Speeches & Articles

Assyrian International News Agency

Assyrian Author Addresses British House of Lords on Genocide

23 April 2008

Los Angeles (AINA) -- Rosie Malek-Yonan, author of The Crimson Field who serves on the Board of Advisor at Seyfo Center Europe and U.S. was invited to send a statement regarding genocide to be read at the House of Lords on 12 March 2008, chaired by Lord Rea.

Statement of Rosie Malek-Yonan to the House of Lords (London):

"In order to strive for world peace, we must first clean house.

By that I mean we must acknowledge all genocides without exception. So long as these open wounds are not healed, we continue to pass on the hatred and anger towards one another because we feel defenseless. It is time to end the cycle of violence and hatred by opening the dialog about atrocities that have occurred to all people of all nations particularly those nations who have been subjected to genocide.

No one nation is above the rest. No one genocide is more important than the rest.

The very definition of genocide is the deliberate killings of a large group of people particularly those of a certain ethnic group or nation.

The recognition and acceptance of a genocide, and mass murder of nations is not to merely point a finger at a tyrant guilty of those crimes. It is acceptance of facts and truths with the ultimate goal to mend bridges between the races. It is not to merely condemn but to create the first step towards world peace."

On 24 April 2008, Ms. Malek-Yonan was asked to provide another similar statement to be read at the House of Commons (London) at the Armenian Genocide Day Conference, Sponsored and Chaired by Andrew George M.P.

Statement of Rosie Malek-Yonan to the House of Commons (London)

"The absence of the negotiation of world peace is the single greatest threat to humanity and the future of a violent-free world.

In order to achieve freedom from war, we must examine the actions that continually create the cycle of anger and hatred as the catalyst to any conflict between nations.

World peace will always remain a distant thought when reconciliation in the aftermath of genocide is not at the forefront of all discussions of human rights violations relative to those crimes.

When we perpetually allow the practice of genocide and holocaust and consent to the denial of such actions to linger for decades as in the case of the Assyrian, Armenian and Pontic Greek Genocide, we are in essence consenting to denial as a compromise. Denial is not compromise.

To the survivors and the children and grandchildren of the survivors of the Assyrian, Armenian, and Pontic Greek Genocide of 1914-1918 in Ottoman Turkey and northwestern Iran, there is no valid justification for the renunciation of facts.

With the acknowledgement of past and present genocides we can slowly begin to mend the broken bridges that may ultimately lead the human race to eradicate bloodshed and violence among nations of this world. But so long as we turn a blind-eye to these killings, we are sanctioning the ongoing slaughter such as today's modern-day Assyrian Genocide occurring in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 war.

A formal pronouncement by the Turkish government of the Assyrian, Armenian, and Pontic Greek Genocide will bring closure to not only the survivors of the genocide, but also to the Turkish people in that the nearly century-old hatred can begin to give way to human solidarity. Anything short of that will surely continue to threaten all hope of peace."

Published: Assyrian International News Agency (USA, 23 April 2008) - French Translation by Madame Louise Kiffer ArmenNews (France, 8 May 2008)

Assyrian International News Agency

Guest Editorial

Another Priest Killed: The Assyrian Genocide Continues in Iraq

Rosie Malek-Yonan

5 April 2008

Los Angeles (AINA) -- The latest victim of the Assyrian Genocide unfolding in Iraq is 40 year-old Father Youssef Adel, the parish priest at Saint Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in central Baghdad.

According to reports from AP and Reuters, just a few hours ago at approximately 11:30 a.m. on Saturday 5 April 2008, Father Adel was gunned down at the gates of his own home near the church in Karrada neighborhood. After the shooting, the assailants sped away by car. Father Adel's body was taken to Ibn Nafis Hospital in central Baghdad.

Father Adel was an engineer by trait, when six years ago he became a priest and served at a church in Dora, south of Baghdad. When the predominantly Sunni neighborhood became too violent for the Assyrians, Father Adel transferred to Karradah where he continued to serve his people. Now he leaves behind a young widow.

Assyrian news media outlets, writers and activists have been consistently reporting on crimes committed against their nation since the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003. When the news of this latest murder of a member of my nation came early this Saturday morning, I wondered how many ways would I write the same article time and time again? It's the same scenario. Only the names change. And despite our pleas, no one is moved enough within the U.S. Government to take serious action to protect the Assyrians in Iraq.

Has the human race become so desensitized, that these atrocities no longer phase anyone?

The Assyrian nation has been on a rapid decline since the beginning of the war when the population of the Christians was about 1.4 million while today less than one third remains in Iraq.

Thousands have lost their lives in the Iraq War including Shi'a, Sunni, Kurds and Americans. However, the Assyrians have become the subject of an ethnic cleansing that will potentially wipe out that nation completely while the others will continue to survive when this war will eventually come to a long and exhaustive end.

The Assyrian Genocide in Iraq is the untold tragedy of the Iraq War. As the indigenous people of that region, many Assyrians refuse to leave the land of their ancestors especially when they recently celebrated the 6578th Assyrian New Year. However, many Assyrians have fled to neighboring Syria, Jordan and Lebanon where they are now stranded with no hope of ever going back or moving forward. A few have been fortunate enough to make it to the relative safety of western countries. But for those Assyrians who don't have the means to leave the killing fields in Iraq, life is just a game of Russian roulette.

Published: Assyrian International News Agency (USA, 5 April 2008)

Assyrian International News Agency

Guest Editorial

Genocide Unfolding: Death of a Catholic Assyrian Archbishop in Iraq

Rosie Malek-Yonan

18 March 2008

Los Angeles (AINA) -- While leaving Mosul's Holy Spirit Cathedral on February 29, 2008, gunmen abducted Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, killing his driver and two bodyguards (AINA 2-29-2008). Twelve days later, the kidnapped archbishop was found dead, buried in a shallow grave near Mosul (AINA 3-13-2008).

