Sarah Glynn
One of the gravest indictments of what is misleadingly referred to as the “international community” is their failure to address the problem of what to do with captured members of ISIS. There is no shortage of other international failures, some of them even more dangerous, but this is a problem that should not have been so difficult to resolve. As always, short-term interests have triumphed over other concerns, with national governments choosing to deny responsibility for their nationals, never mind the future dangers. As a result, responsibility for the captured fighters and their families, many of whom are still wedded to their gruesome ideology, has fallen on the people of North and East Syria – the people who did the most to bring an end to ISIS as a territorial power, and made the biggest sacrifice in lives lost and destroyed. Last Saturday, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria announced that they could no longer wait for the rest of the world to act, and that they were going to bring the international captives to trial themselves, as they have already been doing for captives from Syria.
The Administration’s statement explains that as well as the increasing danger posed by the detainees, “the failure to bring these criminals to court and justice is contrary to international laws and agreements.” They state that “because of the failure of the international community to respond to the calls and appeals of the Autonomous Administration for countries to receive their citizens”, and in order to “redress the victims, and achieve social justice”, they had decided to bring the detained foreign ISIS members to “open, fair and transparent trials, in accordance with international and local laws related to terrorism”.
At the same time, they made clear that “this does not mean that the administration abandons its view on the need to establish an international tribunal, or a court of an international nature, for the trial of ISIS terrorists”. They are not only still demanding an international tribunal, but are also calling for international organisations to become actively engaged in their planned trials.
Reuters quoted a “Western diplomat” saying that the decision had come as a surprise, but the news agency also acknowledged that “The idea had been discussed in the past but pushed aside primarily over questions on the legality of a regional court operating separately from the Syrian government.” International powers do not want to afford the Autonomous Administration political legitimacy.
There have also been discussions in the past by European governments about a possible international tribunal – including a proposal from Sweden – and Amal Clooney, who has acted for Nadia Murad and other Yazidi victims of ISIS, set out in an address to the UN Security Council four different ways such a tribunal could be done.
12 to 15,000 ISIS men are detained in prison in North and East Syria, of whom 2 to 3,000 are neither Syrian nor Iraqi. There are also around 52,000 detainees in Al Hawl and Roj camps, of whom just over 10,000 are neither Syrian nor Iraqi. (Iraqis from the camps are gradually being repatriated.) Most camp residents are ISIS wives and children – especially children. A small proportion of the foreigners have been repatriated, especially those who came from Russia and Central Asia, but ISIS members from western nations have generally not been accepted back to their home countries. Most of the people in the prisons and camps were captured after the territorial defeat of the ISIS caliphate in Baghouz in March 2019, and, after four years, temporary camps have become permanent prison cities.
Syrians have been tried by the Autonomous Administration’s People’s Defence Courts, according to terrorism laws established in 2014. These allow time to examine cases and there is a process for appeals, but it is difficult for defendants to find lawyers, and the whole system is still very limited in size. For the thousands of cases that would be involved, the administration would need both financial and physical help. And, of course, those found guilty and given prison sentences would continue to demand state resources. If the prisons are to be brought up to international standards of decency and are to provide greater security, that will cost, too.
While refences are often made to previous war crimes tribunals, those only charged a relatively small numbers of leaders. This was enough to record and learn from what had happened and to give a hearing to the victims. Even the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia only indicted 161 people. In the case of ISIS, although the territorial war may be over, ISIS is still a potent force both ideologically and through its network of sleeper cells. Members set free could go back into action and remain a danger, and the aim is to try everyone involved. These trials would be more than an order of magnitude more extensive than previous war crimes tribunals. The Autonomous Administration supports restorative justice and has run deradicalization programmes, but for these to be successful they also require considerable resources.
