[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ANCIENT COMMUNITIES UNDER ATTACK:
ISIS'S WAR ON RELIGIOUS MINORITIES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 13, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-49
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
TOM EMMER, Minnesota
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Sister Diana Momeka, OP, Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of
Siena, Mosul, Iraq............................................. 4
Ms. Jacqueline Isaac, vice president, Roads of Success........... 11
Ms. Hind Kabawat, director of interfaith peacebuilding, Center
for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution, George
Mason University............................................... 17
Katharyn Hanson, Ph.D., fellow, Penn Cultural Heritage Center,
University of Pennsylvania Museum.............................. 24
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Sister Diana Momeka: Prepared statement.......................... 7
Ms. Jacqueline Isaac: Prepared statement......................... 13
Ms. Hind Kabawat: Prepared statement............................. 19
Katharyn Hanson, Ph.D.: Prepared statement....................... 26
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 48
Hearing minutes.................................................. 49
ANCIENT COMMUNITIES UNDER ATTACK: ISIS'S WAR ON RELIGIOUS MINORITIES
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 2015
House of Representatives,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o'clock a.m.,
in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Chairman Royce. This committee hearing will come to order.
Today we focus on the minority communities, the many minority
communities that are under brutal attack--some of them on the
brink of extermination by ISIS--by ISIS principally in Iraq and
Syria but elsewhere as well. And we are joined by individuals
who have personally faced this threat and are familiar with the
extreme hardship with the grief that displaced minorities face
in that troubled region.
ISIS has unleashed a campaign of brutal violence, depraved
violence, not only against Shia Muslims and fellow Sunnis who
do not share their radical beliefs, but against vulnerable
religious and ethnic minorities. And as Ms. Isaac put it simply
in her prepared testimony, ``We cherish ethnic and religious
diversity; ISIS hates it.''
Many Americans may not realize that Iraq and Syria are home
to dozens of ethnic and religious minorities with ancient
cultures with deep roots. These communities--Assyrian and
Chaldean Christians, Yezidis, Alawites, and others--are under
mortal threat in their ancestral homelands. And the mass
execution of men, the enslavement of women and children, and
the destruction of religious sites, is part of the ISIS effort
to destroy these communities, to destroy all evidence of the
preexistence of these communities. In fact, ISIS maintains a
special battalion. They call it the ``demolition battalion.''
And that battalion is charged with going after art and going
after artifacts, religious and historic sites that it considers
heretical or idolatrous, and their job is simply to destroy
history.
The situation for some of these groups was precarious even
before ISIS. According to some estimates, more than half of
Iraq's religious and ethnic minorities have fled the country
over the last dozen years.
But what they face today is annihilation by ISIS, and the
influx of ISIS extremists has become a plague. The fall of
Mosul in June of last year uprooted 2 million souls, 2 million
human beings. Members will recall the U.S.-led air strikes and
operations by Kurdish forces last August to break the siege at
Mount Sinjar where thousands of Yazidi refugee families had
been trapped by ISIS.
The physical security and welfare of displaced minorities
is an immediate priority. Options for U.S. assistance range
from additional material support to friendly forces, all the
way to creating safe zones or no-fly zones. And while it is
important to weigh the costs of each option, we cannot lose
sight of the fact that people are being kidnapped, people are
being tortured, women are being raped--and children--and they
are being killed every day.
Beyond that we need to focus more on their psychological
well-being. Many of those people, especially women and girls,
have been subjected to unspeakable traumas. The young men are
mostly just slaughtered. And as with any displaced population,
as their vulnerability increases so does the threat of human
trafficking. What can be done to better protect women and girls
at risk of slavery?
Finally, what can and should be done to keep these
evacuations from becoming permanent? It would be a tragedy if
well-intended resettlement fulfilled the goal of ISIS itself,
in other words to drive these believers out. Are there ways to
support the reconstruction of local institutions and civil
society so that post ISIS--and there must be a post ISIS--these
communities can return and thrive in their ancestral homelands?
I will now turn to the ranking member, Mr. Eliot Engel of
New York, who has been a true leader on Syria and on the
humanitarian and human rights disaster in the region, for his
opening comments.
Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
as always for calling this important hearing. And let me also
thank our witnesses who are joining us today. We are very
appreciative that you are here.
This committee has taken a hard look at the brutal campaign
ISIS is raging in Iraq and Syria. We have learned about the
broader threat ISIS poses across the Middle East and around the
world. We know how dangerous this group is. We have heard how
many people have lost their homes and their livelihoods and
their lives in the wake of this violence.
And today we will focus on the heartbreaking struggles of
Christians, Yazidis and Muslims who have defied the barbaric
perversion of Islam espoused by ISIS. We will hear about the
dangers that these communities face every day, how ISIS has
killed, raped and enslaved those who don't fall in line with
their fanaticism, and I hope their stories will remind us and
our partners and allies around the world that we must do
everything possible to help these people.
We will also hear about the attempt by ISIS to erase the
history of these communities. We have all seen videos and
reports of ISIS destroying ancient sites and historical
artifacts in the territories they control. Now these are not
random acts of vandalism. ISIS is deliberately targeting
cultural property for two reasons. Firstly, to loot and steal
cultural artifacts to fund their violent campaigns; and
secondly, to destroy what is left in a calculated effort to
eradicate minority cultures.
This form of psychological warfare against the Yazidis,
Christians, Muslim minorities, and anyone else that refuses to
bow to their oppression, from the Tomb of Jonah in Mosul to
Yazidi shrines in the Sinjar region and the historical site of
Hijra, ISIS is trying to rewrite history. We have seen this
tactic before--the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in
Afghanistan, the Nazi destruction of Jewish religious property
during World War II. We cannot allow another vicious group to
reshape our record of the past. We need to cut off the profits
ISIS gets from trafficking looted artifacts and to ramp up our
efforts to save cultural property from destruction.
A few weeks ago, this committee unanimously passed the
Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act which
I introduced with Representative Smith, Chairman Royce and
Representative Keating. This bill would help save cultural
property from ISIS' campaign and we need to get this bill to
the President's desk. We also need to stay focused on bringing
relief to those living under the yoke of ISIS. I hope our
witnesses can shed some light on what religious minorities
living under ISIS control need the most.
The administration's response to degrade and destroy ISIS
is a good start, but it is a start. The United States has
worked to cut off financial support to ISIS; to stem the flow
of foreign fighters; to deliver robust humanitarian assistance;
to provide military support to our partners including through
U.S. and coalition air strikes; and to push back against the
violent ideology promoted by ISIS. But as we will hear today,
people are still suffering in ISIS-held territory, and I hope
today's testimony will underscore for my colleagues the need to
pass a new authorization for the use of military force or AUMF.
I have said this before and I will say it again and again and
again until Congress acts on its responsibility and passes a
new authorization.
And finally, I want to say that some of us are wearing red
today. I am wearing a red tie and my good friend Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen is wearing a red blouse, and we are doing this because
we want to focus on the girls who have disappeared under Boko
Haram. While Boko Haram is not ISIS, it is certainly
affiliated. Their attacks are just as brutal and its terrorism
all around the world and we need to stand up in this Congress
and show that we will thwart it in any way possible. And I hope
my colleagues will also wear red.
So once again I thank our witnesses and I look forward to
hearing your testimony. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
leadership as always.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel. Our panel that we are
joined by here today include Sister Diana Momeka. She is a
member of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena
located in Mosul, Iraq. Sister Diana, who was one of many
thousands forced from their homes by an ISIS offensive last
year, has been involved in providing assistance to other
internally displaced Iraqis currently residing in Erbil and
raising awareness of the plight of minorities displaced from
Nineveh.
Ms. Jacqueline Isaac is the vice president of Roads of
Success, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering women
and minorities in the Middle East. Ms. Isaac's work has
included refugee aid missions and helping families of victims
in Iraq and in Jordan and in Egypt.
Ms. Hind Kabawat is the director of Interfaith
Peacebuilding at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and
Conflict Resolution for George Mason University. Ms. Kabawat
has trained hundreds of Syrians in multi-faith collaboration,
civil society development, women's empowerment, and in
negotiation skills throughout the Middle East including in
Aleppo, Syria.
Dr. Katharyn Hanson is a fellow at Penn Cultural Heritage
Center for the University of Pennsylvania Museum specializing
in the protection of cultural heritage specifically on the
threats to Mesopotamian architectural sites in Iraq and in
Syria. Dr. Hanson recently served as the program director for
the Archaeological Site Preservation Program at the Iraqi
Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage in
Erbil.
