ZENDA Says...

It is interesting to note from reading this week's articles on the United States' efforts to bring down Saddam's government in Baghdad that even though Massoud Barzani and his KDP faction have inflicted great harm on a CIA-run program, the U.S. is prepared to receive him in Washington very soon. In fact now the U.S. is prepared to provide even more funds to Barzani and PUK's Jalal Talabani, even though both of them have proven themselves unreliable. The administration states “We do it with our eyes wide open and with a realistic understanding of the way in which, in that part of the world, alliances can shift.” In other words, the U.S. is seeking the most politically practical course, regardless of past enmities. It is unfortunate that some diaspora Assyrians fail to recognize the value (and the necessity) of operating with such a “realistic understanding.” Assyrians who criticize the de facto entente cordiale between the Kurds and the Assyrians in north Iraq need to take a first-hand look at the demographics in the field. The issue has never been about liking the Kurds or accepting their past misdeeds. The question was, is, and must always be: What is realistic and possible?

Ominous imponderables loom ahead for Assyrians throughout Iraq, and not just in the north. In the videos we watch and hear almost daily on our news programs: “There are really no good choices. So what is the least bad choice?” It will take the best Assyrian diplomatic skills to salvage even a few limited gains. Whether in Spain or in Iraq, Don Quixote remains a figure of imagination, where all things are possible. In the real world, facts matter. At some point, we must turn down the bombast, and work with what we’ve got.

Saddam Hussein is at it again. The Iraqi dictator has ended cooperation with the inspectors charged with ensuring compliance with U.N. resolutions prohibiting possession of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

More worrisome, Iraqi forces are now massing near the Kurdish-held cities of Erbil and Dohuk.  These maneuvers could be the prelude to a campaign to reconquer the Kurdish-inhabited north
of Iraq, which has been free of Saddam's control since 1991, or they could be aimed at pressuring one of the main Kurdish leaders, Masud Barzani, whose forces hold the cities, into a political accommodation with Baghdad. An Iraqi takeover of the north threatens the survival of 3 million Kurds now living in areas not controlled by Saddam.

Since 1991 the United States and its allies have protected Iraq's Kurds by enforcing a "no fly zone" that covers the part of Kurdish territory north of the 36th parallel and by leaving Saddam uncertain as to our response to a ground assault on the north.

Now is the time to end the ambiguity. The administration should use the current crisis to declare that any Iraqi military incursion into Kurdish-held territory will be met by sustained bombing for as long as the attack continues. Saddam should know that potential targets will include the forces moving north and military assets throughout the country. (Without Turkish cooperation, which is unlikely, some analysts argue that gulf- and Kuwait-based aircraft cannot stop an infantry assault north. Sustained countrywide bombing would force Saddam to choose between halting the offensive and having his military degraded in a way that risks a rebellion.)

Between 1987 and 1990, Saddam Hussein's regime systematically dynamited or bulldozed almost every village in Kurdish-inhabited northern Iraq, nearly 4,000 villages altogether. The villagers were relocated to concentration camps (euphemistically called "victory cities" by the regime) or murdered. Until 1988, chemical weapons were widely used against the Kurds, and the population still suffers from the enduring effects of these weapons.

By 1990 the Iraqi army and secret police were destroying the cities in the eastern part of Iraqi Kurdistan. Overall, at least 180,000 Kurds were murdered by their own government in the
three-year period.

In September 1991 the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani gave me personally 14 tons of files captured by the Kurds, during the March uprising, from secret police headquarters, the military commands and the ruling Ba'ath Party. (In 1993 Barzani turned over four tons of documents captured by his forces, and together this collection is held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the National Archives.)

These Iraqi documents depict a racist regime with a ruling ideology that promotes the unity of Arabs and the exclusion of others. The Kurds, non-Arabs who constitute one-quarter of Iraq's population, resisted the Ba'athist order and were marked for elimination. The files contain evidence of cruelty -- they include videos of torture and executions -- but more significantly they reveal a bureaucratic system devoted to mass murder.

In spite of sanctions and military defeat, nothing has changed politically in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Should his forces reenter the north, the genocide against the Kurds will resume.

An explicit military commitment to the north would help revitalize the Iraqi opposition. A secure base in Iraq would enhance the opposition's credibility with the Iraqi people and could foster opposition unity. Northern Iraq could once again become a haven for Iraqi defectors and a platform from which to undermine the Ba'ath regime. Its existence, with an international commitment, would remind Iraqi patriots that Saddam is responsible for the country's weakness and division. Perhaps one day an Iraqi patriot will decide to act in his country's interest.

