28th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 24-26 March 2015

Statement by Mustapha Abdi, Mayor of Kobane, Syria

Urgent debate: cities and towns against terrorism - External threats: the example of Kobane

Strasbourg, 25 March 2015

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Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to share with you the warm welcome of Kobanê, the area of Kobanê that is soaked in the blood of martyrs who have lost their lives there and I welcome you in the name of their pure souls and in the name of men and women who have suffered to defend Kobanê. The sons and daughters of Kobanê who are still standing and confronting the terrorism welcome you; they thank you for your invitation and for your support in their fight against terrorism. Our small town of Kobanê, the peshmergas, the civil defence forces, the members of the Free Syrian Army and the international coalition led by the United states, these are the efforts that have been made to defend us militarily and politically.

In the Maghreb, in the Mashriq, everywhere where people support humanity and democracy, people are on our side. They all call for a victory of humanity over the forces of terrorism. DAESH really started in Kobanê and in the name of all of us, I think that we can bless this historic victory, this first victory over DAESH. We have been supported in Kobanê by the Council of Europe, by the municipality of Strasbourg which invited us to participate in this conference to discuss the problems with which the city of Kobanê is confronted.

Dear sisters, dear brothers, the town of Kobanê is in north east Syria, we are a neighbour of Turkey, we are in the basin in the Euphrates, in the fertile plain of that river, and yet we have always been deprived of the positive effects of such a river, we have experienced drought for ten years. Then the Syrian regime implemented a project to irrigate the city in order to provide better drinking water and yet we remained thirsty and dry because DAESH made it impossible for that project to be implemented.

These terrorists have sought to destroy all links, all contact between our city and neighbouring cities, they besieged Kobanê, which was completely destroyed as a result. They also succeeded in attacking us from the west, the south and the east. They sabotaged the hydraulic infrastructure, so that we were cut out from water, then they did the same thing with medication, with foodstuffs and all other necessities of daily life that ordinarily we imported from other cities, so we had to live on the very limited stores of food that we had, that were brought in by some international organizations and some Kurdish organizations, those foodstuffs which came through the north of Syrian Kurdistan.

Then the situation became more and more dramatic. Since 2011 the population of the city has in fact doubled because of the Syrian crisis, thousands and thousands of Syrians have come from various other communities. Because, at the beginning of the revolution, Kobanê was the one of safest cities compared with other municipalities. But now we have a population of just five thousand in Kobanê itself and in its hinterland.

I would now like to talk to you of Rojava, which is the name of Syrian Kurdistan.  Since 5 March 2011, in the region of Rojova, Kurds have been fighting against the totalitarian regime; they have been calling for an end to the totalitarian regime. At first the demonstrations were entirely peaceful. We didn’t destroy any public buildings or any private property. These demonstrations were quite different than those of other Syrian cities, where unfortunately the demonstrations gradually became militarized, whereas we continued to demonstrate in an entirely peaceful manner, we simply wanted to demonstrate the humanist values of our people, we wanted the demonstrations to remain peaceful, but we had to protect our cities and our Kurdish regions, and to do that, in the middle of the chaos of civil war that was present everywhere in Syria, we had to organize our forces.

Kobanê was the first city to free itself from the Syrian regime on 19 July 2012, and we call that the revolution of Rojava, the revolution of Syrian Kurdistan. Units of administration were created and we also created a civil police force in order to protect residents and public and private property and to make sure that the law is respected. Subsequently, we announced that our cities would function independently with participatory democracy and with better distribution of economic resources and full respect for cultural diversity.

We also launched a project to facilitate access to water and to ensure access to electricity with electricity generators in various part of the city. Unfortunately the terrorists didn’t appreciate these efforts and they left no stone unturned until they destroyed everything that we were creating, to turn these efforts to nothing. And then we experienced the most ferocious attacks since the beginning of this war. And yet our resolve continued, to make every possible effort to turn back these terrorists who were attacking our city with heavy artillery, with weapons from Mosul in Iraq and from various Syrian military units that they had taken over. So they attacked us over a period of several days, convinced that they were invincible, convinced that they would be victorious and gain control of our city.

