The Assyrian independence movement is a political movement and ethno-nationalist desire of ethnic Assyrians to live in their indigenous Assyrian homeland in northern Mesopotamia under the self-governance of an Assyrian State.
The tumultuous history of the traditional Assyrian homeland and surrounding regions, as well as the Partition of the Ottoman Empire, led to the emergence of modern Assyrian nationalism. To this respect, Assyrian independence movement is a "catch-all" term of the collective efforts of proponents of Assyrian nationalism in the context of the modern nation state. As a result of genocide and war, the Assyrians were reduced to a minority population in their indigenous homeland, resulting in political autonomy being unattainable due to the security risks, and the rise of the movement for Assyrian independence as it exists today.
The territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. The efforts are specifically in the regions where larger concentrations still exist, and not the Assyrian homeland in its entirety, those regions with large concentrations being Erbil, and the Duhok Governorate in Iraq, the latter two being located in the Iraqi Kurdistan region and the Al-Hasakah Governorate in Syria. Mosul and the Nineveh Governorate had a sizable Assyrian presence prior to the takeover and forced expulsion of the Assyrian population by the Islamic State in 2014.
In his 53 years as Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII petitioned the League of Nations,Mar Eshai Shimun's letter to Permanent Mandates Commission, League of Nations, Geneva, 1928 and then the United Nations for an Assyrian Homeland before stepping down as Patriarch in 1973. The assassination of Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII in 1975 was a demoralizing moment to Assyrian freedom fighters, as he was a significant spiritual and temporal leader.
The independence movement is active both within the homeland and throughout the global diaspora,Assyrian-Canadians – Wikipedia with much resistance from the local Middle Eastern states and regions, as well as the Kurdish. The movement has spanned centuries, with the initial conceptualization of modern Assyrian statehood occurring in the 19th century with the waning of the Ottoman Empire and rise of European control of the region, notably by the British and Russian Empires, as well as the French Republic.
There have been many hindrances to the movement, including events such as the Assyrian genocide, Simele massacre, internal conflicts over naming disputes and Assyrian churches, portrayals in media, and Arabization, Kurdification, and Turkification policies. Most recently, the primary problem for them has been ISIS, which took over and expelled a massive portion of the population from the Nineveh Plains in Northern Iraq. The Assyrian Aid Society of America has requested that the U.S. government designate these actions as a genocide against Assyrians in these regions.
Austen Henry Layard, the British Empire's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, stated that the Assyrians had survived the Arab, Mongol, and Kurdish conquests in the mountains of Hakkari and northern Mesopotamia, where they had fought to maintain their independence in the nineteenth century.
In 2016, the Iraqi Parliament voted against a new Christian province in Nineveh Plains, which was a stated political objective of all major Assyrian political groups and institutions. Assyrians, including the leader of the Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party, Romeo Hakkari, protested the Iraqi parliament's decision and stated "We do not want to be part of the possible Sunni (Arab) autonomous region in Iraq".
World War I
In Turkey
Assyrians primarily lived in the provinces of Hakkari, Şırnak, and Mardin in southeastern Turkey, These areas had sizable Kurdish and Armenian populations. Starting in the nineteenth century, the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians of eastern Anatolia, including the Hakkari mountains in Van province, were the subject of forced relocations and executions, a possible cause being religious persecution.
The Hakkari region was the main center of Assyrian population in early 20th century. According to the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, there were 18,000 Assyrians in Van Vilayet, 15,000 in Bitlis Vilayet and 25,000 in Diyarbekir Vilayet in 1912/1913. In 1914, Young Turks with the aid of the Kurds and other Muslim ethnic groups, began to systemically target the ancient indigenous Christian communities of Asia Minor, primarily composed of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and to a small degree Georgians. Events such as the Assyrian genocide, Greek genocide and Armenian genocide followed, as did the similarly motivated Great Famine of Mount Lebanon which targeted Maronite Christians. In the beginning, key Assyrian nationalist leaders and religious figures were wiped out of communities, followed by the systematic massacre and ethnic cleansing by the Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Chechens and Circassians of hundreds of thousands of unarmed men, women and children.Travis, Hannibal. Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2010, 2007, pp. 237–77, 293–294.Hovannisian, Richard G., 2007. The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies p. 271. Accessed on 11 November 2014.Jordi Tejel (2008). Syria's Kurds: History, Politics and Society p. 147 .
At the outset of World War I, almost one half of the Assyrian population lived in what is today South Eastern Turkey, with the remainder living in what is now Northern Iraq, North Eastern Syria and North Western Iran. The Ottomans planned to join the side of the Central Powers (Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bulgaria) and join them in dividing up the British, Russian and French empires in Asia. In 1914, knowing that it was heading into the war, the Ottoman government passed a law that required the conscription of all young males into the Ottoman army to support the war effort. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I in October 1914 by bombarding Russian ports on the Black Sea.
