Page 180 - America's Failure to Perceive the PKK

The report stated that children are being given weapons and
used as militants and that anti-PYD riots invariably been forcefully
and bloodily suppressed. Along with those, scores of other violations
of human rights were listed in the report. This report also emphasizes
that the PYD is a direct part of the PKK terror organization in Turkey
and it states that this organization has been carrying out arbitrary
punishment with its own legal courts, prisons and police forces estab-

lished in the region since 2012, after the Syrian government withdrew
due to civil conflict. The report also states that these arbitrary treat-
ments are "worrisome". 69

Certain Western media groups, which ignored
the warnings of Turkey following the Kobane
attacks, felt compelled to change their tune as
they learned more about the region. Jamie
Dettmer of the Daily Beast described the Kurdish
regional administration in Syria as despotic and
noted how some people that wished to return

home weren't allowed to do so by the PYD.
He quoted a Kurdish retiree named Ali:
"The fighters [YPG] do what they like and no
one can say anything to them—if they
order you to do something or not to do
something, you can't say no or argue
that it isn't right." 70 According to

statements by the locals Dettmer
talked to, many of the people who
wanted to go back to Kobane after
the siege were not allowed to do
so; YPG militants had already
seized their properties, effectively
forcing them to migrate. 71

178 America's Failure to Perceive the PKK