US SPONSORED WAR CRIMES IN IRAQ: YAZIDIS, THE PEOPLE OF THE PEACOCK ANGEL
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by Felicity Arbuthnot
Center for Research on Globalization
UN Observer
Aug 31 2007
Canada
"The earth’s trees have become tears of heaven’s cheeks…. The flower
that tempted the wind to carry its perfume, died yesterday."
When the Mongol hordes invaded what is now Iraq, Gengis Khan is:
" …said to have declared: ‘all cities must be razed, so that the
world may once again become a great steppe, in which Mongol mothers
will suckle free and happy children.’"
This was the twelfth century "war on terror" and it is not delusional
to witness what has happened to Iraq since March 2003: the destruction
of an entire civil society, history, records, education, health, life,
to draw the parallels. "We fight them over there, so we don’t have to
fight them over here" is the Capitol Hill mantra, regarding a society
with no weapons of mass destruction, unable even to board a ‘plane
from Iraq, during the thirteen year pre-invasion embargo. A people,
the majority of which, just prayed their baby would be born whole
and healthy and survive to adulthood, in a country where medicines,
surgical equipment and therapeutic aids were vetoed by the US and UK –
and where hyper-inflation was such that many families ate in rotation,
one giving up food for a day, so the others would have a little more.
A thousand years before the Mongol invasion, the region had developed a
"sophisticated civilisation" with "innovations in literature, science,
art and civil engineering … gardens, irrigation systems, libraries;
ornate palaces flourished. With the Mongol onslaught, all were
‘comprehensively looted’, the region depopulated. Men, women and
children were butchered, not alone by the Mongols, but by willing
and unwilling collaborators they brought with them: ‘..whole cities
lay in ruins.’ Those not slaughtered fled a reign of terror, where
culture and creativity had previously dominated." How history repeats.
The latest slaughter for whom the occupiers are responsible (as
occupying forces, all be it illegally, the American and British
forces are responsible for the safety of and provision of essential
services to the population) is that of at least five hundred Yazidis,
in the north west Sinjar region, on 14th August. Four truck bombs left
three settlements "looking as if a nuclear explosion" had occurred. At
least fifteen hundred are estimated to have been injured, according
to Dr Said Hakki of the Iraqi Red Crescent – and history has again
repeated itself.
Previous attacks against the Yazidis were under another ruthless
invasion, that of the Ottomans, when they were subjected to twenty
major massacres, between 1640 and 1910. "Liberated" Iraq, whose,
health services, education and infrastructure, until the embargo, were
the envy of the region and where safety was pretty well guaranteed –
the absolute exception being if opposition politics were indulged in –
has, at every level, been returned by America and Britain’s hordes,
backwards to Mesopotamian history’s darkest eras.
Washington’s knee jerk reaction to the Yazidi bloodbath was, of course,
to blame "Al Qaeda", then to state that: "Extremists continue to show
to what lengths they will go to stop Iraq from becoming a stable and
secure country." Then, of course, that they would "track down those
responsible". Is there intelligent life anywhere by the Potomac? They
were "suicide bombers". Thus dead.
It would be interesting, to know though, how the US army knew within
minutes that "two tons of explosives" were involved.
Indisputable is that truck bombs, car bombs, suicide bombers,
beheadings, kidnappings, the daily toll of bodies found bound and
terribly tortured and dumped in the great biblical rivers, in streets,
the Sunni-Shia "divide", all came in with the US-UK invasion and the
murderous militias they brought with them.
Why the gentle, pastoral Yazidis? This ancient sect, whose beliefs are
drawn from Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Mandeanism,
of whom there are believed to be only 750,000 worldwide, have their
largest population in the Sinjar highlands in Iraq’s northern Nineveh
Province, a little west of Mosul and the remains of the equally
ancient town Tel Afar, decimated, Falluja-like, in a pre "surge"
"pacification".
This previously religiously and ethnically mixed region is a
microcosm of pre-invasion Iraq, known for its welcome and peaceful
co-existence. The prophet Jonah is believed buried in the great Mosque
which overlooks Mosul, whilst Saint Matthew is believed buried in
the Christian Monastery, on the top of Mount Maqloub, nearby. Both
were places of pilgrimage and wonder, for Muslim and Christian alike.
The place of pilgrimage for Yazidis worldwide, in late August, is
the shrine at Lalish, nearby, of Sheikh Adi (died 1162) believed to
be the reincarnation of their deity Malak Ta’us: The Peacock Angel. "
The Yazidis have throughout history, been often wrongly interpreted as
"Devil worshippers. Their belief in fact should be a lesson to all:
no soul is beyond hope. Malak Ta’us WAS the Devil, who REPENTED.
After he fell from grace, he filled seven urns of tears, over seven
thousand years, tears that were used to extinguish the fires of hell;
thus, this great grief in repentance, the Yazidis believe, erased the
concept of hell, and embraced belief that all humanity is redeemable.
Malak Ta’us became the Peacock Angel.
God is revered by Yazidis as the Creator of all and having achieved
this wondrous task, is no longer an active force. He entrusted the
world to seven angels, of whom the archangel was the redeemed Malak
Ta’us.
Yazidis believe that good and evil both exist in the mind and spirit
of human beings. It depends on the humans, themselves, as to which
they choose. Thus, their devotion to Malek Ta’us is integral, since
it was he who was given the same choice between good and evil by God,
and ultimately, searingly, repented and chose the good.
Malek Ta’us has been described as: "a sort of fire wall between an
imperfect world and the perfection of the Supreme Being". (Isya Joseph,
Sacred Books and Traditions of the Yazidis, 1919.) Yazidis believe that
periodically their seven holy beings are reincarnated in human form,
as Sheikh Adi, so love your neighbour; you never know who he may be.
