the Ottoman Turks until the conclusion of World War I. Throughout these periods, the Assyrians were never divided by defined political boundaries. Most of the adherents of the Church of the East (aka the Nestorians) lived in the Hakkari and Urmia, the Chaldean Catholics in the Mosul and Baghdad provinces and Urmia, and the members of the Syrian Orthodox (aka Jacobites) and Syrian Catholic Churches lived in southern Anatolia and the Mosul province. At times, during certain struggles within the spheres of influence of the day, between Romans and Persians for example, contacts among the Assyrians in certain of these regions were restricted.⁶

Power Struggle Between the Caliphate and the Twelvers

Most of the political turmoil in the Middle East today is the result of the five-hundred-year struggle between the Turks, Persians, and Arabs. After the demise of the Islamic Abbasid caliphate in 1258, the Mongols captured Baghdad and ended the Abbasid claim to Islamic authority. The Sunni Ottoman Turks captured Egypt in 1517, ending the Mamluk sultanate. Sixteen years earlier, Shāh Ismā’il I had founded the Safavid dynasty in Persia. He united the non-Sunni Persian communities and in 1501 established a Persian empire based on Shi’a sect of Islam, marking one of the very critical turning points in Muslim history.

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Major Assyrian cities referenced in this book

The Battle of Chaldiran on August 23, 1514, was a decisive victory for the Sunni Ottoman Empire over the Shi’a Safavid Persians. The Shi’a believes that Prophet Muhammad chose his son-in-law, Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, as his successor and then the eleven imams after Ali; whereas, the Sunni hold that the Prophet did not appoint a successor, and a group of Muslims after the Prophet’s death appointed a caliph, and the rightful successors of the Prophet were the leaders of the caliphate of Islam. The Ottoman Turks’ victory led to the annexation of the territories of eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia from the Persians. Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia were eventually reconquered by the Safavids under Shah Abbas the Great (1588–1629). They would be permanently lost to the Ottomans by 1639 in the Treaty of Zuhab.⁷ Ottoman Sultan Selim I realized the importance of the Kurdish presence as a barrier on the Ottoman-Persian eastern frontiers. The Kurds sided with the Sunni Ottoman Turks in Chaldiran to share the spoils of wars and expand and assert their presence in the vast regions in northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia.⁸ To this day, the power struggle between the Sunni and Shi’a Muslims dictates the balance of power in much of the Middle East. At the center of this struggle is a territory surrounding the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh or modern-day Mosul.

Despite the bloody history of the region against the Christians, as late as 1908, there were still thirty-eight churches in Mosul situated between fifty-six jami’ (mosques) and seventy-four mesjid (smaller praying places). Seventeen Christian governors from the Jalili family (converted to Islam later) governed the Mosul vilayet between 1726 and 1834. In 1896, 20 percent of the residents of Mosul were Christian.⁹, ¹⁰ The economic and political influence of the Christians in Mosul and elsewhere intimidated the Ottoman sultans, fearing their alliance with the West and the Russians.

Texas Tea in Kirkuk

In the early 1850s, the French began promoting the rights of the Catholics while the Russians rallied behind the Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Middle East, mainly in the Holy Land. Tzar Nicholas I of Russia demanded that all non-Catholic Christians in the Ottoman Empire be placed under his protection. The conflict ended up with a military campaign in October 1853 between an alliance made up of the Ottomans, British, and the French against the Russians, better known as the Crimean War. The Russians lost the war; however, it nearly bankrupted the Ottomans. They regarded the Christians as allies of Russia and a growing power that needed to be broken. The Ottoman sultans turned to their Kurdish subjects to accomplish their nefarious plan. The Kurdish tribal leaders (mostly Sunni Muslim) were permitted to persecute and subjugate the indigenous Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia and Anatolia. The Kurds massacred Assyrians in 1843 in the Hakkari Mountains, heinous acts that continued for five years. Over twenty thousand Assyrians were killed. In 1895, the Kurdish tribes and the Turkish troops massacred the Assyrians in Anatolia, resulting in the killing of over thirty-five thousand Assyrians.

