Assyrian Democratic Movement
| ܙܘܥܐ ܕܝܡܘܩܪܛܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ الحركة الديمقراطية الآشورية Assyrian Democratic Movement |
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| Party leader | Yonadam Kanna |
| founding | April 12, 1979 |
| Headquarters | Baghdad , Iraq |
| Alignment | pro minority protection and minority rights for the Assyrians in Iraq |
| Colours) | purple |
| Parliament seats | In the Council of Representatives : 3 out of 325 Parliaments of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region : 2 out of 111 |
| Website | http://www.zowaa.org/ |
The Assyrian Democratic Movement ( Aramaic ܙܘܥܐ ܕܝܡܘܩܪܛܝܐ ܐܬܘܪܝܐ Zowaa Demoqrataya Atouraya ; Arabic الحركة الديمقراطية الآشورية; Abbreviation ADM ), also known as Zowaa , is an Assyrian party in Iraq . It is currently the only ethnically Assyrian-based party elected to the Iraqi parliament .
history
The Assyrian Democratic Party was established on April 12, 1979 to serve the political goals of the Assyrian people in Iraq . This came in response to the oppressive brutality of the Ba'ath regime and its intention to forcibly expropriate the Assyrian lands. The movement also took up armed struggle against the Iraqi regime in 1982 under the leadership of Yonadam Kanna and joined the Iraqi Kurdistan Front in the early 1990s. Yonadam Kanna was a target of the Ba'ath regime under Saddam Hussein for many years .
Due to the successful lobbying of influential Assyrians in the United States and of Congressman Henry Hyde , the American government apparatus declared the Assyrian Democratic Movement to be an officially recognized Iraqi opposition movement. In a memorandum dated December 9, 2002, American President George W. Bush recalled Articles four and five of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 as a means of allowing the United States to provide financial resources to the Assyrian Democratic Movement and other Iraqi opposition movements . Yonadam Kanna attended a meeting of Iraqi opposition leaders in New York City in September 2002 , as well as the London Opposition Conference in December 2002. In February 2003, Kanna addressed both the Iraqi opposition leaders and US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad at a conference in northern Iraq. Just hours before the US-led war against Iraq in March 2003, Kanna stressed the importance of a coming war to the history of the Assyrian people. He reported that some Assyrians were leaving the cities for the villages and urged the Diaspora Assyrians to provide humanitarian aid to their "brothers".
Today's politics
Yonadam Kanna is the current party leader of the Assyrian Democratic Organization. He served as a member of the then Iraqi Governing Council before it was dissolved. The intention was to make way for the office of the elected body that was formed after the January 2005 general election . Since then, the movement has also been represented in the Parliament of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan . Party members and Assyrians in general have been the focus of mounting insurgent attacks since the fall of Saddam Hussein .
The party describes itself as a democratic and political organization nationally and patriotically to defend the people and their legitimate rights and to fight under the banner of a free, democratic Iraq . The party's declaration includes the call for the official recognition of the rights of the Assyrians and the unity of the people despite their different church affiliations: Chaldean Catholic Church , Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and Church of the East ( different Christian denominations within the Aramaic population). The movement supports the idea of a federal Iraq and has good relations with other Assyrian and Kurdish groups present in northern Iraq , as well as with the Shiite leaders in southern Iraq.
The Assyrian Democratic Movement operates the radio media Ashur TV and Ashur Radio and publishes the newspaper Bahra .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://zindamagazine.com/html/archives/1995/zn022095.html ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.zowaa.org/
