We Condemn the Halabja Massacre!
Solve the Kurdish Issue Now through Peaceful and Democratic Means
16 March 2022
Today is 16 March. On this day we commemorate the victims of the genocide committed by the Saddam Hussein regime within the al-Anfal operation against Kurdish cities, notably against Halabja, that came to be known as the Halabja Massacre.
The al-Anfal operation was launched on 29 March 1987 and lasted until 7 June 1989. The Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council authorized Saddam Hussein’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who later earned the nickname Chemical Ali, intending to cleanse Iraq of Kurds within the scope of this operation. In fact hundreds of thousands of Kurds were murdered as a result of the Saddam regime’s cleansing policy against the Kurds between 1983 and 1991. It is estimated that the number of Kurds killed only within the scope of the al-Anfal operation was between 180,000 and 210,000.
Particularly the town of Halabja and nearby places in the Iraqi Federal Kurdistan Region were bombed with chemical weapons claiming the lives of about 5000 people in air strikes launched on 16 March 1988 that lasted for three days.
While the memory of Halabja was still alive, the mob structure called the ISIS/DAESH launched a genocidal attack against the Yazidi Kurds in Iraq’s Shengal region in August 2014 and kidnapped, murdered and sold thousands of Kurdish women as slaves. The ISIS/DAESH did not confine its heinous acts to this and attacked everyone who was not from its own sect in Iraq, prominently the Kurds. Attacks by the ISIS/DAESH were first repelled by the Kobani resistance in Syria’s Rojava Region in 2015 leading to the liberation of Kobani, then of Shengal emerging as a resistance of historic significance. The ISIS/DAESH, which declared Syrian city of Raqqa as its capital, was defeated in an important achievement in the name of humanity. The Kurdish people weathered threats of genocide against themselves by developing their own defenses. Yet, threats against the Kurds still stand.
Following the referendum held in Iraqi Federal Kurdistan Region on 24 September 2017, the Iraqi central government and the Iranian-backed militia organization al-Hashd al-Shaabi attacked many residential areas, most notably those in Kirkuk, and subjected the Kurds living there to forced migration. This shows that the threat is indeed standing. Turkey, too, launched a military operation into Syria’s Afrin region in January 2018 with paramilitary groups on the ground of border security that ended in March 2018. According to reports issued by international bodies, this military operation claimed the lives of tens of civilians and led to the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians. This is yet another sign revealing how serious and alarming the situation is. Turkey’s military operation into Northern Syria launched on 9 October 2019 on the same ground also claimed the lives of tens of civilians and displaced tens of thousands of others. This state of affairs was analyzed in detail in reports drafted by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.[1] Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, too, called attention to the situation in Syria in their reports.
İHD adopted a resolution to observe 16 March, known as the day to commemorate the Halabja Massacre in Turkey, as the “Kurdish Genocide Day” and asks the state of Republic of Turkey to recognize this genocide. Crime of genocide is defined in the UN’s Rome Statute as the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The crimes aimed at and committed by the Saddam Hussein regime particularly within the scope of the al-Anfal operation are crimes of genocide. Therefore, what was done should be called genocide. Recognizing that a most gross crime like genocide was committed will play a deterrent role in preventing similar crimes in the future. Further, sharing the pain of those who lost their loved ones to genocide and of a people who were subjected to genocide will contribute to their mourning process.
Iraq and the Iraqi Federal Kurdistan Regional Administration, Norway, Sweden and Britain have so far recognized that the crimes committed during the al-Anfal operation were genocide. It would be meaningful and significant for Turkey to recognize these crimes as genocide since Turkey has the highest Kurdish population in the Middle East. Yet and unfortunately the current conflict within Turkey, brought about by the armed conflict that started on 24 July 2015, has evolved into a hot war outside Turkey, specifically in Syria, and gradually spread so as to cover Northern Iraq. İHD unrelentingly reiterates its call to the political power in Turkey to resolve the Kurdish issue through political means using peaceful methods. İHD also invites the UN and the Council of Europe to implement coherent policies to put an end to protracted armed conflict and war.
İHD will keep on urging Turkey to recognize the Kurdish Genocide in line with its charter that puts forth the principle that the association will oppose genocide under any circumstances.
İHD commemorates those who lost their lives in the genocide committed in the al-Anfal operation and says “never again!”
Human Rights Association
[1]https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/IICISyria/Pages/IndependentInternationalCommission.aspx