The PYD’s pressure upon the Kurdish people in Syria

PKK ve PYD aynı silahlı terör örgütüdür. Biri Türkiye'de diğeri ise Suriye'de yıllarca özellikle Kürtlere baskı uygulamış ve komünist düzeni inşa etmeye çalışmışlardır.

During the first years of the civil war in Syria, the first Kurdish refugees to reach Turkey from Rojava came from the Jazira canton. These brothers of ours have explicitly stated that they have fled not from the persecution of al-Assad but of the PYD. Indeed, the PYD is in cooperation with al-Assad in Syria as per Öcalan's promise of alliance with him; consequently al-Assad did not attack those regions during that period. Those who considered the turmoil in the country as an opportunity and made use of it to flee from the persecution of the PYD they've been subjected to for years took refuge in Turkey. The PYD, to the contrary of the appearance it is trying to create before the international community, is a highly dangerous communist terror organization that has established a Leninist system on the lands under its rule and is persecuting its own people, just like the PKK is.

The following words of Abu Abdullah al-Kurdi, the leader of the Syrian Kurdish Islamic Front speaking in the name of the religious Kurdish people of Rojava, the Kurdish region in Syria, are highly important; "We've been freed from the dungeons of al-Assad and stepped into the dungeons of the PYD; both are the same for us."

Indeed, in the wake of what happened in Kobane, religious Kurdish people have declared that they do not approve of the PKK through a press bulletin. The bulletin read; "Undoubtedly, Muslims have the power and might to respond to those coward gangs [the PKK] who fled from Kobane like rabbits."

As could be seen, the Kurdish people in Rojava consider the PYD taking command in the region as a scourge and want to be freed from the persecution of the PYD. It needs to be recalled once more that the same situation is also valid for Turkey and that the Kurdish people in Turkey must never be regarded the same as the PKK and that the Kurdish people in Turkey are among the targets of the PKK as well.

The 108-page report of Human Rights Watch from 2014 carries great importance in documenting the circumstances in the Syrian Kurdish region. According to this report, in which the situation in the Kobane and Jazira cantons are examined, the PYD forces ruling the region are held responsible for arbitrary arrests, the systematic violation of legal rights, as well as many unsolved murders and abductions. Although the report was prepared with a cautious and soft language, a terrifying scene appears in front of us: The problem of torture, the limitation of individual rights and freedoms, the malfunctioning of the legal system is in the foreground in almost every line.

Suriye'nin Kürt bölgesi olan Rojava'daki YPG militanları, İnsan Hakları İzleme Örgütü'nün raporunda da belgelediği şekilde kendi halklarına insanlık dışı uygulamalarda bulunmaktadırlar. Suriye'de Kürt halkı, Esad'ın saldırılarından çok önce, PYD baskısından kaçarak Türkiye'ye sığınmışlardır.

Representatives of Human Rights Watch, who met some criminals in prisons, stated that these people in prisons were there without a legal warrant of arrest; they were denied access to a lawyer and were held in detention without being brought to trial. The people detained were subjected to constant beatings in jail by the authorities. It has been understood that such arrests are generally based only on slanders and the confessions by the detainees were made under duress. Almost every opposing voice is being silenced. There are a lot of suspicious casualty cases during custody.  

The report stated that children are being given weapons and used as militants and that anti-PYD riots invariably been forcefully and bloodily suppressed. Along with those, scores of other violations of human rights were listed in the report. This report also emphasizes that the PYD is a direct part of the PKK terror organization in Turkey and it states that this organization has been carrying out arbitrary punishment with its own legal courts, prisons and police forces established in the region since 2012, after the Syrian government withdrew due to civil conflict. The report also states that these arbitrary treatments are “worrisome”.

According to a Human Rights Watch report, children in Rojava are given guns and used as militants. Since this policy of forced enrolment of children as soldiers is still continuing, our Kurdish brothers in the region are constantly fleeing to Turkey to escape repression by the PYD. The child militant on the left is wearing a YPJ armband, representing the YPG Women’s Defense Units.

