A
Town Celebrates Verdict But Fears No One Will Be Called To Account For Its
Suffering
Michael Howard in Halabja
Monday June 25, 2007
The Guardian
A hush descended over the crowd gathered at the Halabja Chemical Victims'
Society as the face of Ali Hassan al Majid emerged through the fuzz of the badly
tuned television. There, finally in the dock, was the man who for three years in
the late 1980s had been the chief tormentor of Iraq's Kurds, and who had on
March 16 1988 presided over the gassing to death of 5,000 citizens of this
heartbreaking little town on Iraq's northeastern border with Iran.
It had
to be good news, everyone in the sweltering room agreed, that Majid was about to
be convicted of genocide. "Of course we are happy," said Alwan Ali Mahmoud, a
teacher who at the age of eight was orphaned and lost 11 other family members in
the attack. "Kurds have waited for justice for so long that we can't quite
believe it is happening," she said. She is still receiving treatment for eye
injuries sustained at the time.
Mohammed Faraj Said, a local civil servant, who lost seven members of his
immediate family, agreed: "This will help the world to recognise what was done
to try to destroy our nation."
But as the judge read through the verdicts of the six accused, the mood among
this group of Halabja survivors was far from celebratory. The reason, said
Luqman Mohammed, the society's director, was that the notorious massacre at
Halabja was not included in the charges laid against Chemical Ali.
The chemical blitz was seen as separate from the Anfal campaign, the focus of
yesterday's convictions. "Halabja is worried it will never see its day in
court," Mr Mohammed said.
Their concerns may not be misplaced. After the length and huge costs of the
Dujail and Anfal trials, some are questioning whether Iraq's government and the
controversial special tribunal has the stomach or the funds to complete trying
Saddam-era officials. Originally, the late dictator and his cohorts were to face
charges on up to 11 different cases. "And Halabja at the top of the list," said
Mr Mohammed. With Saddam now executed, and the insurgency still raging,
enthusiasm among Iraqis and in the international community for yet more trials
has waned. But here in Halabja, the interest is still very real.
Since the traumas of 1988, little has been done to rehabilitate its victims.
Halabja's infrastructure is a disgrace. Many houses are little better than
concrete shacks and sewage still flows in many streets.
The struggle for control of the town between Kurdish nationalist parties and
Islamist groups before the war in 2003 hasn't helped. Last year, a monument that
the regional Kurdish government erected to mark the gas attack in the town was
trashed as angry residents protested that basic services meant more to them than
memorials.
Since then a new mayor has begun to pave the roads. He says that this year
Halabja has a $16m budget. But laying a wreath yesterday at the "Halabja
martyrs' cemetery", Luqman Mohammed wondered whether it would be enough to stop
Halaba victims being forgotten.
Bakhtiar Amin, a former Iraqi human rights minister and activist for the victims
of Halabja, said: "This verdict of genocide is important in itself. But it also
obliges the Iraqi government and those who helped Saddam Hussein and Chemical
Ali ... to provide moral, physical and financial recompense."
