Demonstrators in front of the White House call for greater U.S. intervention against ISIS to save Iraqi minorities, including Yazidi and Christians, from genocide. Credit: Robert Lyle Bolton/cc by 2.0

By Mark Lattimer and Mahmoud Swed
LONDON, Oct 18 2014 (IPS)

Through all of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s campaigns of ‘Arabization’, they survived. The diverse Iraqi communities inhabiting the Nineveh plains – Yezidis, Turkmen, Assyrians and Shabak, as well as Kurds – held on to their unique identities and most of their historic lands.

So too they survived the decade of threats, bombings and killings that followed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, remaining on lands that in some cases they have settled for over 4,000 years.Responsibility for many of these attacks falls to ISIS or its predecessors, but regular killings have also been carried out by other militia groups, and by members of the Iraqi Security Forces.

But in less than three months this summer, much of the Nineveh plain was emptied of its minority communities.

The advance by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) was marked by a series of atrocities, some of them recorded and posted on the internet by ISIS itself, which have outraged the international community.

Now the first comprehensive report on the situation of Iraq’s minorities, released Thursday by Minority Rights Group (MRG) International and the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights, documents the full extent of violations committed against all of Iraq’s minority communities and reveals ISIS as an organisation motivated by the logic of extermination.

Minorities have been principal targets in a systematic campaign of torture, killings, sexual violence, and enslavement carried out by ISIS.

It should be stressed that nearly all of Iraq’s communities have suffered at the hands of ISIS, including Shi’a and Sunni Arabs, but the varying religious and social status attributed by ISIS ideologues to different peoples – as well as the value of the lands they inhabit – have made some communities much more vulnerable, with the nature of abuse often being determined by the particular ethno-religious background of the victims.

Under the pretence of a religious edict, for example, ISIS confiscated Christian-owned property in Mosul and enforced an ultimatum on the community to pay jizya tax.

Yezidis have repeatedly been denied even a right of existence by ISIS, and some other extremist groups, on the erroneous grounds that they are ‘devil-worshippers’.

The report delineates a pattern of targeting of Yezidis and their property, now overshadowed by the latest wave of violence that has cost the lives of at least hundreds and the kidnapping of up to 2500 men, women and children since August.

Captured Yezidi men have been forced to choose between conversion or death, whilst Yezidi women and children have been sold to slavery and subjected to sexual abuse.

But it would be a mistake to imagine that the violations suffered by Iraqi minorities date from a few months ago – or to believe that ISIS was the only perpetrator.

Since 2003, Christians have been the target of bombings, assassinations and kidnappings, with groups often targeting property and places of worship. Most of Iraq’s Christian population, up to one million people, had already fled the country by the start of the year.

Yezidis suffered the single deadliest attack of the conflict, when a multiple truck bombing in Sinjar in 2007 killed as many as 796 people, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent.

And one of the most sobering pictures to emerge from the report is the series of mass killings of Turkmen and Shabak carried out in recent years, the violence intensifying in the latter half of 2013.

Responsibility for many of these attacks falls to ISIS or its predecessors, but regular killings have also been carried out by other militia groups, and by members of the Iraqi Security Forces.

Throughout these years of violence the Iraqi government has proved either unable or unwilling to protect its minority communities. Few incidents are properly investigated and the perpetrators nearly always go unpunished, in some cases with indications of official complicity.

Aside from the immediate threats of violence, communities including Yezidis, Roma and Black Iraqis continue to face chronic and institutionalised discrimination that hinders their cultural and religious rights as well as imposing restrictions on access to health care, education and employment.

The choice now confronting many of Iraq’s diverse communities is be forced to flee en masse or to endure a life of continuous fear and suffering. Some peoples, such as the Sabean-Mandaeans, have already seen their numbers reduced by emigration to the point where their very survival in Iraq as a distinct community is under threat.

Some community leaders interviewed expressed the hope and determination that they could return to their lands; others saw emigration as their only possibility.

A comprehensive plan for the restitution to minority communities of their former lands and properties in the Nineveh plains and elsewhere is thus an essential component of any positive vision for Iraq’s future.

The need to ensure that those responsible for attacks are held to account also requires Iraq to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

More immediately, there is nothing to stop the ICC prosecutor from opening a preliminary investigation into alleged crimes committed by the growing number of nationals of existing ICC state parties fighting in Iraq.

But Iraq’s own response to the ISIS threat holds serious dangers, including in particular the wholesale re-mobilisation of the Shi’a militias.

With the international coalition beginning to ratchet up its air campaign against ISIS, it is imperative that the international community does not appear to condone or even encourage the growing sectarianism now gripping Iraq’s security forces.

From a new sectarian war every community stands to lose.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Editing by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

The United Nations has singled out China – the world’s most populous country with over 1.3 billion people – as one of the key success stories in the longstanding battle against poverty.

China’s high-speed rail network is the largest in the world, and is set to more than double by 2020. Credit: Mitch Moxley/IPS

Although extreme poverty rates have fallen in every developing region, says a new 60-page report released here, China is way ahead of the pack.

In China, extreme poverty dropped from 60 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2005 and 12 percent in 2010.