The widespread condemnation of last week's death of the 65 year-old Assyrian Archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, Iraq has been reverberating around the world. From Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan to Pope Benedict XVI, the expression of outrage has been heard. There's no shortage of statements issues by various Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac groups, individuals and journalists. Various Christian groups around the globe have also been lending their voices in support of the Christians in Iraq. Stories of Archbishop Rahho's death streaming the news for the past two weeks, clearly attest to the fury.

Pope Benedict XVI issued an urgent request during his Sunday sermon this week to end the massacre in Iraq. Will an abstract plea of peace in Iraq bring about change? Will the Pope's cry of "enough to the violence in Iraq" stop the brutality? Or will the words of the pontiff quickly fade into oblivion by his next Sunday's Vatican sermon? The Pope has made similar pleas in the past that have gone unanswered.

Did the U.S. government show enough concern to quickly and actively look for Archbishop Rahho while he was fighting for his life in the hands of his captures? It was repeatedly reported that he suffered from a heart problem and was dependent upon medication for survival that he was deprived of by his kidnappers.

Clearly the outrage was not enough to prompt the U.S. government to take immediate action while the archbishop was held for ransom.

But what if it had been an American, European, or Israeli abducted for ransom? Would the world have reacted differently?

Alone and abandoned, Iraq's rapidly declining Assyrian Christian nation is left to fend for itself while besieged by daily terror. Unarmed and isolated, this small nation cannot fight the extreme terrorism that is targeting its people. Not even in retaliation do the minority Christians in Iraq strike back against their aggressors. These systematic violent attacks have now turned into a full-blown genocide against the Assyrians, the indigenous people of Iraq that includes the Chaldeans, Syriacs, and all the other various Christian denominations.

With millions of dollars vested in the Iraq War and with all its sophisticated war machinery, the U.S. has no handle on this conflict that has been erupting in the battlefields of Iraq since 2003. How then can an unarmed and unprotected small minority with no funding and no weaponry expect to survive under the same conditions?

After more than four years of deliberate attacks on the Christian population in Iraq, there seems to be a "momentary outrage" about the death of an archbishop. But time and time again, we have witnessed the emergence of a "momentary outrage" that falls short on impulsion. On October 11, 2006, Fr. Paulos Eskandar, a Syrian Orthodox priest was beheaded with his arms and legs hacked off. Surely that crime should have been enough to capture the world's attention and to bring about change in the treatment of the Christians in Iraq.

But how long will these cries of unjust against this latest offense last? Now that Archbishop Rahho has been laid to rest, will he, too, fade from memory like all the others before him? Or will the "momentary outrage" continue long and loud enough for the good citizens of the world to take on a more proactive role to save this nation from extinction? Will President Bush have the courage to take off his blinders or will he continue to stumble in the dark until his final day in office?

With every attack on the Christians in Iraq, I ask, "Have we reached the blistering point? Will this be the turning point for the Assyrians?" I usually find my answer when I see the stories rapidly fading.

Certainly the death of Archbishop Rahho is a great tragedy but by no means is it an isolated case and should not over shadow the systematic and targeted murder of countless other innocent Christians in Iraq.

In June of 2006, my American government, the same government that attacked Iraq, invited me to testify on Capitol Hill about the persecution of the Assyrians in Iraq since 2003. There was a promise of hope in the air. I witnessed the "momentary outrage" on the part of the members of the Congressional Committee of the 109th Congress I appeared before. My testimony even brought Representative Betty McCollum to tears.

The "momentary outrage" lasted long enough to prompt Congressman Christopher Smith to visit Iraq and meet with Assyrian Christians including Pascal Warda, a former minister in the Iraqi transitional government, and turned in my report to U.S. Officials in Iraq.

Believing to be a man of his word, I have since been holding Congressman Smith accountable for his promise to me when on the record he stated:

"I thank you for that very powerful testimony. I just want you to know that you point out no one's taking notice. The reason why we invited you and wanted you here was to try to begin to rectify that. To raise this issue with our own government and other coalition partners, especially the Iraqis. Your testimony will be used, I can assure you, to try and rectify things."

But even though the atrocities committed against Assyrian Christians were brought to the attention of Washington and my report went full circle when Congressman Smith returned it to the "scene" of the crime, it did not reduce the amount of violence perpetrated against Assyrians in Iraq. On the contrary, the brutality escalated into an unstoppable frenzy while the West continued to turn a blind eye. The promise of hope vanished.

From 2003 to 2008, 48 churches have been attacked, bombed, burned and destroyed. In January 2008, seven simultaneous attacks were made again on churches and monasteries. Assyrian children and clergy beheaded and dismembered. Assyrians kidnapped for ransom and murdered. Young Assyrian boys crucified. Women and young girls raped. Assyrian men and boys tortured. Infants burned. Assyrians intimidated and threatened. Land and property confiscated. Business destroyed. Forced migration in a large-scale exodus from Iraq that at one point escalated to 2,000 Assyrians each day. Muslims carrying out threats of Convert or Die. Forced Islamization by way of Assyrian Christians ordered to pay a jeziya, a tax levied on Christians, a practice that is entrenched in ancient Islamic practice. Despite all the crimes against the Assyrians in Iraq, this small nation has continued to remain peaceful, patient and tolerant witnessing its own demise through a modern day ethnic cleansing with the full knowledge of the U.S. and the Coalition Forces making them silent accomplices to these crimes.