Certain Western media groups, which ignored the warnings of Turkey following the Kobane attacks, felt compelled to change their tune as they learned more about the region. Jamie Dettmer of the Daily Beast described the Kurdish regional administration in Syria as despoticand noted how some people that wished to return home weren’t allowed to do so by the PYD. He quoted a Kurdish retiree named Ali: “The fighters [YPG] do what they like and no one can say anything to them—if they order you to do something or not to do something, you can’t say no or argue that it isn’t right.” According to statements by the locals Dettmer talked to, many of the people who wanted to go back to Kobane after the siege were not allowed to do so; YPG militants had already seized their properties, effectively forcing them to migrate.

He explains the despotic atmosphere in the same article as follows:

“Kobani Kurds are careful with public criticism of the PYD, fearing retaliation. None who are critical agree to their family names being published. The party [PYD] can make life very difficult for dissenters.”

The same article mentions the difference between the perspective of certain circles in the West and what Dettmer saw there, and provides evidence that shows Kobane is, in fact, under the control of the PKK:

“Many of the fighters in Kobani weren’t Syrian Kurds but members of the PKK, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union... The commanders calling the shots now in Kobani are not the local municipal leaders trotted out for Western media interviews to highlight the role of women fighters during the siege. They are instead what locals call Qandil Kurds, a reference to the PKK’s mountain-range sanctuary in northern Iraq that extends 30 kilometers into Turkey and contains the separatist movement’s military training camps.”

One YPG militant who wished to remain anonymous admitted this point with the following words:

“Five of the top commanders during the siege were from Kobani and 15 were Qandil commanders.”

After making all these observations, Dettmer seems convinced that Turkey had been right all along in its decision to place its tanks along the border.

As in the case of Kobane, the PYD wanted the coalition forces to target neighboring Turkmen and Arabic regions such as Tal Abyad using ISIL as an excuse, so that the PYD could seize Turkmen regions along the Turkish border and achieve a solidified border line. All the while, the USA and other coalition forces blatantly helped the PKK under the pretense of fighting ISIL. The locals that escaped the region to seek refuge in Turkey, however, clearly expressed that they weren’t running from ISIL but from the violence of the YPG. If the USA and other coalition forces cannot see or choose to ignore this fact, it will lead to very serious and dangerous outcomes.

Some Western journalists not believing the speculations from abroad and closely observing the YPG persecution in Kobane admitted that Turkey was justified for deploying Turkish tanks to the border during the occupation.

In the light of all these issues, it is important to correctly analyze the situation in which Kurdish people of the region have been seeking refuge in Turkey since 2011 to rid themselves from the tyranny of the PYD. The persecuted people of the region have been trying to escape from the domination of this Leninist terrorist group for a long time. The fact that they choose Turkey, where they know they will be safe, should tell the Western world a lot, which twists the situation or fails to understand it properly. Turkey has always welcomed with joy and honor all that took shelter in its lands and embraced our Kurdish brothers and sisters in the finest manner and made sure that they were safe. Our Kurdish brothers and sisters who came to Turkey from Kobane started hugging Turkish soldiers who were there to help them as soon as they passed the border and expressed their happiness at being safe and on friendly soil. It is clear that they saw Turkish soldiers as their own friends, relatives and even as their own sons.

Turkey took care not only of all asylum-seekers that sought shelter from it with honor, but also the Kurdish people who came to Turkey after Kobane invasion with the same love and honor. Kurds who crossed our borders hugged Turkish soldiers with great joy and enjoyed arriving to secure lands. Syrian Kurds should know that we will always look out for them.

Turkey is now caring for more than two million refugees that came from Syria. Most of the refugees have resettled in 22 different camps in addition to another refugee camp built especially for our Kurdish brothers and sisters from Kobane, which is the largest refugee camp ever built in the world. This refugee camp in Suruç with a capacity to accommodate 35,000 people has its own school, hospital and 100 laundry and recreation areas. It also has its own water network, which is able to meet the needs of both the residents of the camp and the agricultural lands around it. A massive organization was carried out to meet all the needs of our Kurdish brothers and sisters in the camps from health-care, to education, recreation and employment opportunities. This camp was praised on numerous occasions by the UN, Western politicians, human rights representatives, and the media.

One of the world's largest refugee camp was established within a very short time in Suruç county for our Kurdish brothers and sisters who fled from Kobane and took shelter in our country. All kinds of comfort facilities for our brothers and sisters have been considered.