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Recognition of the Simele Massacre of 1933

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Recognition of the Simele Massacre of 1933 ISSUE FOCUS, IRAQ, JULY 20I8 Recognition of the Simele Massacre of 1933 he Simele Massacre, known to Assyrians as Pramta T d’Simele, was a massacre committed by the armed forces of the Iraqi state (founded in 1932) systemati- cally targeting the indigenous Assyrian population in northern Iraq in August 1933. The term is not only used to describe the massacre in Simele, but the wider genocidal campaign that took place across more than 100 Assyrian villages in Nohadra (Dohuk) and Nineveh (Mosul) that led to the death of as many as 6,000 Assyrians. Simele, Iraq photographed in 2017. ■ A BRIEF HISTORY OF SIMELE ■ THE SIMELE MASSACRE OF 1933 Historically, Simele, also known as Shemel meaning The Assyrians continued their pursuit of statehood “in the name of God” in Assyrian, was part of Assyr- despite the establishment of the Iraqi state in 1932, ia. The town was converted to Christianity in the 2nd petitioning the League of Nations for autonomy, pro- century and was later famous for its Syriac manu- tection, and a guarantee of freedom to emigrate out scripts. Its Assyrian inhabitants belonged to both the of Iraq in the event of massacres against them.1 Pub- Syriac Orthodox Church and the [Assyrian] Church lic animosity towards the Assyrians was widespread, of the East, who were joined by Yazidis in the early as Iraqi nationalist propaganda campaigns had por- 1800s. Both communities were in turn massacred by trayed them as violent rebels. Assyrians feared poten- Arab tribes. tial backlash for their ties to the British. By the early 20th century, Simele was a small Kurd- “They [the Assyrians] were solemnly promised a home- ish-inhabited village. Assyrians repopulated the area land; but when their usefulness was at an end, they after escaping the neighboring Hakkari region of were told to remain amongst the people they had held modern-day Turkey in the wake of the Assyrian Geno- down, and so antagonized, in Britain’s behalf. They cide of 1915. Most Assyrians were driven from Simele were given solemn guarantees they would be safe. following the 1933 genocidal What happened? All the world knows. They were shot, campaign targeting Assyri- hanged, burned, driven across borders to stagnate in The people ans in the region. a pestiferous valley in Syria.”2 killed were The town is currently part On July 29, 1933, Iraqi Arab MP Sayed Chabali Haji of the Dohuk province under Thabit delivered a speech to the Iraqi Parliament entirely Kurdistan Regional Govern- which effectively set the stage for the impending as- innocent. It ment jurisdiction. It is in- sault. In his speech, Thabit vilified the Assyrians, de- habited primarily by Kurds, nied their identity, called them “wretched and corrupt people” and stated that they are a “poisonous germ in was enough with small numbers of Ar- the head of the government.”3 for them to abs, Armenians, Yazidis, and Assyrians. It’s estimat- The expected violence against the Assyrians began be Assyrians ed that less than 600 Assyr- in early August 1933. Iraqi troops, joined by ma- to be shot.” ians remain in Simele today. rauding Kurdish tribesmen, organized a massacre of 1 Issue Focus: Recognition of the Simele Massacre of 1933 hundreds of Assyrian civilians in On August 18, 1933, Iraqi troops were warmly re- northern Iraq and looted their vil- ceived in Mosul by its Muslim inhabitants. Arches lages. Neighboring Arab and Yazidi were erected and decorated with melons pierced by tribes also took part in the looting. daggers, symbolizing the heads of murdered Assyri- The Assyrians resisted the attacks, ans. The Iraqi Crown Prince joined them in the city to and the town of Simele became a award the military and tribal leaders who had partic- place of refuge for Assyrians fleeing ipated in the Simele Massacre. The Iraqi Army later the areas under assault. paraded in the streets of Baghdad in celebration of its so-called “victories” against the Assyrians. General General Bakr Sidqi, an Iraqi na- Bakr Sidqi was promoted. “Sidqi used the murders tionalist of Kurdish origin, was of these thousands of Assyrian ‘separatists’, as they given permission by the govern- became popularly termed by the national media, to ment to eliminate “any and all catapult his career as a military hero.”7 Assyrians.”4 The Assyrians in Iraqi-Kurdish General Bakr Sidqi Iraqi-Kurdish Sidqi Bakr General Simele were forcibly disarmed be- According to Sargon G. Donabed, Professor of Histo- fore Iraqi troops and Kurdish ir- ry at Roger Williams University, “Through corrobo- regulars arrived in the district on August 11, 1933 rating sources, the data validates Iraq attempted to without warning or provocation and began to fire solidify its homogeneity as a nation through