On Thursday, the co-chair of the Administration’s Foreign Affairs Bureau, Bedran Ciya Kurd, spoke further about their plans at a press conference organised by the German Kurdish Centre of Studies. He noted that over 8,000 Syrian ISIS members had already been tried in the Administration’s courts. The planned trials will focus on the foreign ISIS fighters. However, he explained that “Women are mostly considered to be victims of ISIS, but there’s evidence some of these women are [also] involved in crimes against humanity.” (We have seen evidence of this in the way some of the women have forced camp residents to follow Islamic state rules with Islamic state punishments.) Ciya Kurd also warned that “ISIS has been organising itself and getting stronger day by day”. He emphasised that “They will be public trials – monitors, observers, experts, lawyers, will be welcome to these trials.” As yet no date has been given for the trials to start.
International responses to the Administration’s announcement have been minimal. When it comes to North and East Syria’s treatment of the ISIS prisoners, the approach tends to be damned if you do and damned if you don’t. They are castigated for holding prisoners without trial, but international powers – who generally refuse to take responsibility for their own nationals – do not want to give them recognition as an authority capable of carrying out such trials. Nor do these powers want to support an international trial process. Conditions in the prisons and camps are criticised as falling far short of international standards, but little help is given to improve them.
The Administration is only too aware of the problems, but does not have the resources to address them, especially as they continue to come under attack from Turkey and its proxies – attacks that the “international community” barely recognises and does nothing to stop. A long list of criticisms from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, written a year ago, reads as though they were addressing a fully resourced government, not an administration struggling to provide basic services under military attack.
However, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in the Hague concluded two years ago that, despite the many limitations, for the Autonomous Administration, “holding trials is the only viable solution – with or without the help of the international community – to contain the threat posed by ISIS and to provide justice including through transitional justice mechanisms.”
Syria’s future
In looking towards the future more generally, the Autonomous Administration continues to do all it can to push for a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis that will protect different ethnic and religious groups and that can use North and East Syria as a model. They stress their Syrian identity and that economic resources should be distributed fairly among all Syria’s regions, and they call for dialogue between people within Syria, without external interference. But they also call for international support to protect them from attacks by Turkey and Turkey’s mercenaries, which are deliberately aimed at destroying the region’s stability. l The Administration has also stated that their region is ready to welcome and resettle Syrian refugees from wherever they have fled to.
But peaceful and progressive proposals carry little weight with those who think only in terms of balances of power – as was exemplified last week by the European Union’s conference on the future of Syria. Bassam al-Ahmad, Director-General for Syrians for Truth and Justice, told North Press Agency. “There was a clear marginalization of every issue related to northeast Syria. They did not talk about security issues, Turkey’s attacks, water, agriculture, or [other] challenges.” Instead, the focus was only on violations by the Syrian regime.
While the Autonomous Administration continues to be side-lined in the international arena, new power dynamics are emerging in northwest Syria. Rojava Information Centre (RIC) has brought out a report that examines the spread of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group, with roots in Islamic State and Al-Qaida, that controls Idlib. HTS depends on Turkish military backing, but their control of Idlib emerged through the Syrian civil war and not through Turkish occupation, as was the case in the areas controlled by other militant jihadi groups. RIC concludes “The facts gathered in this report point to an increasing HTS presence in the Turkish-occupied regions at the expense of the SNA [the Turkish-backed ‘Syrian National Army’]. This is happening under Turkish approval, notwithstanding the official Turkish designation of HTS as a terrorist group, and might lead to a complete substitution of the SNA with HTS. Nonetheless, HTS is an actor by itself, with its own agenda that only partly overlaps with the Turkish one.” They note that its more political and pragmatic approach has allowed HTS to build a façade of respectability and reliability at the same time as operating an “increasingly totalitarian regime”. Understanding what is happening is vital for the future of Syria, though the possible scenarios discussed all make grim reading for the Autonomous Administration.
The next meeting of the deputy foreign ministers of Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Iran will take place in Astana on 21 June, and Russia has announced that they have ready a draft roadmap for the normalisation of relations between Syria and Turkey.
Meanwhile, Turkey has again increased their attacks on North and East Syria in their long war of attrition. This is designed to wear down and drive away the people living in border areas, to erode support for the Administration, and to destroy the stability of the region.
