Democratic Union Party (Syria)

Democratic Union Party Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat
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Arabic name	حزب الاتحاد الديمقراطي
Leader	Salih Muslim Asya Abdullah
Founded	2003
Headquarters	Kobanî
Ideology	Libertarian socialism, Democratic socialism, Feminism, Eco-socialism, Social ecology, Democratic Confederalism, Communalism,
Political position	Left-wing
National affiliation	National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change Kurdish Supreme Committee
International affiliation	Koma Civakên Kurdistan Socialist International
Rojava Coalition	TEV-DEM
Colors	Green, red, yellow
People's Council	0 / 250
Democratic Council	8 / 43
Website
Official website
Politics of Syria Political parties Elections

The Democratic Union Party (Kurdish: Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat‎, PYD; Arabic: حزب الاتحاد الديمقراطي‎‎, Ḥizb Al-Ittiḥad Al-Dimuqraṭiy) is a left-wing Kurdish political party established in 2003 by Kurdish activists in northern Syria. It is a founder member of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change, it is described by the Carnegie Middle East Center as "one of the most important Kurdish opposition parties in Syria". It is the leading political party in the Federation of Northern Syria - Rojava and its cantons. Chemical engineer Saleh Muslim became its chairman in 2010, and Asiyah Abdullah its co-chairwoman in June 2012.

Ideology

On its website, the PYD describes itself as believing in "social equality, justice and the freedom of belief" as well as "pluralism and the freedom of political parties". It describes itself as "striving for a democratic solution that includes the recognition of cultural, national and political rights, and develops and enhances their peaceful struggle to be able to govern themselves in a multicultural, democratic society." The PYD is a member of several organisations, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) is one of them.

Abdullah Öcalan, a Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader imprisoned in İmralı, Turkey, is an iconic and popular figure in Rojava whose ideas shaped the region's society and politics. In prison in İmralı (Turkey), Öcalan corresponded with (and was influenced by the ideas of) Murray Bookchin, who favored social ecology, direct democracy, and libertarian municipalism (i.e., a confederation of local citizens' assemblies). In March 2005, Öcalan issued his "Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan" based on Bookchin's ideas, calling upon citizens to "to stop attacking the government and instead create municipal assemblies, which he called 'democracy without the state.'" Öcalan envisioned these assemblies as forming a pan-Kurdistan confederation, united for purposes of self-defense and with shared values of environmentalism, gender equality, and ethnic, cultural, and religious pluralism. The PYD later implemented ideas of Bookchin and Öcalan in Rojava, where hundreds of neighborhood-based communes have established across the three Rojava cantons.

Like the KCK umbrella in general, and even more so, the PYD is critical of any form of nationalism, including Kurdish nationalism. They stand in stark contrast to Kurdish nationalist visions of the Kurdish National Council.

History

Origins and foundation (2003 and prior)

While the Syrian Ba'ath government had always been oppressive towards its own Kurdish minority, former president Hafiz al-Assad supported Kurdish factions in neighboring Iraq and Turkey in order to exert pressure on regional rivals. In 1975, Assad offered the Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani a safe haven in Damascus to found his new Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). From the 1980s, Assad also supported the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) against his regional rival Turkey, when he bowed to pressure from Ankara and sought improved political and economic relations.

This only changed in the late 1990s when Turkey became serious about threatening Syria with war. After 19 years in Syria, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan had to flee on October 9, 1998, only to be captured by Turkish agents several months later. Subsequently a mutual security pact between Turkey and Syria was concluded on 20 October in the Turkish city of Adana. The Syrian government listed the PKK as a "terrorist organisation", withdrew all support for it, and agreed to strategically cooperate with Turkey against it. The PKK soon was forced to largely abandon its former bases in Syria in the face of this. Some sources say that against this backdrop, the PYD was secretly founded in 2003 by PKK and according to the Carnegie Middle East Center the PYD suffered years of violent repression at the hands of the Syrian regime.

Underground activism and state repression (2004–2010)

Though Syrian security forces had already for several years been targeting PKK members who stayed in Syria, the PYD came under intensified persecution in the aftermath of the March 2004 Kurdish uprising across northern Syria. According to Human Rights Watch, the Syrian government saw the party as a particular threat due to its "ability to mobilise large crowds", and suspected it of organising numerous demonstrations. Therefore, many PYD activists imprisoned in the aftermath of the uprising were not given the amnesty that Bashar al-Assad granted other Kurdish detainees as a later goodwill gesture.