The discovery of oil in 1908 in Masjid Sulaiman, Iran changed the fate of the Middle East. The event became the driving force behind the quest for oil in Mesopotamia. During the early twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire granted William Knox D’Arcy permission to explore all territories for oil. D’Arcy and other partners founded the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) in 1912. Deutsche Bank and Royal Dutch/Shell each owned a quarter of the shares of the TPC, and the remaining 50 percent was owned by the Turkish National Bank (TNB). Interestingly, the TNB was a British-controlled bank with a minority 30 percent belonging to Armenian millionaire, Calouste Gulbenkian.

It has been stated that, in every twenty or so years, Assyrians have endured systematic ethnic cleansing. World War I and the subsequent oppressive policies of the Western victors brought their population to near extinction. Between July 1914 and November 1918, the Ottoman-Kurdish alliance culminated in the death of over two million vulnerable Assyrians and Armenians in Anatolia, northern Mesopotamia, and northwestern Persia. Two out of every three Assyrians perished.

On October 30, 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed as both the Allies and the Ottoman Empire accepted their military positions. William Marshall, who succeeded Frederick Maude as commander in chief of the British forces in Mesopotamia, accepted the surrender of Khalil Pasha and the Ottoman Sixth Army on the same day, but Alexander Cobbe did not hold his position as the armistice required and continued to advance on Mosul in the face of Turkish protests. British troops marched unopposed into the city on November 1, 1918. The ownership of Mosul province and its rich oil fields became an international issue, and whenever Turkey’s oil interests had been jeopardized, it had threatened to reopen the ownership argument of the old Mosul Vilayet (province).

As World War I victors began carving the Ottoman Empire into several new nation-states, the status of the Assyrians as the indigenous people of Mesopotamia demanded a response to the Assyrian question. One of these new nation-states, created by the British in 1921, is the multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian country of Iraq. The Assyrians claimed their national rights to live in peace, prosperity, dignity and to self-govern on their historic ancestral lands. This national right came very close to fruition in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920). However, the Ottoman sultan was soon deposed, and the new government of Mustafa Kemal forced a renegotiation in Lausanne (1923). Iraq consisted of three provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra. Oil exploration began on a large scale. This also led to the birth of the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) in which Gulbenkian was credited with being the first person to exploit the oil business in Iraq. His entrepreneurial skills in London secured him a 5 percent stake in all oil found beneath the Asian territories of the Ottoman empire; thus, he earned the nickname Mr. 5 Percent. The negotiations between Turkey and the Allies continued in the next few years to set the borders between Iraq and Turkey, the shares of Mosul oil and set the future of the Assyrians.

In the Treaty of Lausanne the Allies dropped many of their earlier demands related to Armenia, Chaldo-Assyrians¹¹, and the Kurds. Subsequent deliberations of the League of Nations concerning the future of the Chaldo-Assyrian people proved to be catastrophic for the stateless and helpless Assyrians, ending their hope of establishing their own homeland in the Mosul province (later Nineveh province) contrary to what was granted in the Treaty of Sèvres.¹²

The presence of Assyrians in northern Iraq played a significant factor in the future determination of the Iraq-Turkey borders. The British occupation of Mosul Vilayet was prompted by both the oil factor and securing a home for the Assyrians. The dispute surrounding the 1924 Turkish expulsion of thousands of Assyrians who had returned and resettled on their original pre-WWI lands in Hakkari Mountains prompted the League of Nations to draw a provisional boundary, the Brussels line, which reflected the territorial position of Turkey and Iraq at the time of the signing of the Lausanne treaty. This allowed Iraq to receive the vast Mosul Vilayet under the provisional settlement that ultimately was adopted as the permanent boundary. To cede Mosul Vilayet to Iraq was preferred by the Assyrians in the region. The Assyrian recommendation was accepted by the Frontier Commission and adopted by the League. The argument of the British representative before the League Council was that any line south of the Brussels line would separate the Assyrian population of northern Mosul from Iraq and would result in a panic and flight of those Assyrians.¹³

However, there was no comprehensive plan to settle the Assyrians homogeneously in the Mosul Vilayet. Instead, the Assyrian refugees who escaped the World War I genocide in Turkey and Persia were settled arbitrarily throughout northern Iraq. They joined the Assyrians from the Catholic Church (Chaldeans) and the Orthodox Church (Jacobites) already living in the vast Nineveh region since the fall of the Assyrian Empire. Lt. Col. F. Cunliffe-Owen, director of repatriation and officer commanding refugees camp in Baqubah, Mesopotamia (Iraq, June 1919–1922), dealing with the repatriation of Assyrian refugees stated, I do not see how it was possible for the League to insist that a large part of Turkey should be taken away; but I regret very much that the Assyrian Christians have not a country or nationality of their own and are scattered about and placed anywhere as they are now.¹⁴

