Real Justice Needed for Halabja and the Kurds
By: J.A. Khoshnaw
March 16, 2005

As we commemorate the 17th anniversary of the 1988 chemical weapons attacks on Halabja, the supposedly imminent war crimes trials for Saddam, Chemical Ali, and other Ba'athist leaders raise our expectations that the perpetrators will finally face justice.  While few will shed a tear if these murderers are executed, it is a shame that we are willing to settle for token justice and ignore the very real long-term problems resulting from the attacks against our people and our environment.

We have all been hopeful now that the regime in Baghdad has been defanged.  But even under our own Kurdish masters, very little has changed for survivors of chemical attacks who live throughout Kurdistan, not just in Halabja.  More than 250 separate attacks took place, and no one knows how many in our region were exposed directly, or later, indirectly to minute quantities of deadly toxins in our food, water and environment.  But every one of us knows that cancer rates are rising and our children are being born more often with birth defects and mental handicaps.  We know that all our people still lack adequate health care, especially if they are poor.  Nothing has been done to assess our environment to see if it can be made safer.  The arrival of the Americans and their money has not changed this and, unfortunately, our Kurdish leaders remain content with speeches about Halabja.

At last year's Halabja commemoration ceremony, Bremer and Powell flew helicoptered to the memorial for two hours to announce a one million dollar gift to help the people.  Somehow it was decided that this would best be accomplished by building two new schools in Halabja  -- the best schools in the land at that price.   Yet if one believes a recent Baltimore Sun newspaper article by the respected journalist Mark Matthews, and the reported results of scientific testing by a reputable NGO, the Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI), the immorality of the "business as usual" corruption pales in comparison with the willful decision to build these schools on land known to be contaminated by substances which cause cancer and birth defects.

These are serious charges, so let me explain further. Last May, I attended a symposium at the Parliament in Erbil focused on war crimes evidence.  Many political leaders, human rights Ministers from Kurdistan and Baghdad, and even the US war crimes office director, Mr. Greg Kehoe attended.  A WKI representative made a presentation of disturbing test results showing soil and water contamination throughout Kurdistan.  The speaker stressed that the results did not prove chemical weapons use, but rather reinforced the need for urgent testing to determine the sources of contamination so measures could be taken to protect people.  According to the article, at the request of the CPA, WKI also conducted testing in Halabja, where contamination at the proposed school sites and at other areas were reported to CPA and local authorities.

As the article further explains, while relatively inexpensive (less then Mr. Bremer's gift), such testing has not been conducted anywhere in Kurdistan, not even, supposedly, by the US military.  Given the prominence of Halabja in our Kurdish national psyche, one would think, when confronted with evidence of contamination near chemical weapons attack sites, environmental testing and clean-up would be an urgent priority.  One can understand that the US Government is not concerned enough to do something for the health and well-being of the people in Kurdistan.  But it is shameful that the Kurdish authorities have also done nothing.

The lack of environmental testing is further disturbing because, as I understand, it also deprives us of some of the only forensic evidence that is needed to tie the war criminals directly to chemical weapons use.   Remember, until the media opened the worlds eye's to chemical weapons use against civilians in Halabja, the US government supported Saddam's chemical weapons program during the Iran-Iraq War.  Furthermore, the US Government, in a report by Mr. Stephen Pelletiere, blamed Iran for the Halabja attacks.  To this day, the unwavering story of Saddam's apologists, racists who hate the Kurds and others who would deny Arab responsibility for Halabja, is that Iran gassed Halabja.  This and other reports by the US in the aftermath of Halabja will surely provide the basis of the defense case during the trials.

But surely, one thinks, there must be plenty of evidence to counter these claims.  Unfortunately, as many participants in the Erbil seminar made clear, there is no reliable forensic evidence from any of the chemical weapons attack sites.  No conclusive scientific or medical studies, nor any comprehensive environmental investigations have been conducted.   One doubts the US will declassify relevant materials for the trials, as these could prove embarrassing and even incriminating.  So, if the US government and its Kurdish allies can produce no evidence to counter claims that Iran is responsible for the Halabja attacks, will we be satisfied when Chemical Ali  is executed because someone videotaped him killing a dozen people at his mansion?  And even if Saddam and the rest are executed in the name of justice, will there really be justice the children of Halabja in their newly constructed schools?