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Iraq: Minorities

My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has asked this Question as I too have become aware of the dangerous situation facing the Iraqi Assyrians. He has described their ancient lineage and some of their long and often tragic history. They backed the allies during the First World War and helped the UK greatly during the protectorate period in Iraq in the 1920s which made them very unpopular with some Iraqis and Kurds. In return we promised them an autonomous homeland when we left, but it never materialised. Since the first Gulf War they have been oppressed both by the Kurds of north Iraq and by fundamentalist Islamists in the south. That has escalated since the second Gulf war, as the noble Lord pointed out. I also have the list of atrocities committed against the Assyrians that he described to us. There has been relentless pressure by Kurds on Assyrians in the Nineveh plains near Mosul—their traditional homeland—to move out. A block has been imposed on Assyrians returning to their homes and land from which they were evicted by Saddam. Crimes against Assyrian people in KDP-controlled northern Iraq have not been investigated. There appears to be a climate of impunity. It seems that the Kurds, themselves victims of oppression, are now oppressing the indigenous minority in their midst. Unfortunately that appears to be a common human trait, both within families and with tribes and nations. As an example of what is happening I want to quote from a Jubilee campaign paper, published on 3 February. It says: "KDP deprives Iraqi Christians of right to vote. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) . . . has prevented voting by Chaldo Assyrian Christians of the Nineveh Plains . . . during elections for the Iraqi National Assembly on January 30. The KDP effectively blocked the delivery of ballot boxes to at least six major Chaldo Assyrian towns and villages in the Nineveh Plains around Mosul. . . . The resulting unavailability of ballot boxes prevented up to 100,000 Chaldo Assyrian voters from casting their votes and affected tens of thousands of Yesidis, Shabak, and Turkman voters". I suggest that there are two main ways in which the UK could honour its historical debt to the Assyrian people: first, through helping to ensure that the new draft Iraqi constitution, due to be agreed in about five weeks, contains specific provisions that ensure that the Assyrians are recognised as a national minority with a right to representation and the right to live peacefully in the land of their ancestors. That should include the right to return to their land and homes from which they have been illegally evicted. I understand that on this very day the European Parliament is requesting its representative in Iraq to make just such a recommendation. Perhaps my noble friend can outline the role that the UK would play during its presidency of the EU to back up that request. The second way is through our contacts in Iraq with the United States, the senior coalition partner, responsible for the Kurdish areas of Iraq, asking them to put pressure on the Kurds, especially the KDP, to respect the rights of indigenous minorities to the peaceful occupation of their rightful land and property. Many Assyrians feel that they are so vulnerable in the present state of Iraq, that they should be granted a semi-autonomous region, as described by the noble Lord, in the Nineveh plains, where they can administer the law and provide education in their own Syriac language. That is near to what we offered them in the 1920s but did not grant before we left Iraq. It would be wrong to pretend that Assyrians are the only people in Iraq who are suffering; far from it, as anyone who pays attention to the media knows. There is, however, a case to be made that we owe the Assyrians a special historical debt of gratitude and that there are some possible lines of action, as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and I have indicated. As a footnote, I would like to point out that it is of importance to some Assyrians that the term "Chaldo-Assyrian" may be confusing since it implies that it only includes the Chaldean-Assyrians, who are Catholics. Using the single word "Assyrian" in any official document would be more clearly inclusive of both the Catholic and Orthodox branches of Assyrian Christianity.