LCHR - Leadership Council for Human Rights

Assyro-Chaldeans converted to Christianity at the very beginning of the Christian era. They are divided into two groups: a minority of the so-called Nestorian tradition, and a Chaldean majority attached to the Roman Catholic Church[1]. They form the main Christian community in Iraq and they also claim recognition as a nation and indigenous people.

Around 1921, when the Iraqi State was founded, nearly all Christians were located in Northern Iraq, mainly in rural areas. Their numbers had increased due to the influx of several tens of thousands of refugees following the genocide in the Ottoman Empire[2]. There were more than one million of them in 1987; 800.000 in the 1990s; 500,000 since 2003. This represents a genuine haemorrhaging of the population over 20 years, if one compares those figures with those for other communities. Most studies agree that Christians represented between 3% and 5% of the total population of Iraq until the 1980s. Yonadam Kanna[3], elected to the Iraqi parliament on the National Rafidain list, reckons that one million Christians have gone into exile since the beginning of the 1970s. They are estimated to represent 80% of all Iraqi refugees in the United States, in particular in Detroit and Chicago - their foreign « capitals », as it were. [4] The Diaspora also settled in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe (especially Sweden).

The post-2003 period has been especially harsh. A UN study carried out on a sample of Iraqi refugee families in Syria demonstrated that 19, 3 % of them are Assyro-Chaldean in origin[5]. They are also said to be the most numerous amongst the families that arrived in the Jordanian capital in the first quarter of 2006. Internal displacements in Iraq do, however, remain the greatest migratory problem with close to 17,000 Christian internally displaced persons recorded by the International Office of International Migrations at the end of October 2006[6].

Christian churches, especially the Catholic Church, and their representatives in politics have called for the implementation of plans to resolve this crisis on the national and international level. According to the Human Rights Minister of Iraq, Wijdan Mikha’il, if such steps are not taken, it will lead in the short term to the complete disappearance of Christians from Baghdad and Mosul. Half of them are said to have left already. More generally, it could lead to the disappearance of the whole Christian population of Iraq in 20 years.[7] American bishops have gone as far as requesting Condoleezza Rice for special protection for the religious minorities who are the victims of ever increasing deliberate attacks[8].

The main waves of migrations and displacements of Assyro-Chaldeans since the founding of Iraq

Internal and international conflicts, as well as a policy of forced displacements institutionalised by the Baath party as soon as it came to power in 1968, lie at the root of the main migratory movements in Iraq that affected Assyro-Chaldeans, Turkmens, and other minorities, as it did for the Kurds.

From 1920 to 2006, emigration and internal displacements of Assyro-Chaldeans continued with peaks in 1933, 1975, in the 1980s, in 1991 and since 2003. Between1920 and 2006 there were two periods of relative calm: from 1935 to 1960 (under the monarchy and at the beginning of Brigadier Qasim’s regime), and then from1988 to 1990 between the two Gulf wars.

At the end of the First World War, resolutions in favour of the protection of minorities in the documents governing international relations, as well as the recruitment by the British of a thousand or so Assyro-Chaldeans as auxiliary force during the British mandate, sharpened radical nationalism especially in the military[9]. Assyrians were stigmatised by the press and considered as traitors.

In the summer of 1933, several thousand of them, mainly civilians settled in the region for generations, were massacred by the military and their Kurdish and Arab reinforcement troops in Semel, next to Dahuk. This massacre led to the emigration of 9,000 people to Syria. This event marked the decline of Assyrian nationalism which lasted until the beginning of the 1970s.

In 1960, Assyro-Chaldeans lived for the most part between Zakho (at the time 45% of that city’s population were Christians) and Amadiyah all the way to Diana; some also lived down in the plains and in the city of Mosul. As they lived on territories claimed by both Kurdish and Arab nationalists, they could not escape from the permanent conflicts involving both groups. Starting at the end of the 1960s, Saddam Hussein made it even worse by imposing a policy of forced Arabisation and by arbitrarily dividing the different territories. A majority Kurdish governorate was established in Dahuk, while the Nineveh governorate was a majority Arab governorate. Saddam Hussein thus proceeded to distribute Assyro-Chaldeans administratively into both communities. This promoted their assimilation whilst exacerbating the political divisions based on their place of residence. In 1977, they were eliminated from the census and forced to choose between a Kurdish or Arab ethnicity. If they wanted to be protected and recognized as individuals, they had to commit to the party in power, or to that of the majority in their place of residence. This refers mainly to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),[10] to which Assyro-Chaldeans supplied many fighters and military or political leaders such as Malek Hormuz Tchiko who ended up as an emblematic figure of the Kurdish struggle.

