Question of YPJ Integration into Syrian Army
The position of YPJ is a key stumbling block in the integration process. Publicly made suggestions of what integration should look like from the STG side insist on it becoming part of a (women’s) police force, instead of being collectively granted a place in the military which YPJ demands. On April 2nd a YPJ delegation discussed the topic in Damascus and said that the minister showed some openness and ‘flexibility’. However what this means concretely is unclear. YPJ, which just celebrated their 14th anniversary, has been a cornerstone of the Rojava revolution and is not willing to dissolve nor to integrate individually.
Tensions in Jalabiya
According to the agreements between the SDF and STG, important offices should be held by people from the areas they govern. With the appointment of a mayor by the STG, Kobane residents say this is not being applied. Officials from other regions are appointed without the promised consultation of Kobane residents. The people of the city where also violently prevented by STG security forces to express their dissent by way of a statement. This is another point of friction in the integration process. Thus, people took to the streets in protest, and were met with live fire, which they see as a breach of the January 29 agreement.
Second Larger Group of Afrin Residents Return
Another convoy of 200 people who were displaced from Afrin now returned with about 145 vehicles from Hesekeh to their homes. As part of the January 29 agreement, STG overlooked the transit.
4 Civilians Abducted from Serekaniye
Turkish military police abducted four civilians from occupied Serekaniye handing them over to Turkish secret service. Their whereabouts remain unclear.
Protests Demanding to Know About Missing People
Protests took place in Kobane and Qamishlo to demand more information about people still missing. With prisoner exchanges some detainees have returned home, while many families remain without information of their loved ones. There was also a protest in front of the UN in Geneva to demand information on the two journalists that went missing in Raqqa, now about two months ago.
First Steps for Syrian Citizenship for Stateless Kurds
Following a January 16 decree, the Syrian Interim Government set up places where ‘stateless’ Kurds can go to register, as a first step to eventual citizenship in the Syrian state. This comes after decades of systematically removing or denying citizenship for Kurds living in Syria that started in the 1960s.
Explosion in Hesekeh, Children Among Dead
An explosion in a shop in Hesekeh took the lives of six people including children. The origins and reasons for the explosions remain unclear.
Turkey Rents Out Kurdish Villages in Bakur as Training Facility to Military
Since the ‘scorched earth’ politics of 1990, Kurdish villages around Mount Sirnex had been emptied and people are prohibited from resettling or even stepping foot up to this day. Now it got known that since 2009, the Turkish state had been renting out those places to the military for 49 years. Besides the use for military training, those areas have been turned into extraction sites for timber, coal, and other raw material. Additionally, there are plans for a dam that would flood and thereby extinguish at least two villages. Among those is the village Sax which is registered a first grade archaeological site.
Monthly evaluation
On the ground in Rojava, not much has changed over March. The situation still seems fragile. The more the time goes, the more negotiations and agreements are falling short on their implementation, it becomes more clear that women liberation is the core of this revolution. It is something we already knew as it is often emphasized, but it is becoming very clear once again. As political and military lines are changing due to “integration”, it is the women’s movement that helps to remember where are the fault lines and main contradictions located. The discussions about YPJ are the most clear example of it.
For all those forces who those who try to impose their authority, the question of women’s freedom, together with the proposal of all nations coexisting together with ethnic and cultural autonomy, is still a problem. It questions their legitimacy, it poses a danger to the program of the Syrian state, as well as to the ongoing regional projects of Israel, US and Turkey. It is a reminder about the real ongoing struggles and the eventuality of renewed war. The military structures of SDF, as well as the civilian bodies of the Autonomous Administration, continue their resistance, navigating the contradictions and conflicts as they come.
One thing is sure, the Syrian civil war is not over yet: there are constant militarized attacks on minorities, there is Assadist underground insurgency, there are powerful Arab tribes who won’t accept external domination, there is Israeli intervention in the south, there are Druze who advocate for independence from Syria… And there are also entire battalions of religious fundamentalists, who after more than a decade fighting for an islamic state with al-Qaeda or ISIS, see now themselves integrated in the new Syrian army. Many of them are comfortable as they rise the ranks of state power, but others are disappointed to see the new Syrian government shaking hands with US, Russia and Israel. That is creating a perfect ground for ISIS, which is on the rise again .
Syria is far from any sort of resolution and peace, and on top of all that the new regional war, unleashed by the attacks of Israel and US against Iran, are making things even more complicated. Kurdish forces are trying to keep distance with this war, not just in Syria but also in Iran. Revolutionary forces are working to build up a political alliance with other forces opposed to the Islamic republic, mainly other Kurdish parties but not only. They are not rushing into the war, knowing from experience that war itself won’t address the political and ideological struggle that is needed for a real transformation of society.
Still, iranian drones are not only exploding on US bases, but also on critical infrastructure all around middle east. Several locations on the Kurdish regions in Iraq are suffering attacks, including kurdish revolutionary territories close to the iranian border. KRG authorities don’t have the capacity to stop iranian dornes, and even the house of Maseud Barzani has become a target for the Shahed drones.
Another sidetrack of this war is how it is serving as excuse for Turkey to stall the peace process started in Bakur. It gives them the perfect smoke cover to simply delay any steps for democratization, leaving the steps taken by the revolutionary movement made in this last year unanswered. Still, many kurds continue working tirelessly for such a peace process. In Öcalans recent message for Newroz, emphasis was put on action, on making the struggle practical. A key term coming up in this regard is the commune, thus efforts of grassroots decentralized self-organisation of society. But when it comes to the Turkish government, seems clear they prefer to wait, leaving doors open to consider what will be more beneficial for them based on the results of the war on Iran.
All this unfolding conflicts are forcing us more than ever to reflect what it means to be a revolutionary. Rojava created an example of what a stateless society can be, navigating a sea of local, regional and geopolitical conflicts with really high consequences. But nothing lasts forever and the situation is constantly changing, constantly evolving. Can we achieve victory through war as the dominant field of struggle? Perhaps the answer might not be the same everywhere. In Kurdistan, the Kurdish Liberation Movement has been fighting a war for over half a century. Currently this movement is taking steps to open their for political maneuvering, shifting away from armed struggle as the main strategy without losing their means of self-defense. Now, can this revolutionary society coexist with the Syrian state and wage this political struggle, can it stop the war? The answer to this is unfolding before our eyes, but the final result is yet to be seen.
Revolutionary greetings 🖤
(A) Report From NES