From the end of World War I in 1918 through the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the treaties of Sèvres and Lausanne and until Iraq declared its sovereignty and joined the League of Nations in 1932, Assyrians were exploited and then betrayed by the British on three occasions, twice at the League of Nations (later the United Nations): first, when Britain drew the current borders between Iraq (created in 1921) and Turkey, which emerged from the defeated Ottoman Empire; second, in 1932, when they supported the admission of the newly created Iraq to the League of Nations without fulfilling their promises of creating a homeland for the Assyrians within Mosul Vilayet. Assyrian representatives warned the international community at the League of Nations that allowing Iraq to enter the League of Nations without securing the future of the Assyrians would lead to a massacre. But the British and the French turned a blind eye. The third time was when the British turned their backs on the Assyrians and left them unprotected. They not only refused to assist the Assyrians in the League to establish their own autonomous region, but during the buildup to the horrible Assyrian massacre in 1933, the British were not only fully cognizant of these unfolding horrors but actively aided the Iraqi Army in its request for more weapons and bombs to deal with their self-defined Assyrian problem.¹⁵

On October 15, 1927, oil was struck at an oil well located in Kirkuk at Baba Gurgur. The oil-rich fields of Kirkuk extend northwest to meet the fields in Mosul in Nineveh province to the north. This brings us to the Nineveh Plain, a region west of Arbil, the capital of the KRG that had a predominant Assyrian population living there since time immemorial. There is a massive oil reserve in the Nineveh Plain; hence, the determination of the Kurdish leaders to annex it to the KRG. Therefore, the attacks by ISIS in 2014 and the destruction of the Assyrian towns and villages in the Nineveh Plain were not coincidental.

Kurdish Nationalism and the Assyrian Question

The Kurdish nationalist movement was born in the aftermath of World War I, a movement that defined an agenda for the creation of Kurdistan, a territory that, if realized, would encompass the majority of the lands historically occupied by the Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia. This took on a new dimension when the Assyrian question and the homogeneous resettlement of the Assyrians on their ancestral lands were dropped at Lausanne and by the League of Nations contrary to the promises made by World War I Allies.

In August 1933 the Iraqi army, led by the Kurdish general, Bekir Sidqi,¹⁶ attacked and savagely murdered over three thousand unarmed Assyrians in northern Iraq, including the elderly, women, and children. This became known as the Simele Massacre. The fears of the Assyrian leaders that were conveyed to the League of Nations came to life.¹⁷ The state-sponsored assault on the Assyrians in the Simele Massacre and the earlier memory of the genocide of Christians during World War I were the pivotal factors in Raphael Lemkin’s quest to create a legal framework to address these crimes against humanity.¹⁸ In the same year, he presented his first proposal, Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offenses Against the Law of Nations, to outlaw such acts of barbarity to an international conference held in Madrid, Spain, on October 14–20, 1933.¹⁹

After the massacre of the Assyrians, the League of Nations continued to address the Assyrian question. The next four years were characterized by debates concerning the future of the Assyrians. Territories, even in Africa and South America, were considered as a new home for the Assyrians, but none was agreed upon by all parties involved. These included the Ghab region in Syria, French West Africa, and the British Guiana in South America.²⁰ The Assyrian patriarch, Mar Eshai Shimun, insisted that the Assyrians must be settled homogeneously on their ancestral lands in the Mosul Province. In December 1937, the League decided not to address the Assyrian question any longer and the problem was defined as an internal Iraqi affair.²¹ To make the matters worse, the Iraqi government, with the support from the British in Iraq, and in 1955, officially disbanded the Assyrian military force known as the Levies.²²

The 1933 Simele Massacre left the Assyrians broken, helpless and forced them to step back, live as a community in fear and become politically irrelevant in the following decades. The Kurds, on the other hand, with their continuous influx from the neighboring states specifically Iran, increased in number and began revolting against