On 15 September 2014, the attacks were particularly ferocious, barbaric and violent; they murdered individuals, they raped women, they plundered property, they left many citizens isolated so our population had to react. Here we were fighting these well-equipped terrorists with our light weapons. We had to do whatever we could even though we were much under equipped, they had their heavy artillery, but we had democracy and peace on our side. It really was an epic struggle that lasted for more than a month, as they tried to wear us down. Finally the coalition understood that it was possible to win battles against these terrorists and so the Arabic and international coalition united its forces and that is how Kobanê became the world capital of resistance against Islamism.

Dear friends, there is no doubt that Kobanê has won thanks to your support, thanks to the support of all of those who believe in the freedom of people and human values. We have created a common front to combat terrorism all over the world. But today, Kobanê is just a heap of ruins, there is virtually no infrastructure left, everything has been destroyed. We are not in a position to ensure basic necessities and services for the children of our city, for those who have come back to the city since the fighting ended, so we appeal to humanity as a whole to support us. We must all do whatever we can to help the city in order that the victories against the terrorists can continue.

According to initial estimates, 70% of the city of Kobanê is completely destroyed. I can give you some examples, 19 schools have been affected, four of them have been completely destroyed, and many others destroyed. As for the hospitals four of them have been affected, two have been completely destroyed, and the others very seriously affected. That is true also for clinics and pharmacies. As for infrastructure, I can tell you that the sewage and electricity networks have been destroyed. That is also the case with the roads and sidewalks.

As for public buildings, the service buildings of the municipal administration have been destroyed. The same is true for our agriculture; there is nothing to harvest, all the meat and vegetables available have been plundered by the terrorists and often taken across the border to Turkey. We need the neighbouring towns and villages to have access to basic services. Our drinking water comes from the town of Suruc which is an Arab majority town, a few kilometres to the west of Kobanê, controlled by the Syrian regime, which can cut off this water supply whenever they feel like it, and they do this in order to create a conflict among the inhabitants of our region.

The same is true of electricity, which comes from the city of Sirrin, 45 kilometres to the south of the Kobanê; there again the Syrian regime can cut off electricity whenever they want. Similarly for other basic foodstuffs, which from the town of Mimbej, which is also an Arab majority town. It is thanks to all of this that DAESH was able to besiege us. For more than two years we basically had no access to the basic necessities of life.

With these few words, I have tried to give you a sense of the isolation policy practiced by the Syrian regime and of the barbarity of DAESH. We know that exclusion and racism will continue, disguised in various forms.  We need to build a free and democratic society that is managed in a participatory manner, that turns its back on injustice and terrorism.

The danger of terrorism is still very present, because DAESH continues to occupy certain parts of the territory of Syria and Iraq. They are still present in a number of towns and villages in Kobanê's hinterland. These terrorists will never cease their efforts, and it is clear that Kobanê will not be able to reconstruct until the passage through Moursid Pinar into Turkey is opened. That is the only way that we can gain access to the outside world, so we believe that the international community should assist us in opening humanitarian corridors into Turkey, in order that our city be able to reconstruct itself and simply return to a normal life.

We are also confronted with another serious crisis, that of unexploded mines and munitions. 20 civilians, including women and children, have died since the liberation of Kobanê on 27 January 2015, because they walked over these unexploded ordinances and antipersonnel mines; 20 deaths and many more wounded, and that figure will increase if we do not receive mine-clearing assistance from the international community.

In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, once again many heartfelt thanks to all of those who have supported us since we started to combat terrorism, but Kobanê, the capital of humanity is today in ruins, I invite you to come and invite visit us, so that you can see the extent of the destruction and we hope that you will then be able to assist us to reconstruct. You could set up a mission that could come and visit Kobanê to see for its own eyes what the situation is and help us also to open this humanitarian corridor to Turkey, because Turkey is a member state of Council of Europe. We need such a corridor.

Come and visit us whenever you can, we invite you most warmly. Thank you.