A military commitment should make it easier to end the debilitating fighting between Iraq's two main Kurdish factions as well as remove the temptation for each faction's leader to make his own deal with Saddam Hussein. As I write this, Massoud Barzani has a representative negotiating in Baghdad. Contrary to the way he is sometimes portrayed, Barzani knows Saddam too well to be his stooge. In 1982 Iraqi forces abducted 2,000 Barzani kinsmen.  Barzani told me has evidence that the men, who have not been heard from since, were used to test Iraq's first-generation chemical weapons.

I believe Barzani endangers his leadership and his people by contemplating a deal with Saddam, but I also understand his logic. Saddam is a neighbor, and America is far away. An explicit commitment to oppose Iraqi forces heading north would give both Barzani and his rival Jalal Talabani the confidence not to deal with Baghdad and would reduce Saddam's ability to play one against the other.

Earlier this year Saddam Hussein set up a confrontation by refusing U.N. arms inspectors access to so-called presidential sites. The Clinton administration faced the choice of letting Saddam defy the United Nations on a critical issue or using military strikes that would kill Iraqis but not bring about the access. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's mediation defused that crisis, but the president may now again face the same unacceptable choice between doing nothing and doing something that won't work.

By making explicit a U.S. commitment to northern Iraq, however, President Clinton will do more to undermine Saddam Hussein than any possible military reaction to his latest defiance. We can both spare lives and save them.

Peter W. Galbraith
Washington Post
August 9, 1998

Mr. Galbraith is a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and has  traveled extensively in northern Bet-Nahrain.

(ZNDA:  Washington D.C.)  According to a Washington Post report the senior U.S. administration officials are developing a covert effort to subvert the regime in Baghdad. They said they had no illusions that their plan will work, but they want to support and unify the Iraqi opposition in hopes of fostering an orderly transition to democracy should Hussein fall.  The Clinton administration has prepared a detailed, 27-page plan to rebuild Iraq's political opposition and prepare a case for a possible war crimes indictment of Iraqi leaders.  The plan called for spending $5 million, which Congress had already made available, to train opposition groups in organizing and recruitment techniques and to fund a center for exile activities in London.  An additional $5 million has been used to establish an anti-Saddam Hussein "Radio Free Iraq," run by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and housed in Prague, the Post reported.  To help implement the program, the administration has invited the two leaders of rival Kurdish factions in northern Iraq, KDP's Barzani and PUK's Talabani,  to visit Washington later this year.  Both are damaged goods politically: Barzani because he allied his forces with Hussein’s army during his 1996 conflict with Talabani in an operation that led to the destruction of a CIA-backed opposition movement inside Iraq; and Talabani because he accepted support from Iran in that conflict. But administration officials said they had no choice but to deal with the Kurdish leaders.  "As long as they are prepared to oppose Saddam Hussein, we are prepared to work with them,” Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indiy said last week. “We do it with our eyes open and with a realistic understanding of the way in which, in that part of the world, alliances can shift."  Kurdish leaders also have reason to be mistrustful of the United States, a senior administration official said, because of their sense that Washington encouraged them to rebel against Baghdad after the 1991 Persian Gulf War and then failed to help them.  “Whether Barzani will embrace the plan is unclear. His nephew Farid Barzani, who represents the KDP in Washington, said:  "We don’t mind joining the [Iraqi Arab] opposition, but only on condition that the Americans would support the Kurdish people against any regional power,” meaning Tehran as well as Baghdad."  A Republican Senate aide who has analyzed the plan called it “fatally flawed” and said some of the 73 listed opposition groups in the administration's proposal had been “penetrated by Baghdad."  "The administration's plan is built around promoting the religious and ethnic pluralism of Iraq and marshaling the case for indictment of Hussein and his associates."

(ZNDA:  London)  According to the BBC in London and the Iranian news agency "IRNA", on July 26th
the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ata'ollah Mohajerani met with the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV, in Tehran, Iran.  "Unity and solidarity are the commonly shared concept in all divine religions," said Mohajerani, adding:  "The holy Koran invites all followers of divine scriptures and divine religions to adhere to the issue of unity."  The Iranian minister of culture and Islamic guidance then pointed out that "religion" closes the deep vacuum that exist in the lives of men, and "culture" creates ties among the different human communities around the world.  Appreciating the Assyrian community for their supports of the stance of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards the Zionist regime's aggression against the sanctities of Muslims, the Iranian minister added that "the holy Quds [Jerusalem] belongs to all divine religions".

Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV, on his part, hailed the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran for their considerations towards the followers of other divine religions.  "Fortunately, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, all adherents of the divine religions are respected without considering their ethnicity," said the leader of the Assyrian Church of the East.  According to the IRNA report, Mar Dinkha IV also voiced his support to the stance of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the "occupying regime" in Jerusalem.

Commentaries on last week's feature article:

"...thank you for such an honest and endearing piece of your mind."

Nadia Joseph
Chicago

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"How do you WAKE UP a nation when it's deep in a coma?  It may already be too late.  Let's pull the plugs and go on with our lives...

Nirari J.
California

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"Reading you article should give Assyrians shivers if 'they are born of mothers.'  'A Voice From Within' shall remind us of our past mistakes, and be a lighthouse for our journey. You may not be Assyrian just by dancing Sheykhani or by attending Conventions, and showing your face at the churchES.  Being Assyrian is a big responsibility that goes beyond that.  Your past history should be a reminder that the only reason you are outside of your homeland is because of the Colonialism and Religion.  Just think, what would you tell King Hamurabi today if he was here.

We are often told that religion is the source of our most humane ethics, and that without the church's influence, people will degrade towards barbarism. Yet, a careful examination of church history will demonstrate how the most popular religions not only fail to promote good ethics, but have actually perpetrated some of the most outrageous cruelties in the history of civilization.

For instance, in the Christian religion, the killing of heretics became a basic church doctrine during the rule of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th century. Killing in the name of God as the Crusader or Hezbullah one might say was a wide-spread and common  practice within Christianity since that time,
until the last of the witch-hunts in the early 1700's. Bloodshed in the name of the Christian religion included the killing of pagan scholars and the burning of their libraries, the Crusades and other holy wars fought to fulfill Biblical prophecies, and the reign of terror known as the Inquisition. So, killing  for religious reasons has been a widely accepted church doctrine for through out Christian history.  The Islamic religion has its own long history of holy wars fought to establish beliefs through force. Moslem holy wars and terrorist acts are a regular feature of news broadcasts around the world.

We are taught that belief in a popular religion will help keep our families together. Though it is true that religion will rarely be a factor in family disputes when everybody in a family agrees completely on matters of religion, it is also true that disagreements about religion are a common cause of disputes and
violence within families.  The fabric of every Christian family is Santa Claus in Christmas, and the resurrection of the Easter Bunny, bringing us all together in a spiritual celebration of corporate greed.  K-mart is already accepting orders for the confused and bewildered herd.  People all over the world need to be better informed about the true history of religion, and about its continued effects on us all.

Let us not  forget why we have left our home land of Assyria to the land of five thousand missionaries, I hope this  wasn’t  just for  blue jeans and panty hose.  My grandmother, Ester, bless her soul,  was a radical: Her reaction would have been, you have guessed it,  “ Yob dva ya Mad. ”   She would have questioned clergy's outfit,  and coned shape hats  that are distasteful and scary. She once said "they are still looking in the skies for solutions or guidance."  Is it possible they are sending messages to different races, just like the Southern Confederates in the KKK picnic rally? Cubans are still trying to recover from the landing of UFOs in the  middle of Havana.  Can you imagine what Coca-Cola is up to ?

It's time to make ourselves independent of any European franchises.  When will you stop this madness?  You don’t need organized religion to love God...did you know that ?  Wake up Assyria !"

Albert Issaco
Sutter Creek, California

SURFERS CORNER

HUGOYE'S  St. EPHREM THE SYRIAN

The July 1998 issue of "Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies" is published now and can be accessed at:
our Home Site at the Catholic University of America and its Mirror Site at the Cambridge University in United Kingdom.

This is the first of two special issues on the "Influence of St. Ephrem the Syrian", named after a conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, during which the papers were read.  The current issue features 8 articles on the subject in addition to project and conference reports and a book review.

If you would like to receive further notifications when a new issue is published, please register your email at the address:  Click Here

For information on submitting articles, please see under 'Submission' on the site.

George Anton Kiraz, Ph.D.
Hugoye, General Editor

AAC = Ancient Assyrian Church of the East
ACE = Assyrian Church of the East
CCC = Chaldean Catholic Church
MCC= Maronite Catholic Church
MOC = Malankara Orthodox Church
SKC = Syrian Knanaya Church
SOC = Syrian Orthodox Church

BC (853)

For the first time the Assyrians became directly involved with one of the main Biblical kingdoms.  King Shalmaneser III was then advancing through Syria towards Lebanon and Palestine.  The local rulers had formed an alliance to oppose him and King Ahab of Israel is said to have contributed 2000 chariots and 10,000 men.  There was a battle and the Assyrians claimed a massive victory.  However, they kept clear of Syria for several years thereafter until 841 when Shalmaneser's once again entered through the walls of Damascus.