On the other hand, the Baath party sought to gain the support of Assyro-Chaldeans against the Kurds by attempting to form Assyrian militias and through cultural and political openings[11]. Those who chose to stay in the mountains were subjected to reprisals, such as raids conducted on a regular basis by the “Djash” (Kurdish mercenaries working for the government), or they were excluded for amnesty in favour of individuals having surrendered to the military.

War and exodus against the backdrop of the disintegration of the KDP in the mid-1970s, the establishment of a security area along the borders following the Algiers Accord between Iraq and Iran in March 1975, and finally the al-Anfal operation of 1988-89, led to the

destruction of almost all Northern Iraqi villages and to the flight or deportation of their inhabitants. Ali Hassan al-Majid, for example, Saddam’s cousin known as ‘Chemical Ali’, ordered two chemical weapons attacks in a region where more than 15% of the villages are Assyro-Chaldean.[12] Several thousand villagers fled to Turkey. Elsewhere, expropriations organised by decree by the Revolutionary Command Council (the Iraqi government) led to the settlement on these lands of Arab populations. After the repression against the uprisings in the provinces in 1991, following the First Gulf War, several thousands left and the exodus included Christians from Dahuk, Zakho, Erbil and Kirkuk[13]. The migratory wave, 200,000 – 300,000 people in the 1990s, was the largest of its kind since WWI[14].

Their migration towards the centre of the country weakened the alliance with the Kurds and accelerated the Arabisation of Assyro-Chaldeans. At the end of the 1980s, 80% of them had abandoned their historical homelands and taken refuge in large cities, mainly Baghdad. That is the reason why there were about 50 churches in the Iraqi capital in the 1990s, as compared to only 6 in 1909 ; the building of the Shorja and de Bataween neighbourhoods, as well as Baghdad al-Jedida, marked the beginning of the settling of 300,000 to 400,000 Christians in Baghdad. The Nineveh governorate, in particular the plain, formed the last zone where the Assyro-Chaldeans had lived constantly since ancient times.

The causes of the exodus from 2003

The political parties that were engaged in the fight against Saddam Hussein were in favour of the return of refugees and of the right to vote for exiled Iraqis and for those deprived of their nationality. These demands were major ones for Assyro-Chaldeans, although returning to Iraq was rather problematic due the general security situation in the country.

The terrorist attacks which, according to the Iraqi delegation on its visit to Paris in November 2006, was the work of former pro-Saddam groups united with Islamic Sunni groups close to Al Qaeda, targeted Christians as well. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi National Security Advisor, stated that the latter groups did take part in attacks against Christian churches: 30 attacks from 2003 to October 2006[15].

Minorities[16] were also the direct target of several fundamentalist Islamic groups seeking to eradicate all non-Muslim groups from Iraq, and more generally all those that do not support them. Post-September 11 religious themes, the case of the Danish cartoons, Pope Benedict's speech in Regensburg and the permanent suspicion of collusion with the West fanned the flames of hatred against Christians[17]. In Mosul, Christian families are forced to support Sunni guerrillas financially or else convert to Islam. In the spring of 2003, Moqtada Al-Sadr, young radical Shiite leader, demanded application of the Sharia law, including mandatory use of the Islamic scarf for women[18] ; in Basra, sentences up to capital punishment were pronounced against Christian alcohol retailers and barbers. Sheikh Muhammad al-Fartusi, close to Sadr, also attacked non-religious individuals, the wealthy middle-class, as well as Moderate Shia or Shia belonging to other parties.

Christians are vulnerable due to their political and social weakness and to their minority status which means they have very little tribal or militia support. Most of them believe that they have always been considered as second-class citizens in spite of their courteous relations with their Muslim neighbours[19]. The Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad denounced a “context of hidden dhimmitude” (the old system under which religious minorities were governed according to Islamic law) in both legal and practical terms[20] , the corollary of which is a brain-drain. The preamble of the 2005 constitution does not mention Assyro-Chaldeans as an ethnic group. Politically divided – there were eight competing lists in the January 2005 elections - and therefore poorly represented within the new parliamentary assembly, they have two ministers entrusted with Human Rights and Industry, but belonging respectively to Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National List and to the Kurdish Alliance.