Today's Assyrian Genocide in Iraq is reminiscent of the Assyrian Genocide of 1914-1918 in Ottoman Turkey and northwestern Iran where two-thirds of that nation were exterminated. Silent accomplices to those crimes were plentiful.

Since the liberation of Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Assyrians, who were once productive members of society in their homeland in Iraq, have become refugees, stranded and now abandoned in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. They once owned businesses, homes, communities, schools, and churches. Now they live in absolute poverty, forsaken with no hope on the horizon as they face deportation from those respective countries.

Perhaps Congressman Donald Payne's June 30, 2006 comment on the record to me was more apropos when he stated, "The wheels of justice sometimes grind slowly." In the case of the Assyrians, the wheels of justice have stopped.

In June of 2007, a year after my Congressional Testimony, the U.S. Congress approved a $10 million aid through a Sub-Committee on State and Foreign Operations to assist the minorities in the Nineveh Plain in Northern Iraq, namely the Assyrian Christians. Compared to the destructions of lives brought upon the Assyrians in Iraq by the U.S. invasion, a $10 million aid is a band-aid solution to a much deeper, and far more serious problem.

The Leave or Die message regularly delivered to the Assyrians of Iraq by the Muslims is a daily reminder of the instability the U.S. has created for that Christian nation. Unless an immediate plan is put into action to establish an Assyrian administered region in Iraq, with a police force drawn from Assyrian towns and villages in the Nineveh Plains, this ancient civilization will without a doubt disappear.

The simple fact is that when the United States, a Christian country, attacked Iraq, it was seen as an attack on Islam. The Assyrian Christians of Iraq including all the various religious denominations have become a target of retribution against the western Christian invaders. The reluctance on the part of the U.S. to save the Christian minorities in Iraq may stem for the simple fact that the Muslim Iraqis will view this as the U.S. "helping one of its own." Could this be one of the reason the U.S. government chooses to not deal with this embarrassing disaster?

The Christians in Iraq did not start the war in Iraq. Today they are caught in the line of fire while the U.S. continues to evade the human tragedy of the genocide it is directly responsible for when President Bush first ordered the attack on Iraq.

The actions of the U.S. government are nothing less than irresponsible. Why should the Assyrians have to pay the price of this war with such heavy losses? These losses will never be recouped.

As an American citizen and as an Assyrian, I am outraged at the callousness of my government in addressing the predicament it has placed my Assyrian nation in. If the intention of the U.S. is to continue to act as though it does not notice this problem, then before washing its hands completely of the chaos it has created in the Middle-East firstly it must train and arm the Assyrian Christians fully so that they can combat and cope with the daily attacks. Secondly, it is imperative that the U.S. and Iraqi governments immediately deal with the Assyrian issue in the same manner as they did in dealing with the Kurds back in 1991, by establishing an "Assyrian Safe-Zone." With the help of the United Nations, the prosperity of this region can slowly begin, and perhaps finally the Assyrians will be able to once again become a thriving nation on their own, much like the Kurds.

Published: Assyrian International News Agency (USA, 18 March 2008) - Christians of Iraq (USA, 18 March 2008) - Tebayan (Syria, 23 May 2008) - ABC National Radio, Australia (Australia, 19 March 2008) - Hujada, (Sweden, 20 March 2008, Swedish translation by Emil Brikha) - ArmenNews (France, 28 March 2008, French translation by Madame Louise Kiffer)

Assyrian International News Agency

Guest Editorial

TURKEY’S DARK SECRET RESONATING THE AIRWAVES

Turkish Hackers’ Retaliation

Rosie Malek-Yonan

11 March 2008

LOS ANGELES, CA With the world’s attention focused on the battlegrounds of Belgium and France, under the protective mask of WWI, the systematic extermination of Assyrians, Pontic Greeks and Armenians in Ottoman Turkey was carried out by Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, and the Young Turks, Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha, and Djemal Pasha, the hallmark of the first Genocide of the 20th century.

Today in Turkey, openly discussing or writing about genocide and holocaust carries a heavy punishment including imprisonment. The fear instilled in Turkish society is implemented in an effort to conceal a nearly century-old dark chapter in its Ottoman past.

While freedom of speech and uncensored dialog about these genocides are heavily suppressed, the dialog is now slowly unfolding elsewhere in the democratic free world and the west. Just last week one such dialog was broadcast via the airwaves of Australia’s National Radio.

I was invited by a producer of Turkish descent to speak about the Assyrians and the Assyrian Genocide on the program Triple J, the National Youth Network of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

As an Assyrian, I found it very encouraging to have received an invitation from a Turkish producer to speak about a subject that is virtually taboo and unlawful in her own country.

But as I suspected, in no time the inevitable occurred.

In what is becoming a predictable and common behavior, Turkish hackers once again attacked my book’s website. This latest incident trailed on the heels of last week’s radio broadcast. This is the fifth such attack on the website of The Crimson Field, a book I wrote about the Assyrian Genocide.

If the string of assults in the past several months by Turkish hackers against Assyrian websites, including that of the Assyrian Academic Society, is meant to intimidate Assyrians from speaking about the Genocide, obviously, these tactics on the part of the hackers are futile.

Today’s Assyrians still carry with them memories and the wounds of those losses. And yet they are expected to remain quiet. When that expectation is not met, they encounter aggressive demands and intimidation to keep silent. The Assyrian nation will never remain silent.

Terrorization and bullying will not keep a nation silent when two out of every three Assyrians were murdered in the genocide and mass ethnic cleansing orchestrated by the Ottoman government in the early part of the 20th century.

