22nd anniversary of Anfal, the genocide attack against Kurdish nation
The year of 1988 carried with it a brutal, relentless and torturous terror campaign that lasted from 23rd February until 6th September against a defenseless and oppressed society, that of the Kurds of Kurdistan. This premeditated operation was designated the name ‘Al-Anfal’ or ‘the Spoils of War’ as mentioned in the eighth chapter of the Qur’an.
The Anfal Campaign waged against the Kurds was undertaken by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime directed by his ruthless cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid or as he became known ‘Chemical Ali’ or ‘The Butcher of Kurdistan’. The campaign consisted of eight phases that attempted to exterminate a vulnerable population. Anfal was characterized by acts of mass executions and disappearance of women, children and at times an entire village.
Thousands of women, children and the elderly people were jailed and left to die under extreme conditions of malnutrition and diseases. Whilst thousands more were forcibly removed and displaced from the homes of which their ancestors had once lived for centuries with no compensation, nor food, clothing or any shelter which resulted in their death the coming years.
The Kurdish men of these villages were machine-gunned or gassed to death, leaving no record of their deaths in unmarked gravesites. Around 2,500 villages were demolished including the destruction of schools, Mosques, wells and electricity substations. A nation that prided itself on its cultured and peaceful lifestyle was destroyed in a matter of months.
Over 4 million pages of the Iraqi government’s documents were collected to support that this was evidently‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’ a gross violation of Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Human Rights Watch estimated that 100,000 to 182,000 Kurds were massacred as a result of Al-Anfal.
The international community has achieved very little to prevent and to punish these prosecutors of the Kurds. Nevertheless the execution of Chemical Ali on 26th January 2010 will stand as an example that all acts of genocide against defenseless Kurds in their occupied homeland will not be tolerated or accepted.
The United Kurdish Association of NSW request that this callous campaign be rightfully acknowledged by all nations as an act of genocide against the Kurdish population, an act already recognized as such by the Iraqi High Court and Parliament.
United Kurdish Association of NSW
Sydney/Australia
Le gel rezmanda – With best regards
Komeley Yekgirtuy Kurd le NSW- Australia
Date: 14th April 2010