On Saturday, a drone attack on a car killed three YPG fighters and wounded two others. On Monday, a drone attack on a motorbike injured three civilians, and Turkish bombardment of a Russian convoy left one Russian soldier dead and four seriously injured. On Tuesday, drones killed three Syrian regime soldiers, and bombs on a Manbij Military Council checkpoint killed one person and injured another. (The Manbij Military Council is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).) On Wednesday, Turkish drones killed six Syrian regime soldiers and wounded five more. Five members of the Manbij Military Council were killed and two were wounded when they were targeted as they tried to help two children who had been injured by artillery shells, and another Manbij soldier was killed by bombing. A civilian was killed when a drone hit their house, and bombs injured four more people. Other attacks have caused material damage, and all were accompanied by intense overflights of drones and planes. On Friday, Tel Rifaat district hospital was bombed, injuring four people including a member of the medical staff.
An end to the PKK ceasefire
Turkey has carried out intense attacks, too, on northern Iraq, where the PKK has their bases. Turkey attacked continuously even when the PKK declared a ceasefire at the time of the earthquake, and then extended the ceasefire to cover the election period. On Tuesday, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the umbrella body that includes the PKK, announced, “The AKP-MHP fascism has launched a new wave of attacks against our Movement and our people. Against this wave of fascist attacks, the need for active struggle has become inevitable. We declare that we have called off the unilateral ceasefire that we have taken as of today.” They explained that the Turkish government never stopped their attacks and that they “have nullified our decision by increasing the invasion and genocidal attacks.” As well as the attacks on the guerrilla areas, the KCK cited other attacks by Turkey in Iraqi Kurdistan (including the recent assassination – blamed on Turkey – in Sulaymaniyah), increased attacks on the people and on democratic politics in Turkey, and the continued total isolation of Abdullah Öcalan. They also castigated the mainstream Turkish opposition for failing to respond to the ceasefire.
The KCK state that their decision to continue the ceasefire through the election period “constituted a clear support for politics and the political process”. Sadly, this was not reciprocated.
Iran
Iran, too, has been building up its military. They have been increasing the militarisation of the Kurdish areas, and building up troops on the Iraqi border to threaten the Iranian Kurdish groups that have bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. The guerrillas of the Free Life Party (PJAK), the East Kurdistan party that follows Öcalan’s philosophy, reported a major operation in the border areas, involving hundreds of Iranian troops and military vehicles, and also road building equipment. This began early on Tuesday and was still continuing yesterday. The guerrillas have been under attack, and they have been attempting to resist the road construction. They claim to have suffered no casualties, but a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in the fighting.
Iran is also putting increased pressure on Iraq and on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to disarm all the Iranian Kurdish groups that have bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. There have been meetings between Iran, Iraq, and the KRG; and an Iran-Iraq agreement, signed in March, stipulates that Iraq will take control of the border area if the KRG does not act. A source from Komala – Kurdistan organisation of the Communist Party of Iran told Voice of America that the KRG plans to relocate disarmed groups in newly built camps in Sulaymaniyah and Hewlêr (Erbil). Clearly such a plan should expect to meet determined resistance.
Turkey
In Turkey, most days bring news of more detentions or arrests, especially of members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) or of the Green Left, whose banner they stood under in the election. In Şırnak, which showed strong support for the Green Left, at least 100 people have been detained since the elections. President Erdoğan is preparing the ground for the local elections, which will take place in under a year, in March 2024.
Erdoğan has made it clear that he is determined to force other countries to use their judicial systems to crack down on his enemies too. He has announced that he will continue to block Sweden’s entry into NATO, referencing the No to NATO/Rojava Solidarity Committee’s demonstration that marched through Stockholm with PKK flags. Of course, a block on NATO membership is what the demonstrators want, but the fear is that the Swedish government will allow themselves to be bullied into giving up Swedish freedom of expression, and into handing over more Kurdish refugees to spend their days in Turkish prisons. With hard-won freedoms being reigned across the globe, the protestors have a big fight on their hands.
Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist – check her website and follow her on Twitter