What I find inexcusable is when decent members of society, irrespective of ethnicity, remain complacent with a do-nothing attitude, contributing to the cycle of fanaticism and odium in regards to the question of the Assyrian Genocides of not only last century, but also the ongoing violence towards that nation particularly in Iraq since the beginning of the 2003 war.

Published: Assyrian International News Agency (USA, 11 March 2008) - Zinda Magazine (USA, 12 March 2008) - Eastern Star News Agency (Sweden, 12 March 2008) - Tebayan (Syria, 23 May 2008) - Ankawa (Iraq, 12 March 2008) - Christians of Iraq (USA, 12 March 2008)

America Welcomes Sabri Atman

(Assyrian Genocide Scholar Tours U.S.)

by Rosie Malek-Yonan

11 November 2007

Like an umbilical chord still connected to its bitter past, the Assyrians cannot detach from the events perpetrated against their nation by the Ottoman Turks, Kurds and Persians in the shadows of WWI. The past looms unsettled. The past waits patiently and stubbornly to be made right so that the Assyrian nation can finally be at peace. The Assyrian nation has been mourning its dead for 92 years. It is time to lay them to rest with honor. It is our human right.

Assyrian nationalists and educators such as Mr. Sabri Atman are doing their part to educate and create worldwide awareness of the recognition of the Assyrian Genocide.

This week, Assyrians of America welcome Mr. Atman in their midst. His arrival in the U.S. is indeed a bittersweet encounter for the Assyrians of this region. We are reminded of the importance of remaining vigilant today in safe guarding our history and our past to ensure our nation’s future so that it may be free from oppression and persecution.

Mr. Sabri Atman, founder and director of the Assyrian Seyfo Center in Europe, is presenting a lecture on the topic of the Assyrian Genocide entitled “Genocide, Denial, and the Right of Recognition.” The five-city American tour that began in Los Angeles on November 9th at the Assyrian American Association of Southern California, will continue on to San Jose (November 10th), Turlock (November 11th), Detroit (November 16th), and end in Chicago (November 17th) before he heads for Armenia with the same powerful message.

I had the honor of attending Mr. Atman’s lecture in Los Angeles. He presented the facts clearly and succinctly. But what was most striking about his presentation was his unshakable conviction to demand justice for his Assyrian nation from the Turkish government.

“Today we are not blaming every Turk or Kurd for the past events. But this was done to us in their name,” said Mr. Atman.

Indeed, the silence of the majority and the opposition of many today to recognize the Genocide of the Assyrians, Armenian and Greeks, only emphasizes the support of the denial of these Genocides.

Mr. Atman carried with him a palm size reddish stone from his homeland in Southeast Turkey where he is banned from ever visiting. The stone is a constant reminder of the bitter memories of not just his family’s past but also the past of the Assyrian nation that is perpetually battling 92 years of defiance by the Turks.

Like most Assyrian families, the death of his grand parents at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, is a memory that follows him daily. “The Assyrian nation has inherited incredible scars.”

“We Assyrians live in many different countries, but our existence is not recognized. Our fundamental rights are not recognized,” said Mr. Atman. According to him, the year 1915 was one of the dirtiest pages of Turkish history and consequently, “the Assyrian people did not just suffer a tragedy. They suffered a genocide!”

It is true that as children, we Assyrians grew up learning and hearing about the atrocities committed against our nation during WWI. “We shed tears of blood,” resonated Mr. Atman. A statement I know only too well when I remember the eyes of my own grandmother, who was a survivor of the Assyrian Genocide. She was one of the lucky ones, unlike the rest of her family.

“We are the grandchildren of the Genocide. They owe us an apology.”

An apology that is long overdue.

Published: Assyrian International News Agency (USA, 11 November 2007) - Eastern Star News Agency (Sweden, 11 November 2007) - Zinda Magazine (USA, 12 November 2007) - Christians of Iraq (USA, 11 November 2007) - Ankawa (Iraq, 12 November 2007) - Tebayan (Syria, 11 November 2007) - Hyelog (12 November 2007) - Armenian Genocide Recognition Blog (12 November 2007)

Deliver Us From Evil

by Rosie Malek-Yonan

24 February 2007

A keynote speaker, Rosie Malek-Yonan delivered the following speech at an open forum discussing the persecution of the Copts and the plight of Christians in the Middle-East, in an event sponsored by The Truth Broadcasting Network at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel in Southern California on Saturday, February 24, 2007.

Good and Evil lives in everyone. The choice is ours.

Everyday, I pray for my people in Occupied Assyria. You know it as Iraq. I am one of them. I am one of the Christians of Occupied Assyria. Though I’d rather be called an Assyrian, for I was Assyrian long before I became Christian. My nation was the first to accept Christianity in the first century A.D.

Throughout the centuries, my nation has had to endure a lot for its Christian faith. Christianity for the Assyrians in the Middle-East has been a double edge sword. We have been persecuted for it and it has saved our identity.

I take the Iraq War personally because a war is raging against my nation, the indigenous people of Mesopotamia, the original inhabitants of the land between the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. I am from that cradle of civilization, yet today civilization is crumbling in its own cradle.

I’ve never been to Iraq, my ancestral homeland, but my thoughts drift there everyday since America, the country I call home, invaded it in 2003 without the slightest consideration and empathy for what this war would mean to the Christians of the region. Any war in the Middle-East, will inevitably become a religious war.

In June of 2006, I was invited to Washington D.C. to give a testimony on Capitol Hill about the plight of the Assyrians of Iraq. I testified about the results of the U.S. imposed democracy upon Iraq and its direct effect on the Assyrians.

