Afrinpost- special
In its issue of February 16, 2021, The New York Times published a report on the current situation of Afrin; this article was entitled “In Turkey’s Safe Zone in Syria, Security and Misery Go Hand in Hand,” by Carlotta Gal, the director of the Istanbul office.
We, the Afrin Post, closely follow the details of what is happening in occupied Afrin, and we publish the news and reports in three languages , Kurdish, Arabic, and English.
With regret, we read the article published by your newspaper, and we found it full of errors, contradictions and were astonished to see only a single viewpoint, that of the Turkish government.
Gal’s title implies that Afrin is made safe because of the Turkish occupation. It is clear that from the outset, the author intends to beautify the Turkish invasion and occupation. The article is so one-sided that the tone is more akin to the Turkish Anadolu Agency, not something found in such a revered publication as the New York Times.
The Times is known all over the world for its high degree of journalistic professionalism and objectivity. Publishing an article like Ms. Gal’s undermines the credibility that the paper has built upon for so many years; this is why we seek to clarify specific facts and address those Gal’s report ignored.
After the Turkish invasion and occupation, it is well known that the area was closed to the media. The occupying authorities do not allow entry by any media members, except when those journalists ensure that any reports will be favorable to the occupiers. It is also well documented that the people of Afrin, the original Kurds, are afraid to speak to the media.
Gal’s article does not reflect the reality of life in Afrin today. The report exaggerated sympathy for those forcibly deported people from eastern Ghouta to Afrin. The article does not say who fled because of the war, or because of the Turkish invasion. What happened to the owners of those homes? How did they leave their homes, fields, and graves of their families? The article does not say that the people were uprooted by force, nor where they live today.
We want to know precisely how the Turkish government can achieve “Turkish national security” by displacing people from homes and farms? Why are the people of Afrin not allowed to return?
To be clear, there are “new settlers” to Afrin. Those who moved into Afrin are armed militia members who are well-known for war crimes, robbed food aid from warehouses meant for refugees. The crisis which these criminals wrought transferred to Afrin with their arrival, a small part of a more dubious Russian-Turkish political agreement.
Since the invasion, many internationally accredited organizations have reported horrific accounts of human rights violations against Afrin citizens. Groups like the International Human Rights Organization, the International Investigation Committee on Syria, the American Religious Freedom Committee, the Egyptian Human Rights Foundation, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. These groups have hundreds of accounts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, but Gal’s report mentioned none.
The militias that occupy Afrin have extremist political and religious ideologies; they have committed acts of genocide against the region’s Yazidis, including forced conversion to Islam, demolition of sacred shrines, and the widespread desecration of cemeteries with bulldozers. These occupiers seek to remove all traces of the rightful inhabitants.
To understand the reality of Afrin today, it is necessary to know what was the reality before the Turkish and Islamic militant invasion. The people of Afrin have a long tradition of not differentiating Syrians based on an ethnic, religious, or political basis. In short, Afrin was a haven for displaced Syrians.
This is the reality of aggressive Turkish posturing:
- Displaced Kurdish residents of Afrin number more than 300,000
- Islamist militias seized land and homes of the Kurdish people of Afrin; deportees, militia members were set up in their place
- Demographics changed as a direct result, Kurdish people, 97% of Afrin residents before the invasion now only represent 20% of the population
- Thousands of Kurdish citizens were arrested, kidnapped, and tortured in make-shift Islamic prisons throughout the region
- Dozens of Kurds have died from their experiences, and a more significant but still uncertain number remain missing
- Approximately 150,000 currently live in camps or the wrecks of homes destroyed by Turkish army bombardment
- The Turkish army continues to bomb the area of al-Shahba, and have massacred or displaced those people as well
Ankara justifies the war on Afrin under the pretext of Turkish national security, but what is the justification for the occupation and violations of human rights?
Afrin is rich in olive trees – why have these trees been uprooted, forests burned?
Other non-human casualties are the UNESCO sites. These places are registered with UNESCO because they are part of our collective human heritage. Militia groups that occupy the region have attacked archaeologists, and the sites themselves, bulldozing and destroying many. These sites must be protected for all to enjoy and study.
Also included in Gal’s fiction is the narrative of the five million people of Idlib. The number is clearly wrong because the city would not be able to tolerate such a population. Because of the civil war, Idlib residents mostly fled to Afrin, but many others crossed the border to Turkey, or went on to Europe. The Syrian government regained much of the territory in and around Idlib at the beginning of 2020. After Assad’s reoccupation, Idlib became home to thousands of militants, many of whom are members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Jabhat al-Nusra), and al-Qaeda, well-known terrorist organizations. Groups like these are not Idlib’s people and should not be counted as such. These militants arrived through Turkish border crossings with the intent to establish emirates in Idlib.
Concerning the specifics of population, with 3.6 million Syrian refugees hosted by Erdogan in Turkey, the total for Idlib would be 8.6 million. A population of this number cannot be taken seriously. Idlib’s actual population, 1.68 million, represents only 7% of Syria’s total population, which only totals about 24 million, smaller overall numbers ten years into the civil war.
Another clarification is that Turkey did not fight ISIS in Syria. For example, on August 24, 2016, in Jarablus, the Kurds were fighting alongside the international coalition; within a few hours, hundreds of ISIS militants fled to Turkey and joined the National Army. Many of those militants have been seen in Afrin, and Ras al-Ain, another Syrian border city occupied by Turkey.
The truth of Ankara’s agenda is contrary to their statements in the media. In the years before the occupation of Afrin by Turkish forces, the area was safe and stable, despite the civil war that raged in other parts of Syria. It was only after Afrin fell to Turkey that the bombings began, directly resulting from factional fighting, specifically militants fighting militants. These skirmishes have made Afrin a battlefield.
We cannot and will not ignore the displacement camps. There are many painful stories from these camps, including high prices for goods, extreme poverty, and oppressive temperatures. There are many other more horrific stories about human rights violations, murders, dumping of corpses in the open, kidnapping, ransom collecting, and the mass rape of women.
Who authorizes these armed groups to commit all these violations?
Turkish officials might claim that their goal is to establish normalcy, but the reality is far from that. Afrin had a peaceful existence before the Turkish occupation, but no longer. Normal life is the return of its people to their land and homes. Normal is not the Islamic militants committing violent acts against residents. The occupation of Afrin must not be glossed over, and it cannot be justified.
As the occupying power, Ankara is directly responsible. Still, it is incumbent upon journalists and those who know the truth to report the facts as they are, not manipulate the information to suit politicians in Ankara.
The occupied area of Afrin is far from safe, for many more reasons than can be listed in a single article.
We hope that a large and influential media organization with a global reputation such as The New York Times will adopt more accurate reports or relegate articles as Gal’s to the Opinion section. We thank you for your cooperation and time to hear our viewpoint.
