[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 35 (Thursday, March 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2095-S2097]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING HALABJA
Mr. PELL. Mr. President, this weekend will mark the anniversary of
one of
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humanity's darkest moments. Eight years ago, on March 16, 1988, Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein's forces, besieged by Iranian forces on the
Faw Peninsula and losing ground to Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq,
commenced an attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja. There, Iraqi forces
used poison gas resulting in the death of as many as 5 to 6 thousand
Kurds, most of whom were innocent noncombatants.
In the 8 years since the poison gas attack, Halabja has become the
single most important symbol of the plight of the Kurdish people--the
very embodiment of Iraq's brutality towards the Kurds. The
unforgettable images of the victims--a man frozen in death with his
infant son; a little girl wearing a scarf, her face swollen in the
first stages of decomposition--remain seared in the Kurdish psyche.
Much as the Bosnians will never forget the ethnic cleansing of
Srebrenica, the Kurds will never forget the attack on Halabja.
Incredibly, as we now know, Halabja was not the only instance when
Iraq employed chemical weapons against the Kurds, nor was it the end of
Iraqi repression against the Kurds. Although clearly the most dramatic,
Halabja was but one of a series of Iraqi atrocities against the Kurds.
Beginning in the mid to late 1980's--and culminating in the infamous
Anfal campaign of 1988--Iraqi forces systematically rounded up Kurdish
villagers and forced them into relocation camps, took tens of thousands
of Kurds into custody where they were never heard from again, and
destroyed hundreds of Kurdish villages and towns. By some estimates as
many as 150,000 Kurds are missing from this period and presumed dead.
Collectively, these actions amount to an Iraqi campaign of genocide
against the Kurds.
I, along with the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, Senator Helms, have tried very hard to call attention to the
persecution of the Kurds, including by introducing the first-ever
sanctions bill against Iraq in 1988 for its use of poison gas against
the Kurds.
Since then, a wealth of evidence has been uncovered documenting
Iraq's brutality against the Kurds, much of which was written in Iraq's
own hand. The Foreign Relations Committee--particularly through the
vigorous efforts of former staff member, now United States Ambassador
to Croatia Peter Galbraith--led an effort to retrieve more than 18 tons
of Iraqi Secret Police documents captured by the Kurds in 1991, which
charts out Iraq's criminal behavior in excruciating detail. Human
Rights Watch, the independent human rights organization, has done a
superb job of analyzing those documents to mount an overwhelming case
that Iraq has engaged in genocide against the Kurds.
This is a story that must be told. As some of my colleagues may know,
the issue of genocide has a particularly strong resonance for me. Just
after World War II, my father, Herbert Claiborne Pell, played a
significant role in seeing that genocide would be considered a war
crime. Although he met stiff resistance, my father ultimately succeeded
and I learned much from his tenacity and commitment to principle. The
world must oppose genocide wherever and whenever it occurs; Halabja
cannot be forgotten, and Iraq must be held accountable for its
atrocities against the Kurds. We simply cannot afford to let this
opportunity pass by.
I wish I could say that there is a happy ending to the tragic story
of the Kurds in Iraq, that there was a lesson learned by the Iraqi
leadership. Sadly, I cannot. Although the Iraqi Kurds now control a
significant portion of Kurdistan--a consequence of the Persian Gulf
war--Saddam's ill treatment of the Kurds continues. Iraqi agents
continually carry out terrorist acts against Kurdish targets, and Iraq
maintains an airtight blockade of the Kurdish-controlled provinces.
Since there also is a U.N. embargo on all of Iraq, the Kurds are forced
to live under the unbearable economic weight of a dual embargo. In
addition, Kurds in other portions of the region--particularly in Iran
and Turkey--have been subjected to serious abuses of human rights and
outright represssion, demonstrating that the Kurdish plight knows no
boundaries. The situation has become so dire that for the past 18
months, the Iraqi Kurds --once united in their quest for autonomy and
their hatred for Saddam Hussein, have resorted to fighting amongst
themselves.
The situation does not seem right or fair to me. Nor does there seem
to have been a proper response by the international community to the
horrifying legacy of Halabja. I think there should be a much greater
effort to look at ways to help the Iraqi Kurds dispel the painful
memories of the past, to graduate from the status of dependency on the
international donor community, and to confront our common enemy--Saddam
Hussein. Only then can Iraqi Kurdistan emerge as the cornerstone of a
free and democratic Iraq.