Still, “poverty remains widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, although progress in the latter region has been substantial,” according to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report 2013, released Monday.

Following the launch of the report in Geneva, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed the MDGs as “the most successful global anti-poverty push in history”.

The study takes stock of the successes and failures of the MDGs – aimed primarily at fighting poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease and gender discrimination – which were approved at a summit of world leaders in September 2000, with a targeted deadline of 2015.

Despite impressive achievements at the global level, the study said, 1.2 billion people are still living in extreme poverty.

While trumpeting some of the successes, including big gains in improved health and reduction in hunger, the report says progress towards achieving the MDGs has been uneven – not only among regions and countries but also between population groups within countries.

The study also says that over two billion people gained access to improved sources of drinking water and there were “remarkable gains” in the fight against malaria and tuberculosis.

The bad news is that environmental sustainability is under severe threat, too many children are still denied their right to primary education, and there is less aid money overall, with the poorest countries most adversely affected.

Roberto Bissio, co-ordinator of the Uruguay-based Social Watch, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) advocating poverty eradication, told IPS the reduction of income poverty, highlighted as the single major achievement of the MDGs, happened almost exclusively in China.

“But it happened mainly before the year 2000, and thus cannot be honestly attributed as a success of the MDGs,” he added.

In fact, it is a mere statistical victory due to a lowering of the goal, he argued.

While the 2000 Millennium Declaration clearly said that “more than a billion people are currently subjected to extreme poverty” (paragraph 11) and therefore resolved “to halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day” (paragraph 19), the first MDG was explained as meaning “between 1990 and 2015”.

Thus, the bar was lowered and the goal was proclaimed as having been achieved in 2010, even when at that date the official number of people in extreme poverty was 1.3 billion, 30 percent more than in 2000, he pointed out.

Shobha Das, director of programmes at the London-based Minority Rights Group (MRG), told IPS that the MDGs served to build a global discourse around development needs, and they have achieved much.

“However, the MDGs appear to have consistently failed minorities and indigenous peoples around the world,” she said.

For example, in India, poverty rates have remained higher for minorities and indigenous peoples as compared to the overall population, she noted.

In Uganda, rates of malnourishment are higher for the minority pastoralist population than for non-pastoralists.

In Peru, a lower proportion of children from the Afro-Peruvian community complete primary school than the overall national rate.

A key reason for these disparities, she pointed out, is that governments have not been encouraged or incentivised to resist cherry-picking in the scramble to meet MDG targets.

“This has meant they have reached the easiest to reach populations, who are usually the majority communities, and left behind the harder to reach populations, who are usually minorities,” Das added.

An eye on inequality is therefore key to the success of the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to be launched as part of the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda.

“Without clear targets to reduce inequality and spread the benefits of development equally, it is all too likely that the failures of the MDGs for minorities and indigenous peoples will be repeated post-2015,” she said.

Tom Berry of the UK-based Development Initiatives, an international NGO focusing on the analysis and use of data for poverty eradication, told IPS that the MDGs have provided a clear and simple framework that has successfully mobilised support for poverty reduction, contributing to an increase in financial resources and greater co-ordination of development efforts between different actors.

He said many of the goals have been met and this has transformed lives – around 700 million fewer people live in absolute poverty, over two billion people have gained access to water, and mortality rates from malaria have fallen by 25 percent.

Bissio told IPS the analysis of indicators made by his own organisation, Social Watch, and other independent researchers actually shows that the speed of progress in the main social indicators, such as infant mortality or primary education, was faster in the last two decades of the 20th century and declined after the year 2000, in spite of the MDGs.

The World Bank and the different drafts for a post-2015 agenda claim that “for the first time ever” it is now possible to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

He said nobody seems to remember that back in 1973, then World Bank president Robert McNamara had established the “ambitious goal” of “eradicating absolute poverty before the end of this century” (that is, the past century).

The poverty line was then 0.30 cents, which adjusted for inflation would be 1.75 dollars, and now adjusted for global economic growth would be way over two dollars.

Instead, the new line is fixed at 1.25 dollars, which implies a new lowering of the bar, he added.

By doing so an easy victory is ensured, since World Bank projections say that this is going to happen anyhow, according to current trends. This lowering of the bar helps hide increased inequalities around the world and also hides the reality of poverty in developed countries, said Bissio.

Paradoxically, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now saying that poverty in developed countries and inequalities everywhere are an obstacle for recovery of the global economy.

“A new development agenda should focus on inequalities, social and gender justice and respect for planetary boundaries, with equitable burden-sharing in the responsibilities of redressing unsustainable production and consumption patterns,” Bissio said.

Asked where the goals failed, Berry said despite incredible progress, some of the poorest and most marginalised groups have been left behind.

Also, the MDGs have also been criticised for their lack of ambition, seeking to reduce rather than eliminate poverty.

“They have failed to establish and monitor clear commitments for developed countries, they have not addressed key environmental issues such as climate change, nor important structural issues such as governance, transparency and accountability,” he noted.

Berry said the post-2015 framework offers us an opportunity now to take a more holistic approach around a sustainable development agenda.