ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Region’s leaders on Saturday paid tribute to the victims of the 1988 chemical attack on Halabja on the 36th anniversary of the tragedy, saying the massacre was part of a campaign to erase Kurdish identity.
“The chemical assault on Halabja was merely one instance in a sequence of brutal acts committed against the oppressed people of Kurdistan,” Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said in a statement. “If justice had prevailed, the Halabja genocide would have been sufficient grounds to recognize the legitimate rights of the people of Kurdistan.”
“The main goal of this crime and other crimes of successive Iraqi regimes against the Kurdish people was to commit genocide against the Kurdish people and erase their identity,” Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said, urging Kurdish people to defend their rights and protect the status of the Kurdistan Region.
On March 16, 1988, in the final days of the eight-year-long war between Iran and Iraq, warplanes of the former regime of dictator Saddam Hussein rained down a lethal cocktail of chemical weapons on the city of Halabja, killing at least 5,000 people, mostly women and children, and injuring hundreds of others.
The Halabja chemical attack, which was recognized as an act of genocide by Iraq's High Court in 2010, has left a permanent scar in the historical memory of the Kurdish people. It was part of the Baathist regime’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds that killed over 182,000 people.
A few years later, the international community imposed a no-fly zone over northern Iraq to protect the Kurdish population. This gave Kurds the space they needed to establish their own parliament and their autonomy was formally recognized by Iraq in 2005. A series of rulings by the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court in recent years, however, have been criticized by Kurdish officials as detrimental to the Kurdistan Region’s political entity and have sparked concerns over the future of the Region’s semi-autonomous status in Iraq.
Both leaders also called for proper compensation for the victims’ families, lamenting a lack of interest from Baghdad to provide compensation and justice.
“The achievements and the political and constitutional status of the Kurdistan Region are the products of the blood of martyrs and sacrifices of the Kurdish people,” President Barzani said.ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Region’s top leaders on Saturday paid tribute to the victims of the 1988 chemical attack on Halabja on the 36th anniversary of the tragedy, saying the massacre was part of a campaign to erase the Kurdish identity.
“The chemical assault in Halabja was merely one instance in a sequence of brutal acts committed against the oppressed people of Kurdistan,” Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said in a statement. “If justice had prevailed, the Halabja genocide would have been sufficient grounds to recognize the legitimate rights of the people of Kurdistan.”
“The main goal of this crime and other crimes of successive Iraqi regimes against the Kurdish people was to genocide the Kurdish people and erase their identity,” Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said, urging Kurdish people to defend their rights and protect the status of the Kurdistan Region.
Both leaders also called for proper compensation for the victims’ families, lamenting a lack of interest from Baghdad to provide compensation and justice.
“The achievements and the political and constitutional status of the Kurdistan Region are the products of the blood of martyrs and sacrifices of the Kurdish people,” President Barzani stressed.
In the last days of the eight-year-long war between Iran and Iraq, warplanes of the former regime of dictator Saddam Hussein rained down a lethal cocktail of chemical weapons on the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988, killing at least 5,000 people, mostly women and children, and injuring hundreds of others.
The Halabja chemical attack, which was recognized as an act of genocide by Iraq's High Court in 2010, has left a permanent scar in the historical memory of the Kurdish people. It was part of the Baathist regime’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds that killed over 182,000 people.
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