In late 1914 and 1915, the Ottoman Empire under the Young Turk regime declared a holy war on the British, French and Russian Empires. Ottoman Turkish army and allied Kurdish, Turcoman, Circassian and Chechen militias proceeded to massacre tens of thousands of Assyrians in the Hakkari mountains of Kurdistan (upper Mesopotamia, present-day southeastern Turkey) due to Russia's massacres and hostilities towards Muslim populations in northern Iran (including but not limited to Azeris, Turkmen, and Iranians) in 1911 and onwards.
Following the unprovoked massacres of tens of thousands of unarmed Assyrian civilians by the Ottoman Turkish Army and their allies, the Patriarch of the Assyrians, Mar Shimun XIX Benjamin, declared war on the Ottomans on behalf of the Assyrian nation. The Assyrian army under General Dawid, the patriarch's brother, led the Assyrians in a successful breaking of an encircling Ottoman army maneuver, and across the Persian border onto the plains of Urmia.
Assyrian volunteers In April 1915 the Assyrian nation, led by its main tribal chiefs of Bit-Jilu, Bit-Bazi, Bit-Tyari, Bit-Tkhuma, Bit-Shamasha, Bit-Eshtazin, Bit-Nochiya and Bit-Diz "took arms against the Turks at the request of the Russians and British."Naayem, Shall This Nation Die? (New York, 1921) Over the summer of 1915 they successfully held off the far larger Ottoman army and 10,000 Turkish militia and tribal forces fighting with the Ottomans. The Ottomans, unable to break the Assyrians, then brought in heavy artillery and ammunition that, together with an overwhelming advantage in numbers and supplies, eventually overwhelmed the lightly armed and outnumbered Assyrians.
The Russian Army Corps had promised reinforcements, which came too late, leading most of the population of the tribes and districts of Jilu, Baz, Tyari, Tkhuma, Tergawar, Mergawar, Bohtan, Barwari, Amadia and Seert to be massacred, including women, children and the elderly. Churches and monasteries were destroyed or converted into Mosques, livestock and possessions were stolen by the Turks and Turkmens, who then occupied the emptied Assyrian towns, villages and farmsteads.
Survivors of fighting age joined the Assyrians of northwest Persia, northern Iraq and northeast Syria, including those from Salamas and Urmia to form an Assyrian army, and had a real prospect of fighting with the Russians to evict the Ottoman forces from Persia, and historic Assyria. The Assyrians, under such leaders as Agha Petros and Malik Khoshaba, scored a number of victories over the Ottoman and Turkmen forces despite overwhelming odds during this period, until the Russian Revolution of 1917 dissolved the Russian army.
Lacking allies except the British some miles away in Mesopotamia, the Assyrians planned to follow the Russian lines to the Caucasus, but the Allies (including British, French, and Russian diplomats) urged Mar Shimoun and the Assyrian army to defend the Allied-Ottoman front lines, and enjoy autonomy and independence in the post-war period as their reward.
An Assyrian nation under British and Russian protection was promised the Assyrians first by Russian officers, and later confirmed by Captain Gracey of the British Intelligence Service over indigenous Kurdish land. Based on these representations, the Assyrians of Hakkari, under their Mar Shimun XIX Benjamin and the Assyrian tribal chiefs "decided to side with the Allies, first with Christian Russia, and next with the British, in the hope that they might secure after the victory, a self-government for the Assyrians." The French also joined the alliance with the Assyrians, offering them 20,000 rifles. The Assyrian army grew to 20,000 men co-led by Agha Petrus Elia of the Bit-Bazi tribe, and Malik Khoshaba of the Bit-Tiyari tribe, according to Joseph Naayem, a key witness, whose account on the atrocities was prefaced by Lord James Bryce.
Assyrian resistance in Tur Abdin
The Assyrian Syriac Christians of Diyarbekir Vilayet made significant resistance. Their strongest stand was at the villages of Azakh, Iwardo, and Basibrin. For month, Kurdish tribes and Turkish soldiers commanded by Ömer Naci Bey were unable to subdue the mostly Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic Assyrian villagers, who were joined by Armenian and other Assyrian refugees from surrounding villages. The leaders of the Azakh fedayeen swore: "We all have to die sometime, do not die in shame and humiliation", and lived up to their fighting words.
Also in April, Turkmen and Turkish troops surrounded the village of Tel Mozilt and imprisoned 475 men, among them, Reverend Gabrial, the famous red-bearded priest. The following morning, the prisoners were taken out in rows of four and shot. Arguments rose between the Arabs and the Ottoman officials on what to do with the women and orphans left behind. At about this time, in Seert the Turks and Arabs "assembled all the children of from six to fifteen years and carried them off to the headquarters of the police. There they carried out mass infanticide, leading the poor little things to the top of a mountain known as Ras-el Hadjar and cut their throats one by one, throwing their bodies into an abyss.Joseph Naayem, Shall This Nation Die? 147 (New York, 1921)
In October 1914, 71 Assyrian rebels males of Gawar were arrested and taken to the local government centre in Bashkale and killed in cold blood.Lord James Bryce, British Government Report on the Armenian Massacres of April–December 1915