By Nick Fredman

March 28, 2017 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – Sharply different opinions have developed among the radical left in recent years towards the Syrian radical democratic movement led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) — an initially Kurdish-based force which through a series of political and military struggles and alliances has recently formed the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, as a model for a multi-ethnic, non-sectarian, federal and socially just alternative for the nation and the region. Some on the international left have accused this movement of human rights abuses, political repression and collaboration with the Syrian dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad.

I was prompted to write the present notes in response to two articles by Roy Gutman in the USmagazine ( here and here ). But as these articles both sum up and are fairly extreme examples of the left criticisms of the PYD-led movement, it makes sense to discuss some background and previous articles before taking up Gutman.

Socialists should not idealise any group or personality. Moreover, in undertaking the difficult task of confirming the truth amid the fog of the Syrian war, we should be open to the possibility that the PYD-led movement has authoritarian tendencies or is responsible for abuses.

But we should be very careful before casting assertions from our relatively comfortable and privileged position at those fighting and dying for the cause of human liberation. It is right to uphold high socialist norms of human rights and democracy but we also have to understand the challenges any movement will face meeting these when trying to transform a poor, traditional society in a time of war.

Ethnic cleansing?

A particularly frustrating part of much left discussion of Syria is the immediate rejection of any information that comes from a source viewed as suspect. But when a whole range of forces — the Assad regime, the Turkish state, the Russian state, the Iranian state, the Gulf states, much of the rebels, all from their different points of view – have strong interests in distorting the nature of the PYD-led movement, we should not be surprised when dubious stories get repeatedly circulated. Instead, we should be a bit more critical before accepting them.

Probably the most serious charge against this movement is that, according to a 2015 Amnesty International report, it is responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Arab majority areas, and so presumably its socialist program and (and multi-ethnic alliance building) is cover for a Kurd-chauvinist agenda. Some on the left, just as in this article by Mick Armstrong in the Australian socialist publication Red Flag, have more or less uncritically promoted this charge.

The repetition of this charge by many mainstream and some leftist sources is no proof of the claims, especially as the Turkish state and some sectarian Syrian rebel groups have a direct interest in promoting fears of Kurdish chauvinism. The Amnesty report relied heavily on dubious assumptions about the cause of property destruction, shown in satellite photography, in areas that had been the scene of heavy fighting, and anonymous witnesses. Its charges were rejected by an investigation team from the Syrian National Coalition and by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in 2015. A recent report by the UN’s Syria commission (the report dated March 13 here ) found no basis to any charges for ethnic cleansing by any of the militia associated with the PYD-led movement: The People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) associated with the PYD, and the broader Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The UN report criticised the movement for conscription — without mentioning conscription applies not to the YPG/J or SDF but only to the Self Defence Units (HXP ), rarely involved in combat — with one case of abuse of a conscript refuser reported. It also argued that people forcibly moved out of military necessity, such as the clearance of ISIS’ masses of indiscriminately laid land mines, were not always looked after properly.

This compares with widespread indiscriminate killing of civilians, and arbitrary arrest, torture and execution reported to be carried out by the regime and some rebel groups. In essence this report concurred with a 2014 report by Human Rights Watch which was critical of the movement but concluded that any abuses were “far less egregious and widespread” than those committed by “the Syrian government and [other] non-state actors in Syria”.

Alliance with Assad?

Another set of allegations concern the PYD-led movement’s relationship with the Bashar al-Assad regime. This relationship certainly includes some openly recognised ad hoc administrative arrangements in the Rojava region operating since the movement seized power there in 2012, along with occasional military truces, punctuated by regular fighting. But some leftists see a deeper, longer-term and presumably secret collaboration, involving the Assad regime purposively ceding power in the region and forming an alliance that will led to some form of Kurdish autonomy as a pay-off.

This narrative was recently retold by Joseph Daher inmagazine as part of an article on the battle for Aleppo. There are several reasons to seriously doubt this narrative. Firstly, the story of a pre-mediated peaceful handover of power by Assad is contradicted by other sources which describe an insurrectionary seizure of power by Kurdish militia, taking advantage of a July 2012 crisis precipitated by a rebel bombing in Damascus that assassinated key regime figures (as discussed for example in the report on an academic discussion on the Rojava experience available here

Secondly, there is no evidence of a secret agreement. Assad and various regime figures have claimed for several years that they have been arming the YPG/J, and had “documents” to “prove” it. These claims, as reported in the pro-Syrian regime media, have been happily taken up by the pro-Turkish regime media as “proof” of Assad arming the PYD-led movement.

But the “documents” have never surfaced. Perhaps running a dictatorship at war is a busy job and Assad and colleagues might just keep forgetting to click the “attach” icon on their media release emails. But perhaps we should entertain the possibility that Assad is capable of lying to suit his ends, and that the state media of the increasingly militarist and authoritarian Turkish state is capable of spreading fake news?

— in doing so making the illogical claim that the late 2016 decision to drop the Kurdish word Rojava (for west, as in Western Kurdistan) from the name of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria was some kind of proof of this deal. What has happened since flatly contradicts the narrative. The regime has continued to reject any idea of autonomy or of changing the institutionally Arab-chauvinist nature of the Syrian Arab Republic . The PYD-led movement has doubled down on its hostility to the regime and its insistence that it is fighting for a democratic, non-sectarian, federal but united Syria, and that it has no illusions in imperialist or sub-imperialist forces being anything more than temporary, partial and ultimately unreliable allies. As Syrian Democratic Council chair Ehmed put it on March 1:

Thirdly, there is no proof of a recent deal for autonomy as Daher suggests