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HALABJA & AL-ANFAL GENOCIDE CAMPAIGN In the turn of the 20th century, the powerful and influential countries of the west divided Kurdistan amongst Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria in order to further their political agendas in the region and restrained the Kurds from having a state of their own. This division of land was forced upon the Kurds and deprived them of exercising the self-determination rights. During all these years, the Kurds lives have been filled with tragic and brutal events, which intended to wipe them out from their homeland. Regrettably, these racist and oppressive campaigns have always been ignored or minimized, and there has not been an international attention for prevention of further crimes against the Kurds. According to the 1948 Geneva Convention, genocide is defined as "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". The Dutch court announced that it considered "legally and convincingly proven that the Kurdish population meets requirement under Genocide Conventions as an ethnic group. The emergence of Baath regime in Iraq created a fertile atmosphere for ethnic cleansing campaigns in the southern Kurdistan, such as the chemical bombing of Halabja, burying people alive, destroying thousands of Kurdish villages and arabization of the Kurdish region by forced evacuations are the examples of genocidal acts. In the 80s the Iraqi regime arrested 9000 Faili Kurds in Baghdad whom to this day are missing, furthermore in several occasions they had fled to Iran seeking refuge. In the summer of 1983, 8000 Barzani Kurds were abducted who had been killed and buried in mass graves in the southern Iraq, just few months ago the bodies of 500 victims were brought back to Kurdistan. In 1988 the genocide campaign against the Kurds hit the highest point. Two hundred thousand Kurds, including women and children, were arrested and buried alive. The chemical bombing of Halabja in March 16, 1988 took 8000 lives within few minutes. Not only Halabja but also other places such as Balesan, Siwsinan and Badenan were targeted for chemical bombes. More than 4000 villages, 2000 schools and 300 hospitals and medical clinics were completely destroyed by Ba’ath regime as the continuation of the genocide campaigns. The former dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassan Majid, known as Chemical Ali are being prosecuted for their crimes against humanity, but this is not enough. The Iraqi government should apologize to Kurds and compensate for whatever the relatives of the victims have lost during those genocide campaigns. Moreover, the United Nations should acknowledge the genocide of the Kurds and have annual announcement and call for international attention on the matter. The uphill battle of the Kurds for self-determination and freedom in other parts of occupied Kurdistan is a continuing struggle. The Kurds are still killed, prosecuted, jailed and tortured just because of their ethnicity. This could come to an end if the Kurds could have a free Kurdistan. Long live Kurds Long live Kurdistan! For further information about Halabja and Al-Anfal genocide campaign: - www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja - www.kdp.pp.se/old/chemical.html |