Organized kidnapping leading to asset seizure in the case of departure generates significant income for several Mafia-like Islamic groups or militia men affiliated with political parties; such practice targets mainly the middle class of which Christians represent an important component.

The exacerbation of community and religious divisions since the attack against the Samarra mosque in February 2006 and the battle for control of some neighbourhoods affect Baghdad al-Jadida or al-Dawra, a part of the capital that had already gone from 50% Christians to 20%[21].

Several attacks and murders perpetrated in Baghdad and Mosul, including the beheading of the Syriac Orthodox priest, Paulos Iskandar, in October 2006, are said to be reprisals against individuals having sided with the Kurds or having accepted financial assistance from them.

Finally, the lack of economic development support for the Nineveh plain and initiatives taken by the Diaspora, such as the US Chaldean Federation aimed at integrating Chaldeans into American society,[22] do not motivate Iraqi Christians to stay in their homeland.

Possible solutions to stem the exodus of Iraqi minorities

As early as 1991, tens of thousands of Assyro-Chaldeans started to rebuild the villages that had been destroyed since the 1960s in the Kurdish region above the 36th parallel which were no longer controlled by Saddam Hussein[23]. Those efforts were hampered by the battles between the Turkish Army and the PKK (the Kurdish Workers Party) that took place in the 1990s. Furthermore the unfair redistribution of the proceeds from the UN’s ‘oil for food’ programme, as well as the confiscation of land and villages, added to the difficulties of reconstruction. The representatives of the KDP – there are few Christians in the area controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) – affirm that there are now no outstanding restitution claims. In spite of openings on the freedom of the press, freedom of association, the use of the Syriac language in education, Conciliation Committees are failing and the relations between the two communities are deteriorating. Five members of the ADM (Assyrian Democratic Movement) were assassinated in the 1990s, including Francis Yusuf Shabo, a former well-known opponent of Saddam Hussein’s regime and a member of the parliament of Kurdistan where he had spoken in favour of a law to prevent confiscation of assets. The exact circumstances of his murder were never established.[24]

At of the end of 2005, the regional government of Kurdistan did make some progress on the reconstruction of Christian villages. There was still a will to weaken Assyrian parties, as opposed to sponsored organizations, but the Kurds do now want to secure the support of the Christian population during this very important period when the borders of the federated region might be withdrawn to include Kirkuk and Nineveh. Some Kurdish officials are trying to thwart the strategies of the Islamic Union of Kurdistan, which withdrew from the Kurdish Alliance at the last elections, by overriding their opposition to the opening of two evangelical churches[25]. The support for Christians can also be explained by the will to react to international criticism: the Kurds are criticised for having abandoned the Northern Assyro-Chaldean villages and yet that is precisely where all the displaced persons flee to from Baghdad, Mosul and Basra. The Regional Federal Government is said be holding back American funds destined for these areas.

Should there be a governorate for minorities?

The Assyrian Democratic Movement and other parties such as the Assyrian Democratic Organisation (ADO) speak in favour of the establishment of a governorate associating other minorities (shabak[26] and yezidis[27]). It would include the districts of Qaraqosh, Tell Qayf, al-Shikhan, Sheikhan, possibly the South-Western part of the Dahuk Governorate (the district of Semel including the Selevani plain) and the Sinjar district[28]. The idea is that it would help stem the exodus of Iraqi Christians by guaranteeing to them both security and economic development[29]. The ruins of the former Assyrian capital can be found on the Nineveh plain, close to Mosul and Erbil, and they are of course of utmost importance to the Assyro-Chaldeans. There are still several entirely Christian villages there, and towns with no Kurds at all, with the exception of the Sheikhan district mainly populated by Yezidis.[30] However, like the city of Mosul, the plain is contested by Kurds and Arabs alike.

