BRITAIN’S HOUSE OF LORDS DISCUSSES ASSYRIAN CASE
Assyrian International News Agency
Nov 21 2006
(AINA) — The following was raised by the Earl of Sandwich during a
debate that convened at the House of Lords yesterday, 20th November
2006:
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, the words unusually missing from
this gracious Speech are "poverty reduction" and "international
development". However, I realise that much humanitarian work is hidden
behind foreign policy and anti-terrorism, especially in conflict
countries. What has happened to poverty reduction in Iraq?
Is DfID still using that terminology, or is it impossible under
these dangerous conditions to target the poorest and the victims
of injustice?
One group that I commend tonight, both in Iraq and the Middle East
as a whole, is the Christian community, which is declining in number
across the whole region. I hesitate to single out Christians, who
often enjoy social and economic advantages which may be resented,
not least because of their connections abroad. Nevertheless, for
whatever reason, the churches in Iraq have unfairly become the
focus of much discrimination, and even hatred, since 2003, and many
Christian families are now reduced to acute material and spiritual
poverty. The plight of the Assyrian Christians and other minorities
has already been discussed. My noble and right reverend friend Lord
Carey has also represented them, and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton,
made a strong case for them in July last year.
The Assyrians, or Nestorians, are the descendants of the people of
Babylon and Nineveh. They were one of the earliest Christian sects.
By the 9th century they had become a worldwide church extending as
far as China and south India. For 12 centuries they lived mainly in
harmony with Muslim Arabs in what we now call Kurdistan, but when
missionaries arrived in northern Iraq, the Assyrians began to be
persecuted. Hundreds of thousands were victims during the terrible
Armenian massacre. Britain defended them against the Turks after
1917, when Assyrian soldiers became trusted allies up to and after
Iraq’s independence in 1932. But at that time, thousands more, seen
as collaborating with us, were killed by the Iraqi army.
Historically, therefore, we are in their debt.
It is hard to estimate the total number of Assyrians now, since so many
have fled from Iraq to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the US, Australia and
this country. Incidentally, the Home Office tried to send some of them
back to Iraq on the absurd grounds that they were quite safe in the
north. There are at least 600,000 to 700,000 left, and they and other
related minorities such as the Chaldeans, the Syrian Orthodox Church,
Catholics, Copts, Armenians and others, deserve much more attention
and, above all, better protection from the Iraqi Government. That,
of course, also means our Government. Thousands were oppressed and
displaced along with the Kurds under Saddam Hussein’s Arabisation
policy, and the Commission for Resolution of Real Property Disputes
is genuinely trying to help them to recover their homes and property,
taken up to April 2003.
Under Iraq’s new human rights legislation, Christians in theory
qualify for protection, but they are obviously not getting it from
the police, the army or the occupying forces. They have no militia to
protect them, like the larger Shia and Sunni factions. Many Christian
communities have been directly targeted. In the past three years, 30
churches and schools have been bombed in Baghdad and northern Iraq,
and small businesses are constantly attacked.
Some of those attacks have been in so-called retaliation for the
Danish cartoons or the Pope’s ill-judged lecture on Islam, for selling
liquor, as they have done for centuries, or, in the case of women,
for not wearing the veil. But in communities already fragmented by
near civil war, the problem runs much deeper than that.
Christian families live in daily fear of death threats. Last month
an abducted priest from the Syriac Orthodox Church, Father Boulos
Iskander, was found in Mosul, beheaded and dismembered soon after his
family had already paid a ransom of $40,000. His kidnappers used the
excuse of the Pope’s remarks the previous month. Several young women
have been killed after threats about the veil. A 14 year-old Christian
Assyrian boy called Ayad Tariq in Baquba was also beheaded last month,
according to the Assyrian news agency.
