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Throughout the sequence of assaults in 1988, victims
were exposed to the maximum doses of the largely
strong cocktails of chemical and biological nerve
and mustard agents that were ever used against
civilians. These cocktails caused malformations and
cancer, kill, paralyse and caused immediate and
lasting neuropsychiatric damage. Even the cocktails
were able to kill babies in utero, and children and
adults from fast growing untreatable and fatal
cancers. Five thousand died immediately and more
than 50,000 survivors suffer long-term effects. Many
thousands
survived the first assault then died later on from
conditions such as cancers, heart failure,
congenital malformations and so on. Twenty two years
after the attacks, nobody has taken this problem
seriously and to find out about whether soil and
water remain polluted and contaminated. I firmly
believe the international community has failed to
support the people of Halabja.
The former Iraqi Government assaulted an extremely
defenceless population that incorporated women,
children and the old people. These people were the
target of bombs, stayed alone and oppressed ones of
the worlds. People rose from under tons of remains,
and stood up in the lands of poisonous and smell of
chemical bombings, and the Kurds kept up the
standing and fighting for our national rights that
we believe in. We have been fighting and struggling
against oppression in this way for so long. The
Iraqi fighter aircrafts bombarded the city of
Halabja and Khormal by the chemical bombing; this
was the starting of the vast crime of history.
Children sought the shelter of their mothers' arms.
This bombardment was one of the most disgraceful and
terrified inhumane crimes of history in Halabja. The
town of Halabja came under attack by chemical and
cluster bombs over 25 times by Iraqi fighter
aircrafts.
On Thursday March 17, 1988, and on Friday March 18,
took place one of the most shameful and fearful
inhumane crimes in Halabja. People on streets and
pathways rolled over each other. The sound of crying
rose from the entire town. Thousands of people were
sleeping cheerfully in their beds and did not know
about these awful attacks, but they were subjected
prior to sunrise to chemical bombardment, and
poisonous gases but unfortunately the gassing of the
city did not let them get out of their beds. The
person who ordered that city to be bombarded was
Chemical Ali'. Ali Hassan al Majid was better known
as 'Chemical Ali' for his role in the gassing of the
Kurds, and the deaths of thousands of Iraqi Kurds in
Halabja and other villages and country towns of
Kurdistan during the Iran-Iraq war. Majid, a close
cousin of Saddam Hussein, had been sentenced to
death three times before. The execution was finally
carried out a week According to the news from
Baghdad the capital of Iraq the “Chemical Ali" was
executed on Monday, after his fourth death sentence
was handed down. (3). He was first sentenced to hang
for another campaign against Kurds a few months
before the gas attack.
"Chemical Ali was the symbol of crimes and genocide
in modern history. Handing down the ruling, Judge
Abud Mustapha al-Hamani branded Majid's offences as
"deliberate murder, a crime against humanity" when
the verdict was delivered amid muffled applause in
the courtroom.
Chemical Ali was a member of the decision-making
Revolutionary Command Council and regularly
announced to wipe out the Kurds and the Kurdish
Freedom Fighters (3).In 1997-1998 the Iraqi
government developed, more weapons, including the
potent nerve agent VX and the biological weapons
anthrax and the viciously toxic mycotoxins. I
believe that Iraq used in the attacks, these two
dangerous biological agents, such as, Mycotoxins,
including trichothecenes. People in the world had
seen the evidence of deformity and mutation
following from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki (1).
I want to say that the unjust eyes of the world
never opened truly towards the oppressed. We are
always being the target of poisonous bombardments;
we remain the lonely oppressed ones of the world.
This was the beginning of the great crime of
history. A mother, who embraced her one-year-old
baby, fell down two steps from her house and was
martyred. In every street and the corners of Halabja,
women and children were martyred as a result of the
deployment of the chemical weapons. A father sat
over the bodies of his wife and ten of his kids in
one of the pathways of Halabja and was crying. The
crimes Iraq committed in the past were enormous, and
it was a catastrophe. Fatal wounds on the dead
bodies of the people were evident. Saddam's crime
was not just in Halabja but this tragedy targeted
against the Iranian Kurdistan in Sardasht as well.
Thousands of innocent people martyred and thousands
more were injured. The Iraqi regime signed the 1925
protocol of Geneva of the prevention of the use of
the chemical and biological weapons in wars in 1931.