Without objection, the witnesses' full prepared statements
will be made part of the record. Members are going to have 5
calendar days to submit statements and questions and any
extraneous material they might want to put into the record.
And with that, Sister Diana, please summarize your remarks.
And Sister Diana, she will push that red button there for you
there.
STATEMENT OF SISTER DIANA MOMEKA, OP, DOMINICAN SISTERS OF
SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA, MOSUL, IRAQ
Sister Momeka. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Royce and
distinguished members of the committee for inviting me today to
share my views on Ancient Communities Under Attack: ISIS's War
on Religious Minorities.
Chairman Royce. Sister, I am going to suggest you move the
microphone right in front there and just project a little bit.
Thank you.
Sister Momeka. Okay, thank you. In November 2009, a bomb
was detonated at our convent in Mosul. Five sisters were in the
building at the time and they were lucky to have escaped
unharmed. Our Prioress, Sister Maria Hanna, asked for
protection from local civilian authorities but the pleas went
unanswered. As such, she had no choice but to move us to
Qaraqosh.
Then on June 10th, 2014, the so-called Islamic State in
Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, invaded the Nineveh Plain which is
where Qaraqosh is located. Starting with the city of Mosul,
ISIS overran one city and town after another giving the
Christians of the region three choices: Convert to Islam; pay a
tribute, a jizya, to ISIS; leave their city, cities like Mosul,
with nothing more than the clothes on their back. As this
horror spread throughout the Nineveh Plain, by August 6, 2014,
Nineveh was empty of Christians, and sadly, for the first time
since the seventh century A.D., no church bells rang for mass
in the Nineveh Plain.
From June 2014 forward, more than 120,000 people found
themselves displaced and homeless in the Kurdistan region of
Iraq leaving behind their heritage and all they had worked for
over the centuries. This uprooting, this theft of everything
that the Christians owned, displaced them body and soul,
stripping away their humanity and dignity.
To add insult to injury, the initiatives and actions of
both the Iraqi and Kurdish Governments were at best modest and
slow. Apart from allowing Christians to enter their region, the
Kurdish Government did not offer any aid either financial or
material.
I understand the great strain that these events have placed
on Baghdad and Erbil. However, it has been almost a year and
Christian Iraqi citizens are still in dire need of help. Many
people spent days and weeks in the street before they found
shelter in tents, schools, and halls. Thankfully, the church in
the Kurdistan region stepped forward and cared for the
displaced Christians, doing her very best to handle this
disaster. Church buildings were opened to accommodate the
people, food and non-food items were provided to meet the
immediate needs of the people, and medical health service were
also provided. Moreover, the Church put out a call and many
humanitarian organizations answered with aid for thousands of
people in need.
Presently we are grateful for what has been done, with most
people now sheltered in small prefabricated containers or some
homes. Though better than living on the streets or in the
abandoned buildings, these small units are few in number and
are crowded with three families, each with multiple people
often accommodated in one unit. This of course increases
tension and conflict even within the same family.
There are many who say, why don't the Christians just leave
Iraq and move to another country and be done with it? To this
question we would respond, why should we leave our country?
What have we done? The Christians of Iraq are the first people
of the land. You read about us in the Old Testament of the
Bible. Christianity came to Iraq from the very earliest days
through the preaching and witness of Saint Thomas and others of
the Apostles and church elders. While our ancestors experienced
all kinds of persecution, they stayed in their land, building a
culture that has served humanity for ages.
We as Christians do not want or deserve to leave or be
forced out of our country any more than you would want to leave
or be forced out of yours. But the current persecution that our
community if facing is the most brutal in our history. Not only
have we been robbed of our homes, property and land, but our
heritage is being destroyed as well. ISIS has and continues to
demolish and bomb our churches, cultural artifacts and sacred
places like Mar Behnam and his Sister, a fourth century
monastery, and St. George's Monastery in Mosul.
Uprooted and forcefully displaced, we have realized that
ISIS plans to evacuate the land of Christians and wipe the
earth clean of any evidence that we ever existed. This is
cultural and human genocide. The only Christians that remain in
the Nineveh Plain are those who are held as hostages.
To restore and to rebuild the Christian community in Iraq
the following needs are urgent: Liberating our homes from ISIS
and helping us return; a coordinated efforts to rebuild what
was destroyed--roads, water and electrical supplies, and
buildings including our churches and monasteries; encouraging
enterprises that contribute to the building of Iraq and inter-
religious dialogue. This could be through schools, academics
and pedagogical projects.
I am but one small person, a victim myself of ISIS and all
of its brutality. Coming here has been difficult for me. As a
religious sister I am not comfortable with the media and so
much attention. But I am here and I am here to ask you, to
implore you for the sake of our common humanity to help us.
Stand with us, as we as Christians have stood with all the
people of the world, and help us. We want nothing more than to
go back to our lives. We want nothing more than to go home.
Thank you and God bless you.
[The prepared statement of Sister Momeka follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you, Sister.
Ms. Isaac?
STATEMENT OF MS. JACQUELINE ISAAC, VICE PRESIDENT, ROADS OF
SUCCESS
Ms. Isaac. Honorable Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel
and distinguished members of this committee, I am honored to be
here today. Thank you so much for having a crucial hearing that
really is a matter of life or death.
I am not talking to you as an attorney, I am not talking as
a politician, I am talking about being a human being who has
been on the front lines. I have been to Sinjar Mountain. I have
met the girls that have been kidnapped and raped by ISIS. And I
am telling you that we need to give them seeds of hope, seeds
of hope to know that they can live and thrive in their home. I
am here because I promised these people, my friends across the
world that I would be their voices today.
Here are their narratives. I am here today because of a
women I met named Ecklas. Ecklas was in Mosul at home at night
and out of nowhere ISIS came in and said, you have two choices.
You either convert to Islam or you pay the jizya. She gave them
the money and she said give me 1 minute because my daughter is
in the bathroom taking a shower. I am just going to get her
out. They said, you don't have 1 second. They took a torch,
they lit the house starting from the bathroom where she was
taking a shower. Ecklas picked up her daughter Rita and she
thought she could take her to the hospital. She had fourth
degree burns. But Rita died in her arms.
I am here today because of Joy, an 11-years-old paralyzed
kid from the neck down. ISIS found him in Sinjar town. They
thought that he was useless to society so they picked him up
with 190 other paralyzed and elderly people and they threw him
in the borders of Syria.
But in the midst of all this darkness, I see that there is
light. Light can break through the darkness, and we need to
take our role as human beings, push them and help them to
survive and thrive. Let me tell you what happened to Joy. The
heroes of today, the Peshmerga army, found him with the other
190 and they rescued them. And today they are living in safety,
and the Peshmerga army who is out there risking their lives are
doing this on a constant basis. They are constantly rescuing
the innocent.
One of those innocent girls that I met, I don't want to
disclose her name for privacy purposes. She was 15 years old.
And in one night in Sinjar town ISIS came in and took her, with
a group of hundreds of girls, into a broken down building, and
ISIS came in and they started to trade, trading her off,
categorizing these girls as merchandise depending on whether
they were beautiful in their eyes, how old they were, whether
they were virgins or not, literally treating them like
merchandise. She was sent off and she was being raped on a
constant basis. And she decided to make an escape. She believed
that she rather die trying. She believed that somebody out
there, another human being would help her if she made an
escape. And in one night she broke out of a window and she
started to make a run for it.
My brave friend went hours hiking on the top of the Sinjar
mountain, but ISIS came back for her and took her back. When
she went to that house they starved her, they beat her, and
again she said I would rather die trying. ISIS forgot to fix
the window they broke and she made a run for it, and this time
she made it to the very top.
And who was there to stand by her side? The Peshmerga army,
the Kurdish Regional Government who have already rescued at
least 480 girls and children, 30 of which are impregnated. Many
of those that have been impregnated by ISIS committed suicide.
The others who received the counseling, who received that push
of hope, that seed that each of us can provide, started to
dream again, started to see a future.
Today I ask for four things. I ask that we support the
brave Peshmerga army who is resisting terror at the front
lines. They are not just fighting to protect their land. They
are not fighting to preserve the religious minorities alone.
They are fighting for the entire world. Second, I ask that we
provide humanitarian assistance, more and more of it, because
today there is about 2 million refugees and IDPs living in the
Kurdistan Regional Government region and they need our support.
They need psychological counseling to deal with the trauma. We
are talking about a future generation here. Let us help them
get the support that they need. Let us help the brave
government that is on the front lines, the army that are truly
the boots on the ground. I ask that we recognize their amazing
rescue efforts.