On 2 November 2007, PYD activists organised large demonstrations in Qamishli and Ayn al-Arab (Kurdish: Kobanê‎), drawing hundreds of Kurds to protest against recent Turkish threats—supported by Assad—to invade Kurdish areas in northern Iraq where the PKK was based. Security forces—including a unit imported from Damascus—fired teargas in an effort to disperse the crowds. When some protesters reportedly began to resist by throwing stones, the police opened fire with live ammunition, killing one and injuring at least two more. Dozens of Kurds (among them women and children) were detained in the ensuing police crackdown. Most were soon released, but 15 activists—3 of them party officials—remained imprisoned and were sent before a military court on various charges.

From 2006 to 14 April 2009, at least two dozen PYD activists were formally tried before a special security court, some receiving sentences from five to seven years on charges of membership in a "secret organisation" and seeking "to cut off part of Syrian land to join it to another country". Many others were detained, often in severe conditions and without basic legal rights—some of those released reported being kept in extended solitary confinement and even being subjected to physical and mental torture. Syrian security forces also often continued to harass activists and their families even following their release. While similar methods were employed against many Kurdish prisoners and activists in Syria, Human Rights Watch has noted that security forces tended to reserve their harshest treatments for PYD members.

Conflict in Syria and polyethnic Rojava (2011–present)

Stance in early stages of the conflict (March 2011–July 2012)

See also: Syrian Civil War

With the outbreak of antigovernment demonstrations across Syria in early 2011, the PYD joined the Kurdish Patriotic Movement in May, and was a founding member of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in July and of the KCK-aligned People's Council of Western Kurdistan in December. Unlike most other Kurdish Syrian parties, it did not join the Kurdish National Council (KNC) when it was formed in October 2011, because of tensions between pro-KNC Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government leader Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the PKK. Although critical of the Syrian government, the PYD also criticised the Syrian opposition, including the Syrian National Council (SNC), which it accused of acting in Turkey's interests. The SNC's unwillingness to support Kurdish autonomy led all but one of its Kurdish parties to leave by February 2012. Over 640 prisoners related to PYD were released by the Syrian security apparatus in 2011, most of which returned to the North.

Assertion of control in Rojava (July 2012–July 2013)

File:Kurdish YPG Fighters (16050762203).jpg

The People's Protection Units (YPG) were initially formed by the Democratic Union Party (PYD)

See also: Rojava conflict

In mid-2012 the People's Council of Western Kurdistan signed an agreement with the Kurdish National Council (KNC), forming a joint Kurdish Supreme Council (Kurdish Supreme Committee) and agreeing to cooperate on security for Kurdish areas, forming People's Protection Units (YPG). This followed an "operational decision made by the Assad regime in mid-July 2012 to withdraw the majority of its forces from Syria’s Kurdish areas" (leaving a strong presence only in Qamishli and Al-Hasakah), prompted by a major opposition offensive against the capital Damascus. According to the Carnegie Middle East Center, "Despite these agreements, the Kurdish National Council has accused the PYD of attacking Kurdish demonstrators, kidnapping members of other Kurdish opposition parties, and setting up armed checkpoints along the border with Turkey." In mid-2012 Reuters cited unconfirmed reports that the towns of Amuda, Derik, Kobani and Afrin were under PYD control. Abdelbasset Seida, head of the opposition Syrian National Council claimed in July 2012 after a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu that the Syrian Army had handed over control of certain parts of northeastern Syria to the PYD. The PYD's alleged control over certain areas was said to have led to disputes and clashes between the PYD, the KNC, and the Syrian National Council.

The PYD soon became the dominant force in the Kurdish opposition, with its members running checkpoints on major roads and entrances to Kurdish cities. Under the agreement with the KNC, cities that fall under the control of Syrian Kurdish forces would be ruled jointly by the PYD and the KNC until an election can be held. However, the PYD quickly abandoned the coalition with tribalist Kurdish nationalists for the aim of creating a polyethnic and progressive society and polity in the Rojava region.

Moves toward official autonomy (July 2013–present)

Salih Muslim, co-chairman of Rojava's leading Democratic Union Party (PYD) with Ulla Jelpke at Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Berlin

Main article: Rojava

See also: Human rights in Rojava

In November 2013, the PYD announced an interim government, divided into three non-contiguous autonomous areas or cantons, Afrin, Jazira and Kobani. Leftist media commented that "Kurdish rebels are establishing self-rule in war-torn Syria, resembling the Zapatista experience and providing a democratic alternative for the region."

