Community Dialogue in Northern Sinjar
Posted on USIP.org on April 11, 2024.
In 2014, ISIS perpetrated its most heinous crimes in Sinjar District of Ninewa Province, including genocide against the Yazidis (or Ezidi) and taking thousands of women as sex-slaves. By design, ISIS implicated members of different tribes and communities against each other, resulting in entire tribes and communities being accused of the crimes committed by some. Ten years on, much of Sinjar is still destroyed and the wounds of its people, particularly the Yazidis, remain fresh as thousands of women, girls and men that ISIS kidnapped remain missing; hundreds of thousands of Yazidis remain displaced; and the families of the victims and the entire Yazidi community await justice.
USIP’s Sarhang Hamasaeed explains how the Institute facilitated dialogues in northern Sinjar to prevent communal violence and bridge relations both between local communities and between communities and the government. The dialogues eventually led to a breakthrough, and in March 2024, Yazidis and Arab leaders in the area signed an agreement that rejected violence, embraced the rule of law for settling disputes, and called for the Iraqi government to pursue justice and rebuild the district.
The dialogues were an integral part of USIP’s ongoing work in Iraq. The Institute has also conducted extensive research on local attitudes toward peace, conflict and governance and recently hosted “Nobody’s Listening," an immersive exhibit commemorating the Yazidi genocide, at our Washington, D.C., headquarters.
Video on YouTube
Transcript
Sarhang Hamasaeed, Director, Middle East Programs, U.S. Institute of Peace:
2024 marks 10 years since ISIS’s genocide against the Yazidis in Sinjar and other communities in Iraq. Ten years on, the wounds of the Yazidi community in particular remain fresh as thousands of women, girls, and men that ISIS kidnapped remain missing; hundreds of thousands of Yazidis remain displaced; and the families of the victims and the entire Yazidi community await justice for the heinous crimes of ISIS.
Much of Sinjar is still destroyed. The district is challenged by the competing armed forces and groups, and the domestic and political rivalry that is taking place there. The complexities of Sinjar cannot be exaggerated. These complexities have obstructed justice and rebuilding the area, they obstruct - and they continue to challenge governance, security, and peaceful coexistence.
Governments, organizations, civil society and other community leaders have tried to help Sinjar and its people to recover from genocide. There has been progress, but it remains modest compared to the wounds and the needs of Sinjar and its people.
By design, ISIS implicated members of different tribes and communities against each other to sow the seeds of division. As a result, entire tribes and communities were accused of the crimes committed by some. This occurred in Sinjar, Tal Afar, Tikrit, and elsewhere in Iraq. In addition, communities seek justice and reparations for damage caused during the military operations to liberate the areas.
Given the expertise of the U.S. Institute of Peace in Iraq and in peacebuilding, the government of Iraq and community leaders over the years sought USIP’s assistance to prevent communal violence, bridge community-community and community-government relations, solve problems through dialogue and promote peaceful coexistence.
USIP and its partners led dialogues among tribal and other community leaders from Salahaddin and Southern provinces after the Camp Speicher Massacre of 2014, also among community leaders in Hawija southwest of Kirkuk in 2015, and in Ninewa Plains and Tal Afar after them.
Over the years, we were asked if we could facilitate dialogue in Sinjar. We assessed multiple times, and concluded that the complexities of Sinjar do not allow for success and may cause harm. We were certain that we cannot cover all of Sinjar’s areas, actors, and issues. We did not intervene.
However, community leaders continued to report to USIP that communal tensions continue to exist, there is lack of trust, a crime against an Yazidi is blamed on the Arabs, a crime against an Arab is blamed on the Yazidis, community divisions were exploited politically, and were causing more harm. These all indicated that despite the fact that Yazidis, Arabs, and other communities coexisted in peace before, ISIS has clearly caused damage that they needed to be addressed.
Given the ongoing requests to USIP, we selected Northeast Sinjar because it represented the least complex part of a very complicated district. We thought if dialogue cannot succeed there, it would be even more difficult in other places of Sinjar. The preliminary steps indicated that USIP’s approach may bear results, but progress remained slow. Along the way, we learned of limitations faced by other organizations who tried other approaches in other areas of Sinjar.
