Iraq ancient Christian community appeals to UN for intervention

The Iraqi ethnic community whose main instiution is the Church of Assyria and whose language is Aramaic, the same as that of Jesus Christ, has appealed to the UN. It wants the UN to notice the precarious existence of the 1 million to 1 1/2 million members of this community in Iraq today. The Assyrians fear that while the Muslims - Shi'ites, Arab Sunnis, and Kurd Sunnis - are squabbling among themselves, their own minority has fallen between the cracks.

Humanitarian aid from abroad is not reaching their villages, towns, and urban enclaves.

What's worse, says Andy Darmoo, an expatriate Assyrian Iraqi living now in Kent, England, his people have become objects of "a quiet campaign of ethnic cleansing." Darmoo says "Assyrians were excluded from the January election, they had no say in the drafting of Iraq's new constitution, and that people from other parts of Iraq as well as foreigners were flocking to the north, trying to force them from their villages," according to a Reuters report yesterday of an Assyrian plea at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

A British member of the European Parliament representing Tony Blair's Labour Party has taken up the Assyrian Christian community's cause, "Save the Assyrians," headed by Darmoo.

In another ray of hope, the man expected to become Iraq's new President, Jalai Talani, said recently that Iraq's smaller non-Muslim minorities like the Assyrians, would have a role in Constitutional developments. Talabani is a prominent leader of the Kurds.



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