Mishaal Tammo (1957-2011), the widely respected 53-year-old leader (speaker) of the Syrian “Kurdish Future Movement” and also a member of the executive committee of the recently formed broadly based opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) was assassinated in Qamishli, Syria on October 7, 2011. His wife and one of his six children were also injured in the attack. Tammo was attending a political meeting when the attack occurred. The assassination obviously will have influence on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. Who was responsible and why did they do it? What are the implications?
Syrian Kurdish groups blamed the Syrian government as did Mahmoud Othman, a well-known Iraqi Kurdish political figure. Syria, however, denied any involvement and blamed foreign interference speculating that Turkey was behind the deed to encourage chaos which would trigger an armed Kurdish uprising that would topple the long embattled regime of Bashar al-Assad. Still others claimed that Iran was behind the assassination as a means of supporting its longtime ally al-Assad and also out of fear of its own restive Kurdish minority.
Only a month earlier, Mishaal Tammo had barely escaped an earlier attempt on his life and had since been in hiding. At that time, he specifically blamed the Syrian regime for the attempt on his life. Oddly enough, however, and illustrating the fractured condition of what is at least 14 separate Syrian Kurdish parties, Tammo also had stated that the earlier attempt on his life had been made by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a small Syrian Kurdish group allied with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of Turkey, but acting on orders from the Syrian regime. The motive for this and the second successful attempt was Tammo’s opposition to the Syrian regime, which the PKK was seeking to court as a backup sanctuary if its guerrillas were to be pushed out of the rugged Kandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. The PYD had also been accused for the assassination because of competing attempts at holding demonstrations. Tammo, however, had also made it clear that he believed it was the Syrian regime that was behind the PYD’s actions.
Large protests broke out against the assassination leading to speculation that the long muted and divided Syrian Kurdish parties would now partially at least unite and join the Syrian opposition against al-Assad. Since the Kurds constitute 10 percent of the Syrian population and are thus the country’s largest minority, such Kurdish unity might help push the Syrian opposition to victory. If so, however, the Syrian Kurds would have to overcome a double handicap: 1.) Their own great divisions; and 2.) Their deep mistrust of any Arab rule that has traditionally downplayed Kurdish rights.
Tammo was born in the Syrian town of Derbasya and had been trained as an agricultural engineer. He was married and had four sons and two daughters. For more than two decades he had been an important figure in the Kurdish Peoples United Party in Syria. He left that party in 1999 and established the Syrian Civil Society Movement. In addition, he founded the Kurdish Future Movement and the Celadet Badirkhan Cultural Center in Qamishli to revive and promote Kurdish culture. However, the Cultural Center (named for one of the famous Badirkhan brothers who early in the twentieth century had promoted Kurdish nationalism in Syria) was later closed by the government and Tammo arrested for anti-government activities. On May 11, 2009, the Damascus Criminal Court found him guilty of “weakening national sentiments” (Article 285 of the penal Code) and “broadcasting false or exaggerated news which could affect the morale of the country” (Article 286). Party documents found in Tammo’s car when he was arrested were offered as evidence in his case.
In March 2011, Tammo was one of 13 prisoners of conscience (according to Amnesty International) who had staged hunger strikes and signed a statement that a non-elected military coup (namely the al-Assad family) had proclaimed a State of Emergency that had been in existence in Syria for the previous 48 years and was still in effect. The statement also noted that March 12 would be the seventh anniversary of the massacre of Kurds at a soccer game in Qamishli. Unjust laws continued in Syria and the regime was upheld by the security forces. The judiciary eliminated freedom of opinion and crushed dissent with fabricated charges and arbitrary sentences. In closing, the statement called for the abolition of the oppressive al-Assad regime in line with the winds of democratic change weeping the Arab world.
On June 2, 2011, Tammo was released from prison after Decree No. 61 provided an amnest. In his last interview with the Kurdish news outlet Rudaw, Tammo had prophetically declared that Syria would never return to the way it had been before the uprising because both sides were refusing to back down: “People have decided to continue until the regime is toppled, while the Assad regime has decided not to solve the situation peacefully and to instead use force to prolong the life of the regime” (Rudaw, September 13, 2011).
Following Tammo’s assassination, 50,000 demonstrators took to the streets in Qamishli for his funeral. It was maybe the largest demonstration in the Kurdish areas since the Arab Spring uprising against al-Assad had begun in March 2011. Security forces killed six of them. Other large demonstrations took place in the suburbs of Aleppo, Latakia, and Hasaka. Smaller protests were held before the Syrian embassies in Berlin, Vienna, London, and Syria’s permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva. Other protests in sympathy for Tammo were staged in Britain, France, and the Netherlands leading to speculation that a real turning point had been reached in favor of Kurdish unity in Syria and support for the uprising against the regime. Ironically, therefore, the embattled al-Assad government had only recently rescinded the notorious Law 93 passed in 1962 which had denied citizenship to some 160,000 Kurdish ajanib (stateless) and another 75,000 Syrian Kurds known as maktoumeen (concealed). As the famous French scholar once observed: revolutions seldom start when things are bad, but rather when they are getting better.
In recent months Turkey had broken with al-Assad over his bloody repression. Thus, Turkey’s new stance placed it into direct opposition to Iran, long al-Assad’s ally. Thus, Iran would see Turkey’s actions as a direct challenge to its interests. In addition, Turkey’s actions in part could also be seen as a desire to help shape events in its favor in a post-Assad Syria, unlike its failure to do so in post-Saddam Iraq where as a possible result a strong Kurdish movement then arose. Turkey, until recently, viscerally opposed Kurdish movements as an existential threat to its own very existence. Recently, however, Turkish policy has gradually altered with its economic interests in Iraqi Kurdistan and its own internal reforms driven in part by its EU accession hopes. Still Turkey would at least want to influence any future Syrian Kurdish role in post-Assad Syria that might encourage Turkey’s own embattled Kurds. On the issue of keeping the Syrian Kurds quiescent, Turkey would also be at odds with its nascent Iraqi Kurdish ally, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. Finally, it is now clear that the assassination of Mishaal Tammo has not united the fractured Syrian Kurdish movement.

Michael M. Gunter
Professor of Political Science
Tennessee Technological University