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Anfal – the immense genocide process of a nation

Written by : Falah Moradkhan
WADI e.v.
Local Representant in Suleymania


Kurdistan population is regarded as one of those nations of the world, which continuously faced the circumstances of unsuitability, displacement, invasion and massacre in the different eras of its history. The daily life destiny and culture of this nation have become telling stories of bloody and heartrending events , especially in the southern part of kurdistan which is artificially linked to Iraq for the welfare and advantage of England and Turkey . In the contemporary history , and after the world war II came to an end , the United nations established in 1945 and the declaration of human rights was announced in 1948 , this region began to face so many catastrophes and violence’s . Anfal and using the most dangerous mass destructive chemical weapon with demolishing towns and villages were preformed by a country which enjoys having membership in the United nations and regarded itself bound by the international agreements in the field of human rights, while it was performing the genocide of the Kurdish nation justifying the crimes by claming that they were treating internal problems . for committing these crimes , they were benefiting from one of the principles of the United Nation which is not interfering internal affairs of countries . But that principle will not be valid in case on any violations of the Human rights and the unsuitability of that country that influences other countries.

Here the UN has the right to interfere that country as soon as possible . Resolution No. 688 in 1991 is a clear example of the necessity of interference even if it came out in the from of recommendation and not a decision . In addition , the Iraqi government , especially in the 10-years war with Iran , benefiting from the special circumstance of dividing the world into two discordant blocks and their political , economical and strategically advantages they had in the region . Thus every act of violating Human rights was ignored and put aside . They even didn’t take any moral and heavenly values of our people into account . In that period , that regime implemented the wide process of genocide and massacre of the kurdish people ; starting by several immense attacks , among them the full-of-worth chemical bombardment of Halabja in 1988 , killing more than 5000 people displacing more than 70000 people and devastating the town which is regarded as the largest town in Iraq . at the same time the Iraqi regime started ground and air attacks on different kurdish residential areas in the name of Anfal which took 5 months , and more than 182000 people oof those areas were taken prisoners and then their fate became unknown . These operations involved many parts of kurdistan especially Garmyan ( i.e. the hot area ) area which was the main target of Anfal operations. The justification of the Iraqi regim for these inhuman operations was that the residents of these area and the Peshmarga ( Kurdish Commandos ) fighters wear the same cloths and that they cant differentiate between them , and that those fighters come to those areas for food and rest . This was what they claimed . but as Kurds , we know that their essential aim was to liquidate the Kurdish people and later replace them by Arab tribes and change the demography of Kurdish people gradually . So for this reason the fascist and chauvinist regime of Baath tried its best to reach the farthest place where its rivals were. There must have been other dirt y goals behind these operations, which need to be discussed in detail.

According to the most obvious agreements of the world , and among them is the Geneva agreement – Article No. 4 in 1925 the following decision was made : Any person committing a crime in or outside ones country , will be legally investigated , and will be punished according to the criminal punishment proclaim in 13 Jan., 1942 , and the Geneva proclaim in 12 august,1949 for defending war victims , and then another proclaim in 1948 to forbid genocide and punishing who commit these crime .

In accordance with the international laws and proclaims Kurdish people have the right to ask the international court of Justice to submit those people who have committed crimes as mentioned above, to a special court so that they may get whatever that deserve. Here after we should prepare everything about the people caught in Anfal , and this should be backed by documents so that the performers of these crimes can be punished and the disadvantaged people be compensated . Finally we claim and say to the super power countries who seek their economical political and strategically advantages, to look upon this nation and no more ignoring it since they know well how we have been suffering for more than 30 years every inhuman act of the deposed Baath regime.

April 14, 2003


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