Over the past year, USIP expanded the team to include its longstanding Iraqi partner Al-Tahreer Association for Development known as T-A-D, (TAD), and other members of the Network of Iraqi Facilitators. The team implemented a five-phase dialogue process involving Yazidi and Arab community leaders from various parts of Northern Sinjar.
The initial phases of the process focused on the areas of Borek and Gohbel settlements, along with the neighboring villages, where Yazidi-Yazidi and Arab-Arab dialogues were facilitated. Through these dialogues, communities were clear with each other that they seek justice, not reconciliation, better services and peace for their areas, not involvement in politics. They reached common ground and wanted practical solutions.
Building on this success, the dialogue process expanded to include other areas in Northern Sinjar, resulting in each community reaching common ground internally and with the broader community as well and establishing channels of communications The dialogue culminated in the Northern Sinjar Social Cohesion Agreement, which was signed by Yazidi and Arab community leaders on March 30th this year in Mosul.
Among other things, the community leaders commit to rejecting violence and extremism, support state processes and institutions, and turn to rule of law to settle differences and conflicts. The leaders also call upon the government actors to unify the administration and security configuration in Sinjar, rebuild their areas, and expedite compensation for those who lost relatives in the conflict with ISIS and during military operations.
Senior officials from the federal Government of Iraq, including the National Security Advisory, the National Security Service, and the Ministry of Migration and Displacement, as well as the Kurdistan Regional Government, the provincial government and council of Ninewa participated in the ceremony and expressed support to the agreement. The Governor of Ninewa participated in the agreement signing ceremony and signed the agreement himself.
Saeed Al-Jayashi, Strategic Affairs Advisor, Iraq National Security Advisory:
In the Iraqi state's calculations, and I represent the National Security Advisory in this conversation, the criminal will receive his punishment, whoever he may be, today, tomorrow, or the day after. But the compass, thank God, Iraq is now recovering, Ninewa is recovering, and northern Sinjar is recovering, and we hope to see you in Sinjar and in northern Sinjar.
Abdulqadir Al-Dakhil, Governor of Ninewa:
Iraq is a country of civilizations, a country of law. We do not say that what happened would be forgiven. The criminal receives his punishment according to Iraqi law. But life must go on. We, as a local government, in cooperation with the [Iraq] Federal Government and the [Kurdistan] Regional Government, will make every effort to provide all logistical support and real services, and we will do everything we can to serve our Arab, Yazidi and Muslim people in the northern Sinjar area.
There were challenges during the dialogue process and after the announcement. There are those who viewed dialogue and interpreted "social cohesion” to mean reconciliation, giving up the rights of the victims or giving up on justice or forgiving perpetrators of ISIS’s crimes or they say the signatories do not represent the people or the document does not include all the needs of Sinjar.
Sarhang Hamasaeed:
The reality is the Northern Sinjar leaders did not offer or request reconciliation. They were very clear that they do not represent the victims or all Sinjar. Bringing ISIS criminals to justice was always a top demand, ensuring and expediting reparations for the families of the victims was another priority. Leaders from both communities agreed on the importance of addressing these grievances and that’s what makes this process important – that both communities were in it together. The process was a community dialogue and finding common ground about community needs, not a political dialogue or a political agreement. The leaders have shown incredible courage by participating in the dialogue process, publicly and transparently sharing what they pursued together – again seeking justice together for those who have lost family members, by providing a foundation to be built upon.
In addition to dialogues, USIP has supported other initiatives like the Conflict and Stabilization Monitoring Framework to convey the voice of the community in Sinjar, including the Yazidis, and other districts of Ninewa to Iraqi government and international community to address the needs of the people. USIP hosted the Nobody’s Listening Exhibition at its Headquarters office in Washington, D.C. The exhibition commemorates ISIS’s genocide against the Yazidis. USIP also hosted public discussions to remind at the 10-year anniversary of ISIS’s genocide that the heavy burden of physical and social destruction that ISIS left behind is not done. Sinjar and the ongoing impact of Yazidi genocide require particular attention.