Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 15th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Subcommittee on International Human Rights.

I would like to welcome Dr. Romano. Dr. Romano is a Canadian professor at Missouri State University specializing in the Middle East, and in particular Iraq and the Kurdish community as well as political violence, including politicized Islam.

Dr. Romano, I know you're calling in today from Iraq, so I want to thank you for making the time to join us. I'm going to ask you to give us remarks for around 10 minutes. Then we'll open it up to the members of this committee for some questions and answers.

You can now proceed, Dr. Romano.

[David Romano, Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics, Missouri State University, As an Individual]

The remarks I've prepared will take probably less than 10 minutes. Not being familiar with how much the committee already knows about various topics, I wanted to leave a bit more time for questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

That's absolutely fine; it will work well. After whatever remarks you want to give, we'll just open it up to use the balance of the time.

[David Romano]

Good.

I have four points I thought perhaps the committee might not be aware of.

The first one is that the present campaign to liberate Mosul from Daesh so far appears to be much better at avoiding civilian casualties than past offensives in such towns as Ramadi, Fallujah, Sinjar, and so forth. For an operation of this nature, it is remarkable that they have managed to avoid so many civilian casualties. I think part of it has to do with not allowing the Shiite militias into certain areas. We'll see whether that changes as we move forward.

The second point is with regard to the Syrian Kurdish cantons run by the PYD in what the Kurds refer to as Rojava. I think we need a subtle understanding of how they are operating. They have been excellent with various ethnicities, religious groups, and women. They have been by far the most tolerant and liberal and accepting of all these groups and have been protecting them, actually, including secular Sunni Arabs fleeing other parts of Syria.

The matters in which they are less tolerant and have been more repressive are those involving competing political parties and groups; they have very little tolerance for other political groups operating within areas they control.

We have human rights reports from their areas from last year or a year and a half ago from Human Rights Watch, for instance, that allege systematic destruction of Sunni Arab homes in villages and towns liberated from ISIS. They have replied to these reports and have denied the allegations vehemently. I'm not sure whether the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but I will point out that we have those reports because they invite the human rights monitors to enter the areas they control, which in a relative sense makes them much better than the other parts of Syria, where the human rights monitors can't even operate.

The third point is in regard to the Yazidis. There has been a change within the Yazidi community since Daesh attacked their towns and villages and forced so many of them into IDP and also refugee status. The community used to ostracize female members who had been raped. They were pushed out of their Yazidi community. This has changed. So many fell victim to ISIS that the Yazidi Pirs—the elders—along with other members of the community changed their approach to this issue, and they no longer ostracize them.

The fourth and final point regards the financial crisis in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The combination of plummeting oil prices, the cut-off in budget from Baghdad, the war against Daesh, and the IDP and refugee influx have really made it very difficult.

I live in a community of normal houses that is mostly of refugees from Mosul and Baghdad, a bit outside of Erbil. This isn't a camp; it's all IDPs. On my way into Erbil almost every day, I pass IDP camps such as the Baharka camp. They are full to capacity. Roughly 40% of the population in the Kurdistan region of Iraq are IDPs or refugees, which gives it the highest per capita anywhere in the world of refugees and IDPs, and it doesn't have the money to adequately address their needs.

I'll leave it there.

Feel free to ask me your questions in French. If I can, I'll answer in French.

I would ask you to specify the time period you're referring to, the place, whether it's the Kurdistan region of Iraq or the part of Iraq ruled by Baghdad, or which territory in Syria—that ruled by ISIS or the Free Syrian army, or the Rojava Kurdish region—and which group you're referring to in the question, to make sure I don't misunderstand anything.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you very much, Dr. Romano.

We had a little bit of trouble with the line, but I think we got the full intent of your remarks.

We're going to open it up now to questions.

The first question is from MP Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, sir, for being with us today.

I have a number of questions. We've certainly followed this topic with interest at the subcommittee here for quite some time.

Towards the end, you were talking about IDP communities. Can you tell us whether any of the communities have been able to go home at all? What are the prospects in the future of that happening, particularly for Yazidi communities and Syrian Christians?

[David Romano]

Some Yazidis and Christians have begun returning home. This began even before the Mosul offensive, when they liberated some areas around Sinjar.

The problem is, many of the areas they're returning to are quite devastated from the fighting. It's going to be a long-term challenge to reconstitute these communities so that they can function economically, so that more of the IDPs can return. Part of the long-term return issue has to deal with how significant the threat of an ISIS insurgency will become after the actual territory they control, in the traditional sense, is liberated.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Do you have a sense of how the region's demographics are going to be changing, particularly in that area? I think the Yazidis are in two main areas, but then also in the area where the Syrian Christians were located prior to this conflict.

[David Romano]

Again, it depends on how many return. Their [Technical difficulty--Editor] still haven't settled the issue of whether there's going to be autonomy for the Nineveh plains, which is much of the area that the Iraqi Christians come from, and where the Yazidi allegiance will be. The PKK-affiliated Kurdish groups are working hard to get a foothold within the Yazidi community and have formed their own militias.

A lot of big political questions are still in the air, which may affect people's decision of whether or not to return and hence affect where the demographics fall two years from now.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

We've talked to a number of Yazidis at different times in this conflict, and there seems to be some distrust that lingers from the failure of the Kurds to protect them from the initial onslaught, if you want to call if that. Some are still unhappy with that. They've talked about establishing a safe zone in that area for the Yazidis, and out on the Nineveh plain.

