Most
of the anger that poured out
at the anniversary ceremony
was understandably directed
at Mr. Hussein and his
henchmen. Many here are
anxiously awaiting the
execution of the chief
perpetrator, Ali Hassan al-Majid,
dubbed Chemical Ali for his
role in the massacre here.
Convicted of genocide, he
has been sentenced to hang
some time this month,
although the date has not
yet been set.
But
few Kurds have forgotten
that the United States and
other Western countries
stood idly by at the time,
unwilling to criticize Mr.
Hussein, whom they were
supporting against Iran.
Twenty years later, many
here in semi-autonomous
Iraqi Kurdistan see
disturbing parallels in how
the U.S. army - which,
unlike in 1988, now has
157,000 soldiers in Iraq -
allowed the Turkish army to
enter northern Iraq last
month in pursuit of Kurdish
rebels.
The
Turkish government portrayed
the eight-day incursion by
10,000 troops as an
"anti-terrorism" operation
targeting fighters from the
banned Kurdistan Workers
Party, or PKK, which
allegedly uses Iraqi soil to
launch cross-border attacks
into Turkey.
But
many of Iraq's Kurds
interpret things very
differently: They believe
Turkey, like Saddam
Hussein's Iraq, launched the
assault because it is
opposed to the birth of a
Kurdish state in the region.
And the United States -
forced again to choose
between its support for the
Kurds and its alliance with
another country - left the
Kurds to fend for
themselves.
"We
are afraid the Americans
will collaborate with our
enemies against us, just
like in the past. Every Kurd
thinks about this," said Mr.
Laiq, now the dean of the
Halabja Fine Arts Institute.
Twenty-six years old when he
fled with his family from
the chemical attack on
Halabja, his eyes are still
blood red from the gas and
he lives with memories of
stepping over the dead and
dying as he fled the town.
What
happened at Halabja, and the
international community's
muted response to it, has
become a rallying cry for
those seeking an independent
Kurdish state based in
northern Iraq - an argument
for a Kurdish state just as
the Jewish Holocaust was
part of the rationale for
creating the state of
Israel.
"The
Halabja massacre is what
made our cause known
worldwide ... but in 1988,
the issue was closed and no
one talked about it," said
Barzan Hawrani, who
represents Halabja in the
Iraqi Kurdistan's regional
parliament. "If this tragedy
had happened to another
people besides the Kurds,
they would benefit from it
by being allowed to
establish their own country,
like the Jews."
But
while full independence
still remains a way off for
Iraq's five million Kurds,
they've arguably moved
closer than ever to that
goal in the five years that
have passed since the U.S.
army - at the encouragement
of Kurdish leaders, and with
the support of Kurdish
peshmerga fighters - invaded
Iraq to oust Mr. Hussein. In
that sense, the Kurds are
perhaps the war's only
winners thus far.
While using their clout in
Baghdad - President Jalal
Talabani is a Kurd, as are
Deputy Prime Minister Barham
Saleh and Foreign Minister
Hoshar Zebari - to redesign
Iraq as a loose federation
in which the various regions
are given increasingly broad
autonomy, the feeling you
get on the ground in
Kurdistan is that this is a
place that wants little to
do with the rest of Iraq.
Despite a car bomb that
killed two people in the
provincial capital of
Sulaymaniyah last week,
Kurdistan has remained an
oasis of calm compared with
the violence that has
consumed the rest of the
country since the 2003
invasion. The region is
effectively sealed off from
the south by a thick network
of peshmerga checkpoints
that examine every vehicle
that wants to cross into
what is clearly now a
separate entity.
On a
slick website, the Kurdistan
Regional Government markets
its turf as "the other
Iraq." The
green-white-and-red Kurdish
banner is ubiquitous while
the newly redesigned flag of
the Republic of Iraq is
rarely seen.
The
region's economy is also
rapidly growing, although
most of the new development
is concentrated in the main
cities of Sulaymaniyah and
Erbil, with little of the
new wealth trickling down to
villages such as Halabja.
Corruption in the
bureaucracy, and in the two
main political parties, is
seen as rife.
But
most Kurds are nonetheless
pleased with their growing
independence. However, their
neighbours - Turkey, Iran
and Syria, all of which have
substantial and restive
Kurdish populations of their
own - are clearly not.
Many
Turkish commentators urged
the army to target the Iraqi
Kurdish government during
the recent military
incursion, accusing it of
not only providing aid to
the PKK, but of inspiring
rising unrest among Turkey's
own Kurds through its sheer
existence.
Meanwhile, Iran last week
shelled three villages along
its border with Iraqi
Kurdistan, reportedly
targeting bases of the Party
of Free Life of Kurdistan,
an Iranian Kurdish group
with links to the PKK that
has also been using northern
Iraq as a base.
"We
have so many neighbours and
enemies who don't want to
see the Kurdish nation
rise," said Rebwar Abdullah,
a 40-year-old Halabja
survivor who lost his father
and six siblings in the 1988
attack. Back then, Iraq's
Kurds saw Iran as an ally
and mistrusted the United
States for backing Mr.
Hussein.
Now,
most Kurds see the United
States as the only guarantor
of their fledgling
mini-state. Many say that
their biggest fear is that,
with American public opinion
now firmly against the war,
the United States will soon
withdraw from Iraq and leave
the Kurds once more at the
mercy of the Arabs, Persians
and Turks who have repressed
them for decades.
"The
U.S. has no stable policy
toward the Kurdish people.
We hope that this time there
will be no bargaining at the
expense of us. We don't want
to again be the victims of
petrol policy," said Mr.
Hawrani, the Halabja
legislator.
But
history, he said, has taught
the Kurds to be wary. He has
a saying every Kurd knows by
heart: "We have no friends
but the mountains."