the purg- indiscriminately against the defenseless Assyri- ing of those Assyrians at Simele and the surrounding ans. Some Assyrian women were mutilated. The districts, epitomising the complexity of a situation in inhabitants of 65 Assyrian villages were massa- which the envisaged state-building could only prog- cred, including up to 3,000 in Simele, where it is re- ress via ‘nation-destroying’ of the Assyrians.”8 ported that the “worst massacres of all” took place.5 “Reports began to surface that even nine-year-old ■ FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS OF THE girls were being raped and burnt alive. Most children SIMELE MASSACRE were stabbed to death as they threw themselves over the naked and headless corpses of their mothers.”6 “Suddenly and without the least warning the Iraq’s violent campaign against its indigenous com- I saw & heard troops opened fire upon munity lasted until August 16, 1933, but violent raids the defenseless Assyri- on Assyrians persisted through the end of the month. many horrible ans. Many fell, includ- Assyrians were largely confined to their homes in fear things in the ing women and children, of further attacks. Great War, and the rest ran into the As many as 6,000 Assyrian men, women, and children houses to take cover….A were slaughtered, while tens of thousands more were but what I saw cold-blooded and me- forcibly displaced. Thousands of women were sexu- thodical massacre of all ally assaulted, many of them kidnapped, never to be in Simele is the men in the village heard from again. beyond human then followed, a massa- cre for which in the black imagination.” treachery in which it was Iraqi Army parade held on August 26, 1933 in the streets of Baghdad to celebrate Iraq’s so-called victory against the Assyrians earlier that month. — From a secret report of a conceived and the cal- British eyewitness in the service lousness with which it of the Iraqi Government, 1933 was carried out, was as foul a crime as any in the blood-stained annals of the Middle East. The Assyr- ians had no fight left in them partly because of the state of mind to which the events of the past week had reduced them, largely because they were disarmed. Had they been armed it seems certain that Ismail Abawi Tohalla and his bravos would have hesitated to take them on in a fair fight. Having disarmed them, 2 Issue Focus: Recognition of the Simele Massacre of 1933 they proceeded with the massacre according to plan. “Here and there in the mountains they came up with This took some time. Not that there was any hurry, for fugitive Assyrians. And every Assyrian they caught the troops had the whole day ahead of them. Their op- they shot out of hand. Clearly by now the Army had ponents were helpless and there was no chance of any decided that the Assyrians, as far as possible, were interference from any quarter whatsoever. Machine to be exterminated. No pretence was made that these gunners set up their guns outside the windows of the operations had any purely military objective, for the houses in which the Assyrians had taken refuge, and Army Intelligence officers did not even take the trou- having trained them on the terror stricken wretches ble to cross-question the captured Assyrians, who in the crowded rooms, fired among them until not a were simply shot as they were rounded up...it was man was left standing in the shambles. In some other evident by now that the Army Command was quite instances the blood lust of the troops took a slightly certain in its own mind that, in its decision to wipe more active form, and men were dragged out and shot out the Assyrians, it would...be backed not only by or bludgeoned to death and their bodies thrown on a Arab public opinion, but by the Baghdad Govern- pile of dead.”9 ment.”11 Lt. Col. Ronald Sempill Stafford Lt. Col. Ronald Sempill Stafford British Administrative Inspector for Mosul British Administrative Inspector for Mosul Sept. 1933 Satellite image of Bartashah, an Assyrian village northwest of Simele, after an “My friends and I saw attack by Arab and Kurdish irregulars. The circular pits are traits of bombings. (Donabed, 119) a plane fly into Simele and start firing on us. Assyrians gathered in houses. [Since the men were being slaugh- tered,] the women be- gan making the young boys (including me) look like girls so they would not be killed. Elias Haroon Bazi, survivor of the Simele Massacre of 1933. (2011) The third day after the killing began, they (some wearing Iraqi uniforms, some not) rounded up some Assyrians and said, ‘Either become Muslim or we will kill you.’”12 Elias Haroon Bazi Simele Massacre Survivor “After killing all the men, the soldiers stripped the “Whoever fired the first shot in a brush on the Syri- dead, taking their things of value, and went after an frontier on the fourth of August, there could be no the women.
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