Do you have any thoughts on that? They're talking about international supervision and that kind of thing. What do you think about that?

[David Romano]

Even before 2014, before Daesh or ISIS came on the scene, the Yazidi community was a bit divided. Some components of the Yazidi community were more aligned with Baghdad, which even received funding from the Nouri al-Maliki government. Then there were portions of the Yazidi community that were close to the Kurdistan regional government and received funding from Erbil. When the ISIS attack happened, a lot of Yazidis, as you mentioned, had a bit of a conspiracy theory that the peshmerga intentionally had abandoned them in order to draw in international sympathy and assistance against ISIS, or for other reasons.

I don't think that's true, but the perception is what matters amongst the Yazidis. There is lack of trust, and they would prefer to have guarantees from the international community against whoever threatens them in the future. When al Qaeda, in Iraq, was running its insurgency from 2004-2008, they were targeted left and right along with the Christians. They've been feeling insecure for a long time.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

As ISIS is pushed back in that area then, what do you see as the most likely structure of government that's going to form there? Will PKK be the primary power, or how do you see that coming together?

[David Romano]

It's going to be a problem if the PKK doesn't withdraw its armed fighters at least. There's no love lost in terms of political concurrence, competition, between the KDP of Masoud Barzani and the PKK.

I think in the short term, they don't have a plan. I asked some Iraqi ministers myself a few weeks ago about just developing more powers for the communities like the 2005 constitution and the 2008 law of the provinces, which allows them to let them run their own show until they figure out more long-term arrangements for possible autonomy or the creation of other regions or what have you. Right now, there seems to be a remarkable lack of organization and thinking as to what the new political arrangements will be. I am quite worried about it.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

How is the conflict between Turkey and the Kurds going to play out in that area as that local set of government structures are put in place?

[David Romano]

Turkey says a lot of things when it comes to sending its troops all the way down to Mosul and Sinjar. That's pure bluster. In Syria it's not as much the case. Turkey may capture it, and its allied Free Syrian Army forces may capture al-Bab soon. That's a less complicated endeavour. I wouldn't expect Turkey's ventures into Iraq to be extensive. I'd be more concerned about Turkey in Syria.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You talked about human rights monitoring. Could you give us more information on that? I'm running out of time here fairly quickly. How's it going? Is there more that the international community can do to make sure that those human rights violations are either recorded or stopped?

[David Romano]

I think there are plenty of international forces already embedded with Kurdish peshmerga to get more presence, get people trained, and observe what's going on and so forth and to get the okay of the Kurdistan regional government. There's always Baghdad, an area it's operating in.

The American military has CMOC teams, civil-military operations centre teams. I forget what the Canadian equivalent is. These are military units that look out for civil-military relations. If we are embedding special forces and so forth, I would imagine we could embed some of these people just to monitor the issue and maybe prevent incidents from happening before they even do.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Levitt]

Thank you, Dr. Romano.

We're now going to move to MP Tabbara.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Romano for your remarks. Thank you for contributing to this committee.

We look at the instability that's happening in Syria and Iraq and some of the violations that are happening against various minority groups. How do we make sure that after a conflict is over we have a stable government that is protecting these rights? How can we ensure a pluralistic, post-war civil state or an inclusive government of not only different populations but also different non-violent and political views? Could you elaborate on that?

[David Romano]

Oh, that's a doozy, the million-dollar question, if you will.

We're at a point where we're risking vengeance now from returning communities that were expelled from Daesh who want to settle scores with especially Sunni Arab communities that collaborated with Daesh. I'm not sure we can just talk about reconciliation to prevent this, because there are also, from the great communities, strident demands for justice and punishment for perpetrators of crimes against them. We have to reassure the Sunni Arab community that there is going to be rule of law, not just vengeance. It's a difficult balancing act.

I can only answer your question generally. You need to bring in responsible members from each affected community and have them speak about ways to address each of their concerns and put them together in one package that will allow for justice and reconciliation and rule of law in the post-liberation territories. It's a tall order.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you for that.

Also, to continue on with this, would a power-sharing model similar to that in Belgium and Switzerland be helpful, or would it further cause divisions like those we see within Lebanon in its political system?

[David Romano]

I think a power-sharing model is the only way forward. Of course, with the examples you mentioned, sometimes it devolves into government paralysis such as in Cypress, or civil war such as in Lebanon, and so forth. The big problem here has been lack of power sharing, lack of trust between different communities, and whoever is holding the central government doesn't trust the others and seeks to hoard and consolidate all the power in their hands.

If we could reassure, in both administrative and financial terms, extensive degrees of decentralization and power sharing, I think it would go a long way to preventing future conflict. I think the Dayton accords in Bosnia have been an unsung success story. It's not perfect. A lot of problems remain. I've been to Bosnia a few times since then, and the story I hear is that no one is quite satisfied but they're all satisfied enough not to shoot each other.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Your power-sharing model might work in the short term as you mentioned in your examples, but do you think that could be a long-term sustainable type of government?

[David Romano]

Every government system needs to have various venues to allow for change according to the preferences of the power holders. If, in the longer term, trust redeveloped between the different communities, they could conceivably make adjustments to the governing model and Iraq could function in the long term. Frankly, the people I speak to here are often pessimistic about this. The Kurds frankly want to secede; they're done. It's just a question of timing that they disagree about amongst themselves. Whatever is put in place perhaps needs to have mechanisms for peaceful change in the future.