It has now been one year since Turkish forces and their allied Syrian National Army (SNA) militias attacked Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad in northern Syria. While human rights groups and international organizations have condemned the pervasive human rights abuses that resulted from the invasion, the humanitarian situation has not improved. Turkey regularly violates the October 17 ceasefire agreement between Turkey and the United States, and SNA militias in Turkish-occupied areas continue to loot, torture, and kidnap with impunity.
Even the atrocities that drew the most international attention and condemnation have gone unpunished. On October 12, 2019, Hevrin Khalaf, the Secretary General of the Future Syria Party, was dragged from her armored car, beaten, and shot to death by members of the Turkish-backed Ahrar al-Sharqiya group, along with her driver and other civilians taken prisoner by the group.
The executions were filmed and broadcast to the world. Turkish media referred to Khalaf’s murder as a “successful operation;” human rights groups and international organizations condemned it as a war crime.
The incident became symbolic of how far the Syrian opposition has fallen from its 2011 goals and of the persecution that civilians face under Turkish occupation. One year later, the international reaction appears to show just how little accountability victims of Turkish and SNA crimes can expect.
US Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey reportedly blocked efforts to formally condemn the incident when it happened, raising questions as to why a foreign government would run interference for an atrocity the international community had seen on video.
Today, both the US government and the United Nations appear to agree that only one individual has been tried locally for the crime. A State Department spokesperson told Al-Monitor in May that they were “aware of one individual belonging to Ahrar al-Sharqiya prosecuted to date for killing unarmed civilians during the Peace Spring Operation.”
In September, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria noted that “a member of Brigade 123 (Ahrar Al-Sharqiya) was sentenced by a military court of the ‘Syrian Interim Government’…for the deliberate killing of Hevrin Khalaf and others.”
Other individuals involved in the murder are still at large, suggesting that the trial was likely a mere slap on the wrist so the group could evade international pressure. Facebook posts show that Hareth Rabath, the Ahrar al Sharqiya cameraman who filmed the execution of Kurdish captives, travels freely between Turkish-controlled areas of Syria and Turkey itself. On the anniversary of the murders, he was spotted shopping at a mall in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa.
If such a high-profile case has been met with limited international action and minimal local efforts for accountability, it is difficult to believe that perpetrators of the near-daily abuses that take place in Turkish-occupied areas without global media attention will ever be brought to justice on the ground.
Most crimes targeting civilians in Turkish-occupied Sere Kaniye, Tel Abyad, and Afrin are not publicized outside of local media and local human rights monitors. Many are never reported at all, as victims fear retaliation for speaking out. The little international attention that is given to these violations rarely leads to accountability.
In just one example, the pervasive pattern of abductions and disappearances in the occupied areas—which occur at a rate of dozens of incidents per month— was virtually ignored outside of Kurdish circles until the location of several detainees who had been missing for nearly two years was revealed in a video. Visual proof of such incidents occurring did not lead to a change in behavior: only one of the detainees seen in the video has been freed, and kidnappings continue to this day.
This pattern of impunity sets a disturbing precedent for victims of past and ongoing crimes in the occupied regions. It also raises questions as to how serious the international community is about holding Turkey and the SNA accountable— an important consideration given the growing importance of international trials when local justice has failed Syrian victims.
The trials for ISIS and Syrian regime atrocities that are beginning to take place in Europe show that when outside states take action, they can hold war criminals accountable when no other actors will. If even this option is denied to civilians in northern Syria, it is unlikely that they will ever see justice.
A desire to appease Turkey or illusions about the current goals of armed opposition groups should not prevent the international community from responding to a humanitarian crisis and ending impunity for atrocities. Unfortunately, if the year since Operation Peace Spring is any example, it seems that these political calculations have outweighed justice— betraying the people of Sere Kaniye, Tel Abyad, and Afrin once again.