After Saddam Hussein on 30 December was hanged at the gallows for crimes against humanity, the Iraqi High Tribunal in Bagdad in January dropped its charges against him for the Anfal operation. This campaign aimed to systematically exstinquish the Kurdish population in North Iraq in 1988, resulted in the death and missing of many thousands of Kurds. The Anfal trial now continues against Saddam’s six accomplices; one of them Saddam’s cousin ‘Ali Chemicali’, who owes his nickname to accusations that he gassed thousands of Kurds. The (relatives of the) Anfal victims still deal with the effects of the operation. To face the numerous problems, the Kurdish regional government in North Iraq even established a special Kurdish Ministry for Anfal.

‘Those who fight for their rights, await a bright future’

By Marjolein Wijnand

Walking through Dahok, one of the Kurdish towns in North Iraq, one can see clearly that Saddam’s rule has ended. Were mosques and hospitals under Saddam’s regime once named ‘Saddam Mosque’ or ‘Saddam Hospital’, nowadays they are renamed as ‘Freedom Mosque’ or ‘Freedom Hospital’.
Saddam’s recent hanging has given many Iraqi Kurds a feeling of justice finally being done. With their new gained freedom in 2003, they now should be looking ahead to the future. But for many Kurds the wounds and scars of Saddam’s legacy, as for many Iraqi’s, are still deap and numerous. One of those wounds was caused by the Anfal operation in 1988 during which many thousands of Kurds were murdered and disappeared.

The Anfal can be viewed as genocide. The exact number of Anfal victims is not known. Official research has never been done. Most of the victims are burried in massgraves, nobody knows where. The International human rights organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) speaks about an estimated number of 50.000 to 100.000 dead Kurdish victims and many thousands more missing. The Minister of the Kurdish Ministery of Anfal and Martyrs in North Iraq speaks about a number of 180.000 missing victims and 70.000 ‘martyrs’.

During the operation which lasted from February until September 1988, the Iraqi army carried out a series of eight military attacks in North Iraq beginning in the south-east and ending in the north-west. The regime officially said the operation was needed to break down and wipe out the Kurdish armed resistance, which was seen as a threat to the Iraqi national state. In reality the Kurdish population was systematically exstinquished.

Thousands of villages under control of the Kurdish resistance were labeled as ‘forbidden areas’, the biggest part of the Kurdish country-side. They were bombed, attacked with chemical weapons (musterd- and nerve-gas) and afterwards destroyed with bulldozers and dynamite. Best known was the one on the Kurdish village of Halabja, which costed an estimated number of 8000 civilians their lives.

In the Anfal operation no distinction was made between Kurdish resistance fighters (pesmerga’s) and citizens. Pesmerga’s were immediately executed. Many citizens, which were labeled as ‘traitors’ and ‘non-Iraqi nationals’, were killed or wounded by the bombs and chemical weapons. Civilian survivers were put in temporary camps or were imprisonned in security buildings. Later they were brought to execution sites outside of the Kurdish region, to be shot and burried in massgraves.

In September 1988 when the regime annouced an amnesty, Kurds who surrendered were put in collective camps (mujamma’at). There they were forbidden to return to their lands. Until the Kurdish uprising in 1991, they were treated as second rank citizens without any rights.

Massgraves
As the northern Kurdish region in the beginning of the nineties became semi-autonomous and was protected by the Allied Forces, most of the massgraves there were discovered. After the fall of Saddam in 2003 also in other parts of Iraq massgraves from atrocities of the former regime were found. Still in Iraq each month up to 800 bodies are discovered from illicit grave sites.

It’s thought that most of the Anfal massgraves are to be found in the desert south of Iraq. In 2005 two massgraves with 510 bodies of men and boys from the powerful Kurdish Barzani tribe of the current Kurdish president of the northern regional government, were found near the Saudi border. In total 8000 male members of the tribe disappeared. All are thought to have been killed. Only women and girls were left behind.

As a total of 300.000 to more than a million Iraqi citizens under Saddam’s rule are estimated to have been murdered, the new Iraqi government in 2005 even launched a plan to establish a National Center for Missing and Disappeared Persons. Regarding the exchange of forensic expertise, they get help from The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP)- now responsible in the former Yugoslavia for missing persons and exhumations of massgraves, like the ones in Srebrenica. On their website the ICMP states about Iraq: ‘In view of the numbers of missing persons alone, it is reasonable to envisage an effort of at least ten years to address the issue of missing persons at a technical level.’