Assyrian Sculpture, Reade

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AD (1142)

The Turkish Atabeg Zangi captures the ancient Assyrian city of Edessa (Urhai) and organizes the Second Crusade against the German and French Crusaders.  The Turks attack the German and French contingents in 1147.  This Crusade resulted in no substantial gain for the Moslems.

The Age of the Crusades, Holt

The Qadisha Gorge, holy valley of the Maronites, is an area full of hidden, almost inaccessible caves that most likely hold some fascinating untold tales. Speleologists became interested in exploring Assi al-Hadath, a natural cave situated 700 metres above the dramatic depths of Qadisha Valley in north Lebanon, because of a reference advanced by the 17th century Maronite patriarch-historian Estephan Doueihy about its use as a Maronite haven of refuge during the 13th century.  The patriarch relates finding a notation in the margins of a bible that records the 1283 assault on the Christians of Mount Lebanon by the ruling Mamlukes. Written by an anonymous person, the notation reads that on August 22, 1283, Mamluke soldiers “headed toward al-Hadath where the inhabitants took refuge in a magnificent and inaccessible grotto called al-Assi. The grotto was besieged for seven years”. The account continues with how the Mamelukes tricked the people into surrender with promises of safe release, then they set fire to the village, killed all the men and took the women and children into captivity.

Nine years ago, 700-year-old mummies of three adult females and five infants, all naturally and remarkably preserved, were discovered in the Assi al-Hadath Grotto.  When the bodies, their clothing and the artifacts found with them undergo thorough scientific study, researchers expect to have a greater insight into the cultural and economic aspects of mountain village life in medieval Lebanon.

The eight mummies, buried with clear evidence of traditional rituals, were all females. If patriarch Douiehy’s story is true  –  then they all must have died and been properly buried during the seven-year siege. But didn’t any men die?

One male skull found at the burial site poses an intriguing question.  Were the unchanging climatic conditions of the grotto peculiarly suited only to the natural mummification of females and not of males?
Did the bodies of any males who may have died in the cave dissolve into biblical ashes and disappear into the earth? Or was a tradition of male-female segregation also maintained in burial practices – which suggests that in some other corner of the grotto may still be buried a cache of mummified males. Another human interred in the soil was a foetus, perhaps of four or five months’ incubation. A miscarriage, certainly, and buried with respect, though without shroud or ritual. The first mummy, discovered at 8pm on July 13, 1990 after two years of inch-by-inch exploration of the dark, muddy cave, was a four-month-old infant, who the speleologists impulsively named Yasmine. Fully clothed and interred 40cm below the soil, the child was lying on her back alone in the grave, her head resting on a smooth stone. Beneath her burial shroud she wore three dresses – a simple blue robe beneath a beige robe beneath an elaborate dark beige dress embroidered with silk threads.  Crowned by a full headdress over a headband made of silk, Yasmine was adorned  with one earring and a necklace of glass beads and coins dating to the Mamluke era.

Nearby were found a dark lock of human hair, bay leaves, almonds, walnuts, garlic and onion skins. Over the next several months some of the remaining seven mummies were slowly uncovered one by one and painstakingly removed. One of the most provocative details to emerge related to burial customs – packed cloth was found stuffed in the vagina and anus of the woman. Inquiry has since revealed that in some areas of Lebanon this is still done. In the Bekaa Valley, for example, cloth is wrapped around
a small onion and inserted in the orifices of the dead.  The remarkably preserved bodies and their artefacts promise to reveal much information on the customs, rituals and daily way of life in medieval Mount Lebanon. Among the items collected are fragments of pottery and other household utensils, combs, animal bones and scraps of food, arrows and poles, agricultural tools, oil lamps, coins, leather boots and belts and bits and pieces of manuscript inscribed in old Syriac, some of them bearing 13th century dates.

Most beautifully precious of all, however, are the textiles worn by the dead or scattered pell-mell around them. The robes, all identical in their flowing voluminous style and belted in leather, are cut of heavy cotton cloth. Richly embroidered in straight or cross-stitched lines of geometric design – squares and diamonds framing motifs of crosses and flowers – they bear strong resemblance to the kilim patterns of
nomadic Turkish origin.  The textiles, still amazingly sturdy, have been washed back into their original
resplendent colours. Against the rough natural ecru of the cloth, the silken embroidery glows in linear waves of indigo blue, red, maroon, brown and black.