And lastly, I ask of you to help their partners. Countries
like Egypt, who is now taking hundreds of thousands of Syrians
in their own land. Countries like Egypt, when President el-Sisi
had heard that 21 Christians were killed in Libya acted
immediately at deploying those air strikes. Countries like
Jordan, which is taking in hundreds of thousands of IDPs and
refugees and also fighting on those front lines. Let us support
them because this is a matter of national security. It is not
about them. It is about all of us together.
I have a video if we have a moment to show these girls are
going to share with us their stories.
Chairman Royce. Without objection.
[Video.]
Ms. Isaac. These girls have hope. They have hope that we
are going to help them. Let us all do it together. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Isaac follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you, Jacqueline.
Ms. Kabawat.
STATEMENT OF MS. HIND KABAWAT, DIRECTOR OF INTERFAITH
PEACEBUILDING, CENTER FOR WORLD RELIGIONS, DIPLOMACY, AND
CONFLICT RESOLUTION, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
Ms. Kabawat. Thank you Chairman Royce, Ranking Member
Engel, and other members of the committee. I am honored to be
here today and speak to you about the status of religious
minorities in Syria, a subject very close to my heart. Growing
up as a Christian in Syria, I was surrounded by rich multi-
religious history. I have lived much of my life on road called
Straight Street, a road so ancient it was mentioned in the
Bible.
Today it saddens me to see the Christians in Syria paying a
very high price for this senseless war. They have been running
from their villages and homes. They are displaced. Their
churches are being destroyed. A report by my colleague Dr. Wael
al-Alelj lists all the destroyed churches in Syria including
those destroyed by ISIS and by the regime.
Protecting Christians is essential. But while I urge you to
do whatever is possible to protect minorities and Christians
from ISIS, I would like to remind you that ISIS is killing any
and every Muslim who oppose them, just as the Muslims and
minorities are killed by Assad regime. My friend Jamila a very
religious Muslim from Raqqa was threatened by ISIS and escaped
at night to Turkey fearing death. Some Sunni tribes have
suffered massive losses to ISIS. For example, ISIS forces
killed more than 500 youth of Shaitat tribes in 1 day last
year. Women and children live in constant, traumatizing fear
afraid of recruitment by ISIS.
As a Christian, I cannot request safety for my Christian
community without worrying about others. Yes, we need to create
safe havens for minorities and all groups threatened by ISIS.
It is monumental and worthwhile tasks. And when selecting these
areas, geography is essential. Areas close to Turkish and
Jordan's borders are the best candidates because of the
guarantee that those borders will remain secure.
Additionally, an important component of safe havens will be
the proximity to protect zones by first liberating all ISIS
controlled cities in these zones. The security of the safe
haven will be easier to maintain. In the last 3 years, I have
regularly visited the refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and IDP
camp in Zaatari, in Idlib, Jabal al-Zawiya and others. The
women there wants to go back home. They want to live without
fear of crate and barrel bombs.
As we discuss religious minorities, I urge you also to
consider the need of women who have been marginalized as well.
They are the key to peace process and the key to establishing
community that provides support for one another across
sectarian lines. Empowering local councils to deliver social
services is another essential component of establishing safe
havens for all Syrians. The base guarantee for the prosperities
of minorities in the Middle East is in a democracy that accords
everyone the same right and privileges regardless of their
ethnic or religious background.
The message to minorities in the Middle East should be one
of inclusion, equipping and encouraging them to be part of the
democratic process which is the only possibility to defeat
extremism and dictatorship in our country. Thank you and I look
forward for your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kabawat follows:]
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Chairman Royce. Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Hanson.
STATEMENT OF KATHARYN HANSON, PH.D., FELLOW, PENN CULTURAL
HERITAGE CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM
Ms. Hanson. Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel and
members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to
discuss ISIS's destruction of minority religious and cultural
sites. ISIS's campaign of targeted extermination includes the
erasure of the outward manifestations of minority religious
culture which threatens these communities' way of life.
I study this subject as a Fellow at the Penn Cultural
Heritage Center of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. But
like others on this panel, I was in Erbil, Iraq, in August
2014, when ISIS advanced toward the Erbil Plain. As a program
director at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of
Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil, I was leading a course for
heritage professionals from throughout the country--men and
women of every religion. This training was interrupted and we
departed abruptly shortly after air strikes began.
Despite this setback, the desire of Iraqi heritage
professionals to protect the religious and cultural sites of
the country remains strong. Based on my current research,
experience in Iraq and consultation with Iraqi colleagues, I
want to share some examples of ISIS's destruction. Slide 1
please.
Ms. Hanson. In July 2014 in Mosul, Iraq, ISIS destroyed the
shrine of Nebi Yunus also known as the tomb of the prophet
Jonah. An analysis of satellite imagery by the American
Association for the Advancement of Sciences Geospatial
Technologies Project where I am a visiting scholar confirmed
this destruction. Slide 2 please.
This analysis also showed that ISIS removed all evidence of
the shrine by clearing rubble and grading the site flat. In
doing so, ISIS erased the physical presence of Nebi Yunus for
the entire local religious community. Slide 3 please.
Dura-Europos is an archaeological site in Syria with
uniquely preserved Roman provincial architecture. It includes
the world's best preserved ancient Jewish synagogue and one of
the earliest known Christian house chapels. The chapel dates to
about 235 A.D. and contains the oldest known depiction of Jesus
Christ. Slide 4 please.
The site has now been extensively looted and is currently
under ISIS control. The before and after image analyzed
analysis completed by the AAAS's geotech project demonstrates
that over 76 percent of the site's surface has now been lost.
Slide 5 please.
Two months ago I traveled to the Dohuk Governorate in Iraq
which is adjacent to ISIS-held areas. I met with the director
of the antiquities department to identify religious and
cultural sites at risk. This site, Lalish, may be one of the
only surviving Yazidi religious centers. Slide 6 please.
ISIS has released two videos that include the defacement of
an ancient sculpture called the Lamassu. These are human-
headed, winged bulls. In ancient times they represented the
power of the Neo-Assyrian empire from the ninth to seventh
century B.C. Today, they serve as important symbols for
Assyrian Christians. ISIS's defacement is thus intended to
terrorize the present-day Iraqi Christian community while
simultaneously destroying ancient artifacts.
In thinking about how we can address this destruction, I
would like to offer three recommendations. First, we must
prepare humanitarian assistance to religious and refugee
communities as well as to displaced heritage professionals. In
the near future I will return to Erbil, Iraq, with colleagues
from the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the Smithsonian
Institution and there we will work with our Iraqi colleagues to
determine unmet emergency needs. More programs like this are
necessary, and the U.S. Government should encourage new
collaborations in the nonprofit sector.
Second, this committee should inquire into efforts to
protect religious and other cultural sites during military
actions against ISIS. There is a report that should shed some
light on these efforts due in June 2015 thanks to a provision
sponsored by Mr. Engel in the National Defense Authorization
Act. I recommend that this committee scrutinize the report
carefully for evidence that steps are being taken to avoid
accidental air strikes on religious and cultural sites and that
protection measures are incorporated into advisory rules and
military trainings.
Finally, there is bipartisan legislation, the Protect and
Preserve International Cultural Property Act introduced by Mr.
Engel, Mr. Smith, Mr. Royce, and Mr. Keating. Its purpose is
twofold. To bring together the agencies that have existing
mandates to protect heritage, and to eliminate the financial
incentive for entities such as ISIS to loot religious and
cultural artifacts. I commend this committee for its bipartisan
leadership on this bill, and I urge you to advocate for its
final passage into law.
I would like to thank the chairman for convening this
important hearing at a very critical juncture in the
preservation of religious and cultural heritage. I am happy to
answer any questions that you have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hanson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Chairman Royce. Well, thank you, Dr. Hanson. That
legislation by the way has been passed out of committee. It is
on the floor and we are going to move it shortly. And I would
just make a couple of observations. One is that this ISIS
phenomenon, another way it could have been handled was when
ISIS originally was in Raqqa, as they were leaving Raqqa, there
were those of us on this committee as well as some of our
Ambassadors overseas that suggested overwhelming U.S. air power
hit the ISIS forces in Raqqa or hit the ISIS forces as they
were leaving in their long caravan as they begin their attacks
town by town by town, and we did not act from the air at that
time. We allowed them to take some 14 major cities, culminating
in taking Mosul, without the use of air power at the time to
stop them while they were in these long columns.