Dahok Castle
Even after 19 years in North Iraq the aftermath of the Anfal operation remains widespread. Many (relatives of the) Anfal victims suffer from psychological problems and mental trauma as a result of the bombs and chemical attacks. Many people live in poverty; their houses and villages were destroyed, never rebuild. Their livelyhood as farmers was taken away. They moved to cities where they ended up in for example old security buildings from the former regime, or they moved to other villages.

In a former security building in Dahok lives one of the Anfal survivers, Jamila Hassan (35), since 1991 together with her handicapped husband, children and sister. The building was once used by the regime as a Iraqi security prison. Many prisoners were tortured or killed here. Locals refer to it as ‘The Castle’, a fortress like building. On a wall near the entrance gate is written: ‘Those who fight for their rights, await a bright future’. Somewhat cynical texts, as the lives of the few hundred people in the building have totally stagnated due to trauma, unemployment and poverty.

During the Anfal Hassan’s village was destroyed by bombs, 85 villagers were killed. ‘We used to help pesmerga’s, gave them food and care’, she says. ‘After the attack we were put in prison.’ Her family now lives in ‘The Castle’ in one small room, like all the other families. They live from a small income they get since her husband in 1996 was wounded as a pesmerga. They also loan money. ‘But we only survive. I see no future. Kurdish politicans and the Iraqi government have promised us many times to give us new land or rebuild our village, but they lie and do nothing for us. It’s a crime’, she says.

Aid
Many Kurdish organizations in the North, try to solve the problems of (the relatives of the) Anfal victims. The main problems they face are the psychological ones, unemployment, poverty, bad health, lack of housing and land. But the funds and the resources of the Anfal organizations are too limited to provide structural help.

The Organisation for Ex-Political Prisoners, Murdered and Missing Persons in the small town of Zahko, is one of them. It mainly functions as a psychological gathering place for Anfal victims to share stories.

In the nearby city of Dahok The Center for Anfal keeps an archive with up to 1600 stories from eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims. The stories they gathered will be used during the Anfal trial. Also photos and videos of the Anfal operation are collected, as the former Iraqi regime recorded every act of its repression.
Another organisation The General Office of Affairs of Martyrs and Anfal in Dahok, just as the other two, mainly gives out small financial support to victims: until now 10.000 Anfal families got a small benefit, 1050 houses were newly built and 3000 people got a piece of land.

Ministry
As the problems of the Anfal victims are numerous, the Kurdish regional government in North Iraq established a special Ministry for Anfal and Martyrs in Erbil in Mai last year. Minister of Anfal, Chnar Saad Abdullah, explains: ‘A strong organisation was needed to support the victims. The numerous problems couldn’t be dealt with by other Ministrys alone.’

What is most needed now, Abdullah thinks, is official research into the number of victims of the Anfal operation. ‘This has never been done before and is very important if we want to be able to deal with all the problems. But the most important thing is that the victims left a very large number of people behind’, she emphasizes. ‘Out of research by the Ministry of Human Rights we learned that 60 percent of this group has psychological problems. We therefore want to establish a psychological center to help these people. But we need expertise from outside to train people for this work.’

The Ministry, together with the Iraqi government, also has plans to provide Anfal victims in the nearby future with housing, damage expenses and small benefits. Abdullah: ‘But we don’t only want to give people money. We also want them to learn how to establish their own small businesses to have more income.’

Abdullah thinks it’s very important- as most of the Anfal organizations don’t know about each others work- to bring all of them together to exchange information and explore possible co-operation for the near future. ‘We need all the help we can get to experience everything that is needed; to see how we can start dealing with the problems’, she concludes.

Trial
Two weeks ago during the Anfal trial in Bagdad Ali Al Majid or ‘Ali Chemicali’, former head of the Northern Iraqi army command under Saddam, admitted to have ordered his troops in 1988 to execute Kurdish villagers who refused to leave their homes. He denied being responsible for the execution of 300 Kurdish pesmerga’s. He persisted that the Anfal campaign was an operation against Kurdish guerrillas, who collaborated with the enemy during the Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988). This week the Anfal trial continues. Just like Saddam, Al Majid and his co-defendants can face hanging on the gallows for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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