A volunteer from the Yazidi sect who have joined the Kurdish peshmerga forces walks with his weapon in the town of Sinjar, Iraq, November 16, 2015. (photo: Azad Lashkari/Reuters)
'I'll
Warm Myself on Fire of Revenge': Hatred Hangs in Ruins of Iraq's Sinjar
By Isabel Coles, Reuters
19 November 15
The
picnic tables on the mountainside overlooking the town of Sinjar are a vestige
of a time when different communities lived side by side in this corner of
northwestern Iraq.
That
was before Islamic State militants overran the area in August last year,
purging its Yazidi population and turning neighbor against neighbor. The town
was retaken last week, but the damage to relations between its former
inhabitants may be irreparable.
Empty
pick-up trucks descend to the town and return laden with everything from
satellite dishes to tricycles pillaged from the homes of Sunni Muslims whom
Yazidis accuse of collaborating in the atrocities committed against them.
"This
is our neighbor's house," said a young Yazidi man, tying a set of sofas to
the back of a red pick-up truck. "I've come to take his belongings, and
now I'm going to blow up his house."
The
Yazidi, who wished to remain anonymous, admitted he had no real use for the
sofas, but could always chop them down for firewood this winter: "I will
warm myself on the fire of revenge."
Mustafa,
the Yazidi's neighbor, was a Sunni Arab who joined Islamic State and threatened
him before the militants attacked Sinjar and surrounding villages in August
2014, murdering hundreds of adherents of the religion they consider
devil-worship and enslaving thousands more.
Kurdish
forces retook Sinjar town from the Sunni militant group last week in a two-day
offensive backed by air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition.
More
evidence of the horrors that took place there is now being unearthed. A grave
containing the remains of more than 70 older Yazidi women was discovered east
of Sinjar over the weekend.
Inside
the town, the words "Sunni" and "Yazidi" are scrawled on
the doors of houses and corrugated shutters of shops. Yazidis say the militants
marked them so they would know which to plunder and torch.
"We
only go into the houses marked Sunni," said another Yazidi from the Sinuni
district north of the mountain, whose loot included a meat griller and an
armchair.
On a
neighboring street, 60 year-old Yazidi Barjis Hassan helped his son drag an
entire kitchen unit out of a house.
"All
of these people were with Islamic State," he said. "Our religion says
it's forbidden to take from others, but these things are permissible to
us."
"The
Shi'ites can come back but we will not accept the Sunnis. If they come here, we
will kill them."
Yazidi
peshmerga Rasho Omer Danai, 54, conceded that not all Sunni Arabs had blood on
their hands, but said only two in every 100 were innocent.
Most
Yazidis are still living in camps in the Kurdistan region and Danai said they
would only return permanently if provided with heavy weapons to defend
themselves, and a guarantee of protection from the international community.
Potatoes
and TNT
Before
it was overrun by Islamic State, Sinjar and the surrounding villages were home
to about 200,000 people, mainly Kurdish and Arab Muslims - both Sunni and
Shi'ite - as well as Christians and Yazidis, a faith that combines elements of
several ancient Middle Eastern religions.
Now
the town is largely deserted. But in a row of houses used by Islamic State
fighters, there were signs of recent occupation: a smell of rotting food, and
foam mattresses and pillows laid on the floor.
Blankets
are taped over windows from the inside to prevent light leaking out and
betraying the presence of its occupants - who had graffitied their names on the
walls inside in colored marker pen, as well as "caliph of the
Muslims", referring to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
A
handwritten sign taped to the door of a cabinet reads: "Do not open except
by order of the emir", and beside it are a bag of potatoes and another of
TNT.
In a
separate room that appears to have been used as an office are remnants of
bureaucracy, including a typed list of militants who received a 30,000 Iraqi
dinar ($27) stipend, and a register of 142 men participating in an Sharia law
course in the Sinjar district.
A
stencil used to replicate Islamic State's emblem has also been left behind.
Recent
editions of an Islamic State magazine are strewn on a desk along with several
copies of a typed letter enjoining the "brothers in Sinjar" to dig a
trench as a defense against air strikes.
The
militants had also excavated an underground network of tunnels that enabled
them to move around the town undetected.
Flags
Declaring
victory over the militants in Sinjar, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said only
the flag of Kurdistan would fly over it, sending a message to the government of
Iraq and other factions competing for power in the area.
In
reality, an array of flags and acronyms denoting different Kurdish and Yazidi
groups decorate the ruins.
The
sun-emblazoned Kurdish flag is draped on Sinjar's tallest building - a grain
silo - but smaller banners of rival groups affiliated with the Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK) hang alongside it.
The
least visible flag is that of Iraq, which has just a token presence atop the
mayor's office.
Iraqi
police, all Yazidi, are stationed in a two-floor villa because their own base
on the opposite side of the street has been occupied by the PKK, which gained a
foothold in Sinjar when its Syrian affiliate rescued thousands of Yazidis
stranded on the mountain. The group's forces in the area include fighters from
Turkey and Syria.
PKK
leader Abdullah Ocalan's image flies from a flag pole on a roundabout in Sinjar
and posters of Barzani are plastered on the walls.
The
staking out of territory raises the prospect of further violence in a town
beset by tragedy.
In the
headmaster's office of an boys' school turned military base, senior Yazidi
commander Qassem Shesho said the PKK was not welcome.
"We
will not give up Sinjar to any foreign force. I hope they will think carefully
so there will not be internecine conflict between us".
($1 =
1,114.0000 Iraqi dinars)
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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