At a minimum, the international community--and the United States in
particular--must reaffirm its commitment to protect the Kurds. Under
Operation Provide Comfort, an international coalition including United
States, British, and French forces, continues to provide air cover and
protection to the Iraqi Kurds, and to facilitate the supply of
humanitarian relief. The recent political changes in Turkey, however,
have cast new doubt on the long-term viability of Provide Comfort, and
overall economic conditions in Kurdistan continue to deteriorate. The
current situation does not serve United States or international
interests, nor does it help to rectify the sad history of repression
against the Kurds. Our work in Iraq--both against Saddam and in support
of the Kurds--is not yet done.
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I join with my distinguished friend,
Senator Pell, the able ranking member of the Foreign Relations
Committee, in recalling the massacre of thousands of Kurdish civilians
8 years ago at the town of Halabja.
On March 16, 1988, Iraqi jets, without warning, dropped chemical
weapons on Halabja, a Kurdish village in northern Iraq. The attack,
horrific even by Iraq's barbaric standards, killed thousands of unarmed
men, women, and children.
The massacre at Halabja drew attention to Saddam Hussein's campaign
of genocide directed against the Kurds of northern Iraq. However, that
attention was not enough to prevent the systematic killing of hundreds
of thousands of Kurdish civilians by the Government of Iraq.
Mr. President, I must commend Senator Pell for being one of the few
willing to speak out about the plight of the Kurds. I worked with him
in 1988 to sanction Iraq for its reprehensible behavior. Had more
people around the world, and especially here in the United States,
heeded Senator Pell's pleas to protect the Kurds, perhaps more could
have been saved.
The final act of this tragedy, however, has not yet played out.
Saddam Hussein has not abandoned his crusade against the Kurdish
citizens of Iraq. If he cannot eliminate them, he will do all he can to
deprive them of their basic human rights.
Mr. President, thanks to Senator Pell, the plight of the Kurds has
the attention of the world. They must never be forgotten.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, 8 years ago this week, in the closing
weeks of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi forces to crush a
rebellion among the Kurds of northern Iraq. In the assault, centered on
the city of Halabja, Saddam's forces rained poison gas down upon the
city, and over 5,000 Kurds, many of them civilians, lost their lives in
horrifying fashion.
As research since the end of the Iran-Iraq war has shown, Halabja was
only the most brutal chapter in Saddam's genocidal campaign against the
Kurds of northern Iraq. From the mid-1980's through the end of the war,
Iraq forced hundreds of thousands of Kurdish citizens into detention
camps, kidnapped tens of thousands of others, most of whom are presumed
dead, and attacked Kurdish towns and villages, often with deadly poison
gas. Some 150,000 Kurds lost their lives in this infamous Anfal
campaign--which can only be described as a campaign of genocide by
Saddam Hussein against the Kurds of Iraq.
Sadly, this is not the only incident of Saddam's brutality against
his own people. The threshold crossed by Iraq during the Anfal campaign
laid the groundwork for Saddam's most recent genocidal killing spree,
this time against the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq. In the years
following the gulf
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war, as Iraqi Shiite rebels took refuge in the remote communities of
the Marsh Arabs, Saddam turned his army on this community. In the last
3 years, thousands of Marsh Arabs have disappeared, never to be heard
from again, and entire villages have been burned to the ground. This
time, the genocide was accompanied by an environmental outrage, as
Iraqi engineers drained thousands of acres of marshlands in order to
reach remote villages, wiping out a fragile ecosystem and obliterating
the centuries-old way of life of the Marsh Arabs.
The Kurds, too, continue to suffer at Saddam's hand. They narrowly
escaped a new round of massacres at the end of the gulf war in 1991,
thanks to the intervention of the United States and our allies. Today,
although the Kurds of Iraq govern the northern provinces autonomously
under the protection of Operation Provide Comfort--a cooperative effort
by the United States, Britain, and France--they remain subject to an
internal blockade by Saddam's forces, as well as the U.N. embargo
against all of Iraq, and periodic Iraqi attacks against Kurdish towns
and individuals.
No Member of this body has done more to publicize and address the
plight of the Kurds than the distinguished ranking member of the
Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Pell. Thanks in large part to his
efforts, and those of the distinguished Chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, Senator Helms, over 18 tons of Iraqi Government
and secret police documents detailing Iraq's genocidal campaign against
the Kurds--after being captured by Kurdish rebels in 1991--were brought
to the United States for research and analysis. The result has been a
well-documented history of Iraqi atrocities against the Kurds,
including the horrific use of poison gas.
On this tragic anniversary, I want to commend Senator Pell and
Senator Helms for their leadership on this issue. I hope that the
United States will continue to take a leadership role in working to
ensure a better life for the Kurds of Iraq, both until and after Saddam
Hussein is driven from power.
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