4.1 The genocide recognized by Human Right Watch A team of experts led by Middle East Watch has conducted a thorough and detailed study of the many official Iraqi state documents connected with the Iraqi regime’s decisions and actions between 1987 and 1989. The documents comprise some forty percent of eighteen tons of Iraqi state documents that came into the hands of the Kurdish people in the March 1991 uprising and were later shipped to the United States for protection and analysis. The team, which included Joost Hiltermann, Shorsh Resool, Andrew Whitley and Suzanne Howard, wrote their analysis in a report published under the title Genocide in Iraq: the Anfal Campaign against the Kurds in July 1993.31 This analysis represents the first serious and impartial research on the Anfal military campaign against the Kurdish people.
The study team argues that they have unearthed important documentary records on the gradual campaign aiming at the destruction of Kurdish villages and the cleansing of human beings in Kurdish rural areas. They claim that the campaign began from 1977-1978 and culminated in the destruction of most of the remaining villages in 1988. The villagers were forcibly resettled in government controlled complexes, or as happened under the Anfal campaign, the villagers were deported to jails in the Sahara of southern Iraq, where many disappeared.32
According to the analysis, the Baath Party’s regional headquarters in northern Iraq – the Northern Bureau of the Baath Party – had the overall authority and was responsible for the implementation of the Iraqi government’s policies against the Kurds during the Anfal campaign. Ali Hassan al-Majid “Chemical Ali,” was the Secretary General of the Northern Bureau Command and led the implementation.
The study team argues that there are clear matches between documentary and testimonial evidence in connection with the frequent use of chemical poison – called “special strikes” or “special ammunition” in the documents – against the Kurdish civilian inhabitants in the rural villages in 1987-1988. The documents are clear evidence of Iraq’s repeated use of chemical weapons against the Kurds. Furthermore, there are documentary records illustrating the measured and organized Iraqi campaign to destroy all Kurdish villages and deport their populations, as the report argues. 31
Bureaucracy of Repression: The Iraqi Government in its own Words, Available at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/. 32 ibid. See section VII: What the Documents Say.
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