Memo to the Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Ban Ki Moon

Regarding the Ethnic Cleansing of Iraqi Minorities
And a Protected Zone

The Honorable Ban Ki Moon
Secretary General of the United Nations
New York, NY 10017

22nd of August 2014

We, the representatives of the below co-signing organizations, representing the aspirations of the Yazidi and Christian (Assyrian, Chaldean and Syriac) communities in Iraq, and following the systematic acts of ethnic cleansing, massacres, assassinations, abduction, rape, and kidnapping perpetrated by the “Islamic State” against these communities since June 2014, urge you to request an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council to address the following urgent issues:

1) In view of the fact that an international terror organization known as “Islamic State” (Daesh) has seized large portions of Iraq and of Syria, including cities such as Mosul and Reqqa, has accumulated quantities of weapons and cash to use in pursuing their genocidal action against Iraq’s ethnic minorities, particularly in the north and possibly in Northern Syria as well;
2) In view of the fact that the Iraqi state has failed to defeat this organization and thus the threat by IS (Daesh) against the aforementioned communities continues to be imminent, and that IS growth is counter balanced by an intervention of Iran’s regime and Hezbollah as well;
3) In view of the fact that large scale killing and ethnic cleansing of Yazidis in the Sinjar area and Iraqi Christians, particularly Assyrians in the Nineveh Plain area, have been taken place and threaten these communities with eradication;
4) And in view of the fact that the direct threat against the Iraqi ethnic minorities at the hands of Jihadists is part of a global threat and pattern in the region against minorities in general, particularly in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt;

In view of the fact that ethnic cleansing and genocidal acts have been committed against a civilian population, breaching human and humanitarian rights as well as international law, threatening Peace and Security;

We urge you to draw the immediate attention of the Security Council to this threat to Peace and Security and request the following actions to be taken via a UNSCR Resolution:

1. Sending Peacekeepers to the Nineveh Plains and Sinjar districts in Northern Iraq under Chapter 7 of the Charter and establish a protected area for its civilian population;
2. Returning the refugee population, now displaced in Iraqi Kurdistan, to the two internationally protected districts;
3. Enabling the population of Nineveh and Sinjar to establish a local defense force to man their police stations and counter activities by Terrorists;
4. Coordinating the defense of Northern Iraq from Terror forces between the two above mentioned districts and the Regional Government of Kurdistan so that they become partners in the defense of that part of the country against future attempts at ethnic cleansing;
5. Initiating a special UN Task Force to find the thousands of Yazidi women kidnapped and abused by IS and return them to their families;
6. Establishing a special tribunal to indict and bring to international justice those responsible for the atrocities against the population of Sinjar, Nineveh and Mosul’s minorities.

We the undersigned organizations commit to assist you in all of these efforts.

Best regards,

Mr. William Youmaran, President of Assyrian American National Federation
Mr. Abraham Buyuksal, Bethnahrin National Council (Syriac)
Mr. Medlum Merogi, Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council
David William Lazar, Chairman, American Mesopotamian Organization (AMO)
Mirza Ismail, Chairman, Yezidi Human Rights Organization International
Mr. Magdi Khalil, Coptic Solidarity International
Mr John Hajjar, Melkite Committee
Dr. Walid Phares, Special Advisor
Mr. Tom Harb, Secretary General of the World Maronite Union