When genocide goes unpunished

The Yezidi case tests the international community

Accountability is on trial in this conflict-ridden era. The international community weighs options for Syria, Ukraine, and the conflict engulfing Israel and Palestine among others.

And then, there are the Yezidis.

A decade ago, the Islamic State swept through northern Iraq and declared a ‘caliphate’ and soon after launched a genocidal assault on Iraq’s Yezidi minority, murdering Yezidi men and capturing woman and girls as sex slaves.

Now, six years after IS was defeated, accountability for those horrific crimes is in doubt. Complicit in the potential failure is UNITAD, the UN agency created to amass evidence, and the Iraqi government, according to this deeply reported story by Tara Brian in the New Arab.

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/could-islamic-state-evade-justice-yazidi-genocide

As Brian recounts, “only nine members of the terror group have been convicted of international atrocity crimes.

Not one of these prosecutions has occurred in Iraq.”

Invited by the Iraqi government in 2017, the dispute with UNITAD appears to be bureaucratic, necessary legislation has not passed the Iraqi parliament. In addition, Iraq’s death penalty is a barrier to handing over UNITAD’s data, according to Reuters. As Brian points out: “Last winter, federal Iraq resumed mass executions. Some 8,000 prisoners are on death row, according to human rights groups.”

The result -the Iraqi government has rescinded the invitation – forcing UNITAD to close down by September –“with no plan yet in place, survivor’s networks and international human rights groups fear loss of access to millions of pieces of evidence critical to the pursuit of justice. “

Who are the Yezidis? My introduction to this Iraqi minority came in 2003 while covering the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Iraqi translators working in our news bureau offered a profile filled with prejudice. “They are devil-worshipper,” I was told, a view held by many Iraqis as well as the IS militants who targeted them.  

In fact, the name means, “worshippers of God” in modern Farsi. It’s one of the world’s oldest religions that shares many elements of Christianity and Islam. Yezidi children are baptized, boys are circumcised. Holy water is used in many of the religious ceremonies. Yezidis live in scattered communities with ancient roots in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.

In 2014, IS militants swept into Sinjar, a predominantly Yazidi town, and began a killing spree sometimes aided by Sunni Arab neighbors. Nearly a decade later, the Yezidi victims still live in displacement camps in Iraqi Kurdistan and long for justice. Others fled abroad. About 150,000 live in Germany, the largest community in exile.

A few years ago, I met Yazidis for the first time while working on a story on Bikeygees, a German nonprofit teaching refugee women from countries such as Iran, Iraq, and Syria how to ride. It’s part therapy, part newfound freedom that builds confidence.

Shaha Khalef, 21, a Yezidi from Sinjar, signed up for her first lesson four years ago with her sisters and now she’s a volunteer trainer. She is studying to be a social worker. She told me that she wasn’t allowed to ride when she was growing up.

"It's a beautiful feeling when a person is riding a bike," she said with a broad grin.

 But justice is also a ‘beautiful feeling” that may be denied if UNITAD, the UN mission in Iraq, closes in September without providing a plan to protect the archive of witness testimonies and evidence collected since 2017.

As Tara Brian explains: “UNITAD has received 246 requests for evidence from 20 states and has supported 15 cases that led to convictions, mainly in Europe.

Germany alone has convicted eight Islamic State members for international crimes against the Yezidis.”

International accountability is a slow process. It can take years to build a case. In 2013 – almost a decade after the appalling events in Sinjar, the German parliament voted to recognize the persecution and killing of thousands of Yezidis by the Islamic State as genocide.

European courts have led the way with trials coming up in the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, and France. UNITAD’s vast storehouse of evidence has aided in building those cases. But what is the future of accountability for the Yezidis when UNITAD is forced to prematurely shut its doors?

A Yezidi genocide is one of the gravest crimes in recent history. The quest for accountability is far from fulfilled.