Page 178 - America's Failure to Perceive the PKK

Indeed, in the wake of what happened in Kobane, religious Kur-
dish people have declared that they do not approve of the PKK
through a press bulletin. The bulletin read; "Undoubtedly, Muslims
have the power and might to respond to those coward gangs [the PKK] who
fled from Kobane like rabbits." 68

As could be seen, the Kurdish people in Rojava consider the PYD
taking command in the region as a scourge and want to be freed from
the persecution of the PYD. It needs to be recalled once more that the

same situation is also valid for Turkey and that the Kurdish people in
Turkey must never be regarded the same as the PKK and that the Kur-
dish people in Turkey are among the targets of the PKK as well.

The 108-page report of Human Rights Watch from 2014 carries
great importance in documenting the circumstances in the Syrian
Kurdish region. According to this report, in which the situation in the
Kobane and Jazira cantons are examined, the PYD forces ruling the
region are held responsible for arbitrary arrests, the systematic viola-
tion of legal rights, as well as many unsolved murders and abduc-
tions. Although the report was prepared with a

cautious and soft language, a terrify-
ing scene appears in front of us:

YPG militants in Rojava, the Kur-
dish area of Syria engage in inhu-
man treatment of their own people,
as documented by Human Rights
Watch reports.

176 America's Failure to Perceive the PKK