A new draft constitution debated in the Kurdish parliament at the end of 2006[31] takes the Assyro-Chaldeans’ proposals on board, but unites the requested autonomous governorate to the Kurdish region. Two Christian ministers in the regional government, Sarkis Aghajan, in charge of Finances and the reconstruction of Christian villages, and Nimrud Baito, Secretary General of the Assyrian Patriotic Party (APP), stated that the support of the Kurds remains essential for the achievement of the overall Kurdish project and that the funding for a 1,000-man unit to protect Christian villages has already been pledged[32]. Sunni Arabs however, consider that this territory is part of the Mosul governorate[33]. According to the Assyrian Democratic Movement, the achievement of the Kurdish project would immediately unleash violence and the ADM foresees increased attacks against Christians.

Conclusions

Given the particularly fragile situation the Christians find themselves in, it will be difficult to solve the minorities' issue without a stabilization of Iraq. The assassination of Isoh Majeed Hedaya, president of the Syriac Independent Unified Movement, who had presented to the Central Government a request for the autonomy of four districts on the 31st of October 2006, is a perfect illustration of the situation. There is also some uncertainty about what attitude the Kurds will adopt, since their present regional constitution does not provide for the possibility to form autonomous entities within Kurdistan.

Christians, supported by secular parties, will also have to establish relations with moderate Muslims and convince the Shiites in particular of the importance of their presence in Iraq to help rebuild and develop the country.

Furthermore, the United States and Europe have yet to position themselves on the issue of minorities in Iraq. They have made neither a political nor an economic commitment to it.

[1] Divided on the nature of Christ, Syriacs, the Christians of the Orient, separated in the 5th century into two branches: the Nestorians, also called Assyrians, and the Monophysites or Jacobites. A second schism took place in 1552 between Chaldeans and Catholic Jacobites. The Syriac language remained in use in the form of various Aramaic dialects including Sureth spoken mainly in Iraq.

[2] 250,000 Assyro-Chaldeans are said to have been executed; amongst others the survivors of the Hakkari Nestorian tribes are said to have been part of the refugees.

[3] Secretary General of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM) represented within the 2003 Interim Government and then part of Iyad Allawi’s government.

[4] Other indicators underline the scale of the emigration of this minority: in the 2005 elections, the Assyro-Chaldean list National Rafidain was one of the lists which won the greatest number of votes in Syria, the United States (respectively 29% and 26% of expatriates’ votes), Australia and in Canada. See The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, Iraq Out-of-Country Voting 2005 Transitional Assembly Voting Provisional Results.

[5] UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, Assessment of the Situation of Iraqi Refugees in Syria, March 2006.

[6] International Office of Migration, Emergency assessment -displacement due to Recent Violence (post 22 Feb 2006) Central and southern 15 Governorates, 30 October 2006.

[7] Wijdan Mikha’il is one of the representatives of Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National List’ within present-day Iraq. See Mark Lattimer,”In 20 years, there will be no more Christians in Iraq”, The Guardian, October 6, 2006.

[8] Cf. AsiaNews.it, “US bishops call for "specific measures" to protect Iraqi Christians”, Asia News, 31 October 2006.

[9] Perceived as foreigners, and on top of it Christians, there were the first target group for radical nationalist Arab groups and for Rachid Ali al-Gaylani’s government propaganda. After that came the repression of Yezidis in 1935, the pogroms against Jews in 1948-50, the deportation of Fayli Kurds from 1969 to 1980, the genocide of Kurds from 1975 to 1990 and the Shiite massacres of 1991.

[10] Headed by Mustafa and later by Massoud Barzani. The Assyro-Chaldeans have also been very active in the Communist Party since its foundation.

[11] For example, the restoration of the Nestorian Patriarch’s citizenship and the restitution of the assets of the Nestorian church which had been confiscated following the events of 1933.

[12] Middle East Watch, Genocide in Iraq, the Anfal campaign against the Kurds, Paris, Karthala, 2003. Out of the 782 missing persons registered during that last phase, 150 i.e. about 20%, were Assyro-Chaldeans.

[13]In the Silopi refugee camp, on the Turkish border, half of the refugees were Assyro-Chaldeans.

[14] The religious leaders in place under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship saw the embargo as the main cause of emigration in the 1990s; The Assyrian Democratic Movement however, emphasised economic disadvantages inspired by Islam and introduced to gain the support of Muslim states, such as the closure of shops selling alcohol, the monopoly over which was held by the Christians. Religious propaganda, launched during the 1980-88 war against Iran, was reinforced in the 1990s and led to the « Allahou Akbar » inscription on the national flag.

