The devastating earthquake which has killed over 20,000 people across southern Turkey and northern Syria will serve as an opportunity for Turkey to entrench its occupation in majority-Kurdish regions and profit from reconstruction efforts not intended to shelter the local population, a leading regional economist has said.
Cheleng Omar is a leading economist from Kurdish-led North and East Syria, and former resident of Afrin and professor at Afrin University, himself driven from the region by the ongoing Turkish occupation. He spoke to Medya News to discuss the way construction in Turkish-occupied Syria has served the Turkish political agenda rather than local interests, and the failure of Turkish-linked NGOs and institutions to protect the local population.
Turkish-occupied Jinderes has suffered major destruction in the earthquake
How are the construction and service industries organised in Turkish-occupied north-west Syria?
From the time of the Turkish occupation, Turkey has made itself and its local proxies responsiblefor administering the region. There are local councils nominally controlled by the ETILAF opposition government. In reality, all decisions are made by Turkey and its ‘walis’ (local governors), and Turkey manipulates ETILAF as a tool to further its own agenda.
Now we turn to the construction industry in Afrin. Turkey has not put many services in place in the region – only those building projects which serve to further the agenda of Turkey’s occupation and demographic change. As an example, we can take Turkey’s construction of settlements. These are being funded by Islamist organisations, alongside private sector companies which conduct this work on the ground. In the settlements, this is transparent, but in many other places, Turkish companies find Syrian partners to carry out this work for them.
Among these Islamist organisations working under humanitarian guise in the region are many Turkish NGOs, for example the IHH and the AFAD. These organisations are involved in the construction of settlements, providing both financial and practical support. These so-called humanitarian organisations operate alongside private companies linked to the (Turkish-backed) militias in the Syrian National Army and the walis: also (Turkish religious organisation) Diyanet, building religious schools and Islamist mosques and educational institutes. These companies, whether private companies or NGOs, run the construction industry in Afrin.
Moreover, we see they have rebuilt bridges over the Afrin river, and the road between Hammam and Jinderes, along with other projects – they have built a mosque in every village. But they have only created that road to facilitate the expropriation of the region’s olive oil, while the bridge I mentioned was built to link the occupied regions, not to help the local people.
Turkey has failed to rebuild infrastructure in Afrin following its invasion and occupation of the region
Who has profited from Turkish construction in the region following its occupation?
This is all the work of Turkish companies, and local councils which only further Turkey’s agenda. Alongside this, there are some private companies controlled by people linked to the armed groups and their partners. The Turkish parent companies don’t expose themselves to legal interrogation and so forth. Moreover, some NGOs which are Islamist in nature and also linked to these armed groups are also active. They are working with two goals – to entrench the Turkish occupation, and further the demographic change in the region.
Another point I want to stress: these construction companies have also been active in building walls, between Shehba and Afrin, and building military bases. Their aim is to cut Afrin off from the remainder of Syria. This is the work of companies directly connected to the Turkish Armed Forces.
All they do is construct settlements, military bases, mosques and religious schools to foster an Islamist mentality. Apart from this, they have not engaged in any major projects like the construction of schools or hospitals.
Are these Turkish-linked institutions working to aid locals following the earthquake?
Following the earthquake, these groups are playing no active role whatsoever on the ground. None of the Islamist civil organisations have taken a single step, nor the native councils, nor the armed groups. None have participated in the emergency relief efforts. This makes it clear that their only role is to serve Turkish interests, not the region.
In the recent earthquake, we saw that despite all the aforementioned support for construction work in north-west Syria, there have been no clear or active effortsto clear the debris. Their bulldozers, diggers and heavy equipment have not participated in these efforts.
Turkish-backed militias stand accused of lining their own pockets rather than helping local residents
How does this fit into Turkey’s broader economic and military-industrial policy?
Within Turkey and northern Kurdistan (Bakur), the AKP government has actively conducted war against Sur, Amed and many other regions, destroying Kurdish cities so that, firstly, companies connected to their parties can profit; and secondly, to engagein demographic engineering. This occurs throughout Turkish-occupied regions, not only in Afrin, as Turkey attempts to create a ‘Turkmen belt’ – a policy Turkey has been implementing in the occupied regions for over five years.
The fear is that, following the major destruction wrought particularly in the Jinderes district and surrounding villages, there will be no reconstruction efforts on behalf of the genuine local residents and those Kurds still remaining in the area. More likely, they will be seized, and settlements erected there, with the aim of installing Arabs and Turkmens from outside of the region, with the aim of further entrenching the demographic engineering of the region, and returning and installing Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey. Property will be seized from those Kurds who remained in the region, leaving them trapped.
Turkey will attempt to profit from this earthquake and the subsequent humanitarian efforts, as will their tools in this process, those private companies which are Syrian in name only, but in reality, mere partners of Turkish companies.
