It is an affront and paternalistic to assert that South Africans will be sympathetic to Turkey’s invasion into north-eastern Syria (Rojava), for we recognise too well the same rhetoric and attempts to justify oppression that were used by the unjust and oppressive government during apartheid.
The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne dispersed Kurds in newly demarcated areas of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. The Turkish government denied the existence of the Kurds and punished anyone who claimed ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences as a cause for self-determination. The words “Kurd” and “Kurdistan” were banned. Repression against Kurds continues in Turkey.
Turkey’s invasion - coupled with airstrikes in north-eastern Syria - across the border from Turkey saw tens of thousands of people fleeing, and this is how Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring unfolded, just days after US President Donald Trump relocated US troops from those border towns, offering Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan an open pathway to invade north-eastern Syria, territory controlled by the Syrian Kurds.
Those same Syrian Kurds were instrumental in defeating Isis in Syria and ending its territorial caliphate. Kurdish militias fought as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which lost 11 000 fighters waging war against the terrorist group.
The misnamed Operation Peace Spring invasion and attack targets Kurds and seeks to undermine their political gains in Syria. The alleged “security threat” or “terrorist threat” is a pretext to destroy the development of a pluralistic, gender-egalitarian and autonomous self-government that is functioning in Northern Syria (Rojava).
Another openly expressed aim of this invasion is to change the demographic composition of north-eastern Syria like Afrin in 2018 by displacing the Kurds and settling in the FSA militia and thousands of Syrian citizens currently living in Turkey.
The Turkish government’s reference to Article 51 of the UN Convention does not justify its invasion of Afrin. The invasion has endangered many innocent civilians. Moreover, it has a legal obligation under article (2/4) to refrain from the threat or use of force against north-eastern Syria.
Since October 9, with almost 300 civilian casualties and growing evidence of white phosphorus being used in Rojava against civilians, the Turkish government in Turkey has shut down and suspended basic rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of press, the right to assembly and peaceful protest. It banned any critical news about the war in the media.
Leave aside criticising the invasion - even calling it an “invasion” or “war” is criminalised by the government as “supporting terrorism” or “treason”.
Whatever horrors are unfolding in northern Syria, they are unlikely to match the massacres and destruction the Turkish army wreaked in 2015 and 2016 when it tried to crush the PKK in Turkey’s own Kurdish provinces.
At least 4 000 people were killed. The historic centre of Diyarbakir was gutted. The entire city of Sirnak was levelled. In Cizre, the Turkish army slaughtered 178 people who had taken shelter in the basements of three blocks of flats. Those crimes have already been largely forgotten.
During the 34 days of the Turkish state’s invasion in Afrin, 176 civilians, including 27 children and 21 women, were massacred, while 484 civilians were wounded, among them 60 children and 71 women. Afrin had not conducted a single attack against Turkey.
The invasion is neither a case of “fighting terrorism” nor of “self-defence”. It is an unprovoked attack on the Kurds and their political existence, as there has been no attack from north eastern-Syria into Turkey.
These attacks, along with the arrests of HDP MPs, reflect the increased repression by the Turkish state, which has devastated the mainly Kurdish region since the end of the peace process in 2015.
Turkey has breached the Geneva Conventions - restrictions on the behaviour of belligerent parties during the conduct of military operations.
The 4th Geneva conventions and their additional protocols also protect civilians and their properties, as well as public properties, such as schools, universities, hospitals, places of worship, bridges, farms and factories.
Turkish airstrikes against Kurdish forces have partially destroyed a 3000-year-old temple in northern Syria.
These principles are based on the distinction between military and non-military targets in Article 48 of Protocol I of 1977.
International humanitarian law has provided general and special protection for civilian objects. In flagrant disregard of international law, Turkey is targeting innocent civilians and the destruction of cultural objects.
The Turkish army also attacked the infrastructure in north-eastern Syria, including dams and factories, constituting a gross violation of international law.
Turkey’s breach of international law is not merely the opinion of solidarity groups; the Council of Europe has through the European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey more than 2 800 times since 1959.
Religious extremists who surround the current Turkish government know that Rojava does not threaten them militarily. It threatens them by providing an alternative vision of what life in the region could be.
Above all, they feel it is critical to send the message to women across the Middle East that if they rise up for their rights, let alone rise up in arms, the likely result is that they will be maimed and killed, and none of the major powers will raise an objection.
The Kurdish Human Rights Action Group (KHRAG) in South Africa calls on Turkey to immediately stop its war in north-eastern Syria.
Turkey should not try to delegitimise people’s rightful claims to self-determination by branding them terrorists, and should seek a political solution through dialogue based on dignity, human rights and not war.
* Patel is the chairperson of the Kurdish Human Rights Action Group Cape Town.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.