POSITION IN IRAQ

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4016, 23 February 1938, Page 8

POSITION IN IRAQ

“PEOPLE WITHOUT A HOME.” GOVERNMENT WILLING TO ASSIST The British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Anthony Eden, states that the League Committee on Assyrians Las found it impossible to find a suitable area where all Assyrians could be settled together. He understands that the Iraq Government is willing to give every assistance to Assyrians remaining in Iraq. The Assyrians, “the people without a home,” have a history which goes back to the fourth century 8.C., and at one period they held sway over the whole of Mesopotamia. After assisting the Allies during the Great War, the Assyrian Christians were evacuated to Iraq, and after the settlement ’ found it impossible to return to their former homes in Asiatic Turkey. Iraq, mandated to Britain after the war, became an independent member of the League of Nations in 1932, and this left the Assyrians without racial and religious safeguards. However, Iraq assured the League that the Assyrians would be settled in homogeneous units. The Assyrians, under the Patriarch Mar Shimun, bebecame restive, and 1500 crossed into Syria, from which the French quickly expelled them. In their endeavour to

] break into Iraq again, there were | casualties. j This outbreak was a signal for a | general massacre of Assyrians, men, ] women and children, in which the ‘ Iraquian army was assisted by the i Kurds, hereditary enemies of the As--1 Syrians. Although the army was given a great welcome when it returned to Baghdad, the Iraq representative admitted the excesses to the League and stated the willingness of his Goveminent to contribute to the cost of i transferring the Assyrians elsewhere, j At the beginning of 1934 the GovI ernment of Brazil consented to re- ; ceive the Assyrians. The proposal | aroused strong opposition in the couni try, and a commission was appointed •to study the subject. In July the , Goverment announced that the proposed immigration of the Assyrians | was “undesirable.” ! The situation has since remained j unsettled. At the end of 1935 the question was believed concluded by the decision to settle the Assyrians in Syria, but the district allotted by the French Government was found to be unsuitable, and in the meantime Syria was granted her independence.