The regulations of the 1972 Convention of Geneva
demanding all countries to stop production,
achievement and storing up of all sorts of chemical
and biological weapons and to destroy them and the
UN 37/98 decision put emphasis on the necessity of
monitoring the articles and contents of the 1925
protocol and the 1972 Convention of Geneva have also
been accepted by the UN member countries including
Iraq. In April 1987, more than twenty four villages
of Kurdistan were attacked by the bombardment; the
villages were bombarded twice in less than 48 hours.
Saber Ahmad Khoshnam, one of the citizens of the
bombarded villages in Loqmanodulleh Hospital in
Tehran on 28th of April 1987, told the journalists
that the Iraqi war planes used 18 chemical bombs at
Sheikh Dassan, Kani Bard, Pasian and Tuteman
villages, and over hundred people of these villages
were wounded in these attacks and that he saw the
entire family in Parsian village had lost their
vision.
The UN representatives visited Iran twice and
organized reports from the campaign of the chemical
weapons against the defenceless people and gave it
them to the United Nations in reports number S/1
6433 and S/18852 and after these reports were handed
over in the general secretary to the Security
Council, in the end joined individuals,
organizations, and condemned Iraq's use of chemical
weapons. But the former Iraqi Government leaders did
not care and continued their crimes against the
Kurds.
European countries and American mass media, visited
Halabja, and found truth about the awful crimes
committed by the Iraqi former regime.
Some of the materials relocated by the world press
concerning the chemical bombardment of Halabja are
as follows:
An article
published by the London Daily., the independent, on
23rd of March, 1988:
"
The slaughter of 5,000, Kurds in Iraqi poison gas
attacks underlines a dangerous new dimension in the
volatile Middle East: the growth of the chemical
warfare capability of several important regional
powers, and the fear that, despite efforts to curb
these weapons, they could be used more widely. Iraq
was helped by British, West German, Indian,
Austrian, Belgian, and Italian companies, despite
bans on the sale of chemical that could have
military use. The above countries preferred business
deals rather than the values of humanity and human
beings. They
participated in the crime despite of the bans of the
sale of chemical weapons. Do we not have the right
to sue these criminals and to take them to the
International Court, and find out who sold the
chemicals the business men or the Governments
themselves?
"Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran on a very
large scale for three years during the war. The
United Nations had investigated into the use of
chemical warfare agents in the Iraq-Iran war and
they said unequivocally on all three occasions that
Iraq had used chemical warfare agents.
They said that mustard gas was certainly used on all
three occasions, that was in 1984, 1986 anti 1987.
They said that they had evidenced that a nerve
agent, tabun, was used. The investigation carried by
a well qualified team, so one has no doubt in there
mind that they have been used." When some one like
Chemical Ali was in court for such along time but
the current Islamic Republic of Iran kept quiet and
they never sued this criminal for the crimes that
were committed against the Kurds and the Iranian
citizen. I believe the Iranian Government is also
liable for the quietness about this issue, and in
itself is a crime. Iran should have asked the Iraqi
and the International Courts for compensation for
the genocide that was committed against the Iranian
Citizens during the Iraqi and Iran war.
Article from
Halabja by David Hirt, Middle East correspondent of
London Daily, the Guardian, published on March 23,
1988:
“NO wounds, no blood, no traces” of explosions can
be found on the bodies - scores of men, women and
children, livestock and pet animals - that litter
the flat-topped dwellings and crude earthen streets
in this remote and neglected Kurdish town...
“The skin of the bodies is strangely discoloured,
with their eyes open and staring where they have not
disappeared into their sockets, a greyish slime
oozing from their mouths and their fingers still
grotesquely twisted. All the European countries
condemn this genocide against the Kurds and
humanity, but only the Arabs and the Muslims kept
quiet and did not condemn this crime against our
nation. I believe the quietness of the Arabs and
Muslim world had proved their support for the former
executed the Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein and his
cousin (Chemical Ali). Their acts proved that they
are the real occupiers of our Homeland in South of
Kurdistan and Western of Kurdistan. The Arab writers
didn’t even write one word about this genocide and
atrocities of our people.
The Kurdish regional Government from its capital
Erbil (Hewler) confirmed that an Iraqi supreme court
overturned the previous decision by recognizing
chemical weapons attacks on the Kurdish city of
Halabja in 1988 as an act of genocide. The Supreme
Iraqi Criminal Tribunal said the Halabja weapons
attack was an offence against humankind; this
decision has a huge impact to reinstate the rights
of the Kurdish people. I am sure that the Iraqi
Government and the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal
would not have recognised the Chemical Bombardment
of the city of Halabja in 1988 is Genocide without
Kurdish efforts. So in this occasion, I would like
to congratulate the Kurdish Regional Government,www.ekurd.netthe
Kurdish Parliamentarians in Baghdad and The Supreme
Iraqi Criminal Tribunal on this victory. The Supreme
Iraqi Criminal Tribunal has proved the truth about
the case of Halabga and it shows the court works
under laws and applies justice without any
discrimination. Congratulations on this great and
brave decision, and has never done anything in this
regard for the last 8 decades, or since the
Kurdistan was forced to be linked to Iraq.