[15] Mounia Daoudi, ‘Appel à l’unité après les attentats anti-chrétiens,’ RFI Actualités, 2 August 2004. Ayatollah Sistani condemned the attacks against churches, cf. AFP, Irak : Ali Sistani qualifie de "crimes terribles" les attentats anti-chrétiens, 2 August 2004 ; Nimrod Raphaeli , « The Plight of Iraqi Christians », MEMRI, Inquiry and Analysis Series n° 213, March 2005.

[16] Mandaen Sabeans, Yezidis, shabak and kakais.

[17] Cf. Jonathan Steele, ‘We're staying and we will resist,’ The Guardian, 30 November 2006. So-called ‘Brigades for the elimination of Christian spies and agents’ target individuals working for the coalition.

[18] Al-Sistani does not wish to impose such obligation. See Juan Cole , ‘The United States and Shia Religious Factions in Post-Baath’ist Iraq,’ Middle East Journal, 8 October 2003.

[19] They have to pay what is called a fasl, a practice often imposed by tribal elders in the settlement of dispute.

[20] Mgr Jean Benjamin Sleiman, Dans le piège irakien : le cri du cœur de l’archevêque de Baghdad, Presses de la Renaissance, 2006.

[21] See`Martine Gozlan, ‘Comment un quartier de Bagdad a sombré dans la guerre civile,’ Marianne n°465, 18-24 March, and ‘Interview with Yonadam Kanna, ADM Secretary General,’, Outre-Terre n°14, Arabies malheureuses- II, p. 182- 186, Toulouse, Editions Erès , March 2006.

[22] http://www.chaldeanfederation.org/ : In August 2006, the U.S Chaldean Federation succeeded in getting all restrictions lifted on the immigration of Christian Iraqis. The federation believes that the targeted violence against Christians does not allow them to return to their country. The Chaldean Federation launched the R4 Operation (Research, Rescue, Relief and Resettlement) and fundraising in the US Chaldean Community has been organised for the resettlement of Iraqi Christian immigrants. Some anonymous sources among Iraqi refugees in Jordan talk of an organised deliberate exodus of the Assyro-Chaldeans; others say that the insecurity in Iraq is also deliberate and organized by the Mossad, the CIA and Iran.

[23] 30,000 to 50,000 depending on sources; two to three families per day, often from wealthy backgrounds, went to church in Dahuk in 1992-93.

[24] Amnesty International, Iraq: Human rights abuses in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991, London, 1995.

[25] See Chris Kutschera, ‘L’exode des chrétiens d’Irak,’, Le Monde 2, 28 October 2006.

[26] A Shiite community of Iranian origin in the district of Qaraqosh.

[27] Heather Maler, ‘Iraq: Christian Minority Seeks Haven From Violence,’ RFE/RL, 18 October 2006.

[28] al-Shikhan /Sheikhan is a mixed area: Yezidis, Assyro-Chaldeans (especially in the city), Kurds and some Arab families; Sinjar remains mainly Yezidi with a Kurdish population.

[29] See Michael Youash, ‘An Assyrian Administrative Unit Ending the Exodus of Iraq’s Most Vulnerable,’ www.nineveh.com.

[30] Some of the Yezidis do not see themselves as being part of the Kurdish community.

[31] In contrast to the situation before 2003 when only the Zimar sub-district, in the Nineveh governorate, was included in the Kurdish region, of Chris Kutschera, ‘The Kurds' Secret Scenarios,’ in ‘In the Shadow of War: Iraq,

Israel, Palestine,’ Middle East Report 225, Winter 2002.

[32] This project led to a memorandum supported by the APP, the Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party (BNDP), the Bet-Nahrain Patriotic Union, the Chaldean Democratic Forum, the Chaldean Cultural Association and the Chaldo-Ashur Organization, cf. http://www.zindamagazine.com vol. XII, 23, 20 November 2006.

[33] The ethnic cleansing of Kurdish inhabitants from the left bank of the Tigris, in Mosul (Sumer, Tahrir, Intisar and Sinaa neighbourhoods) displaced thousands of people.