Not surprisingly, many Christians have left Iraq, among the hundreds
of thousands of refugees. Asylum seekers arriving in OECD countries
doubled during the first six months of this year, and more than 8,000
Iraqis applied to EU countries during that perioda higher figure than
from any other region. The UN estimates that a further 425,000 Iraqis
are displaced inside the country. Among them are urban professionals,
doctors, teachers and technicians, many of them Christians. As one
noble Lord has said, those who are most useful to Iraq in its present
situation have been directly targeted by extremists.
One Christian refugee who personifies the brave and almost hopeless
struggle of minorities isDr Donny George, the former director of the
National Museum in Baghdad, who helped to recover the treasures that
were looted after the US invasion. Having come under increasing
pressure from Shiites and Islamists, he resigned in August as
president of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage. He even had
to close the museum and seal it in concrete to save it. Like other
archaeologists, Dr George has left the country and has moved with
his family to Damascus.
Money to pay the salaries of the special police force that valiantly
defends Iraq’s famous archaeological sites is running out. Again,
we see a vicious minority of extremists determined to destroy their
own culture, coupled with the apparent inability of the coalition
and the Government to help. What can our Government do now to break
this deadlock?
Are the minorities receiving their fair share of the billions of
dollars pledged in Madrid? My noble friend Lord St John raised this
question. During last year’s debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall,
told my noble friend Lady Northover:
"The Iraqi transitional Government … have massive international
support: $32 billion was pledged in Madrid … it is of course
up to the Iraqi Government to co-ordinate with the Kurdish
regional government to afford an equitable redistribution of
resources".[Official Report, 6/7/05; col. 716.]
Two noble Lords who visited Iraq have told us that this is not
happening. Dr Kim Howells said:
"The Iraqi Constitution contains provisions which guarantee democratic
principles, rights and freedoms of all individuals, including the
freedom of worship. We continue to encourage the Iraqi government
to ensure these are protected".[Official Report, Commons, 26/10/06;
col. 2072W.]
What does this "protection" mean in practice? What has happened to the
resettlement programme in the Nineveh plain? Do the Kurdish Regional
Government respect the constitution when they register householders to
prevent terrorist infiltration or are they favouring the Kurds in this
process? This issue came up in the Australian Federal Parliament on 29
May, when Chris Bowen MP asked his Government to support a protected
administrative region for the Assyrians. I do not go as far as my
noble friend in suggesting that the Assyrians should have regional
autonomy, as their own democratic movement proposes. I think that that
is difficult to contemplate at a time when, as we have heard, Kurdish
independence may again be on the cards as a result of a failed Iraqi
state. There is a lot of historic suspicion on the Assyrian websites,
but there is a lot of sense in supporting a protected homeland or
some kind of administrative region for the Assyrians.
The persecution of Christians by Muslims is neither new nor unique.
It is mainly a story of exile that is being told in Iran, Pakistan,
Egypt, Palestine and all over the Middle East. I accept that it is
in part an unforeseen consequence of our own mistaken policies but
that does not excuse us, and so long as we have influence in Iraq we
have the opportunity of ending it.
I will end by urging the Government to return to their position
in 2002it was advocated again tonight by several noble Lordswhen
a large number of states, including Iran, as the noble Lord, Lord
Lamont, pointed out, united in a coalition against terrorism. I will
briefly quote from the late Robin Cook’s resignation speech in March
2003. He said:
"Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition
against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever
have imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic
miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that
powerful coalition. The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is
not a superpower. Our interests are best protected not by unilateral
action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by
rules".[Official Report, Commons, 17/3/03; col. 726.]
The following was the response on behalf of Her Majesty’s government
by The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth
Office (Lord Triesman):
On the point of the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, about the Assyrian
and other Christian minorities, we are working hard for the interests
of the Christian minorities in Iraq. We support all minority groups
in Iraq and, where we can, we play a role in facilitating their
participation in society and in the Government. I can confirm that
we are also supporting at a very considerable level, through DfID,
the spending on the reconstruction of the country. We have pledged
a total of £544 million on that goal.
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