The Assyrian Democratic Movement (, , ADM), popularly known as Zowaa (), is an Assyrian political party situated in Iraq, and one of the main Assyrian parties within the Iraqi parliament. The Assyrian Democratic Movement states its aims are to establish equal citizenship rights with the rest of the Iraqi people without discrimination on the basis of nationality, belief, religious affiliation, culture, language and other characteristics of the native Chaldo-Assyrian Syriac people of Iraq, to acknowledge the past massacres committed against them and to ensure they are never repeated again. With regards to separatism from Iraq, the Assyrian Democratic Movement maintains that it does seek the division of Iraq in order to establish an Assyrian state and states in its manifesto:The national axis in the approach of the Assyrian Democratic Movement has components of the Iraqi people, and to contribute to building the democratic pluralistic federal state and establishing the Iraqi state based on justice, equality and the rights of all components. And the common destiny of our Chaldean Assyrian people with the components of the Iraqi people, national and religious Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Armenians, Sabians, Yazidis and Shabaks. History The Assyrian Democratic Movement was founded on April 12, 1979 after several meetings held in secrecy in Kirkuk, Mosul and Baghdad. The party was established among various smaller cultural-political and student groups such as the Assyrian Brothers, with the hope of fulfilling the political objectives of the Assyrian people in Iraq, in response to the oppressive brutality of the Ba'ath regime and its attempts to forcibly expropriate ethnic Assyrians from their native lands. The ideology of the movement stemmed from Assyrian cultural awareness that had developed in Urmia and Harput during the Assyrian independence movement. The movement took up armed struggle against the Iraqi regime in 1982 under the leadership of Ninos Pithyou with the primary focus of defending Assyrian villages, and joined the Iraqi-Kurdistan Front (IKF) in the early 1990s. Since its inception, the ADM have joined with the Iraqi patriotic factions in the fight against dictatorship. The movement has also participated in the political field since 1982 alongside other groups. It started by issuing its central newspaper, Bahra, in June 1982. In 1988, fighter members of the movement and its headquarters as well as the rest of the Kurdish parties were attacked in the Al-Anfal Campaign. ADM participated in the uprising in 1991; then won seats in parliamentary