Subsequently we began the process in this committee,
bipartisan, to argue for arming the Kurds. Why? Because the
Kurdish battalions were strung out on a 600-mile front with
ISIS. They were the one effective force not just fighting ISIS
but taking in behind their front lines Christians, Yazidis,
other minorities, and willing to put themselves at risk to go
into territory, ISIS-held, in order to rescue Yazidis and other
minorities, and they were fighting with small arms fire against
ISIS which had become the best financed terror group in the
history of any terror organization because they took the
Central Bank at Mosul and had at their disposal enormous
wealth, and because they took weapons along the way.
So our efforts have gone on now, I would say, for 9 months
to try to get into the hands of the Kurds the anti-tank
missiles, the artillery, the long range mortars that they need
on the battlefield. Thirty percent of these Kurdish battalions
are females. They are women fighting on the front lines against
ISIS and they are fighting without adequate equipment. And as
you put it so well, they are fighting for civilization. Not
just their own, for other religious minorities and, frankly,
for a principle. And because of the pressure from Iran,
pressure on Baghdad--yes, you can support the Shia militia but
you can't give support to the Kurds--for whatever reason, the
weapons dribble in and this is wrong. This is immoral.
The other point I would make, I just wanted to ask you some
questions on the issue of the sale of female captives from
religious minority groups to ISIS fighters. How extensively has
ISIS been involved in what we here call sex trafficking or
slavery, frankly, particularly the kidnapping and sale of women
and girls from these overrun communities? Has it been an
outcome of lawlessness or is it part of a more deliberate ISIS
policy to destroy and to subjugate those who do not share their
fanaticism? Ms. Isaac.
Ms. Isaac. Looking at the ISIS philosophy, they believe
that the Yazidi people in particular are not only to be
tortured but they are to be destroyed in every single way
possible. They want them off the face of this earth. And so it
is a philosophy to destroy them and to torture them.
With the girls particularly that I met, they in one night,
because they felt safe in the beginning in Sinjar town, and in
one night ISIS came and took all of these girls. And they told
them first, they gave them an option. They said will you become
a Muslim? Will you convert to Islam? And many of them said no.
And they told them, you are going to be Muslim regardless
because we are going to sleep with you. And the moment that we
do that, once we rape you, you will be Muslim.
Many of these girls who chose not to be, some were raped
and came back believing that they were forced into this
religion. This is barbaric. It is systematic. Today it starts
with the Yazidis. Tomorrow it is going to be not only the
Christians but every woman that doesn't fit within their
philosophy. We need to stop the menace that is going on there.
We need to stop it at its root.
This is a nerve center. Right now all the crazies from all
over the world are coming to this center point, to this nerve
center. If we can cut the snake at its head we can diffuse
them. Their sex trafficking is systematic and it will continue,
and it can reach our families if we don't do something about
it. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. Let me also ask about psychological
counseling, and I would ask that of the panel. What type of
trauma resources are available right now for those who have
escaped and what more is needed? Sister?
Sister Momeka. Yes. I would say from my work on the ground
we don't have that strong programs to talk about trauma.
Because I just experienced a case about 4 weeks ago, a woman
who was released by ISIS with 20 Yazidi women. The Yazidi women
told us that this is a Christian, you take her and we go to our
Yazidi families.
So the woman was totally devastated. She is in her 40s. She
was brutally beaten, raped constantly, yet that her
psychological situation is totally destroyed that she can't
control herself anymore. When she tells her story how they
tortured her in so many ways that when one of the sisters who
took her and took care of her, she found all her body was so
many cigarettes with the burn of the smoke and all that.
So the woman now, we put her in a safer place, yet we are
trying to find a good psychological treatment for her yet it is
not that available where we live exactly. So we lack for that
thing. So the social psychological programs, I think they are
the most important thing to look forward to work on at this
moment.
Chairman Royce. Well, thank you. My time is about to expire
so I will go to Mr. Engel.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Hanson, let me
start with you. First of all, thank you for being here today
and thank you for your work to help Iraqi citizens save their
religious history. As you know, America has a long history of
leading the world in efforts to protect religious and cultural
sites from destruction and you are carrying this legacy forward
today.
During times of crisis such as those in Iraq and Syria, our
first priority must always be in saving lives. And I thank the
other witnesses in emphasizing that as well--Ms. Isaac about
the women's aspect and our witnesses about how this is
affecting everybody. We are committed to the priority of saving
lives, but we also must ensure that we stop ISIS from
destroying the history of these groups. And as we create safe
havens to protect religious minorities, Dr. Hanson, how do we
also keep the religious sites and cultural history safe from
ISIS as well?
Ms. Hanson. Thank you. I think it is very important that we
make sure that we are supporting local actions; that local
actors are able to protect the sites. It is much like with the
firemen that you make sure that you provide the hose and the
water. I also think that in terms of safe havens for
individuals, we can also think about that as safe havens within
a country for portable objects and artifacts and that there are
safe locations where things can be moved. And we have seen that
successfully take place in Mali, for instance, recently.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. Ms. Kabawat, let me ask you this
question. According to State Department testimony last summer,
some of ISIS's religious minority captives have been able to
escape while their captors were distracted by coalition air
strikes. To what extent have coalition air strikes affected
religious minorities?
Ms. Kabawat. When we talk about effect of the air strikes
it affect both the majority and the minorities, because they
did hit some civilian places. And I was in Harem 1 month before
they started and where I was, was lots of civilians has been
hit. And the problem is that they need to have more homework.
They should know where is the civilians. So when we want to say
targeting civilians, minorities, we need to say targeting
civilians and we cannot say only minority because sometimes it
is hitting everybody. Thank you.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. Let me ask Ms. Isaac and also Sister.
ISIS is raging obviously a campaign of destruction against
religious sites across the territory that they control. We saw
the slides and pictures. Can you comment on the impact the
destruction of religious sites has on the people who share a
religious connection to those sites? What do we lose when ISIS
destroys these sites? Why don't we start with Sister and then
Ms. Isaac.
Sister Momeka. What do we lose? I would say we lost
everything, sir. We lost everything that today every Christian
that is living in the region of Kurdistan we feel we don't have
dignity anymore. When you lose your home you lose everything
you have. You lose your heritage, your culture. You become with
no identity. And today that is how we see ourselves.
And the most brutal thing was to us when it was put on TV
that two monasteries that were one of them bombed and another
one destroyed just was a sign for us and that your history is
gone, you are nothing anymore. That is how we see ourselves
now, homeless.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. Ms. Isaac?
Ms. Isaac. Thank you, Member Engel. As an American of
Egyptian descent I moved to Egypt when I was 13. And I remember
holding on to the heritage knowing that there were ancient
churches still there. Even if we were the minority, I had a
tie. I could identify with my ancient churches.
Today in Iraq you have the Lalish Center which is still
preserved with the Yazidis. That is the mecca for them. That is
their Rome. Today they hold on to that. And the Peshmerga army
is working so hard to protect that area because they know that
if that is gone the Yazidi people will feel hopeless. They
won't be able to identify anymore with the land that they have
remained in for many, many years.
For religious minorities in this region our heritage is
everything. It ties us to that land. It keeps us there. And we
are not supposed to just be there to survive, we should be
living there to thrive. We should be able to worship freely, go
to the heritage sites, bring our children and our grandchildren
and talk about that history. Without those sites we have lost
it all. Thank you.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. And let me again thank all four of
you for wonderful testimony and for wonderful coverage. We
really appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Thank you. Our Chairman Emeritus Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Today's
hearing as we know focuses on a subject that all too often gets
overlooked or ignored when discussing the crisis in the Middle
East, and specifically the fight against ISIL. We have
discussed this in our Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee
on several occasions alongside Chairman Smith and his
subcommittee, and Chris Smith has been a tireless advocate for
this issue.
ISIL has issued warnings to Christians in Iraq that they
can convert, pay taxes or be killed. Churches are being
destroyed, religious artifact sites are being raided, and many
Christians and other religious minorities have been forced to
flee. ISIL massacred 20 Coptic Christians in cold blood in
Egypt, but the list goes on and on. However, we must
acknowledge that ISIL doesn't just target religious minorities.
Everyone who doesn't ascribe to its form of Islam is a target.
So that is why it is imperative that we not only defeat
ISIL but we find a way to defeat its radical ideology as well.
It is also important to recognize that the persecution of
religious minorities isn't just isolated to ISIL or to Iraq or
to Syria. The U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom has repeatedly called upon the Obama administration to
designate countries like Iraq, Syria and Egypt as Countries of
Particular Concern. That is a special classification. Why? For
their systematic, ongoing and egregious abuses that the
religious minorities face in those countries.