It is also, the former Baath Party regime of Saddam
Hussein that link’s to genocide of the Anfal
operation. Anfal was against Kurdish existence led
by the Iraqi former regime in 1986 and 1989 and
involved a series of army operations against the
Kurdish Freedom Fighters the Kurdish civilian
population of southern Kurdistan (Iraqi Kurdistan).
In the campaign, chemical weapons used and in Anfal
campaign over 200,000 Kurdish civilians and Freedom
Fighters were killed and over 4,000 Kurdish villages
ruined in a response to a Kurdish revolution (2).
In March 1987, the Baath party placed Chemical
Ali'in charge of state agencies in the Kurdish
region, for the police, and military forces.
Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director for the
Middle East and North Africa at International Crisis
Group, said what set Halabja apart was its "full
scale attack on a population centre with a weapon of
mass destruction."
"In terms of proliferation and human rights abuses,
this is an order of magnitude different than going
into a city and just shooting up the place," said
Hiltermann, who is the author of a book on the
Halabja attacks (3). In this occasion the United
Kurdish Association in Sydney assembled in the city
on 16 March and condemned the former Iraqi
Government for their crimes against the Kurds in
particular and the humanity in general.
We hope that the hanging of this criminal; Chemical
Ali would be a good lesson for the other dictators
to stop their assaults and act of genocide against
defenceless people. For instance the President Omar
al-Bashir the Dictator, who committed crimes in
Darfur wars. The UN said that 300,000 innocent
people died in the Darfur conflict since 2003.
Mogadishu was the capital of Somalia, a country that
suffered for 21 years under the dictatorship of
Siyad Barre. In 1990, Siyad Barre lost power over
all the regions. The Dictator Siyad Barre's regime
bombarded the city and used the variety of different
heavy artillery, such as ground to ground missiles,
then at the result of the bombardment and the civil
war led to huge civilian casualties.
Genocide in Galcayo the International Criminal Court
will review bringing genocide charges against
Sudan's president. The International Criminal Court
permit was issued for President Omar al-Bashir for
war crimes against humanity in Darfur. Prosecutors
say Mr Bashir's government wanted to wipe out three
ethnic groups. He intended to destroy the Fur,
Masalit and Zaghawa peoples.
If genocide charges brought, they will be the first
to be issued by the The International Criminal Court
against a head of state.
African and the Arab leaders united around Mr Bashir
and rejected to honour the existing warrant. I want
to say, it is not the first time that the Arab
Muslim leaders support criminal leaders that
committed crimes against their own people, for
instance previously the Arab leaders had supported
the former executed Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein
and his cousin Chemical Ali. Even now a country like
Syria is doing the same thing in the Kurdish
regions; the police and security men and the Syrian
Army kill innocent Kurdish people, Newroz the
Kurdish New Year 2010 witnesses the Syrian crimes,
by shooting the Kurds and by denying their rights to
celebrate their Kurdish New Year Newroz on 21st
March. This Newroz in Syria 2 Kurds were killed and
over 50 Kurdish Syrian Citizens were injured by the
Syrian Security Forces. Syria is one of the worst
Arab State that supports terrorism and sends
insurgents to Iraq, Syrian aims to destroy the
Democratic Political system in Iraq. Due that the
Syrian State of Terror does not believe in Democracy
except dictatorship, and oppress non Arab nations,
in order to keep and occupy their homelands forever.
The Dictator, Mr Bashir went to Qatar some time ago
and he was welcomed by the Qatari leader, Sheikh
Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani, Sudanese
state
radio said. This is the fairness of the Arab Leaders
about the human rights. But despite of everything
Joy Bidden is asking for another state for the
Palestinian people, but the US Government and the
authorities in the United States of America are
still deaf and blind and cannot see the other
nationalities in the Middle East who lived there
thousands of years before the arrival of the Arabs
from Sahara and the Turks from China to the area.
