Internationalists participated in a human shield action in the mountains of Qandil in southern Kurdistan, northern Iraq.

The statement of the internationalists reads as follows;

“We came from Spain, Portugal, Germany and Galicia to Kurdistan.

We are here with the goal of learning from the revolutionary struggle of the Kurdish freedom movement, getting a deeper understanding of the ideology and the system of Democratic Confederalism and finding ways to support the revolution more intensively.

The last weeks we spent in the mountains of Qandil, participating in the human shield protest action.

The Qandil region south from the border of Turkey is exposed to bombardments of the Turkish military as part of their “operation claw 2”, which is aimed at destroying the Kurdish freedom movement, regardless of civilian casualties. This operation is part of a long campaign of attacks against the Kurdish people by the Turkish president.

Driving up the curvy road into the region, we saw burnt out civilian cars, destroyed bridges and houses, giving us the first impression that we are entering a war zone. Instead of reading about this from a safe distance in Europe, we were now about to be in the middle of it, unable to just switch of the news.

During the time in the camp we constantly heard reports about drones and jets flying over our heads, bombings in the distance and people killed due to these attacks.

Surprisingly, feelings of insecurity did not occur. We were surrounded by comrades from the movement that we could trust and we also received numerous reports on successful resistance by the People’s Defense Forces.

After about two weeks in Qandil we witnessed the first bombing from short distance.

At around 11:30 pm a roaring noise broke the silence of the night and shortly after sounds of explosions echoed around us. We could see the bright lights of the detonating bombs within the distance of a few kilometers.

In a feeling of disbelief, sleep did not seem possible at this moment. Still the presence of the guerilla made us feel safe enough to not feel fear.

The communal life that we experienced in the region has significant differences to the life we are used to from Europe. The supposed contradiction between individual and community seems overcome. No competitive behaviour was visible. Sharing everything is natural.

Especially the relationship between women impressed us. A strong care for each other and a level of independence of females, that we could not even encounter in European feminist circles like this.
This first insight of communal life gave us a lot to reflect on what is wrong in the societies that we come from.

As of now we are on the way back from Qandil news reached us, that Erdogan stated, he will attack Rojava no matter the position of the NATO. For some time now the Turkish military has pulled troops together at the Turkish side of the border.

As revolutionaries, socialists, democrats, humanitarians and internationalists we need to get active to defend the revolution in Rojava which is an island of hope, when it comes to solving the fundamental questions of our time like climate injustice and gender inequality.

For 7 years a system of autonomous radical democracy has been built up in this region, with emphasis on an ecological society and the liberation of women. This society already protected itself against the brutal fascist ISIS jihadists, that were supported by the Turkish state.

Now once again our solidarity needs to become practical by creating broad attention, mobilizing everyone around us and organizing resistance of all forms.”