Many of us in this committee have decried the fact that the
Iranian regime's deplorable human rights record and its
persecution of religious minorities were not made a part of the
nuclear negotiations from day one since the P5+1 efforts were
announced. A nuclear deal will legitimize the Iranian regime
and will only serve to make the atmosphere even worse for
religious minorities in Iran.
Iran's meddling in Iraq, its support for Shiite militias,
those have played a significant role in the rise of ISIL and
the current difficulties that we face in the region in the
fight against the terror group in Iraq and Syria. And now we
have seen the size of the religious minority communities
decline dramatically in Iraq and Syria as a result of ISIL's
onslaught.
So Sister Diana, I will ask you. You have felt the pain and
the suffering in your own community and you have been witness
to what ISIL has done to ancient religious communities of Iraq.
You have been displaced twice. Can you describe for us the
conditions in Mosul where you were forced to flee to Kurdistan,
and could you also please detail the conditions in Kurdistan?
And lastly, what more can we do to meet the needs of religious
minority communities? Where can we be most effective?
Sister Momeka. Thank you, Ms. Ros. I would answer your
question in a story that touches my heart a lot and the heart
of the people that we are working with. When we were forced to
leave our children became without any education, without
school. So as a congregation we care a lot about education as
Dominicans, so we start opening kindergartens. So we had 135 in
one of the kindergartens. In one of their classes we handed
them papers to draw on the paper. Amazingly, most of the
children, they draw back home, their hometowns. They draw,
some, their beds, church, homes, everything that they relate
back home. So when we ask them, why did you do that? They said,
like, we miss home. We want to go back home. We want to live
normal life.
A 5-year-old, when he stood up and he said, I don't feel
like I am home here. When I was home I used to go to the
kindergarten. I used to go to church with my family. I used to
play with my toys, with my friends. That was a normal life when
we were back in our homes. We used to live normal life. We
would have education. Our parents, brothers, sisters, if they
are employed they would go to work.
Now it is the opposite. People are jobless. Women do not
have any work to do. They are living in containers or living in
unfinished buildings facing terrible conditions besides. The
humanitarian aid is not enough for them. So it is so different
that today even our children, what I want to say, our children,
they feel that they don't have a place to live properly. They
don't have home. So our life has changed tremendously. And
since before we were this bridge that we can connect among the
diversities, now we feel we are alone. We are abandoned. That
is how we feel.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We
certainly know that ISIL doesn't discriminate. You are either
with the terrorists or they will destroy you or subjugate you.
Thank you.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Ileana. We will go to Mr. Brad
Sherman from California.
Mr. Sherman. Mr. Chairman, the two most powerful forces in
the Syria-Iraq-Lebanon area are the Shiite alliance in Iran on
the one hand, and the extremists Sunnis on the other. What we
have seen our friends, Saudi Arabia and others, do, is move
toward what they will accept as ``moderate Islam or acceptable
Islam,'' and embrace the Brotherhood--Turkey, Qatar--and
perhaps even al-Nustra, which is after all part of al-Qaeda.
Had we done more to strengthen the more reasonable Sunnis
earlier in the process, perhaps Saudi Arabia would not be
taking that action. The good news is there has been reports in
the last \1/2\ hour that the number two commander in ISIS has
been killed. I hope that is true. We will see.
Mr. Chairman, you commented that ISIS has all this Iraqi
currency. Iraq should of course issue new currency making its
own currency invalid. Many countries have done this. This is a
process that is hated by corrupt politicians and drug dealers
with large amounts of currency of their own, and of course the
Iraqi Government has failed to do so which leads to a possible
conclusion that perhaps corrupt politicians with huge stashes
of cash have some power in Baghdad.
This Congress passed the Near East South Central Asia
Religious Freedom Act. That required that the State Department
have a special envoy for religious minorities in that region.
We are still waiting for someone to be appointed. Do not hold
your breath. The attitude of the administration toward
following laws just because they are laws is less than I think
it ought to be.
Speaking of laws passed by Congress, we authorized $1.6
billion in NDAA to counter ISIL. This included, the
authorization was amended to include provisions for local
security forces on the Nineveh Plain including Assyrian and
Yazidi forces. So far that hasn't happened. And of course
communities that cannot defend themselves are in a difficult
circumstance on the Nineveh Plain.
One of our witnesses has been unabashed in support of the
Kurdish Government. Ms. Isaac. I had in my office yesterday
representatives of the Yazidi, Assyrian and Kurdish communities
that took a very different view of the Kurdish Government.
Perhaps a balance between the two is that the Kurdish
Government has provided sanctuary but has not allowed these
groups to form their own national guard battalions. And no
group on the Nineveh Plain is going to be safe unless they have
their own national guard.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to see us bring to testify
before this committee one of the Yazidi women who has
successfully fled from ISIS. This would require that the State
Department provide an entry visa, and if the woman or girl was
coming from Kurdish areas we would need to get an exit visa
from that government. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Royce. Just if I could interrupt for a minute. We
did have a young Yazidi woman, a young girl, slated to testify.
She had to drop off of the trip because of health reasons. But
we will achieve your goal here. And I will relinquish the time
back to you.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you. Ms. Kabawat, minorities are being
given the choice--convert, flee, die or pay a very unfair tax.
Now I put three of those in one category. The jizya is
something that Muslim governments have imposed upon the
minority communities for centuries, and in prior centuries it
has been a tax that was endurable. Of course it is outrageous
and unfair.
Is ISIS imposing a tax that is outrageous, unfair, but is a
practical thing that the communities could pay, or is it just
an excuse for them to say, well, we want to confiscate
everything on Monday. That is your Monday tax. And on Tuesday
you don't have anything left so we are going to kill you. Is
ISIS offering to allow at least Christians--the Yazidis of
course would be treated differently under their rules--a chance
to stay in their homes and pay a tax consistent with what is
possible? Of course it is outrageous.
Ms. Kabawat. Just talking about Syria, in Raqqa where the
ISIS has full control most of the Christian get out. There is
not many Christians now in the ISIS-controlled area like Menbij
or Raqqa. The one that are there they in hiding. They did say
that they are asking for jizya and it happened few times, but I
think there is not many Christians in this area. They are
already gone. And in other things, the Christians now they are
all in Aleppo or stayed in Idlib, and others they have been
away. But where there has been now in where there is the
moderate Muslims' control, they are not being asked for any
jizya because they treat them as an equal citizen. Thank you.
Mr. Sherman. I believe my time is expired.
Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Sherman. Mr. Dana
Rohrabacher of California.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. Let me identify
myself with Mr. Sherman's point about the Iraqi currency. We
must get to the bottom of who the heck is paying for ISIS, what
government is responsible for providing them money, and whoever
that is we need to make sure we come down like a ton of bricks
on that government. And we must make sure that that is a high
priority for this government to find out who is financing this
sinful and this horrendous atrocity against the people of the
world. Whatever faith you are, whether you are Islam or
Christian or whatever faith you are, this is an abomination to
any belief in God, and we must stand in unity with people of
all faiths in this endeavor.
And I want to thank Chairman Royce and Engel who have
demonstrated again the bipartisan nature of many of these
challenges that we face and that standing together America, if
nothing else, because we come from, we are made up of every
race, religion and ethnic group in the world. We are supposed
to be the one that sets the standard for the world. And we can
do that by making sure that we don't cozy up to people and
remain friends with people who are financing this type of
atrocity.
And I would like to--look, it is a perplexing position
because people are being murdered in this part of the world.
Your friends, your relatives, really innocent human beings are
being savaged. Should our focus be on trying to defeat and
eliminate the evil forces that are at play or should it be to
extract people from this danger zone to get them here? I wonder
if any of you have any thoughts on that. All of you, just go
right ahead.
Ms. Kabawat. Mr. Congressman, I think the solution is to
stop the conflict. We have a conflict in Middle East. I am
talking now about Syria. We have a conflict, and you are asking
about who is paying ISIS. They don't--they took banks, they
steal, they do everything they can not to have to be dependent
on anybody to get their money. If we want to get rid of them we
need to end the conflicts. There is a conflicts now in Syria
and people are suffering, and today we need to think about
those civilians, how to stop their suffering.
There are ISIS attacks every day. People are scared. And I
know many people there escaped. Even if they are Muslims they
escape because ISIS will be threaten their lives. So if we want
to stop the ISIS we need to stop the conflict in Syria. We need
to stop the caliphate and we need to stop the dictator. Most of
them are the enemies of the security and the safety and the
future for Syria. Thank you.
Ms. Isaac. Congressman Rohrabacher, when I take a look at
all the religious minorities that I have met when I was in Iraq
and I look at their ancient history, you know that they belong
there and they want to stay there. And if we try to get rid of
the problem by just bringing the religious minorities here----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes.
