IRAK: Border Massacre

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold. . . .

James Ramsay MacDonald may not know his Byron but he knows his Bible. To this God-fearing Scot the present obstreperous Assyrian minority in the Kingdom of Irak are precious remnants of early Christian tribes. Hundreds of them were being butchered last week by the Irak soldiers and Kurdish mercenaries of lean, falcon-eyed King Feisal.

These tidings so distressed Prime Minister MacDonald in Scotland last week that he broke off his vacation at Lossie-mouth and flew 540 mi. to London, alighting at dawn to hurry to the Foreign Office. After all it was the MacDonald Government which withdrew the British mandate over Irak last year (TIME, Oct. 17), entertained King Feisal in London during the past June season. When King Feisal was in London fullest royal honors were paid to the “new nationhood” of Irak by Christian King George V who feted his royal Mohammedan guest at Buckingham Palace. With Assyrians being massacred last week Britain was obviously bound to try to save as many of them as possible. Unfortunately the British Minister to Irak, Sir Francis Humphrys, was on vacation in Norway last week, had to be recalled to London and then despatched post haste to Irak by agitated Scot MacDonald. Meanwhile in Bagdad, King Feisal who as a Mohammedan does not greatly object to the massacre of Assyrians or other Christians, tried to dodge all responsibility by insisting that his health is poor, that he must fly to Switzerland “to complete my cure.”

Bagdad newspapers accused the Assyrians of coming down like wolves on Irak troops and starting all the trouble. Their story was that an Assyrian rebel chief named Yaku has been weaving back & forth across the frontier between Irak and French Syria where he is suspected of obtaining arms. Not long ago Yaku, after treating with agents of the Irak Government, agreed to return and give up his arms. Instead he swooped with wolflike treachery upon a small Irak force sent to accept his surrender, killed 20 Iraki, wounded 45. Worse than treachery, according to the Mohammedan point of view, was “the frightful mutilation by the Assyrians of our dead.”

In reprisal King Feisal’s commander on the Irak-Syrian frontier, fierce Bekir Sidqui Beg, hired Kurds to reenforce his troops and started a slaughter of all Assyrians he could lay hands on, despite the fact that wolf-raiding Rebel Yaku headed a band of not more than 1,000 Assyrians, whereas the Assyrian minority in Irak numbers 40,000, mostly peaceful. In a few days of fanatical Mohammedan slaughter 600 Assyrian villagers were put to the sword, according to British investigators. In Bagdad suave Irak Premier Rashid Ali Beg called the British reports “exaggerated,” partially confirmed them when he insisted, “No Assyrian old men or children have been killed. No Assyrian women have been attacked.”

Officially the Irak Government blamed the crisis not on Rebel Yaku but on the Assyrian Patriarch Mar Shimun, who was deported last week with his father and brother. At once the British Government offered these exiles asylum on the Island of Cyprus to which they flew in a British R.A.F. plane and demanded that King Feisal stay in Bagdad to punish the guilty — whether Christian or Mohammedan. To the Irak Legation in London falcon-eyed King Feisal promptly cabled: “Although everything is normal now in Irak, and in spite of my broken health, I shall await the arrival of Sir Francis Humphrys in Bagdad, but there is no reason for further anxiety. Inform the British Government of the contents of my telegram.”