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Washington Kurdish Institute President
commends Anfal trial verdict
30.6.2007
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June
30, 2007
Washington, D.C. – The President of the
Washington Kurdish Institute, Dr. Najmaldin Karim,
commended the conviction of Ali Hassan al-Majid on
24 June for the genocidal crimes of the Anfal
campaign against the Kurdish people. Al-Majid, known
commonly as ‘Chemical Ali’ for his use of chemical
weapons against civilians, is a kinsman of the late
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Dr Karim said, “The Iraqi Special Tribunal clearly
decided that the Anfal was a genocide according to
the internationally accepted definition of the 1951
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide to which Iraq, and over 100 other
states, are a party. There is no statute of
limitations on this crime. The overthrow of the
Ba’athist regime was a belated act of justice that
made the Iraqi Special Tribunal possible. People of
conscience will welcome this verdict and remember
with shame the silence of the world while this crime
was being committed.”
Dr Karim noted, “While justice has been done, it is
not full justice. It is a shame that Saddam Hussein,
the engine of Iraq’s totalitarian murder machine,
was hanged without being held accountable for his
role in the Anfal. We commend the Iraqi authorities
for their change in attitude to these trials.”
According to Dr Karim, “Official recognition that
the Anfal was a genocide is long overdue. It is
shameful that leading media outlets and academic
institutions dismissed Kurdish reports of
persecution as exaggerated or even denied Iraqi
responsibility for the crime of Halabja. We thank
those who stood by us. A leading role in studying
the Anfal was taken by Physicians for Human Rights
and Human Rights Watch, which in 1993 published its
pathbreaking report, Genocide in Iraq: the Anfal
campaign against the Kurds. Now is the time for a
full study of the Anfal. I hope that American
institutions will lead this effort.”
Dr Karim concluded by calling for restitution and
support for Iraqi Kurdistan. He said, “Now is the
time for full reparations to the people of Iraqi
Kurdistan for the crimes of the Ba’athist regime.
Those who profited from the regime, at home and
abroad, should now assist the victims and help to
rehabilitate Iraqi Kurdistan. The democracies of the
world should unite in their efforts to enable Iraqi
Kurdistan to develop into the decent, tolerant,
democratic society that its citizens yearn for. To
ensure that this crime is never committed again, we
must learn from the past and build for the future.”
Background on the ‘Anfal’
Named after a sura of the Quran, the ‘Anfal’ was a
genocidal campaign in which the Ba’athist regime
sought to exterminate Kurds across large swathes of
Iraqi Kurdistan. The regime systematically destroyed
towns and villages, murdering the inhabitants or
deporting them to mujammat (concentration areas).
Thousands upon thousands were either murdered on the
spot or driven in trucks to unmarked graves where
they were lined up and shot. The murderers used
bulldozers to fill in the graves, burying the
wounded alive as they lay with the dead.
Torture was systematic and the regime repeatedly
used chemical weapons against civilians. In addition
to the 5,000 civilians murdered at Halabja by
chemical weapons in March 1988, thousands of others
were killed in smaller attacks in the Kurdish
countryside. The final death toll from the ‘Anfal’
is unknown.
The regime destroyed 4,500 villages with a
population of 182,000 persons. Many thousands have
suffered physical and mental disability from the
trauma of torture, deportation and exposure to
chemical weapons.
Washington Kurdish Institute
kurd org
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