Iraq’s Embattled Christians (19/03/2003)

Dominated at various times by the Persians, Mongols, Turks, Kurds, and Arabs, the Assyrian Christians (also known as the Chaldeans) “are in an extremely precarious situation,” continues the report. “Unlike the Kurds of northern Iraq, who receive UN aid, and unlike the Turkoman minority, who are supported by Turkey, the Assyrians have received no outside support.”

And there is reason to believe that the Assyrians’ lot will not improve after Iraq’s “liberation.” The U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress describes its goal as “a free Iraq on all Arab territory.” “This comment, which specifically omits mention of the Kurdish territory, hints that the welfare of Iraq’s Assyrian Christians will once again be placed in jeopardy,” states the Times. “In the absence of international assurances of independence, they could once again be at the mercy of Muslim Kurds, who have slaughtered them in the past.”

Writing in the March issue of Chronicles, Wayne Allensworth points out that the largest population of Assyrian Christians lives in Mosul, a Kurdish-dominated UN “Safe Haven.” “According to Iraqi Christian sources, Kurdish paramilitary forces have conducted a terror campaign against Christians living in the Safe Haven, which has included assassinations of Christian leaders and expropriations of land held by Christians,” Allensworth writes. “This campaign has been largely ignored by Western media, the United Nations, Washington, and the U.S.-based Iraqi National Congress, which portrays itself as the defender of democratic values and Iraq’s minorities.”