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Iraq Kurds rebury Kurdistan's genocide "Anfal"
victims
18.1.2008 |
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Mourners gather at a hilltop cemetery as 365 coffins
arrive bearing remains of those killed in Hussein's
genocidal 1988 campaign.
January 18, 2008
Dukan, Kurdistan Region 'Iraq', --
The army of grievers climbed to the hilltop at dawn,
waiting for the 365 flag-draped coffins to arrive.
Some sat weeping in the stony dirt amid row after
row of empty graves; others lined the streets for
blocks. They clutched framed pictures of husbands
and wives, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters
-- all victims of Saddam Hussein's 1988 genocidal
campaign against the Kurds.
When the coffins came, carried up the hill on the
backs of soldiers, the lamentation could wait no
longer. This Anfal burial was 20 years in the
making.
Fatima Omar pushed through the crowd of thousands,
past the caution tape and past the soldiers. The
mother who had lost three sons and a daughter
collapsed on an unmarked coffin, her arms hugging
the wooden box. She wailed plaintively; her body
shook.
"All of them are like my children," she said. "My
children and all these people go into death
together. And now, they come back together."
It was a scene of almost unimaginable grief. Grown
men sobbed into their scarves; one woman became so
inconsolable she had to be carried out; and a
photographer,www.ekurd.net
after snapping dozens of pictures, put down his
camera and cried into his hands.
As many as 180,000 Kurds were killed in 1988, during
Hussein's deadly Anfal, or "spoils of war,"
operation in which firing squads, chemical warfare
and concentration camps were used by the then-ruling
Baath Party to root out Kurds in northern Iraq.
Thousands of victims remain missing and thousands
have yet to be identified.
The remains in the burial ceremony -- found in mass
graves in Mosul, Duhok, Sulaimaniyah and Samawah --
were recently turned over to the semiautonomous
Kurdistan regional government after being used as
evidence in trials against Hussein; his cousin Ali
Hassan Majid, known as "Chemical Ali"; and others,www.ekurd.net
said Fuad Hussein, chief of staff for Iraqi
Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani.
Although the government considered creating a
national burial ground, Hussein said the survivors
wanted these remains buried closer to home -- a
request officials were willing to accommodate.
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Honor guards carry coffins containing the remains of
Kurdish victims, killed in the Anfal campaign in
1988, during a ceremony in Erbil, , the Iraqi
Kurdistan's capital, about 350 km (220 miles) north
of Baghdad January 14, 2008. A genocidal campaign
under Saddam Hussein against Iraq's Kurds must never
be forgotten, officials said on Monday at a ceremony
for 371 victims, whose grieving relatives demanded
those responsible be put to death.
Ali Hassan al-Majid, first cousin of executed
dictator Saddam Hussein and also known as 'Chemical
Ali', 'Butcher of Kurdistan' sentenced to death over Kurdish genocide, |
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"It's an important piece of our history," Hussein
said. "It also signals to the outside world that
genocide happened to the Kurds and it must not
happen anywhere else."
At the burial site Thursday, dozens of black banners
dotted the hillside. Each had its own message. "Anfal
is a hurt in the body of the Kurd. We don't forget.
Ever," declared one. Another called on the
government to execute three former top officials
who have been convicted and sentenced to death for
Anfal-related crimes.
Kurds, though, are split on whether Majid; Hussein
Rashid Mohammed, the former deputy head of army
operations; and Sultan Hashim Ahmad Jabburi Tai, a
onetime defense minister, should be executed.
President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has argued that
Tai should be spared.
But this was not a day about politics. It was a day,
finally, to say goodbye. And for some, to relive old
wounds.
"I tried to forget because it was a long process,"
said Ismat Abdul Rahman, whose son Aziz, 4, was
killed, along with five other family members.
"Now I am hurt, my head and my body. Today I feel
like they are killing my son."
Fatima Salah crouched over an empty grave, her body
rocking side to side. "All of the time I cry," she
said. "All of my life, I cry about you. I don't
forget you."
She held up nine plastic floral bouquets, each
bearing the name of one of her nieces or nephews:
Hiwa, 11; Cameran, 15; Runak, 13; Sangar, 2; Peri,
4; Bestun, 1. . . .
"Some were not even old enough to go to school," she
said, sobbing. Her list continued: Hawri, 3; Akhtar,
19; Delkhwaz, 5. When the procession of coffins
approached, hours after many mourners had arrived,
the crowd moved to the edge and peered down at the
row of trucks carrying the caskets.
Muneri Mahmoud watched, as one coffin after another
passed by. Tears flowed, and she spoke a flood of
Kurdish. She stood quietly for several minutes.
Then she dabbed her eyes and smiled. She said one
word, in English: "Home."
latimes com
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