The Kurds in Syria

The kurds in syria number about 8% of the total poulation. They are found in three main areas, in Kurd Dagh, the rgged hill country in the north-west of Aleppo, in north-west Jazira (the 'island' between the Tigris and Euphhrates) around Jarablus and Ain al Arab, also against the Turkish border, and thirdly in their largest concentration in northern Jazira, around Qamishli, and in the 'back'of north-eastern Syria against the borders of Iraq and Turkey.

The inhabitants of Kurd Dagh, and some in the Jarablus area have been living there for centuries. These, and smaller groups dating back to the mediaeval military çamps'of Kurdis troops, in Damacsus and elsewhere, have virtually no longstanding relation with the Kurds of Iraq or Turkey. Although they may still speak Kurdish many are either half or wholly 'arabicized', that is, they feel they belong now to the local Arab culture.

The largest community, in north Jazira, is found of those who become permanently settled inside Syria's borders follwing the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. A relatively small number of these traditionally used northern Jazira as winter pasture, driving their livestock down from the anti-Taurus each autumn. They shared this area with Arab nomadic tribes, notably the Shammar, who also used the area during summer, when driven northwards by the heat and absence of grazing further south. The overwhelming proportion, however, were Kurds fleeing from Turkey in the years after 1920, and particularly after the collaps of Shaikh Said Piran's revolt and the subsequent risings. These settled what was a relatively uninhabited and fertile area. It is amongst these Kurds that national awareness, and tensions with the Arab majority in Syria have been most felt.

During the 1920s refugee Kurdish aghas from Anatolia continued to raid to and fro across the Syrian-Turkish border. The presence of a considerable number of Christians - mainly Assyrian and Armenian refugees from Anatolia, who hoped for relative freedom from Muslim rule in Damascus - contributed to tension, particularly since the French mandatory authorities encouraged minority separatism in Syria. The latter made a practice of recruiting minorities, including the Kurds, into their local force, les troups spéciales du Levant. They also encouraged the Kurd nationalist party, Khoybun, thus giving Arab nationalists a cause for unease. During the 1930s Kurds maintained an ambivalent attitude both toward Muslim Arab Damascus and also their Christian neighbours. Following effective Syrian independence in 1945, the tension between arabs and Kurds was initially neither conserned withe separatism, nor minority persecution. On the contrary, the first three military coups in Syria, all in 1949, were carried out by officers with part-Kurd backgrounds. All of these relied on officers of similar ethnic background. Some arabs felt such behaviour was an undesirable carry-over from Kurdish participation in les troups spéciales. Following Shishakli's fall in 1954 it is said that high-ranking Kurds were purged from the army, and cerainly by 1958 this was the union of Syria and Egypt in United Arab Republic in 1958 triggered the first round of oppressive behaviour towards the Kurds.

This was partly because of the intensity of Arabism following Nasser's triumphal first years in Egypt. It was also because some Kurdish intellectuals had founded the Kurdish Democratic Party of Syria a few month earlier. This called for recognition of the Kurds as an ethnic group, and the democratic government in Damascus, drawing attention to the lack of economic development for Kurdish areas, and also to the fact that the police and military academies were closed to Kurdish applicants. Psychologically the timing could hardly have been worse. Those caught with Kurdish gramophone records or publications, which had hitherto been tolerated, saw them seized and destroyed, and themselves put into prison. In August 1960 the authorities arrested a number of the new KDP leadership, and 5000 'suspects'. Teh question of ethnic and religious indentity has bedevilled the development of political parties in Syria. Pressure on the Kurds intensified after the collapse of the union with Eygpt in 1961. That year a census was carried out in Jazira as a result of which 120,000 Kurds were dicounted as foreigens. The following year a plan to create an 'Arab belt' 10-15km deep along the border of Jazira began to be implemented, but was changed to one of establishing model farms, staffed by Arabs. Although these plans were never fully implemented they caused enough concern and distress for up to 60,000 Kurds to leave the area for Damascus, Turkey and mainly for Lebanon, where they found work during the 1960s building boom. Like Christians in Iraq who find themselves without full citizenship those Kurds stripped of nationality still found themselves required to serve in the Syrian army.

There was no relief from perscution when the Ba'th assumed power 1963. This was partly on account of the Kurdish revolt against Baghdad, and fears of the infection spreading. The Ba'th launched an absurd publicity campaign to 'save the Jazira from becoming a secound Israel', a manifestly unconvincing slogan. Some Kurds were actually expelled, in addition to those already stripped of nationality, and the state refused to implement land reforms where the beneficiaries were Kurdish rather than Arab peasantry. There was also a sense of solidarity between the Ba'th in Baghdad and Damascus before the slit in 1966. The Syrian Ba'th had already demonstrated its distrust of Kurds. When it had merged with the Arab Socialist Party a decade ealier it had denied Kurdish peasant members of the ASP membership of the new Party. This may well have been partly because of the Hashemite Amir Abdullah's intrigues amongat the Syrian minorities, including the Kurds, in the late 1940s. It should not be thought that the Ba'th , or the Arab, were alone in such behaviour. The Kurds themselves were considerably responsible for the failure of the Syrian Communist Party to attract a wider following. It was led for many years by the remarkable Khalid Baqdash, and dominated by other Kurds. One party member commented bitterly of the 'narrow nationalist chauvinism' of the party. As for KDPS, it broke up under the hostile pressure of government Repeated arrests of its members and alleged torture had a divisive affect. Although it continued to struggle on it has never achieved a wide following, and its different factions reflect personality or localist clashes more than any ideolagical difference.

Ba'th persecution of the Kurds began to ease from 1967 onwards. In 1971 it implemented those land reforms in Kurdish areas already implemented elsewhere. However, it was not until 1976 that Persident Hafiz al Asad officially renounced the longstanding plan to transfer Kurdish and Arb populations in this sensitive area, a leftover from the 'Arab Belt'policy of a decade earlier. Arabs already moved into predominantly Kurdish areas were allowed to stay, but the programme as such was halted.
Today Syrian Kurds feel a good deal safer than in the 1960s and early 1970s. nevertheless there are still thousands of Kurds who remain stripped of citizenschip but were required to serve the armed forces.

Until the Civil War of 1975-1991 there were about 70,000 Kurds in 1975-1991 living in Lebanon. The overwhelming majority hail from Mardin in south-east Antolia. The earliest arrivals, during the French mandate, numbered about 15,000. These secured Lebanese citizenship. Since 1961 a few thousand more had residence premits which indicate that the question of citizenship is 'under study'. The mjority of Kurds, however, have no premit at all. They arrived to participate in the building boom, because they could earn more than in Syria.

Both socially and economically the Kurds in Lebanon have been a weak postion, carrying out unskilled manual labour for which they have been ill-paid, and unable to press for better condiations for fear of deportation. Since the Civil War began the Kurds have been amongst the most oppressed. They, together with other Syrian and Shiítes from south Lebanon, caught the first round of Phalangist fury in the sack of Qarantina and Naba'.some were mssacred, other fled and since then have led a twiligh existence in the beach slums of St Michel and Ouzai, south Beirut. Almost cretainly the number of Kurds has dropped by at least 10,000 and possibly by a good deal more, as Kurds have drifted back to Syria on account of the bkeak outlook in Lebanon.