Interview with Aziz Tamoyan
Interview conducted by Onnik Krikorian

OK: Are the attacks happening in Yerevan, or everywhere in Armenia?

AT: Everywhere. About 150 families in different areas, for example Abovian, have been uprooted and left to their own fate. Armenians have been moved into their houses. The Government knows about this. What are the Yezidi in Armenia? Thirty five died in the conflict in Karabagh, and in 1918 750 Yezidi horsemen fought against the Kurds and the Turks. We helped Armenia in its liberation struggle. Yezidi are mainly nomadic, and farm the lands, bringing produce to the market. This is how we live. Some of us are in farming, and this is very important for Armenia. Sheep, wool, wheat, milk, butter. Go to the markets and see that the Yezidi are very important for Armenia. We should be protected in this country.

Armenians are our friends, and they will be our friends, I do not want to say anything against Armenians, I am speaking against governmental policy. There is no protection and we do not feel we are protected in this country. If this does not change, Yezidi will gradually leave Armenia.

OK: I read a report that eighteen Yezidi entered the US Embassy in Bonn, poured petrol over themselves, and threatened to set themselves alight if they were sent back to Armenia.

AT: I was there at that time. Last year in April I was in Germany, and on the decision of the German Government these families had to leave Germany, and these refugees were reluctant to return to Armenia. So they threatened to burn themselves if they were to be deported. I had arguments with these Yezidi that they should have pursued their complaints in a more civilised manner, and not through threats. They came to this office and they were in a very bad way. they had no jobs and no homes, and they had to leave this country. they went to Georgia, and then on to elsewhere.

OK: One thing that is very evident and also confusing is that the Yezidi community in Armenia is split. No-one can tell me, however, to what extent is the community split. I am talking about the split between those Yezidi that consider themselves a separate ethnic identity and those that consider themselves Kurd. With such a confusion within the Yezidi community itself, this must create a major obstacle to the resolution of any of the problems facing the Yezidi minority as a whole.

AT: In my book I explain the origins of the Yezidi, and I have shown you the figures that show the Kurds represented individually. During the Soviet regime, the Yezidi were artificially unified with the Kurds. On birth certificates and in passports the Yezidi were identified as "Yezidi", but in the census they were grouped with the Kurds. That was a Stalinist policy towards the minorities.

In 1926 two hundred nations were officially registered in the Soviet Union, and in the census of 1979 the number of nations was one hundred and one, so as a result of governmental policy ninety-nine nations were assimilated somehow. One of these nations was the Yezidi. During the Karabagh movement Yezidi raised their voices and declared that no-one had the moral right to consider them as Kurds. We fought side by side with Armenians for liberation.

The Kurdish intelligentsia number very few - Karlene Chachani, and Amarik Sardarian, and a few others. They are financed by the PKK in Kurdistan, and they want to say that 50,000 Yezidi living in Armenia are Kurds. Why? For what reason? It is the official policy of the Kurds. If Yezidi are Kurds, then all areas where Yezidi live can be included within Kurdistan. They want to take territory from Armenians because Kurds live here - in Alagyaz, in Etchmiadzin. But in reality, they are not Kurds, they are Yezidi. This is a special policy, and I recently discovered that a German writer has included these areas, and claims that they belong to the Kurds. This is a falsification, this is a great shame, and this is dishonesty. I wrote about this in a newspaper, proving that this is not Kurdish territory. It is Armenian territory, and that Armenians and Yezidi live side by side as brothers.

OK: This is very confusing. Some Yezidi in Europe and in Armenia consider themselves Kurds, and some Yezidi in Armenia do not consider themselves Kurd. When I went to one region there was a PKK representative speaking to the villages. The villages were pro-PKK and the villagers felt themselves to be Kurds. To what extent does this political argument represent a major problem for the future of the Yezidi as a minority living within the Republic of Armenia?

AT: I wrote about this issue to President Levon Ter-Petrossian, and other bodies in the government. There is a danger here, a great danger, because it is a very dangerous policy. In Aragatsotn region there are eleven villages inhabited by 1,500 Kurds. This is a special policy from members of the Kurdish Intelligentsia Society. These people are not Yezidi, they are Yezidi-Kurds, they celebrate Newroz. They are Moslem Kurds actually, and they identify themselves with Kurds. The danger in this is that the Kurds hope to get some autonomy in Turkey, and when this happens the Yezidi Kurds in Armenia will claim autonomy too in order to get united with Turkey.

The Yezidi have always been oppressed by the Kurds. the Kurds have physically tried to wipe out Armenians and Yezidi, and this continues today in Armenia. Yezidi are oppressed by Kurds, and many Yezidi are being converted into Yezidi-Kurd, into Moslems, with the promise of positions in a future government, and they want to claim Armenian territory too. I am greatly suprised at the indifference of the Armenian Government that is so short-sighted it can not see the danger.

The Yezidi do not want any land from Armenia, and there are 50,000 Yezidi that live side by side with Armenians. We have shared the same fate, and we have been oppressed, killed and massacred just as the Armenians have. These people have sold their souls to the PKK. The Kurdistan Committee supports them financially, and this is pure propoganda among the common people.

There are of course cases of human rights violations in Armenia against the Yezidi. However, this is an internal affair between ourselves and the government, and we will do our best to try to settle these problems. What we need from the outside world is financial help in order to publish our newspaper, to produce text books, and this will be very beneficial for our nation.

As for the Kurds, we are greatly oppressed by the Kurds. We do not think that there are Kurds in Armenia. There are a number of interest groups trying to promote the ideology of a Kurdish struggle in Armenia, and are trying to convert Yezidi into Kurd. Actually, there are only Yezidi here.

Please bear in mind that Yezidi are not Kurd. We are different not only in our religion, but we are also different in our language, tradition and folklore. This is a different ethnic group. This is a different nationality. We are very indignant towards this artificial term "Yezidi-Kurd". Is it a horse or a donkey, or an animal that is both a horse and a donkey. Of course not. We are either Yezidi or Kurds. There are Yezidi in Armenia. For those Yezidi that consider themselves Kurds, this is an organised campaign organised by a number of people and this is a policy that comes from the PKK, and a very dangerous policy for Armenia.

The Yezidi-Kurd is a Donkey-Horse, and I would be humiliated if someone called me a Kurd - I am a Yezidi. It was a policy of the Soviet Government, and they were trying to assimilate the Yezidi into Kurd. Yezidi are a different ethnic group, different from the Kurds.

END