We all witnessed the ongoing civil war in Iraq progressing at a fantastic pace, while Washington’s continual denial baffled us with catchphrases such as, “We’re winning the war!” What was clear to me was that this great nation of ours had no idea what it was dealing with when it came to the Middle-East.

There are about four million Assyrians worldwide with the largest concentration in Iraq. Before the war, 1.4 million Assyrians lived in Occupied Assyria as one of Iraq’s minorities representing about 3% of the population. Today less than 700,000 Assyrians remain in terrorist-driven democratic Iraq.

I don’t have to be in Iraq to understand the pain my Assyrian nation is enduring. Assyrians are not the only minority under siege in Iraq, but I have a spiritual bond to my own people and naturally feel their pain. It’s personal.

Reciting my habitual Lord’s Prayer, one morning I stumbled on the line Deliver us from evil... I chanted it repeatedly, selfishly wanting God to hear my prayer over everyone else’s. I wanted God to deliver the Assyrians from the evil that besieges them because I can’t find noble men with courage to do that.

The Assyrian news is flooded with accounts of lives devastated. The images haunt me. And then I think about what it must be like for those who see with their own eyes.

I prayed for Ayad Tariq, a fourteen-year-old Assyrian from Baquba who cried, “Yes, I am Christian, but I am not a sinner” while Moslem insurgents chanted, “Allah-u akbar!” and beheaded him.

I prayed for Father Paulos Eskandar, the Metropolitan of Mosul. Kidnapped for ransom, he was beheaded and had his arms and legs hacked off. I don’t have to know him to feel the moments of fear that gripped him before his decapitation.

I prayed for the crucified fourteen-year-old boy from the Assyrian neighborhood of Albasra whose name I don’t even know. He was Assyrian. That makes him my brother.

I prayed for my Assyrian sisters choosing to commit suicide after being abducted for ransom and raped by Islamists. I feel the terror of the hours they were gang-raped. I wrote about this practice of suicide in my novel, The Crimson Field, when during the 1914-1918 Assyrian Genocide young Assyrian women chose death over submission to Islam. I never imagined I’d write and speak about it again so soon.

I prayed for the courage of 22 year-old Luanna, an Assyrian woman, who came forward with her own story after being raped by an Iraqi soldier following a raid on the house she shared with her brother. When Luanna’s brother, Khalil, discovered she was pregnant, he took her to get an abortion.

I prayed for the 30 bombed Assyrian churches. These were not casualties of war. They resulted from a deliberate and systematic religious war targeting Assyrians who represent the face of Christianity in the age-old war of the sword against the cross.

Yoel and his father Emmanuel worked as interpreters for the Coalition Forces in Habbaniya when they were kidnapped. Yoel’s mother paid the $20,000 ransom with donations from relatives in America and Sweden. It’s been over a year since the release of Yoel, who is still awaiting and holding on to hope that his father, too, may be returned. Clearly, Yoel’s father will not return. But what do you say to a son who wants nothing more than to look into the eyes of his father.

The Assyrian nation that has remained an enigma since the fall of the Assyrian Empire, still faces what I call a continual slow genocide that began long before the Iraq War.

In 1895 in Diyarbekir, an estimated 55,000 Assyrians were killed and another 100,000 were forcibly Islamasized.

This event paved the way for the Assyrian Genocide in the shadows of WWI where two-thirds of the Assyrian population, totaling 750,000, were annihilated by the Ottoman Turks, Kurds and Persians.

In 1933 the Assyrian Genocide’s resurrection was in the form of Iraq’s Semele Massacre of 3,000 unarmed Assyrian men, women and children by the Iraqi army and Kurdish warlords. This would be the first of many attacks on Assyrians in Iraq.

The 1979 the Iran Revolution saw a huge migration of the Christian population from Iran. It also witnessed the persecution of countless Assyrians and the destructions of lives of young and old for no other reason than their faith.

The 1991 gulf war and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq brought back the attacks on the Assyrians once more because they are symbolic of Christianity in insurgent dominated Iraq.

This violence against Assyrians that has now escalated with the liberation of Iraq, shows no visible signs that the crimes against the Christians in Iraq will let up any time soon.

Today a systematic ethnic cleansing of the Assyrian Christians has once again picked up momentum in Iraq.

Washington’s decision to rid the world of evil thrust America into the battlefields of Baghdad. In the process Assyrians were delivered into the clutches of a greater evil than that to which they had ever been subjected during Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror.

But the protection of the Assyrian Christians never entered into this equation before the invasion of Iraq. The Assyrians were of no importance. They were a 3% minority whose voices could be ignored.

But the Assyrians in Iraq are not exactly invisible. They may not be large in numbers, but the Assyrian handprint dominates Mesopotamia and they are the image of Christianity in that region.

In 1921 the British and the French molded Iraq out of the vestiges of the Ottoman Empire in a region rich in ancient Assyrian history, artifacts, and culture. The original inhabitants of that land, the region’s 1.4 million Christian population, which has today been reduced to about 700,000, are not just antiquated remnants of the past. They are living breathing legitimate heirs to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates.

The highly anticipated Baker-Hamilton Commission Report earlier this year, disregarded the Assyrian ethnic cleansing in Iraq by referring to one of the world’s oldest nations in nothing but a mere footnote, contributing to the continual negation of the human rights of this most vulnerable nation. The denial of the Assyrian massacres in Iraq mirrors the denial of the Assyrian Genocide of World War One.

Regardless of the ongoing conflict between the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds, the attacks on Assyrians are not isolated incidents, but systematic patterns of aggression targeting that nation.

It doesn’t take much to provoke Islamic violence. Any excuse will do. From caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg address in Germany last year in which the Pontiff coupled Islam with violence, there was an immediate rise of attacks on Assyrian Christians in Iraq. Attacks on university students. Priests carted off for ransom and beheaded. Young Assyrian women harassed and assaulted. Infants snatched from their mothers and burned.