Ms. Isaac [continuing]. ISIS will spread everywhere. It
will continue. Right now we have a diverse fabric in the Middle
East and it is really protecting not only the region but the
entire world. The fact that there are Christians and Yazidis
and Jews in that region today makes the Middle East what it is.
We need to look at the bigger fight and understand that ISIS is
against the entire world. Their short term plan right now is
trying to get rid of the religious minorities of the region and
creating their state. But tomorrow it is going to be to attack
the entire world.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I think that your point is well made. And
I just, I know that Sister Diana had trouble even getting here.
We should not be having barriers to people especially coming
here to make their case and to warn us. At the same time, and I
have just a few seconds left, let me just say that we need also
to make sure that we are standing behind those people like our
friends the Kurds up in Erbil who are making this stand. We
haven't even solved that problem yet, Mr. Chairman, where our
supplies could go directly to the Kurds. Some of them are now,
but as many of them you have to go through Baghdad in order to
get the supplies there.
We should be making sure anyone in that region who is
fighting ISIS gets the full support and direct support from the
people of the United States. And you are in our thoughts and
prayers. We know that you are all these communities. I visited
a community in Syria. My wife and I actually went and said that
was one of our most important experiences in our life where we
said the Lord's Prayer in Aramaic as Jesus spoke. So hang
tough, we are with you.
Chairman Royce. Brian Higgins of New York.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I just want to
thank the panel here. Testimony has been both eloquent and
compelling. I just want to focus for a moment on the Christian
community in the Middle East. ISIS has declared war on
Christians. ISIS wants genocide now. They want to eradicate
Christians from the Middle East and Africa. Christian kids have
been beheaded, their mothers raped and their fathers crucified,
literally.
ISIS believes that Christians are standing in the way of
their world conquest. Anything that is pre-Islamic they want to
destroy and want to prepare the world for the coming of the
Islamic Caliphate. Christians in the Middle East and Africa are
losing entire communities that have lived peacefully for 2,000
years. Five hundred thousand Christians, Christian Arabs, have
been driven out of Syria during the last 3 years of civil war.
Christians have been persecuted and killed from Lebanon to
Sudan, well, now South Sudan, and civil wars have lasted
decades.
In Iraq, Mosul is a Christian city, the second largest city
in Iraq. Christians have been living there for 1,700 years as
you know better than anybody. After the fall of Saddam, the
numbers of Christians in Iraq were estimated to be about
45,000. Sister, today how many Christians are living in Mosul?
Sister Momeka. Very few. Only those who have been held
hostages there. We don't have the exact number. Maybe a couple
hundred or less.
Mr. Higgins. 100 or less. And most of those who have fled
have moved up to Kurdistan?
Sister Momeka. First of all, they fled to my hometown which
is called Qaraqosh, and where we----
Mr. Higgins. Which is where?
Sister Momeka. It is called Qaraqosh.
Mr. Higgins. Which is?
Sister Momeka. Which is close to Mosul, about 20 minutes
distance southwest of Mosul.
Mr. Higgins. West?
Sister Momeka. Yes. And after a week or so our displacement
happened, which would have never thought that would happen with
the couple hours that we were forced to leave, which take, it
is about 1 hour distance from my hometown to Kurdistan. It took
us 11 hours to go there because some were marching, some were
driving, and because it was a traumatic state for us. So I
would say like very few Christians have stayed in Mosul or that
they couldn't leave because they were asleep when that
happened.
Mr. Higgins. Is it the hope of the Christians from Mosul
who have been forced to flee to one day return?
Sister Momeka. Yes. The message that I was given before I
left, they said to me--I have been working every day with the
IDPs. That is what they call us, actually, there. They said to
me, Sister, just please tell the community, tell the Members of
the Congress that help us to go back home. We want to go back
home.
Mr. Higgins. What has been the position of Prime Minister
Abadi relative to the Christian community of Iraq?
You don't need to say. I get it. Yes. And this is, we were
told after Nouri al-Malikim who was a thug, left, that things
would change. That the new Iraqi Government would be inclusive
of all minorities and communities. And political stability is
dependent on the ability to embrace the Kurds, the Shia, the
Sunni, but also the Christian community of Iraq. So that is not
happening, clearly, and this is just one of many consequences
of the failure to embrace the minority community.
And this is again the larger problem in the Middle East. It
is a highly, highly pluralistic part of the world, and unless
and until you have minority rights you will never have peace
and stability. Because a guy like Bashar al-Assad is clearly a
bad guy. But what is happening is minority groups have a
tendency to gravitate to him for one reason, because if the
majority Sunni become head of that country all the minorities
will be slaughtered. So long as there is a zero sum game in the
Middle East, the sum will always be zero.
And I often say in game theory there is also what is
referred to as a variable sum game saying that there can be
many winners. And whatever we do there, however much
humanitarian aid we provide there, however much military
support we provide in the Middle East, internally the
leadership that we get behind, the United States, the
leadership that we support have to embrace, they have an
obligation to embrace the minority community. Because we will
be sitting here 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years
from now and we will be having the same discussion with no
progress whatsoever.
So again thank you very much for your testimony and I will
yield back.
Chairman Royce. We go now to Mr. Chris Smith of New Jersey.
Mr. Smith of New Jersey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
and thank you for calling this very, very important hearing and
to our very distinguished witnesses for your courage, for so
effectively articulating the plight of the suffering minorities
in the Middle East, particularly Christians, so thank you for
that. And all those who are suffering at the hands of ISIS and
people who are extremists.
I would like to ask just a couple of questions. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights pointed out that the
ISIS violence against Christians and other religious minorities
``may constitute genocide.'' May? I find it extraordinary. The
Genocide Convention couldn't be clearer eliminating in whole or
in part, even the threat rises to the level of being genocide.
And of course the international community has always been
slow to recognize genocide. We didn't do it with Srebrenica, we
didn't do it in--when I say ``we'' I mean the international
community--when it came to Sudan. And 100 years later, we
still, only 24 or so countries have recognized the Armenian
genocide. So we seem to gag on the word, and I have tried to
get administration witnesses to say that what is happening to
the Christians rises to the level of genocide and that simply
is not stated.
Chairman Emeritus Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and I have chaired a
number of hearings on the genocide. We had one last year,
genocidal attacks against Christians and other religious
minorities in Syria and Iraq, and again we keep getting, well,
we will look into it, we will get back. But just say it and say
it clearly and unambiguously. And I have chaired 14 hearings on
the suffering of Christians, particularly in the Middle East,
and we are still getting a lack of embrace of the magnitude and
the hostility toward people of the Christian faith.
I would point out that sometimes past is prologue. The
Clinton administration opposed the International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998. I know because I held all the hearings and
marked up the bill. He ended up signing it, but then now we
find under this administration the post of Ambassador-at-Large
was idle, was left vacant for half of this Presidency. We have
a very good man now in that position, David Saperstein, Rabbi
Saperstein who is trying to make up, I think, for lost time.
But it was a revelation of priorities that we did not have a
person sitting in that very important position.
Approximately 7 months ago legislation passed, totally
bipartisan, to establish a Special Envoy to Promote Religious
Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South
Central Asia. It was no secret the administration didn't want
it, but he did sign it. The President did sign it into law when
it passed in a bipartisan way. But now for 7 months nobody has
been selected to take that position. That person should have
the ear of the President and could shuttle back and forth and
assess what is going on on the ground with clarity and to speak
out boldly. Nobody has that position. I find that appalling.
And you might want to comment on that as well.
And finally, let me ask you. The faith of the young people
has to have been--I know we saw that wonderful video of the
resiliency of those young women, but the faith of the young
people has to be shattered. They must wonder where are the
faithful elsewhere particularly in the United States. I don't
think we have done enough, again the special envoy vacancy
speaks volumes to that. But if I could ask you, where is the
faith of these young people?
Sister Momeka. As a matter of fact, Mr. Smith, is that our
faith, it is amazingly that we see it is increasing more and
more. It is making us more stronger. We left churches that were
like used to be filled with people. Now we have only one church
and you see like young people, or all people they see that we
still have faith in God; that we were displaced yet we feel
that the hand of God is still with us.
So in the midst of, as my colleagues said, in the midst of
this darkness of this suffering we see a God that is holding
us. He is holding us, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to
be witnessing to our faith that is increasing day after day.
And I think this is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that is
giving us the strength to continue our faith and to be strong
to stay in our country. Some left, yes, but they are willing to
go back when we go back home. And we have this hope somebody we
will go back home, and that will come through your help.
