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Anfal: Campaign against the Kurds in Iraq
5.4.2006
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Human rights researchers
say the 1988 Iraqi military operations known as al-Anfal
(the Spoils) was part of a campaign of genocide by
the central government in Baghdad against the mainly
Kurdish population of northern Iraq.
They coincided with the last throes of the Iran-Iraq
war and were commanded by Saddam Hussein's cousin
Ali Hassan al-Majid in his capacity as head of the
Northern Bureau of the ruling Baath party.
Using documents obtained after the first Gulf War,
when Kurdish forces took control of former Anfal
areas, Human Rights Watch estimated up to 100,000
people perished in a systematic ethnic cleansing
programme.
Following Mr Majid's appointment in 1987, the
government - portraying it as a counterinsurgency
against Kurdish guerrillas - declared specific areas
"prohibited zones".
Those Kurdish residents who did not flee to
rebel-held territory in the mountains suffered
various fates.
Some were shipped off to miserable new settlements
further south, with few provisions or opportunities
to make a living, and forbidden, under threat of
death, to return to their homes.
Many starved within a year or only survived through
clandestine help from nearby townspeople.
Other non-combatants were imprisoned, where huge
numbers died from appalling neglect. And many men of
militant age were simply executed and buried in mass
graves. |
Ali Hassan al-Majid known as "Chemical Ali" , Saddam
Hussein's cousin and the head of the Northern Bureau
of the ruling Baath party
Photo: Reuters
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP
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Nerve gas
In the context of the campaign, Iraq became the
first government to use chemical weapons against its
own people.
It dropped mustard gas and sarin on rebel areas,
with heavy loss of civilian life, as early as April
1987 - according to Human Rights Watch.
The worst incident - which did not technically come
under the Anfal operations - was in Halabja, where
5,000 civilian inhabitants are thought to have died
in an aerial bombardment of mustard gas and nerve
agents (sarin, tabun and VX).
The military campaign proper began on 23 February
1988 - when the Iraqi army began its sweep through
the "prohibited areas" - the first attack on (now
Iraqi President) Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan headquarters at Sergalou-Bergalou.
Halabja was hit on 16-17 March 1988 after it was
captured by Kurdish fighters supported by Iran
Revolutionary Guards attempting to open up a second
front to relieve the siege of Sergalou-Bergalou.
Infrastructure destroy
In all nine Anfals were conducted, ending on 26
August. On 6 September the government declared a
general "amnesty" for Kurds, although many continued
to be held - and die - in the camps and prisons.
Human Rights Watch says 2,000 villages were
destroyed, as well as dozens of towns and
administrative centres, including Qala Dizeh which
had had 70,000 residents.
The group says a charge of genocide - defined as the
intent to destroy an ethnic group in part or in
whole - are justified in the case of the Anfal
operations, which it says far transcended legitimate
counterinsurgency.
The reasons it gives include the murder and
disappearance of tens of thousands of non-combatants
selected on the basis of their ethnic-national
identity.
It also cites the use of chemical and nerve agents
against civilians; the near- total destruction of
Kurdish assets and infrastructure; and the
abandonment of large numbers of vulnerable people.
Saddam Hussein, Mr Majid and five other form top
Baath party and military officials are to be tried
in relation to the campaign, it was announced on 4
April 2006.
They will face the death penalty if found guilty.
BBC
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