KRG Official Says Baghdad-Erbil Tensions Have Slowed Search for Mass Kurdish Graves

SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – The search in southern Iraq for mass Kurdish graves from the Saddam Hussein era has been hindered by the recent Erbil-Baghdad tensions over troop deployments in disputed territories, a representative of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said.

A Kurdish MP also charged that the central government in Baghdad was trying to play down the number of Kurdish victims killed by Saddam’s regime.

“A stable relationship between the KRG and Baghdad is essential to conduct this search effectively,” said Muhammad Ihsan, a KRG representative in the Iraqi capital.

Ihsan added that his teams faced difficulties last week when trying to locate mass graves in the southern deserts of Samawa and Musayib. 

“People in the area were not willing to assist us due to the troubled relationship between Baghdad and the KRG,” Ihsan said.

Erbil-Baghdad tensions have been rising since weeks ago Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki deployed his controversial Dijla forces in disputed northern territories that are also claimed by the Kurds. The KRG sent in thousands of its own Peshmarga fighters, and both sides have been locked in a dangerous stand-off ever since.

“Every time problems emerge between the KRG and Baghdad, it affects the work of the inspection teams searching for mass graves,” Ihsan said.

Since Saddam’s fall that followed the 2003 US-led invasion, the remains of more than 21,000 Kurdish victims of the late dictator’s atrocities have been found and returned to the Kurdistan Region. In the closing weeks of the 1980-88 war with Iraq, Saddam attacked rebel Shias in the south and Kurds in the north. 

His attack on the Kurds, which included the use of chemical weapons that killed at least 5,000 people in the town of Halabja, is known as the Anfal Campaign. There has been growing international support to recognize the atrocity as genocide against the Kurds.

Salar Mahmood, chairman of the human rights committee in the Kurdistan Parliament, said that the central government had made no effort to return the remains of Kurdish victims.

“The central government has not only violated our constitutional rights, it has been trying to stop us from bringing back the remains of our loved ones to Kurdistan” he said.

He added that since Saddam’s fall, “We were only able to bring back the remains of 21,000 people, out of 182,000 victims.

“If the process continues this way, it will take decades to bring back the remains of all  Anfal victims,” he said.

Recently, the remains of about 158 victims were returned to Kurdistan and buried in the village of Bawanur. 

Mahmood accused the predominantly Arab central government in Baghdad of trying to portray Saddam’s attacks against the Arabs in the south at a par with his atrocities against the Kurds. 

“Baghdad wants to show that the crimes committed in southern Iraq were no less than the Anfal Campaign and the chemical attack on Halabja,” he said.

“We wouldn’t say that the crimes committed against the Arabs in the south are not genocides, but they were not as serious as Anfal and Halabja.

“Ninety percent of the genocides committed by Saddam were against the Kurds,” Mahmood said, adding that despite shortcomings the KRG still appreciated the work of Baghdad’s human rights ministry. 

However, he charged that the Iraqi government did not always identify Kurdish victims found in mass graves as Kurds, presumably in order to raise the number of Arab victims.

But Aram Ahmad, the KRG’s Minister of Anfal and Martyrs, said there was no evidence that Baghdad was trying to change the identities of victims.

“There is no evidence to show that there has been any attempt to change the identities, because any identity changes can be easily noticed by the clothes of the victims,” Ahmad said.

Pari Nuri, who is in charge of the Anfal ministry’s search teams, said that the work of inspectors working to locate mass graves had continued normally, despite Erbil-Baghdad tensions.

“The process of locating the mass graves has nothing to do with politics and economic disagreements,” she said.