Ms. Kabawat. Mr. Congressman, the faith with the Christian
community in Damascus is increasing. We are Christian for 2,000
years. My family were Christian for the last 2,000 years. Today
we are more involved in a humanitarian war. We know we have to
lead by example. This is our Christianity, to help others. That
is why my family today still in Damascus. My immediate family
in Damascus, but their faith is to distribute bread for the
poor, to take care of others because this is what Jesus Christ
told us, to take care of the small people.
So in Aleppo, churches are open to like hospitals. In
Idlib, when they liberated Idlib, the Christian there work with
the Muslim in the humanitarian issues. So yes, we are
Christians, but today more than ever we are Christians because
we know that we need to practice our Christianity on the ground
and to take care of the small people who are suffering.
Ms. Isaac. Congressman Smith, I went to Egypt and I met the
families, 15 of the 21 families that had victims that were
slaughtered in Libya. I was astonished by their faith. As a
fellow Christian I thought how would I be if I was the
situation today? Meeting the fathers that said to me, thank God
that today they are in heaven. Thank God. A wife talking to me
about how her husband had said, I am going to Libya and I will
be in danger. But if I don't make it, teach my children. Teach
them the principles of Jesus Christ.
That is the story. These are the accounts of their faith.
And I have seen it in Iraq across the board how Christians are
standing strong and helping all, helping the Yazidis. In fact
we had a case. I remember there was a group of Yazidis that
found a local church and that church was providing care for
them, providing a home for them. This is what they are doing.
They are struggling, but they are giving everything that they
have. So thank you.
Chairman Royce. We go to Mr. William Keating of
Massachusetts.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing, and thank you as witnesses. And I want to let you know
we all share your commitment to saving lives, saving religious
and cultural heritages and artifacts and stopping human
trafficking. I also want to acknowledge, as Dr. Hanson has, the
legislation of Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, Mr. Smith,
who I am proud to join in working on this area.
But I want to focus on one thing I believe that we can do
more of in the U.S. to really stop these terrible actions by
ISIL, and that is to look at an issue that time and time again
has come to my attention as ranking member on the Terrorism,
Trade, and Nonproliferation Subcommittee, in this committee as
well as counterterrorism and homeland security, and that is the
issue where ISIL is not only destroying cultural and religious
heritages, particularly in Iraq and Syria, but it is doubling
down on that activity. And either through taxing criminals or
themselves they are trafficking in these looted antiquities and
financing their own terrorist operations again, so it becomes
cyclical. And I saw firsthand, I just came back days ago
visiting eight countries in the Mideast and Europe, just how
this is occurring, and in fact had comments from the leaders in
these areas how smuggling in these antiquities is such a force
of financing for these terrorists.
So what I am doing today as well is introducing legislation
to prevent trafficking in Cultural Property Act, is the name of
the legislation, and it is geared in on one aspect that I think
we could easily move toward these activities. And that is the
fact that even the agencies themselves in Customs and Border
Patrol and in ICE, they are saying that they are not as
coordinated as they should be. They don't have the tools to
gear in on this when these artifacts and trafficking, when this
trafficking comes through our own border in the U.S.
One of the things we have to do, I believe, and that is
what this legislation does, is to work to make sure there is
principal leadership there, a designated person to really key
in on this. And also, importantly, to have the training in this
activity. Because even if that commitment and coordination is
there, it is important that these U.S. officials receive
sufficient training in identifying cultural property from
regions that the greatest risk of looting, like Iraq and Syria,
and that they know the techniques specifically related to this
so they can investigate and prosecute this kind of activity to
really quell the demand in unfortunately one of the destination
areas of the world, the United States of America.
So we are working on that. I would like your opinion of how
from your perspective this could be helpful as well, and I
think particularly Dr. Hanson has some experience in that
regard.
Ms. Hanson. Thank you. What you mentioned is incredibly
important and it is vital that we remove the financial
incentive for terrorist groups like ISIS to loot cultural
sites, religious sites. One of the things we have noticed is
that prior to the demolition of religious sites, particularly
shrines, Yazidi shrines and tombs, ISIS has gone in in advance
and looted artifacts out of that area. Architectural elements,
things that they can sell.
And the reason why they are doing looting in those
instances, and also in the images we saw of Dura-Europos, is
that there is a market for it. And your legislation and what
you mentioned is incredibly important in taking action to
reduce that market. Right now it is crucial that we get import
restrictions on stolen material from Syria put into place in
the U.S. As a market country, our demand for that in the U.S.
is some of what fuels ISIS's actions.
Mr. Keating. Yes, I was really intrigued when ISIS will
show the videos of their desecrating these religious
institutions and sending those videos to the world and saying
they are doing it because of the sense of pureness, and that
their only, their narrow, if you want to even call it religious
beliefs should be the only beliefs. Yet, if these artifacts
that they are destroying so no one else will be able to
culturally go forth in heritage, if they are portable, then
moving them around and profiting on them and preserving them
just to fuel their own terrorism which, I think, shows where
their priorities are.
Quickly, could you just tell me the scope of this? I heard
in my recent visit it is in the tens of millions of dollars
that they are getting from this, and that is, I think, under
reporting because it is pretty hard to get a figure on it. Just
quickly, last question.
Ms. Hanson. Very difficult to get a dollar amount on it. We
know that it is significant. As you saw with Dora-Europos,
those are moonscapes now and all of those artifacts that come
out of the ground can get financial benefits for them. So you
just have to assume that even the lowest estimates have to be
staggering. I can't give you an exact dollar amount, and that
is something that we are continuing to research and work on.
Mr. Keating. Yes. I heard 37 million. I yield back, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Mr. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies, I appreciate
you being here. The stories are shocking to our conscience.
Americans need to have their conscience unfortunately continued
to be shocked because of what continues to happen. But the
stories break our hearts. There is not much else to say than
that.
Dr. Hanson, we have seen ISIS crucify in public squares,
stone to death women, throw gay people off of buildings, then
they proudly tweet, post these horrific acts on YouTube, other
social media. In fact, they have gained followers based on the
use of social media. The question is, has ISIS's propaganda
campaign affected the disposition of religious minority
communities beyond Iraq and Syria, and what effective action
would you recommend the United States take to combat ISIS, the
propaganda, and especially on social media? Have you researched
that and what your recommendations?
Ms. Hanson. My research doesn't directly encompass social
media. One of the things that we have noticed in working with
the cultural heritage destruction and the religious heritage
destruction is that the videos are very clearly designed to
demonstrate power and demonstrate terror.
Right now we have an NSF grant to study what is happening
with the phenomenon of damage to cultural heritage and why it
is occurring, and we are working on answering some very basic
questions like when does cultural heritage damage take place?
Is it before or after the religious minority population is
physically threatened and murdered? When it comes to social
media what is happening with videos is exactly the same thing
that is happening with the videos of deaths and destructions.
The cultural heritage sites are being destroyed in a way to
demonstrate power and terror.
Mr. Perry. We will wait to hear back from you based on the
ground if you have any recommendations.
I would like to turn to Ms. Kabawat; is that right? We have
been told by the administration that the U.S. Government is
examining all, and I emphasize all, viable options for
protecting minority vulnerable communities and halting the
parade of atrocities ISIS is committing. What do you view? I
mean you have lived it on the ground. What do you view as the
viable options for the U.S. to protect these communities if
there are any?
Ms. Kabawat. Again, Mr. Congressman, I feel on the ground
when they hear this kind of comment the people get little bit
disappointed and angry. We can't protect one minorities without
thinking about what is happening to the whole country. We are
talking about thousands of refugees, of Christians, but also
there are millions of Sunnis and they are paying the price from
ISIS.
So the solution will be a package. We don't want to be
isolated from the other Syrian who we have been raised and
lived with them all our lives. I want a solution not only for
the minorities, I want a solution for whole Syria. We need to
stop the conflict. So when we say we want to protect us it is
offending me, because I don't want to be protected when my
other neighbors who is Sunnis is being under attack. So please
protect the whole civilian. We have so many moderate Muslim,
Christians. We live together all our lives. So if you want to
protect us as a Christian, I am asking you, protect also my
neighbors. Thank you.
Mr. Perry. Sister Diana, do you think that the ISIS
targeting of minority communities in areas has primarily been
due to strategic opportunity just because you are there and it
is easy, you are vulnerable? Or is there something more
deliberate? I mean would you articulate if it is one or the
other or a combination of the two?
Sister Momeka. As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Congressman,
that it was quite shock for us because we used to watch the
news on TV that ISIS took over Mosul, but we never thought some
day in a few hours we will be out of our homes left with
nothing at all. I myself only with my habit and my purse, which
I was lucky I had my passport in it. Most of my sisters and
most people left with no documents, nothing.
