Remembering Halabja

It began early in the evening of March 16, when a group of eight aircraft began dropping chemical bombs, and the chemical bombardment continued all night. The Halabja attack involved multiple chemical agents, including mustard gas, and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX. Some sources have also pointed to the blood agent hydrogen cyanide.

Of all the atrocities committed against the Kurds during the Anfal, Halabja has come to symbolize the worst of the repression of the Iraqi Kurds. Halabja was a town of 70,000 people located about 8-10 miles from the Iranian border. It became the target of conventional and chemical bomb attacks over three days in March of 1988.

During those three days, the town and the surrounding district were unmercifully attacked with bombs, artillery fire, and chemicals. The chemical weapons were the most destructive of life. The chemicals used included mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun, and VX. At least 5,000 people died immediately as a result of the chemical attack and it is estimated that up to 12,000 people in all died during the course of those three days.

An investigation into responsibility for the Halabja massacre, by Dr Jean Pascal Zanders, Project Leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) concluded that Iraq was the culprit, and not Iran. The U.S. State Department, however, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, took the official position based on examination of available evidence that Iran was partly to blame.[6]

In the streets and alleys of Halabja, corpses piled up over one another. Tens of children, while playing in front of the their houses in the morning, were martyred instantly by cyanide gases. The innocent children did not even have time to run back home. Some children fell down at the threshold of the door of their houses and never rose again.

Don’t expect any acknowledgment of the 20th anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s massacre of 5,000 Kurds in Halabja during this weekend’s demonstrations against the Iraq war

The Halabja Victims Association demands that the Iraqi Supreme Court and Baghdad government execute Chemical Ali on March 16, the 20th anniversary of the Halabja genocide.

"To respect 5,000 victims of Halabja, we demand Chemical Ali be executed on March 16 on the 20th anniversary of the Halabja catastrophe," said Aras Qadir Akram, head of the Halabja Victims Association, who plans to officially approach Baghdad on the subject.

We were burnt as newly-grown plants,
In the current of poisonous winds,
And showed our dreadful wounds,
From one side of the world to the other.
But the unjust eyes of the world
Were never opened truly towards the oppressed.
The world only confined itself to a false regret, And once again,
We became a target as heaps and heaps of martyrs, We were the target of poisonous bombardments, We were the target of destructive bombs, And we remained the lonely oppressed ones of the world.
We rose from under tons of debris,
And stood up in the lands of poisonous bombings,
And we kept up standing and fighting,
Believe it, you people of tomorrow,
Believe such a history and learn a lesson,
Learn how to fight oppression in this way.*

* From the poem "Khaibar" by Mohammed Reza Abdol-Malakian.