Trump
should undo an Obama policy that largely blocks them from getting U.S. aid.
ishtartv.com - https://www.wsj.com
By
Nina Shea, Sept. 21, 2017
As
Islamic State heads toward defeat in Iraq, Christian and Yazidi survivors of
genocide should be returning to their hometowns in Nineveh province. Instead,
these fragile minority communities mostly remain stranded at displacement
shelters in Kurdistan without the means to rebuild their villages. Many are
fleeing Iraq, and the country now risks losing these religious minorities
entirely. The Trump administration is making the situation worse by continuing
Obama policies that effectively exclude these non-Muslims from U.S. aid in
Iraq.
Today
there are fewer than 250,000 Christians in Iraq, according to the State
Department, down from as many as 1.4 million before the 2003 invasion. These
Christians speak Aramaic, like Jesus of Nazareth, and trace their faith to
Thomas the Apostle, whose relics were spirited from Nineveh by Orthodox monks
as ISIS approached. The Iraqi Jewish community, its roots in the Babylonian
exile, was forced out over the past 70 years; fewer than 10 Jewish families
remain in Baghdad. Yazidis—who have lived near the Sinjar Mountains—number
about 400,000. Nadia Murad, the voice for thousands of Yazidis enslaved by
ISIS, warned a congressional panel earlier this year that her people could soon
disappear because of emigration. This would signal the end of Iraq’s indigenous
non-Muslim communities.
Since
fiscal 2014, the U.S. has provided $1.4 billion in humanitarian aid for Iraq,
but very little of it has reached the beleaguered Christian and Yazidi communities.
This is because the Obama administration decided to channel most of it through
United Nations refugee and development agencies, a practice the new
administration has continued. There is no protection for religious minorities
in the U.N.’s overwhelmingly Muslim camps, and Christians and Yazidis are
terrified of entering them. The U.N. doesn’t operate camps in Iraq for
displaced Christians, and the international body has enough resources to
shelter only half the Yazidis who congregate around Dohuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
U.N. programs also exclude the local churches that struggle to care for these
minorities, forcing them to raise aid on a piecemeal and insecure basis from
other sources.
President
Trump has spoken about the plight of Christians in the Middle East, but he has
done little to effect change. Far lower percentages of Christians and Yazidis
are returning from displacement to their homes in the devastated Nineveh Plains
and Sinjar, respectively, compared with the larger religious groups in Tikrit,
Fallujah and Mosul. The prior administration decided to have U.S.
reconstruction assistance, now at $265 million since fiscal 2015, also flow
through the U.N. The director of the U.S. Agency for International Development,
Mark Green, started only last month and has not yet moved to change this
policy.
USAID
lacks direct oversight in Nineveh and relies heavily on U.N. Development
Program reports that claim progress in Christian towns. One local church
authority told me the U.N. reports “grossly overstate the quality and substance
of the actual work” and their projects’ influence is “minimal or nonexistent.”
A representative from the Nineveh Reconstruction Committee, a unified church
group, told me earlier this month that the only major projects under way are its
own. These are supported by Hungary and the Knights of Columbus. Samaritan’s
Purse and Aid to the Church in Need are planning projects in Qaraqosh, also
without U.S. government assistance. These private charities can rebuild houses,
but large infrastructure projects need government aid.
The
U.N. acknowledges that most of the displaced minorities have not returned home
and have shown “a reluctance to return without guarantees of their security and
the stability of their towns and villages.” Church leaders close to the
displaced are excluded from U.N. and Iraqi government committees that decide
stabilization projects, track progress and ensure locals are hired for them.
Rex Tillerson’s State Department has not changed this policy. Nor has it
answered my request for information.
Security
remains a problem and threatens America’s regional interests. Iran is moving in
on the towns minorities have been unable to reclaim. The U.N. has focused on
minor projects in Bartella, a main Christian town. Yet on Sept. 15 the “Imam
Khomeini” elementary school and mosque complex opened there at an official
ceremony, a “gift from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In several towns,
Iranian-backed militias stand guard.
President
Trump can take immediate steps to ensure U.S. aid reaches Iraq’s most
vulnerable minorities. First, he can direct his administration to address their
humanitarian and stabilization needs. This should include dropping the U.N. as
a pass-through for U.S. aid. He can also appoint an interagency coordinator to
ensure that bureaucratic hurdles don’t interfere with getting aid to all
groups. These relatively small tweaks would help preserve the region’s
religious minorities.
Iraq’s
religious minorities are small in number, but assisting them would affirm that
the U.S. stands against genocide, protects religious freedom and aids
vulnerable minority groups.
Ms.
Shea is director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.
Appeared
in the September 22, 2017 print edition.
|