The polyethnic Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM), led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), is the political coalition governing Rojava. According to Zaher Baher of the Haringey Solidarity Group, the PYD-led TEV-DEM has been "the most successful organ" in Rojava because it has the "determination and power" to change things, it includes many people who "believe in working voluntarily at all levels of service to make the event/experiment successful".

The Rojava system of community government is focused on direct democracy. The system has been described as pursuing "a bottom-up, Athenian-style direct form of democratic governance", contrasting the local communities taking on responsibility versus the strong central governments favoured by many states. In this model, states become less relevant and people govern through councils. Its programme immediately aimed to be "very inclusive" and people from a range of different backgrounds became involved, including Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Syrian Turkmen and Yazidis (from Muslim, Christian, and Yazidi religious groups). It sought to "establish a variety of groups, committees and communes on the streets in neighborhoods, villages, counties and small and big towns everywhere". The purpose of these groups was to meet "every week to talk about the problems people face where they live". The representatives of the different community groups meet 'in the main group in the villages or towns called the "House of the People"'. As a September 2015 report in the New York Times observed:

For a former diplomat like me, I found it confusing: I kept looking for a hierarchy, the singular leader, or signs of a government line, when, in fact, there was none; there were just groups. There was none of that stifling obedience to the party, or the obsequious deference to the "big man"—a form of government all too evident just across the borders, in Turkey to the north, and the Kurdish regional government of Iraq to the south. The confident assertiveness of young people was striking.

The civil laws of Syria are valid in Rojava, as far as they do not conflict with the Constitution of Rojava. One notable example for amendment is the family law, where Rojava proclaims absolute equality of women under the law and a ban on polygamy. For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.

In 2012, the PYD launched what it originally called the Social Economy Plan, later renamed the People’s Economy Plan (PEP). The PEP's policies are based primarily on the work of Abdullah Öcalan and ultimately seek to move beyond capitalism in favor of Democratic Confederalism. Private property and entrepreneurship are protected under the principle of "ownership by use", although accountable to the democratic will of locally organized councils. Dr Dara Kurdaxi, a Rojavan economist, has said that: "The method in Rojava is not so much against private property, but rather has the goal of putting private property in the service of all the peoples who live in Rojava."

Conflict with Turkey

Further information: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present) and Kurdish–Turkish conflict (2015–present)

Despite its current apparent strength in Syria, the group's leader, Salih Muslim, claims that the group desires Kurdish autonomy within a new democratic Syria rather than Kurdish independence. Because of the party's links with the PKK, the PYD has poor relations with Turkey, which views the PYD as merely a Syrian branch of the PKK. The Turkish government's relationship with the Kurds has deteriorated since the Siege of Kobanî, a number of attacks in Turkey were blamed on the PKK and Kurdish strongholds were bombed in response, prompting the PKK to announce the end of the negotiated ceasefire. Turkish President Erdogan has threatened that he would not allow the creation of a Kurdish structure which has close relationships with PKK in Syria. Erdogan also views the recent territorial gains by the PYD as being the result of a deliberate transfer from Assad to the PYD.

The PYD were apparently not invited to a meeting between the Turkish Foreign Minister, the Syrian National Council, and the Kurdish National Council to discuss the future of Syria. This has led some to suggest that the Turkish government is trying to encourage the marginalization of the PYD in the Kurdish opposition due to the group's links with the PKK. Muslim held talks with Turkish officials in July 2013 in regards to seeking autonomy within Syria. According to some sources, Turkey's demands included that the PYD not seek autonomy through violence, not harm Turkish border security and be firmly opposed to the Syrian government.

Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has in August 2016 stated "extermination of the PYD" is a policy aim of the government of Turkey.

The Syrian opposition accused the PYD of being responsible for for the October 2011 assassination of KNC leader Mashaal Tammo, while the PYD has maintained that Turkey was responsible and son of Mashaal Tammo accused the Syrian regime. However, in October 2012, Saudi-owned TV channel Al-Arabiya published documents allegedly proving that Bashar al-Assad himself had engaged the Air Force Intelligence Directorate to assassinate Tammo.

See also

• List of armed groups in the Syrian Civil War
• Kurdistan Free Life Party
• Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party
• Abdullah Öcalan
• Kurdish people

External links

Media related to at Wikimedia Commons