sábado, 20 de agosto de 2016

Geneva or Kurdish autonomy?


By Martín Romero
Traduced by Pablo Mestrovic

Changes on the ground

It is not anything new that Geneva negotiations, intended to solve the Syrian crisis, have not bore fruits. But since their last round, there have been many changes on the ground and regarding the negotiations between the parties.

Regarding the military situation, the advance of Baath’s regime forces and its allies, Russia and Iran, is remarkable. It must be remembered that these forces are not only the Syrian Arab Army and Baath affiliated local militias, but also Iraqi Shia militias and the Lebanese Hezbollah, together with important quantities of Russian and Iranian troops.

These advances have been achieved mostly against the groups affiliated with Syrian National Coalition, which are linked to Turkey and Gulf monarchies and against the “former” Al Nusra Front (now called Fatih al Sham Front, after its split from Al Qaeda), a tactical – and in some cases even ideological- ally of several of these groups.

Regime’s offensive against eastern Aleppo, under the control of said militias has closed the encirclement, has cut the only supply route, laying the siege to the eastern neighborhoods of the city. Their residents suffer the bombings of Syrian Air Force, Russian aircraft, Syrian army artillery and the mortar and rockets fire of both  pro-Assad and opposition militias.

The fighting have increased after the counter attack of the opposition, intended to break the siege, unleashing a fire storm over the city coming from all directions. The population is not only suffering the consecuences of military actions and the random shots. There is also scarcity of basic supplies, lack of basic services, food y emergency aid, so Aleppo is going through a terrible humanitarian crisis.

Regime’s operations against the self-proclaimed Islamic State have had other outcomes. The more important of them has been the frustrated offensive against Raqqah. Its start was an answer to the announcement of an operation by Syrian Democratic Forces to liberate Caliphate’s capital, which later was suspended in order to concentrate all the efforts on the liberation of Manbij. Islamic State gangs inflicted an astonishing defeat to the regime and its allies in the outskirts of al-Tabqah, through a counter attack, causing many casualties and a chaotic retreat.

On the other hand, Syrian Democratic Forces have liberated huge areas and towns in the west bank of the Euphrates, in which seemed an advance to link the canton of Efrin with the other ones. However, that advance was halted, and the efforts were focused on the siege of Manbij and its slow liberation of terrorist gang which hid inside it, using trapped civilians as human shields y set explosive devices everywhere.

Negotiations take place not only in Switzerland

A meaningful fact of the last weeks was the failed coup attempt by a part of Turkish armed forces – with which we have dealt broadly in several notes in kurdistandesdelsur.blogspot.com.ar – caused substantive changes in the relationship between the countries involved in the Syrian conflict.

Secret conversations had already taken place in Algeria between the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the one of Bashar Al Assad, which were sponsored by the Iranian government. And there are constant interviews between foreign affairs ministers of Russia and the United States, Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry, which ¿by chance? were meeting the day of Turkish military coup attempt.

Despite the counter-coup and the repression which was unleashed by Turkish government, which got stronger only in the short term, the limits and weaknesses of Erdogan regarding his ambitions, start to come to light and for that reason he is forced to make pacts with his rivals. this, to the pressure of main  world powers and the deep economic, social and political crisis which Turkey is going through, is the reason for the  rapprochement of Erdogan with Russia, Syria and Iran.

Another common factor between these two states and Turkey is the Kurdish question, which worries both of three, because their authoritarian regimes see the Kurds as a threat to their internal policies, based as they are on political repression and supression of ethnic minorities.

Now, ¿what concerns the United States and Russia regarding the Kurdish issue? There are clues, coming from statements from senior officers of both states, and actions, both diplomatic and military following them, of Kurdish autonomy breaking up the new political map designed for the future by the main powers and their plans for the region.

Kurdish autonomy, federalism and plebiscite

Following two different paths, both the administrations of Kurdistan Regional Governemt (of Iraq) and Rojava have promoted autonomy processes, not only against the will of the governments of the states occupying these regions of Kurdistan (Iraq and Syria), but also against the will of Iran’s theocratic regime, which also occupies part of Kurdistan and is allied with both.

In Rojava and Northern Syria, a Federal Administration has been declared, promoted by representative organs of all communities living in the region. A Constituent Charter has been redacted, a capital has been declared and Syrian Democratic Forces have been made the official self-defence forces.

In Bashur (Iraqi Kurdistan) the Kurdistan Regional Government, represented by president Massoud Barzani, has promoted a plebiscite to choose on the independence from Iraqi state.

That is the way as the possibility of self-determination of Kurds starts to take a more solid form, but in two different ways, because the second one is linked to clans’ interests and their businesses with neighbouring countries, and the first one to multiethnic democracy and social revolution which is being carried out in Rojava.

The negotiating parties and Geneva

Let’s sum to all this that Iran, after the 5 +1 Pact, has become the real protagonist in the Middle East, despite the ambitions of Erdogan and the successes of Turkey, taking the role of regional interlocutor and ally both of the United States and Russia. This happens as a result of the weakness of the Americans in imposing their plans in international relations, both political and commercial.

That is the reason why Russia and the United States accelerate or stop the Geneva negotiations according to what happens on the ground. The reason for the disagreement in the last round of discussions has been the inclusion (or not) of a representation in them of the Federal Administration of Rojava and Northern Syria. Up to now, both the Syrian regime and the opposition have been uncompromising on the participation of a delegation of that origin in the conversations.

It is in the same sense of definitions we make in “Kurdistan from the South”, that the issue is dealt with in an article published in Hawar News (http://en.hawarnews.com/worries-over-aleppo-and-calls-for-helping-refugees/) In that article, the co-president of the Democratic Assembly of Rojava and Northern Syria, Ilham Ahmed, talked about what happens in the negotiations’ arena, the secret pacts, and about some parties not aiding the refugees. She also talked about the humanitarian catastrophes produced by the war not being taken seriously, while the powers and the governments show the bargaining cards.

Not only them, but all the voices taking part to some extent in the negotiations, have raised against the federalist statement, differing in some points and coinciding in others. The unity of Syria was until now the main argument, alleging that the will of the peoples of Rojava and Northern Syria is “unilateral” and threatens the unity of Syria. That is the way they hide that there is a common interest uniting the Baathist regime, Syrian opposition coalition, the governments of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and also Russia and the United States.

However, Lavrov has been the one who tried to convince the other parties of the necessity of the presence of a Rojava delegation in the conversations, and this has not been totally, but also hase found support in some of the parties, including the special envoy of the UN, Staffan de Mistura, and some other US officers.


Knowing the general purposes of all the actors, everything pointed to the next negotiations in Geneva having also the purpose of crushing the revolution in Rojava and Northern Syria, limiting its horizons to the framework of imperialist plans and regional authoritarian regimes y eroding the will of freedom and self-determination of Kurdish people and other minorities which see Rojava as an example to follow. Will the next session in Geneva a new version of Laussanne treaty, as we already warned in previous articles (read http://debateskurdos.blogspot.com.ar/2016/05/ginebra-es-una-trampa-imperialista-para.html).

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