So it start with Nineveh Plain and it was gradually, so if
it was deliberately or not I can't say that. But all what I
know now, we were driven out of our homes within couple hours.
That was it. Without any warning.
Mr. Perry. My time is expired. Thank you.
Chairman Royce. We go now to Mr. David Cicilline of Rhode
Island.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
calling this hearing. Thank you to our witnesses for your
really courageous testimony, and the description of the horrors
and the violence and the sadistic behavior of this terrorist
organization I hope is something that the whole world
understands better as a result of your being here today at
significant personal risk to yourselves and the work that you
are doing. So thank you for being here.
As my colleague from Massachusetts said, I think our whole
committee is of course committed to doing everything that we
can to support the preservation of cultural and religious
sites, but more importantly, in my view, to do all that we can
to protect and save lives. And this effort to destroy cultural
and religious sites, I think, is clearly an extension of this
terrorist effort to eliminate entire religious communities in
this region and something we have to respond to in the
strongest terms.
So my first question is, I know there are religious
minorities--Christians, Yazidis, Shabaks--that have faced
terrible persecution and have fled their ancient homelands, but
they are unable to cross the border in many instances so they
are not technically refugees, they are internally displaced
persons. And these are obviously very vulnerable populations.
What can we do, what can the United States be doing better to
help these communities that are trapped in very unsafe
locations be in a safer place and provide some protection,
these internally displaced what I would call refugees even
though they are not technically refugees because they haven't
left the borders of their own country? Anyone?
Ms. Isaac. Mr. Congressman, when I went to northern Iraq
and I met the Kurdistan Regional Government I was amazed at the
work that they have done. Not because of meetings I went to but
because of the ground. I went and saw the girls that were
kidnapped and raped by ISIS, for example, and I saw the care
that they were getting.
Yes, the Kurdistan Regional Government does not have a lot
of resources, but they are still doing everything that they can
to make Yazidis, like the girls that we met, Christians, and
all other religious minorities feel like an equal. In fact, a
lot of these workers have been unpaid for months at a time to
give everything that they have to these religious minorities to
show that they truly are a safe haven. I have never seen a
people like the Kurdish people, because they have gone through
their own atrocities so many times they understand what it is
like to be a religious minority fleeing.
So I say the solution is to support, number one, the
Peshmerga army who is really the ones on the front lines and
are the boots on the ground. Let us help them as they fight
this war. Let us support them in any way they can. Let us help
the Kurdistan Regional Government by providing more
humanitarian assistance to help with not just the medical care
but also the psychological care.
When I was in Jordan helping the Syrian refugees, I
remember there was this little boy, and U.N. Secretary General
Ban Ki-Moon had flown over, and he said to me, do you see that
helicopter over there? I said yes. He goes, I hope to God it
bombs Jordan. I was shocked. I said why would you say something
like that? He said, because it happened to me, it has to happen
to everyone else.
A lot of the children that are coming in to these
territories have seen so much destruction and trauma and they
don't know how to deal with it, so in order to protect this
worlds we need to focus on this new generation. And how do we
do that? By supporting the Kurdistan Regional Government as
they work on not just the medical care but that psychological
element as well. And of course to support the partners like
Egypt and Jordan who are also bringing in refugees and taking
care of their people. In Egypt alone they are educating 14,000
college students from Syria, and thousands, about 40,000
students in elementary schools are being taken care of. So let
us support them on the ground.
Mr. Cicilline. I was just in Jordan and saw at the border,
the Syrian border, the incredible work of the Jordanians
supporting over 1\1/2\ million refugees fleeing Syria, and we
have to be sure that we continue to support that.
Ms. Kabawat, I know you have----
Ms. Kabawat. Again, Mr. Congressman, I really emphasize
about the solution of the protected zone. We need it. I have
been also in Jordan last month. It is so important to start
thinking about this. We need to get the civilian in a safe way,
in a safe area they can be protected from the ISIS and from the
barrel bombs of the Syrian regimes. We need it. And this will
give better position for Turkey and Jordan so they can take
care of other things.
And we really thanks to the American for all the
humanitarian aids they are giving to the Syrian people. We
appreciate it. We know that you are doing a lot. But they
really need to be in a safe zone, so I really asking you and
seeking this. It is so important. Thank you.
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chairman, if I might just ask indulgence
for one final question. I just want to pick up on Congressman
Higgins' questions about the role of the current Iraqi
Government. There are many people who argue that ISIS is an
outgrowth of policies from Iraqi and Syrian Governments that
have marginalized Sunnis in particular. What do we need to see
from the current Iraqi Government or a future Syrian Government
to demonstrate the kind of tolerance and inclusiveness that
will prevent this kind of violence, and should the United
States be doing more to condition some of our support to the
Iraqi Government on their commitment to take certain steps to
protect minority populations and build a more inclusive
government? I mean that is, the Syrian solution is the long-
term answer, but in this interim period can we be doing more to
demand more of the current Iraqi Government?
Sister Momeka. Mr. Congressman, I think it is very
important to do such things. Previous, I mean to your question,
I mean as we are known as IDPs we will be like that forever if
we don't return home. So if there is efforts from both parts to
help us to return home, I think that will be the solution, of
course with your help. So that will give us a better life,
otherwise there will be no education.
And it is not about the education and health care because
that won't happen when you are an IDP. You don't have an
identity or any entity there. Our entity is back where we
belong. So I think if there are efforts from both parts to
return home, there where we can start rebuild, there where we
can start all over again. Thank you.
Ms. Kabawat. Regarding Syria, and you are talking about
long-term, we need to think about few things. First, we need a
transitions not to destroy the institutions, and this will
happen only if we have a political solution. We need to
pressure the regime to come to the negotiation table and make
a, we need a transitions and we need to include everybody, and
everything will be good if we can end it within a political
solutions. This is a long term and this is the best way to
protect minorities, to save the institutions and have a
transitions government include everybody.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Royce. Ms. Kabawat, if I could interject here. You
are suggesting that to get there you need a no-fly zone, a safe
zone over Aleppo and the other areas where, in Aleppo, for
example, the business community, the Sunni and Christian and
Alawite business community is trying to hold out there but they
have ISIS on the front line, but then intermittently the barrel
bombs and the chemical attacks occur from the Assad regime
which are dropped on the city that is trying to hold out
against ISIS. And so you are saying you believe if there was a
no-fly zone and there was a prohibition from the dropping of
the barrel bombs that would help civil society take a foothold
there? And could you explain that thinking to me?
Ms. Kabawat. I did witness the barrel bombs when I was in
Aleppo, and it is very, very hard for the civil society to grow
when there is an immediate threat to your lives. Yes, I am not
a military expert, but I believe that we need to stop the
barrel bombs. This is a first step for the community, for
everybody.
Chairman Royce. And you think also that in doing that it
helps drive an impetus for a settlement because then they can
see that the society can't be overrun there.
Ms. Kabawat. Exactly. And we did. There is so many example
before from the local councils that they could run the
community and they can include the Christians, believe me.
Chairman Royce. Well, I have noticed. I mean the
battalions, I have seen Christian female battalions among the
Free Syrian Force there as well as Sunni, and I have talked to
Alawite business community members who were supporting the
effort there in Aleppo to hold on.
Ms. Kabawat. Exactly. We need first to have a safe place
for this community, once we stop the barrel bombs then support
them with moderate oppositions in all the way we can and we get
a good example in other local councils. And me, as a witness,
they knew that I am Christian and I have been working with the
civil society to empowering the local council and others.
And I know in Syria, what you see in sectarianism now it is
a reaction because of all the death it happens. But in the end
of the day with community we live together, the minute the
death toll will stop the Syrian people can at least continue to
live and they can live together.
Chairman Royce. Well, thank you. I want to thank all of our
witnesses for their moving and insightful testimony here today.
And ISIS is in fact conducting a war against religious
minorities, against tolerance, and, as you have shared, against
civilization. And I want to thank our panelists for bringing
the voice of the persecuted, the voice of the Christians and
the Yazidis and the moderate Muslims and many others to us here
today.
And the committee has long been focused on ensuring a
robust humanitarian response and an effective security strategy
as well, but on the humanitarian response and the legislation
that we have on the floor of the House, thank you for
supporting that legislation today. And I think your appeals for
safe zones and the longing to return to your homes have given
us new facts to consider and now, I think, to consider with an
indelible human face.
So Sister, thank you, and to all our panelists, thank you
very much for being with us.
We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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