AMUDA, Syria — "There are 35 million Kurds and only 30,000 of them live in Amuda. Now, if you have 35 kilograms of meat for a meal, you are not going to eat them because of a bunch of flies?" a Kurdish fighter with the Popular Protection Units (YPG) asked cynically while relaxing outside the military barracks. The Democratic Union Party (PYD) — the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the political affiliate of the YPG — has carefully consolidated its project to manage the Syrian Kurdish areas. It will not accept anyone interfering with its hegemony — especially if this happens ahead of the Geneva II conference, where the party has been promised a seat by Russia.
In Amuda, the PYD's hegemony has become increasingly under threat from the pro-Free Syrian Army youth committees and other Kurdish parties, prompting its first military crackdown last week. Between June 27 and 28, seven civilians were gunned down by YPG forces following protests. According to witnesses, only one of them was armed. The United States issued a statement on Monday saying it was “appalled” by the PYD crackdown, calling on the PYD to “respect the human rights and dignity of all Syrians.”
It all started on June 17, when the Asayish — Kurdish security forces — arrested the vocalist of anti-regime protests Wilat Feto, the Yekiti Party member Dersem Omar and Serbest Najjari, known to be close to the youth committees. Only Omar has been released so far. They have officially been accused of drug trafficking, even though numerous residents understood their detention as politically motivated. A series of small silent sit-ins started to occupy one of the city's main streets, and after a couple of days they turned into proper demonstrations with thousands of people, according to the participants.
On June 27, according to the PYD's official version of the events, the Martyr Serhad Brigade that reached Amuda was heading back to Qamishli, after it defeated an Arab “mercenary armed gang" in control of a dam located on the road between Tell Tamr and Hasakeh. The operation is said to have restored water supplies to Hasakeh, after the city remained dry for several days.
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