Mohammed is regarded as a Prophet but Jesus Christ too, was an angel
in human form. Yazidis are born into and marry within their sect and
there is no converting, in or out. Other beliefs are that the first
Yazidi was born of Adam alone and that there was a great flood, long
before Noah and his ark. Yazidis, as Samaritans and/or Druze are
"a little island of diversity in a world increasingly homogenised
by globalisation".
The annual August, six day pilgrimage is a joyous religious festival
involving music, dancing, special dishes, decoration of eggs, bathing
in the rivers below their villages and the hanging of hundreds of oil
lamps around the tomb of Sheikh Adi and those of the other Saints –
seven in all. Prayers are made twice a day, facing the sun. Earth,
air, fire and water are so sacred that spitting on or in to them is
taboo. Also taboo is the eating of pork, fish, cockerel, gazelle,
cauliflower, lettuce, pumpkin and the wearing of blue, the latter
possibly because the Peacock Angel is depicted in vibrant blue,
so to wear his colours could be sacrilegious.
August, according to a report on the US Department of Defence
website (27th July) was also the month, that, according to Colonel
Stephen Twitty, US troops were planning to virtually hand over the
administration of the region to the Iraqis, so relatively safe had it
become. Twitty, Commander of the 1st Calvary Division’s 4th Brigade
commended the "very mature provincial government’"; the handover
would be based on the "security situation". Such a handover would
also include the vast Kirkuk oil field, the region’s abundant natural
gas – and uranium deposits. US ceding of power now, is clearly out
of the question. Further, when the British leave Basra, as they seem
set to do, the American forces are set to move in to "protect supply
routes". Since there are nearly two hundred thousand private security
personnel in Iraq who could do that, it has to be wondered whether
it is to protect the Basra oil terminal and the other vast oilfield,
Rumailah, for Uncle Sam (or Uncle George and his pals.) When the
US army invaded, they named their forward operating bases after
oil companies.
A question which arises, however, is how many "suicide bombings" are
"false flag" operations? In Afghanistan, in ten years of war with the
Soviet Union, they were unheard of, as in Iraq’s previous invasion by
the British. For anyone who cares to look, there are many reports of
Iraqis being stopped at check points, being told to take documents
to police or army station, coming out to find their vehicle driving
differently and on investigation finding an explosive device in it.
How many simply drove on …?
A recent incident was recounted by an Iraqi, working with the US, who
was sent on a mission. He could not find the address and when there
was no signal on his phone, he left his car and crossed the street,
hoping for better reception. As he stopped to dial, his car exploded.
And here is the report of the Basra incident of September 2005: "Today
in Basra, Southern Iraq, two members of the British SAS (Special Ops)
were caught, ‘in flagrante’ as it were, dressed in full ‘Arab garb’,
driving a car full of explosives and shooting and killing two official
Iraqi policemen." The British army demolished a police station in
order to release them. Strange way of conducting the "war on terror"
when the terrorists had been rightly arrested.
And don’t forget the destruction just over the border from Basra,
in Iran, of which the Iranian government spokesman said: "This bomb
had a British accent."
Kayla Williams records her time as an "intelligence officer" in
northern Iraq, with the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division between
2003 and 2004 in the Yazidis region. She reports that the Yazidis
were considered "devil worshippers" by local Muslims, but in spite
of visiting them, learned little of their religion; she thought it
was ancient and concerned with angels. She described a temple as:
"a small rock building with objects dangling from the ceiling", thus
seemingly did not ask what they represented. No doubt she reported
the locals’ feelings back at the mess table at base.
Here’s hoping they did not have the same kind of religious fervour as
those who prayed before the decimation of Fallujah when told by their
chaplain that the Devil lived there and they were going to find him.
Between "Crusades", God and oil, strange things happen. The locals,
of course, had coexisted with their neighbours since the Ottomans
left. The Yazidi survivors from the attack were treated in their
hospitals. Coincidentally in 1993 the New York Times headed an
article on the Yazidis: "The Sect May be Dying, but Satan is still
alive and well".
Meanwhile, the traumatised Yazidis are reported by doctors as removing
their relatives from hospitals, so frightened are they that they
will be even less safe in larger towns. Three hundred "badly broken"
relatives were removed from Sinjar hospital, according to one doctor.
There will be no joyful pilgrimage celebrations this August. Whole
families were wiped out in the attacks. One man, Abu Saeed, said he
had lost fifty one members of his immediate and extended family.
Ironically, during the 1915-1916 Ottoman (Turkish) massacre in
Anatolia, of the mainly Christian Armenians, the Yazedis courageously
sheltered many, risking and losing their lives in the Ottoman occupied
Iraq. Now, they, like almost every Iraqi, feel they have no place
to hide. Ironically under Saddam, as with all religions, they were
donated money for restoration and refurbishment of their religious
buildings, the government even donated for an entire new temple. It
is the "New Iraq" which has brought terror to their doors.
Freya Stark (Baghdad Sketches, 1937) describes a region I found
entirely unchanged: "…the valley (at festival time) filled all night
with moving lights among the trees … we walked down in the mountain
solitude, peopled only with the sound of water and the voices of
the birds .. we looked across to the hills of Bavian, mauve and blue
.. and all over it lay sunlight, shining impartially on all temples
of mankind."
An abiding memory of the Yazidis is standing on the flat roof of
one of their temples, its great obelisk in the centre, reaching
heavenward. "Look behind you, Madam", said the priest. I turned and
just across the narrow sun dappled street, in the small hamlet,
was a Catholic church, next to a mosque – and just visible round
the corner, a synagogue. Could peaceful co-existence ever be more
evocatively illustrated?
The last fifty three blood soaked months in Iraq are squarely the
responsibility of the American and British forces and their dwindling
allies, or is that responsibility something even more sinister?