​​​​​​​In the first session of the forum, the lecturers emphasized need to address the root causes of the genocide

The Forum on "Ethnic Genocide and Demographic Change in North and East of Syria" continues its work according to the program by holding the first session, whose theme is "Ethnic Genocide and Demographic Change that Targeted the Population of the Region and Suffered from it Throughout History", run by Jurist and independent political writer Nayef Jabiru, which included three lectures.

The first lecture was given by the joint head of the Syriac Union Party, Sanhareb Barsoum, and the lecture centered on the genocide that the Syriac, Assyrian and Chaldean people were exposed to more than a hundred years ago by the Ottoman Empire and its heir to the Turkish Republic.

Barsoum said, the chauvinist idea started with the Girl Turkey Movement, whose founding roots date back to 1889, and that the genocide led to the killing of a million and a half Armenians, the seizure of their lands and their deduction from Armenia and making Turkification's policy till this day, and the killing of 700 thousand Syrians and the seizure of their lands and properties from Urmia in the east on the borders of Iran to Alexandron in the west on the Mediterranean, as well as about 300 thousand of Pontus Greece were killed.

Barsoum pointed out that the pressure and denial of the rights of the Syriac people continues in Turkey through the non-acceptance of the Syriac ID, the infringement of properties and the use of derogatory terms for the Syriac people such as the word "Kaur" which means the infidel.

"The government of Erdogan continues today in this approach to bring about demographic change in NE, Syria, genocide its indigenous peoples, and settle others in their place, and making Turkification's policy regions while following the same steps taken by his Ottoman predecessors and the leaders of the Union and Progress that established the Turkish Republic on the blood of these peoples, and on the economy of those peoples, and on racist chauvinist law, are one religion, one nationality, one language and one science. "

This was followed by a lecture by the researcher at the Euphrates Studies Center, Janar Salih. In her lecture, she addressed forced displacement as one of the tools of "genocide", and stated that displacement operations have ancient historical roots. It is still ongoing until the present century, despite numerous laws criminalizing forced displacement.

Jinar Salih noted that during the Syrian crisis, forced displacements occurred, including those carried out by the Syrian regime in recent years in the areas of Qusayr, Zabadani, Madaya and Eastern al-Ghouta, in addition to the forced displacements carried out by the Turkish occupation in Jarablus, Azaz, Afrin, and more recently Girê Spî (Tel-Abyed), Serêkaniyê (Ras-al_Ain)

Saleh referred in her lecture to a number of international laws that criminalize forced displacement, and to the goals and methods of forced displacement such as the occupier's attempt to change the demographics to expand his control and influence, making the target area homogeneous racially, religiously ordoctrinal, with the invading party. Erasing history, its meaning and originality in the targeted areas, and removing and eliminating indigenous peoples. And creating a spirit of permanent animosity between the sects and components that exist in that region through forced displacement, the resettlement of others deported by coercion from their regions, and cultural genocide by eliminating the region's identity and culture through the process of demographic change.

Jinar Salih also referred to the displacement operations that the Kurds were subjected to during their history, especially the displacement operations under the authority of the Baathist regime in Syria, including the unfair statistic law in the sixties, depriving the Kurds of Syrian citizenship, in addition to implementing the project of Arabization in stages in order to change the demographic the region, and building settlements for those affected by the Euphrates Dam project and housing them in Kurdish villages.

In her lecture, Janar Saleh talked about forcibly displaced persons from northern and eastern Syria during the Syrian crisis, and cited examples of forced displacement in Afrin, Girê Spî (Tel-Abyed), Serêkaniyê (Ras-al_Ain) in this context. At the hands of the Turkish occupation and its mercenaries.

At the end of her lecture, Janar Saleh stated that the international efforts focus on how to find and provide shelter for the displaced and the displaced "but the most effective thing is to hold the perpetrators of these crimes a crime against humanity" and to address their root causes.

For his part, during his lecture, which focused on the Ottoman occupation of the Arab countries and the crimes which committed against these peoples over centuries, the Deputy co-chair for the Autonomous Administration of Al-Jazeera region, Hussein Azzam, indicated that the Ottomans occupied Arab countries through genocide since the sixteenth century, as well as The Ottoman occupation for centuries has entered the Arab countries in a period of darkness and backwardness in the economic, scientific, cultural, political and social fields.

He also mentioned a series of crimes of displacement and ethnic genocide committed by the Ottomans against Arab peoples and countries, for example the emigration of thousands of Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese and Jordanians to various countries of the world due to the starvation policies practiced by the Ottomans, and the famine in the Levant resulted in the death of more than 80 thousand people, In addition to the crimes committed by the Ottoman Sultan Salim Khan in Egypt, which resulted in the killing 10,000 people.

The lectures included a number of interventions by the attendees on the topics of the session, which were answered by the lecturers.

(T/S)

ANHA