As a portrait of a new and improved but chaotic democratic Iraq emerges, it witnesses the thousands of Assyrian families fleeing their homeland in the largest mass exodus this century has witnessed while the ongoing campaign of terror against Christians in Iraq silently takes its toll.

Since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the unremitting attacks on the indigenous Christians of the region, it is amazing that the Assyrians have not replied to violence with violence. Had they done so, Assyrians would certainly have made the headline news.

When our churches are bombed, we don’t attack mosques. When our youth are bludgeoned to death, we don’t practice an eye for an eye. When our priests are beheaded, we pray for their souls and know they are entering the Kingdom of God. We don’t have the blood of vengeance on our hands.

We may be a nation without a country, with no political standing, no oil fields to use as bargaining chips, our human rights ignored, endlessly marginalized, terrorized and brutalized. Yet we do not seek reprisal. That has never been our way. We are not stained with the blood of retribution.

In the shadows of WWI, the Ottoman Turks, Kurds and Persians carried out a systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide against the three Christian nations of Assyrians, Armenians and Hellenic Greeks, between the years 1914 and 1918 in the Ottoman Empire and Northwestern Persia.

Two-thirds of the Assyrian nation totaling 750,000 souls perished in the Ottoman Empire and Persia as a result of the genocides, starvation, dehydration, disease and exposure to elements while thousands fell victim to kidnappings, forced assimilation and forced migration.

Ironically, by the conclusion of the Great War, the Ottoman Empire’s desire to become homogenous by way of the genocides it committed against its Christian subjects resulted in the collapse of the Ottomans and the end of the Young Turks’ movement including the reduction of its territorial stretch.

The Assyrian Genocide did not end with the conclusion of the Great War. It was followed by the Death Marches of 1924 when Assyrians marched from Turkey to Aleppo, Syria.

Reeling back from this darkest period in Assyrian history, the cycle of brutality against these Christians would return time after time.

I learned of the Assyrian Genocide from early childhood. Not because someone actually sat me down and explained it to me. I, like most Assyrian children, grew up learning about it by hearing adult conversations. It was part of the daily dialog in every Assyrian home.

More than remembering my grandmother’s words, I recall her profound grief and sadness. I remember the loud periods of silence. As a child, I didn’t know how I could comfort my grandmother. By the time she died, my grandmother had already passed her pain onto me.

The Assyrian Genocide is a chapter in history that has long been neglected by the world. As an Assyrian, it is very difficult to fathom how the Genocide of a people, can so easily be dismissed and intentionally ignored by the international community.

In 1915 the Assyrian Patriarch, Mar Benyamin Shimon, saw no choice but to declare Assyrians, a nation without a country, the Smallest Ally of the Allies.

In exchange for this allegiance, the Assyrians were promised an autonomous region in Mesopotamia by the conclusion of the war. But this British promise to liberate them never came to pass. By March of 1918, the Assyrian Patriarch was assassinated along with 150 of his men and a nation was left to mourn its losses in silent anguish.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of the crime of Genocide against the Assyrian nation and the Armenians and Hellenic Greeks, the Turkish government’s vehement denial is a sobering reminder that history can and will repeat itself unless confronted and finally laid to rest.

Archives are overflowing with proof corroborating these crimes against Christians; Eyewitness accounts and testimonials, newspaper articles, war correspondences, family documents, photos and even film footage.

But the greatest evidence of all is the absence of lives that once were. The hauntingly silent voices. Denial will never erase the memories of the devastation of the Assyrian nation. These events never leave us. The Assyrian Genocide has affected every Assyrian family. How could it not when two out of every Assyrians were killed?

For the past several months I have been interviewing elderly Assyrians who are in their late 90s and some over 100 years of age. I wanted to record their stories and their recollections.

Most can’t remember what they had for breakfast or how many grandchildren they have. But the events of the Genocide and the Exodus are embedded in their minds as clear as if they were occurring that very moment. The grief is so immeasurable that when these eyewitnesses begin to recount the sights and sounds of the Death Marches, they are transported to a place that no human should have to revisit. But it is these memories that keep history honest and in check.

“I saw a woman half naked on the roadside. She had been dead some hours before, for her body was quite cold. A child crept around her moaning for food and a baby on her breast fast asleep. A most nerve wrecking sight...”

An entry from the 1918 Diary of Rev. Isaac Malek-Yonan written during the Great Exodus from Urmi, Iran to Baquba in Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

The effects of the post-traumatic stress syndrome are irrefutable. This condition affects not only those who saw, but an entire nation that cannot sever ties with its painful past. Our past has made us who we are today. Our past haunts us and the voices from the past beg never to be forgotten. And now voices from the present ask the same.

So we build monuments in their memory. We write books, give lectures and attend conferences. We hold vigils and teach our youth never to forget. All the while we know that the violence will not cease.

While governments, including the Turkey, continue their denial of the Assyrian Genocide, both past and present, then perhaps they can tell us where the Assyrians disappeared?

If there was no genocide, then what happened to members of my nation? What happened to members of my family? Was it mass insanity that made Assyrians run into the wilderness and the open fields to be attacked and killed?

What made them run in the middle of the night leaving behind their homes, lands, businesses, farms, orchards, churches, communities, villages, cities and possessions?

What made them leave behind their loved ones, the elderly, the sick, the cripple, the blind and the orphans, all those who couldn’t flee?

These same questions apply to the Assyrians of Iraq in present day. Why are there more than 300,000 Assyrian refugees stranded in Syria, Jordan and Turkey since the liberation of Iraq?