Their eyes can’t be opened and they can’t see the
indigenous people except the oppressors and the
occupiers. At the end, I hope the United States of
America and the British wont repeat the mistakes of
the past centuries and will work seriously in the
modern century to change their political strategies
and try to help non Arab nations of the Middle East
and the rest of the world in order to have their
independent states and spread of democracy. If the
United States of America really wants to spread a
true democracy in the dark corners of the world, the
US government must prove to the nations of the
oppressed world practically not just in words,
otherwise nobody will believe in the US Government
and slowly they will lose their trust an their
credibility in the eyes of the oppressed nations
that have been struggling for a prolonged time. It
is also a duty of Kurdish regional Government to
send its message to the World throughout its
consulates about Halabja and the Anfal Kurdish
Genocide, in order this great mission to be
successful, they need to provide finance for these
matters and work hard, and provide all evident to
the United nation, US, England, Sweden, France, and
the other countries in order to get approval and
recognitions from their Parliaments, about the
Kurdish genocide. It also to find out about those
criminals that participated in the crime by selling
and supplying chemicals to the former collapsed
Iraqi Government.
Author: Dana Berzinjy
These are some of the pictures from the City of
Halabja, the Genocide of the Kurds.
In one single chemical attack in 1988 on the Kurdish
town of Halabja more than 5000 civilian Kurds were
killed
The Kurdish civilians were killed by Sarin and VX
gas in the Kurdish city of Halabja. The 1988
massacre of Kurds, in the city of Halabja.
Bibliography
1. Christine Gosden and Mike Amitay, 20th 1999.
2. 1988 Kurdish massacre labelled genocide,
9.3.2010, Baghdad Declares 1988 Massacre Genocide,
ERBIL-Hewlęr, Kurdistan region 'Iraq.
3. Iraq executes Saddam henchman "Chemical Ali"
25.1.2010, Baghdad/Iraq. www.ekurd.net
Dana Berzinjy,
a freelance writer,
Sydney/Australia,
April 10, 2010,
for eKURD.NET
©
All Rights Reserved. You may reach the author via
email at: danaberzinjy (at) ekurd.net or dara_dar
(at) yahoo.com.au
Copyright © 2010 ekurd.net. All rights reserved
-
Articles by Dana Berzinjy
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The Turkish PM,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Racist Request in
Germany! 21.5.2010
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The 22nd
Anniversary of the Bombardment of the City of
Halabja!
10.4.2010
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What Symbol
Does Represent the People that live in Iraqi
Kurdistan? 14.2.2010
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The
Historical Relations between the Kurds and the
Jewish! 10.12.2009
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The
Kurds and the Israelis have no friends in the
Middle East! 16.10.2009
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Genocide of
the Kurdish Language, Forcibly by the Turkish
Government has violated the Turkish and the
United Nations Laws. Part 3. 6.7.2009
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Kurdish
Tragedy in North of Kurdistan. Based on a True
Story 25.5.2009
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Democracy in
the Middle East Especially in the Kurdish Regions!
8.8.2008
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Reply to a
Dishonorable Degree, which was written by Nergiz
Duhoki 2.6.2008
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The Turkish and
the US Governments, Share crimes, Atrocities and
Genocide that were Committed Against the Kurdish
People in Turkey in 1990, and at present. PART 2,
By Dana Berzinjy 3.5.2008
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Call For
Economic Boycott of the Turkish Products and Think
Twice Before You Buy it. 27.3.2008
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The Turkish and
the US Governments, Share crimes, Atrocities and
Genocide that were Committed Against the Kurdish
People in Turkey in 1990, and at present. PART 1,
By Dana Berzinjy 17.2.2008
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National
Kurdish anthem should have been played first, not
the Quran in the ceremony which mourns victims of
Anfal 15.1.2008
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What Right Does
the Turkish Parliament have To Send Its Own Army,
to Shell...By Dana Berzinjy 29.10.2007
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The Conspiracy
Agreement Made Between The Iraqi And Turkish
Internal Ministers... 1.10.2007
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Why the US does
not support an Independent Kurdish State, but
Supports the establishment of the Palestinian
state 29.8.2007
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The Turkish
Government Occupies The Kurdish Homeland in
Southeastern Turkey 23.7.2007
About the Author:
Master in TESOL from University of Western Sydney in
1995. Bachelor of Teaching (Secondary)
Faculty of Education {University of Western Sydney macarthur} 2001-2002. Postgraduate Diploma in Adult
Education (Teaching English of Speakers Other
Languages) Faculty of Education {University of
Western Sydney macarthur} 1999-2001. Postgraduate
Diploma in Business ( Employment Relations Law)
Faculty of Business ( University of Technology
Sydney) 1997-1999. Bachelor of Business (Commerce
and Human Resource management) ( Southern Cross
University) 1992-1996 Lismore.
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