Significantly in this obviously Christian community, there is no yellow – traditionally Jewish – nor green – traditionally Islamic. In contrast to the wealth of embroidery, the jewellery of the women is quite humble and of little interest. Simple rings and bracelets made of copper, bronze and other cheap metals; necklaces of glass beads and coins strung on strips of leather. A small mother-of-pearl cross perhaps, but not one iota of gold or silver anywhere.  Study of the textiles combined with historical research tells us that the cotton was planted on the terraced slopes of Hadath, woven into cloth in Baalbeck and transported back and forth by caravan along the ancient silk route that passed nearby on its path between Tripoli, Baalbeck and Damascus. This particular type of cotton textile, in fact, was known as Baalbaki cloth and for centuries was used extensively throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin.

News of the Assi al-Hadath find has attracted the overwhelming attention of international mummy experts, who regard the discovery of naturally preserved mummies as a rare phenomenon of great importance to the world.  Their interest was initiated by a young Lebanese woman, Guita Hourani, who
travelled to Chile last May to speak before the Third World Congress on Mummy Studies on the existence of the mummies in Lebanon.  Hourani, who is the chairperson of the Maronite research institute, has what could be called a “religious attachment” to the mummies. She and many others of similar concern are anxious to learn more about the significance of these 700-year-old creatures in Marinate history.  The key, of course, lies in their extensive microscopic study by mummy specialists.
The Lebanese government now has in hand a petition signed by 50 scientists at the congress requesting the opportunity to assist in the research. They have yet to receive our government's response.

Helen Khal
The Daily Star

August 15, 1878:  born, Mar Timotavous (Timothy), Metropolitan of the Assyrian Church of the East in Malabar, India.  His Excellency served the Assyrian church for 37 years in India.

JANET SHUMMON

In California the Assyrian Year 6748 might as well be known as the "Year of the Assyrian Woman."  With the election of Ms. Janet Shummon to preside over the affairs of the Bet-Nahrain organization in Ceres (Modesto) three of the most active Assyrian social and cultural organizations in the Golden State are now run by women.   After the unexpected resignation of Sargon Yaldaei of San Jose last year, Mrs. Jacklin Bejan, was handed over the formidable job of executing the day-to-day activities of the Assyrian American Association of San Jose.  She has since become one of the most influential Assyrian civic leaders in California.  A few months ago, Ms. Madlin Zango of Los Angeles was re-elected to the presidency of the Assyrian American Association of Southern California to continue her reconstruction and revitalization programs in the highly dispersed Assyrian communities of Southern California.

Ms. Janet Shummon is a familiar face around the Bet-Nahrain Center and to the tens of thousands of viewers of the AssyriaVision TV program around the world.  For nearly two decades she has assisted Sargon Dadesho, chairman of the Assyrian National Congress and editor of the Bet-Nahrain Magazine,  in rallying the Central Valley's support (Modesto/Turlock) around her organization's social and cultural activities.   In April she was sworn in as the first woman elected to the office of the President of Bet-Nahrain organization.  Although the Bet-Nahrain organization is not affiliated with the Assyrian American National Federation, as are the other two aforementioned associations, greater cooperation among the three organizations through the efforts of their well-supported presidents is expected.  Mrs. Bejan of San Jose was recently interviewed on the Bet-Nahrain TV program to report on the Assyrian Olympics in San Jose.

The Directory of ZENDA News Sources
ZNAA (Assyrian Academic Society-Chicago)
ZNAD (Assyrian Democratic Organization)
ZNAF (Agence France-Presse)
ZNAH (Al-Ahram Newspaper, London)
ZNAL (Al-Hayat, London)
ZNAI  (Assyrian International News Agency)
ZNAK (American Kurdish
ZNAM (Archeology Magazine)
ZNAP (Associated Press International)
ZNBN (Bet-Nahrain Inc/ KBSV-TV "AssyriaVision")
ZNCN (ClariNews)
ZNIF (Iraq Foundation)
ZNDA (Zenda: zenda@ix.netcom.com)
ZNIN (Iraqi National Congress)
ZNLT (Los Angeles Times)
ZNMN (San Jose Mercury News)
ZNMW (Mideast Newswire)
ZNNQ (Nabu Quarterly)
ZNNV (Nineveh Magazine)
ZNNY:  New York Times
ZNQA (Qala Atouraya- Moscow)
ZNRU (Reuters)
ZNSH (Shotapouta Newsletter)
ZNSJ (San Jose Mercury News)
ZNSM (Shufimafi Lebanese News)
ZNSO (Syrian Orthodox News "SOCNews")
ZNTM (Time Magazine)
ZNUP (United Press International)
ZNUS (US News & World Report)