The answer is that the liberation of Iraq became the oppression of Assyrians by no fault of their own.

I am certain that there will be future attacks on the Christians of the Middle-East as I know with certainty that there will be more attacks on the West. It would be naive to believe otherwise. It would be equally naive not to recognize that these attacks began with the first declaration of jihad against Christians in the Middle-East in the form of the Christian Genocides which then set a precedent for the Jewish Holocaust.

Wasn’t it Hitler who asked, “Who remembers the Armenians?” By then Assyrians had ceased to be even a faint memory in the collective consciousness of the world.

Assyrians today living in the Middle-East don’t choose war. War chooses them because they represent Christianity and by proximity, they are the closest targets of aggression against the people of the cross.

Though Assyrians still make Middle-East their home, the exodus and forced migration of Assyrians from their homeland has dispersed the four-million population to live in diaspora in their adopted countries across the globe.

So, tonight, as always, I will light a candle and when I close my eyes, I will whisper in quiet prayer that my nation be delivered from evil...

Published: Zinda Magazine (USA, 21 March 2007) - YouTube Segment

The Assyrian Genocide Memorial Wall

by Rosie Malek-Yonan

5 March 2007

Shaded by trees, an outdoor courtyard nestled in the center of St. Mary’s Parish in Tarzana, California, embodies a serene setting. A balcony on the side of the Assyrian American Christian School overlooking the courtyard below has witnessed many events both somber and joyous.

Not long ago, the tranquility of the courtyard was disturbed by heavy loads of concrete blocks, bags of cement, tiles, PVC pipes, dirt, sand, and earsplitting construction noises. A Memorial Wall was being built. An idea conceived by Father George Bet-Rasho to commemorate all the Assyrian martyrs. Though for a time, it seemed more like a big pile of mess with absolutely no end in sight.

And then the magic began. Brick by brick. Layer upon layer. Those coarse raw inanimate materials slowly metamorphosed into something that possessed the ability to touch the hearts of a small nation longing to see the resurrection of their beloved Assyria.

But how can a Wall made of mortar and concrete speak of anything that can jar the emotions?

Early Saturday morning on 17 February 2007, cloaked in giant sheets of white satin, the Wall awaited patiently to show off its splendor. Teasingly, it showed a glimpse of itself when a gentle breeze slightly parted the satin curtains it hid behind.

An old inhabitant of the courtyard that lived across from this newly erected Wall was a multi-tiered fountain. Enchanted, it splashed in delight applauding the day’s fête as a bird or two swooped down to catch droplets of water. The courtyard was beaming with anticipation for the arrival of parishioners and guests.

By 10:00 a.m., the air began to thicken with sounds distinctly familiar. Crowds of Assyrians and their friends were milling about the courtyard of St. Mary’s for the unveiling of the Assyrian Genocide Memorial Wall.

The winter sun kept its promise of a warm day as rows of white chairs began to fill. Countering the sun, giant trees above, cast shadows across the yard protecting the Assyrians below. The leaves gently shimmered in the morning breeze approving of the day filled with both gladness and sadness.

Photographers and filmographers stirred about snapping pictures and capturing the moments. Images of young and old were preserved as witnesses to this important day. Father George weaved in and out of the crowd greeting guests and tending to last minute details.

The ceremony began with a Parade. Students from the Assyrian American Catholic School, dressed in traditional Assyrian costumes, carried the Holy Cross, the Assyrian flag, the U.S. flag and the flag representing the Assyrian Church of the East. Taking their places in front of the white satin drapes, the students were joined by Ms. Christina Bet-Rasho, the English speaking emcee and Deacon Isho Callo, the Assyrian speaking emcee. The students recited the Pledge of Allegiance followed by songs presented by the Church Choir.

Father George delivered the Opening Prayer and then signaled for the unveiling. The massive white satin curtains were pulled away, illuminating a most spectacular sight.

A waterfall softly splashing the Assyrian Flag set in glass tile in a double fountain framed by two brass torches and guarded by statues of Lamassu on either side.

A beautiful blue sky with patches of soft white clouds became the perfect backdrop for the colorful balloons and thirty white doves that were released. Swooping above the wall, the doves gracefully took flight until they disappeared from sight.

A quiet gasp from the audience. Tearing eyes hiding behind sunglasses. Young students from the Assyrian American Christian School that sat on the ledge circling a tree just in front of the staging area looked up in wonderment. They were quiet and contemplative. They understood what the day signified. They understood what this Wall represented.

The splendor of the moment was completed when Father George lit the two brass torches. The Eternal Flames will act as a reminder to keep the faith alive.

The engraving on the dedication plaque in black marble read:

THE ASSYRIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL WALL

Established 17 February 2007

In remembrance of the ASSYRIANS who valiantly died during the ASSYRIAN GENOCIDE (SEYFO) of 1914-1918 in the Ottoman Empire and Iran, totaling 750,000 martyrs; the 1933 SEMELE MASSACRE in Iraq totaling 3,000; and those massacred during the IRAQ WAR beginning 2003.

WE WILL NEVER FORGET... WE WILL NOT REMAIN SILENT...

“Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” - Matthew 5:10

The soft rippling water that flowed into the pool below the Wall was already speaking for the voices of thousands. It was recounting the stories of the multitude. It was calling the names of those who bravely delivered future generations into the new world to carry on the blessed Assyrian name.

