Dear all,

Below is the text H.E Mr. Masoud Barzani’s Memorandum regarding the Missing victims of Anfal and Oppression campaigns.

Kind regards

Kurdish Regional Government Nordic Representation

Source: www.krg.org
ERBIL, 18/4 2003

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In a detailed memorandum to all relevant local and international bodies and parties, Mr. Masoud Barzani, President of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) called for assistance in determining the fate of tens of thousands of missing Kurdish people and to publicly announce this tragedy, indict the perpetrators and compensate victims, their families and relatives.

The Following is the memorandum text:

To:

> The Coalition Forces Command

> The International Committee of the UN specialising in identifying the fateof missing people

> All Iraqi Patriotic parties and Forces

> Local and International Human Rights Committees

Dear Brothers,

One of the human tragedies which continues to bear deep sorrow, immense pain and unhealed wound in the minds and hearts of the Kurdish and other Iraqi people is the tragic arrest of tens of thousands of innocent men and women by the former Iraqi regime and whose fate continues to be unknown. The missing are as follows :

— More than ten thousand Faili Kurds deported throughout the seventies and eighties’ decades of the last century.

— About eight thousand Barzanies, age from 14 years and up, were collectively detained by former regime in Erbil and Baghdad regions in the summer of 1983.

— About 180 thousands anfal victims including children, women, youth and men forcibly removed from their villages and collectively detained by the Iraqi authorities in the spring of 1988 from Garmeyan, Badinan and other areas.

Their fate continues to be unknown.

— Various individual and group arrests including the collective detention campaign against Kurdish youth during the uprising and mass exodus of 1991, especially in Kirkuk areas and its districts and sub-districts.

Honourable sirs,

The dependents and families of missing victims still await information on their fate with deep anxiety, especially as we commemorated the 15th anniversary of the Anfal Campaign of 1988 only a few days ago. The entire Kurdish people continues to await information on their whereabouts as no doubt this is an Iraqi tragedy touching the conscious of every free Iraqi citizen. This is a human tragedy condemned by numerous international bodies and organizations and is supported by many reports, documents, international studies and researches as well as documentary films.

The Anfal campaign is a crime against humanity. To this day, it is the most flagrant crime ever committed against civilian men and women in any country. This crime falls within the racist and dictatorial policy of the former regime that had embarked on implementing a systematic plan of genocide against the Kurds and changing the national and historical characteristics of Kurdistan. This policy came in other forms too, including the use of chemical weapon, destroying towns, villages or farmland or by campaigns of executions and terrorizing people. Due to this, the genocide policy becomes a double crime in human, political or legal terms.

No doubt that one of the first priorities for the new Iraqi government, that should abide by freedom, democracy, respect of human rights and reinstatement of the rights of all Iraqi citizens, is the condemnation of all crimes of the former regime, eradication of their residuals, disclosure of the whereabouts of the missing Kurds, Arabs and others, formally apologizing on behalf of the Iraqi State and morally and financially compensate the families and relatives of victims to heal the deep psychological wounds of such crimes. Therefore, I call upon all local and international parties to show their solidarity with the Kurdish people and to cooperate for a serious search and disclosure of the fate of tens of thousands of the disappeared people.

This will require the following specific steps:

1) Iraqi patriotic parties and forces should sponsor this task and establish special committees to search the whole country to discover their fate.

2) Request that any former official of the regime who may have information that could help disclosure of these tragedies may, directly or indirectly, contact the relevant organisations or institutions in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

3) The relevant Kurdistani organisations, institutions and bodies including centres and committees for human rights and anfal victims, should unify their efforts and form joint committees for coordination, establish delegations representing a cross section of the population, to meet with patriotic personalities, political parties, and former regime officials and to cooperate with Iraqi and International bodies to follow it up and disclose the truth about this tragedy.

4) We call upon the men of religion, social and cultural personalities throughout Iraq to persuade former regime officials and citizens in general to offer any information, be it directly or indirectly.

5) We demand that the American and British coalition forces investigates and question, detained former senior Iraqi officials, on the fate of the missing.

The full disclosure of the fate of ‘disappeared’ will heal a profound wound that still bleeds. It will also enhance the national unity and clears the air, clouded by former regime policies. This tragic event may become one of the all time great court cases and dependents and families of the disappeared are ready to take legal action on these crimes as they are anxious to determine the fate of their loved ones. We have set up a special legal committee for this purpose.

With all the respect.

Masoud Barzani
18th April 2003