Kurdistan Observer

The International Alliance for Justice (AIJ) condemns strongly the Algerian President Abdul Aziz Bouteflika for meeting with one of the twentieth century’s most ruthless war criminals, Ali Hassan Al Majid known as “Ali chemical”.

President Bouteflika in presence of his Prime Minister Ali Bin Flis and his Foreign Minister Abdul Aziz Bil Khadim met with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s cousin and special envoy Ali Hassan Al Majid in Algeria on September 8, 2002. It is the first time since 1988 that Al Majid is traveling outside Iraq on a declared official mission.

It is shocking to the international human rights community that the Algerian government is meeting with a bloody criminal such as Ali Hassan Al Majid. Al Majid’s record is certainly not unknown to the Algerian government. Al Majid is liable for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of war by both UN Human Rights Rapporteur on Iraq and many human rights groups.

Al Majid has committed many heinous crimes in capacity of Director General for National Secretariat of the Revolutionary Command Council, Member of the regional Command of the Ba’th Party, Minister of Interior, Minister of Defense, Director of General Security Directorate, Secretary of the Bureau for the Organization of the North (with special comprehensive powers over all Northern Iraqi (Kurdistan) Affairs; appointed by RCC decree issued on March 29, 1987), and Military Governor of Kuwait “province” during the occupation.

Al Majid in violation of international law is responsible for:

• The chemical gas attack on the town of Halabja in March 1988, as a result of which 5000 Iraqi Kurdish civilians were killed and 10000 wounded. Also, 281 other villages, valleys and mountaintops were gassed under his command.

• The Anfal operations, during which 182 000 civilian Kurds were rounded up by the Security forces, disappeared and were allegedly killed. [During a meeting of officials of the Bureau for the Organization of the Affairs of the North on January 26, 1989, which was recorded on tape, he acknowledges that these citizens were buried in mass graves dug with mechanical shovels.]

• The destruction of 4500 Kurdish villages, hundreds of hospitals, schools and mosques.

• The destruction of more than 150 Assyrian villages, dozens of churches and monasteries as well as the disappearances of about one thousand members of the Assyrian community.

• For the elimination of the village of Dujail in 1983, the extra judicial killings of many of its inhabitants and generally collectively punishing the inhabitants of Dujail. [Dujail is a village north of Baghdad which was destroyed following an assassination attempt against Saddam Hussein that originated from there.]

• For the brutal actions, such as mass executions, carried out by the Iraqi armed forces in suppressing the uprising of March 1991.

• For torture, murder and rape.

• For the brutal suppression of the Shi’ite Muslim population of Southern Iraq in 1991 and the destruction of Shi’ite Muslim life and culture. Iraqi tanks under his command rolled into Southern villages with the slogan “No more Shi’ites after today”.

• Aided in the planning of the invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and commanding the destruction, looting and atrocities committed during the occupation of Kuwait.

The AIJ is calling upon the Algerian people and its political parties and human rights groups to raise their voices against this scandalous and shameful meeting. The Iraqi people, and in particular the Kurdish people, remember the 1975 Alger agreement between Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein, facilitated by Boumediene and Bouteflika, which have had terrible consequences for the Kurdish people. This agreement was in the heart of the Iraq-Iran war without which this war and later conflicts might have never happened. Meetings with Ali Hassan Al Majid and other Iraqi despot’s envoys are an insult to the memory of the Iraqi victims and the humanity. Transit allowance and reception of Iraqi criminals responsible of crimes against humanity, should be absolutely condemned.

The AIJ is calling upon the world community and in particular the Arab and Islamic countries to boycott any meetings with the representatives of the Iraqi dictator. Saddam and his lieutenants are responsible for the killing of more than one million Iraqis, two wars and three decades of repression and terror against the Iraqi people. We call upon the international community to show the real solidarity with the longtime suffering Iraqi people in the hands of Saddam Hussein and his criminal regime. It is time for the international community to establish an international ad hoc tribunal for the Iraqi criminals.

The AIJ is calling upon the UN Secretary General and the UN Security Council to seize the occasion to ask the Algerian government to arrest the mass murderer and one of the world’s biggest terrorists “Ali the chemical” for using Weapons of Mass Destruction in violation of the Genocide Convention, Geneva Convention and UNSCRs 688 and 687. The credibility of combating international terrorism will be on balance if one of the most dangerous terrorists of our time who in few minutes killed and wounded twice more than the victims of September 11 tragedy, can’t go free.

Contact:
Alliance Internationale pour la Justice
Tel: +33.1.48.00.03.20
Fax: +33.1.48.00.03.30
aij@noos.fr