That morning, I spoke of the slow continuous genocide that has gripped our nation. It began long before WWI with the 1895 Massacre of Diyarbekir where an estimated 55 thousand Assyrians were killed. This event paved the way for the Assyrian Genocide of WWI, followed by the Death Marches of 1924 when Assyrians marched from Turkey to Aleppo, Syria. The Semele Massacre of 3,000. Two gulf wars and the countless attacks on Assyrians throughout these periods. Yet, here we are. Remembering our fallen. Honoring our martyrs.

Mr. Yosip Bet-Yosip, presented a poem in Assyrian entitled Assyrian Exodus of 1918 recounting the horrific events of the Assyrian Genocide that took place in Urmi, Iran and the devastating accounts of the Great Exodus from Urmi in 1918.

Mr. Dennis P. Zine, a Los Angeles City Councilman of the third Council District spoke of his promise to support the Assyrian effort now that he was made aware of the issues both past and present.

Representing the Assyrian Universal Alliance, Mr. Ninoos Benjamin presented Father George with a Crystal Cross in gratitude for the building of this Assyrian Memorial. Mr. Edwin Tekmar was also acknowledged with a plaque in appreciation of his work in overseeing the construction of the Wall.

The Assyrian American Christian School Choir performed The Assyrian Wall Song and the event concluded with Father George’s Closing Prayer.

As the courtyard observed the parting guests returning to their daily lives, the quiet of early afternoon descended upon it.

Turning to leave, I saw an Assyrian woman with an apron still on sitting at the back near the kitchen entrance. Her kind face looked tired and overwhelmed. Her hands were clasped in her lap. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. I walked up to her to thank her for all the help she had given to prepare food for the occasion. She must have heard me coming up to her because she opened her eyes and smiled at me when she saw me. She took my hand in her rough hands and said, “Maybe they won’t forget us now.”

Before leaving, I stood in the middle of the courtyard one last time and closed my eyes for a moment. I could hear a million prayers of gratitude whispering in the flow of air. And I whispered back, “We will never forget...We will not remain silent...”

Published: Eastern Star News Agency (Sweden, 5 March 2007) - Zinda Magazine (USA, 21 March 2007) - Assyrian Internatioanl News Agency (USA, 7 March 2007)

Moon Over Assyria

by Rosie Malek-Yonan

20 May 2007

I want to look up at the Heavens and see the moon over Assyria. Often, I have wondered what it would be like to be able to say, I come from Assyria. To hold an Assyrian passport. To know that there will always be a home to return to free of persecution and fear. What would it be like for the language of the country to be the language I freely speak at home? Assyrian. What would it be like for all the sounds and sights to be predominantly Assyrian? What would it be like to see the Assyrian flag everywhere in its natural habitat? What if the local post office and all postage stamps were Assyrian? What if all schools, businesses, government offices, courts, judges, barbers, grocers, teachers, mechanics, president, vice president�were Assyrian? What if I could go to church without the fear that it can blow up at any time? What if my nation would never be persecuted for its Christian faith? What if I was no longer the foreigner in a foreign land, but a native in my own land? Would the street signs be in Assyrian? Would the marquees above businesses and theatres be in Assyrian? Would job applications be in Assyrian? Would the operator answering the phone speak my language? Would the tourists carry an Assyrian phrase book? Would all the Assyrian artifacts and national treasures return home to their rightful heirs?

I don't know if this will come to pass within my lifetime. But I can dream because I'm an artist and dreams are that with which artists sketch. I dream of looking up and seeing a moon over Assyria casting its light on a tired people finally able to lay their heads and sleep at home in peace. While I dream of the Assyria that can be, I remain the orphan living in foster care. I look to the compassion of humanity for a nod of acceptance knowing that I will always be the outsider�not just a foreigner, but the one without a country�the adopted child coping as best as she can with the throbbing desire to find her way back home.

For the time being, home is America where driving down any street, one is bound to run into an American flag or two on any given block. It's nothing out of the ordinary. Many homeowners and businesses display the American flag. They multiply on the Fourth of July, Memorial Day or historically significant days. The stars and stripes wave from car antennas. They are on uniforms of all sorts. We are accustomed to the sightings. But in Diaspora, what we Assyrians are unaccustomed to is spotting the Assyrian flag in a public location that is not associated with anything Assyrian.

Woodbury University's 22-acre campus nestled at the foot of the Verdugo Hills is a private four-year school, located in Burbank, California. Just twenty minutes north of Hollywood, it is a stone's throw from the heart of the entertainment industry with nearby studios such as Disney, Universal, NBC, Warner Brothers and DreamWorks Pictures SKG. With about 1,500 students, the university offers degrees in its School of Architecture and Design, School of Business and Management, and School of Arts and Sciences.

Entering the tranquil setting of the campus through the massive ornate black iron gates just off Glenoaks Boulevard, an Assyrian flag proudly waves at the passersby, with the word “ASSYRIA” boldly printed in black on the flag in block letters.

So why has this university permanently installed an Assyrian flag at its entrance?

Two years ago, a patriotic Assyrian by the name of Jean Kardously, established an annual “Assyrian Design Scholarship Competition” at Woodbury University. Pushing the envelope, on April 4, 2007, he insured that the Assyrian flag would be recognized and displayed on the Woodbury University campus.

To most, it may seem like a small gesture. After all, it's just a flag. But for a nation that is struggling for recognition it is more than just a flag. It is a faint heartbeat. Until the resurrection of Assyria, we look to the kindness of strangers who welcome us in their midst and publicly acknowledge us by our name.

I look up at the Heavens tonight and see the moon over Assyria illuminating a humble Assyrian flag proudly posted in a foreign land waiting to return home.

Published: Zinda Magazine (USA, 20 May 2007) - Eastern Star News Agency (Swedem, 22 May 2007) - Assyrian Internatioanl News Agency (USA, 24 May 2007)