Solidarity with the Kurds! A motion for your Labour and Trade Union branches.

The fighting in Kobane and in Iraq between the Kurds and the criminals known as ISIS continues. The Turkish Government seems more concerned about fighting it's own Kurds than intervening to prevent genocide. Meanwhile only the bombing by allied forces prevents total disaster.

Those of us in the Labour and Trade Union movement must show solidarity with the Kurds.

The following motion was put forward by Pete Radcliff to Beeston North Labour Party Branch and is published on the new Kurdish Solidarity Campaign Face Book page.

This branch/ CLP calls on the Parliamentary Labour Party to respond to the emergency in the Kurdish Syrian city of Kobane under siege by Islamic State (IS). 

The population of Kobane had been swollen by tens of thousands of refugees from outlying areas fleeing the genocidal force of IS (ISIL/ ISIS). During IS’s war on the region, in addition to the beheadings of UK victim Alan Henning, there have been mass beheadings of Kurdish people who opposed IS’s advance. 

Air strikes will not defeat ISIS. ‘Boots on the grounds’ are needed but they are already there - they are the Kurdish militias of Kobane in the YPG/ YPJ units of the Peshmerga, a third of whose members are women. They have given IS the only real battle it has ever faced.

We call on the PLP as a matter of emergency to call on the government and act themselves to: 

• Support, and discuss with representatives of, the popular and democratic forces in Kobane and the wider region of Rojava where democracy has grown over the last 2 years;

• Openly criticise the Turkish government for its failure to oppose the violently sectarian forces in Syria, including IS, and its refusal to allow arms to the forces defending Kobane from IS;

 
• Openly criticise the Turkish government for its growing repression of its own Kurdish citizens as well the refugees from Syria; 

• Demand from all countries in the region that they allow arms to flow to the democratic Kurdish fighting forces (YPG/ YPJ and others); 

• Call for an end to any further military relationship with Turkey unless 1) it allows arms and Kurdish fighters back into Syria to defend their people from IS and 2) takes firm action to combat IS and other opponents of democracy in Syria.

We call also on our MEP, Glenis Wilmott, and other Labour representatives in the European parliament to take similar action.

This motion can easily be adjusted for other Labour Party and Trade Union Branches. 

I would urge students to do the same given the utterly shameful decision of the NUS executive as previously reported on this blog.