Kurds Confront Saddam In Court
Authorities in the self-ruled Kurdish area of northern Iraq are demanding compensation from the Baghdad government for the mass killings of Kurds during Saddam Hussein's so-called Anfal campaign. The demand by the Kurdistan Regional Government came as Saddam's genocide trial over the Anfal campaign — in which poison gas was widely used with horrific results — entered its third day Wednesday.
Prosecutors hope to show that Saddam and six co-defendants were responsible for the deaths of between 50,000 and 180,000 Kurds in a military sweep in 1987 and 1988. Saddam insists the campaign was aimed at eliminating pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas from the border area.
The Kurdistan Regional Government said in a statement that it welcomes Saddam's trial, but "justice must be done, and must be seen to be done." The statement, dated Aug. 17, was seen Wednesday. "The Kurdistan Regional Government demands that the Iraqi government compensate the victims of the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein's government, as provided for in the constitution of Iraq," it said.
It did not elaborate or say what kind of compensation it wants.
In other developments in Iraq:
All six plaintiffs who have testified so far during Saddam's trial have also told the court they want compensation for themselves and for the Kurdish people, citing lost homes and cattle and medical bills.
Iraq's ethnic Kurds, who mostly live in northern provinces, suffered discrimination and repression for decades under Saddam's Arab Sunni-dominated government. The Kurdish areas became an autonomously ruled region known as Kurdistan after Saddam's influence was greatly curtailed in the 1991 Gulf War to liberate Kuwait.
"The Iraqi government ruled the people of Kurdistan through fear, torture and cruelty," said the Kurdish statement.
It said the Anfal campaign resulted in illnesses from chemical weapons exposure, unusually high rates of cancer, large numbers of internally displaced persons, and families still fighting to reclaim their homes and lands.
Bodies of men, women and children continue to be unearthed from mass graves, it said. "For decades to come, this horrific period of their history will remain in the collective memory of the people of Kurdistan," the statement said. "The people of Kurdistan continue to live with the legacy of suffering."
The new unity government of Iraq did not immediately respond to the Kurdish demand, and it was not clear how compensation could be provided only to Kurds when a large number of Shiites and even Sunni dissidents were victimized during Saddam's time.
The Kurdish statement also noted that from the 1970s, Saddam's government carried out an Arabization or "ethnic cleansing" program in Kirkuk, Khanaqin, Sinjar and other areas inhabited by Kurds, Turkomen and other minorities.
It demanded "justice for those whose homes and lands were confiscated" under the Arabization program.
Defendants in the new trial of Saddam Hussein insisted on Tuesday that the military was attacking only Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels when it launched the Anfal campaign, in which tens of thousands of Kurds were killed.
The court heard a survivor of the campaign testify how his village of Balisan was bombed by chemical weapons.
"I saw eight to 12 jets .... There was greenish smoke from the bombs. It was if there was a rotten apple or garlic smell minutes later. People were vomiting ... we were blind and screaming. There was no one to rescue us. Just God," Ali Mostafa Hama told the court.
Hama, wearing a traditional Kurdish headdress, said he saw a newborn infant die during the bombardment. "The infant was trying to smell life, but he breathed in the chemicals and died," he said, speaking in Kurdish with an Arabic translator.