The West & Saddam Hussein

[kurds at gn.apc.org]

		=CAN'T THE WEST UNDERSTAND?=


	The following is the text of an editorial
	published in the December 1987 issue of
	the KURDISH OBSERVER.  What makes it doubly
	poignant is its date  -- four months before
	Halabja -- thirty seven months before the
	start of the Gulf War.

	There is some gloriously ironic stuff here.

	*	*	*	*	*	*

	THE IRAQ-IRAN WAR.  NO PEACE WITH SADDAM.

In August 1980, Saddam Hussein, absolute ruler of Iraq and its
president for life, paid an unusually long visit to Saudi Arabia,
where he secretly confered with a high powered American team from
the Pentagon and the State Department.  Less than three weeks
later, the lavishly equipped Iraqi Army invaded Iran, causing
wanton death and destruction in its wake to many defenceless
cities and towns.

"The battle of destiny against the magi has been won, glory shall
be restored to the Arabs", declared Saddam to his servile,
appointed, National Assembly on 24th September 1980.

In the chaos of revolutionary Iran and amid the American hostage
crisis, when animosity towards the Islamic Republic (Iran) was
gathering momentum in the West, 'Saddam's blitzkrieg' was the
perfect formula to subdue a potentially volatile embryonic
Islamic movement which threatened Western interests in the
region.  And although a gleeful West was proven wrong in its
predictions of a speedy victory for Saddam and the replacement of
Ayatollah Khomeini with a 'moderate' alternative, it achieved
many of its objectives --
-- the dissention and weakening within the anti-imperialist and
progressive camp regionally and worldwide
-- the rejuvenation of neo-colonialism
-- the collapse of the oil cartel and depletion of the dollar
reserves of oil rich countries
-- leading to an increasing strangehold by the IMF on them and
other third world countries
-- the marginalisation of urgent regional issues like the
Lebanon, and the Palestinian and Kurdish conflicts
-- finally, the great profits gleaned from open or illicit trade
with both sides, especially in war materials.

America and the West's unconvincing protestation of neutrality in
the conflict is only for domestic consumption.  It is an
undisputed fact that their support for Iraq in supplying
intelligence data, sophisticated weaponry and men from the armies
of their proxies the Egyptians and the Jordanians, plus financial
support by the Gulf States, has been the mainstay of Saddam who
would otherwise have collapsed long agoand saved both countries
(Iraq and Iran) the devastation and tragedy of a futile war which
he initiated.

Resentment and hatred is building up slowly but surely in both
countries towards the West.  Why prop up a regime which has
forfeited all rights to legitimacy by requesting a foreign state
to invade its own territory and kill its citizens as the Turkish
army has frequently done in the past few years.  A regime which
uses poison gas and chemical weapons against its own citizens. 
Saddam's despotism is surely unmatched in contemporary history,
not even by Papa Doc or Pol Pot.  Every day of his rule adds
thousands of victims and prolongs the agony of the two most
vital, historic and most industrious nations in the region.

Justice demands that Saddam be removed, for then and only then
can peace come about.  A Coalition of Democratic, progressive and
Patriotic forces elected freely by the people of Iraq, without
pressure or coercion by any external country or power, and not in
the least Iran, is the only way to bring an everlasting peace and
tranquility between Iraq and Iran and achieve the legitimate
rights of our long suffering Kurdish people in both countries.

Can't the West understand?  That while they demanded nothing less
than the unconditional surrender from Hitler and did not conclude
peace with Germany until 6 years after its Conquest, the request
to identify the guilty party in the Iraq-Iran war is but a modest
demand.  [Iran had said that Iraq must be named as the aggressor
before it would accept the UN ceasefire resolution.]

OR DO THE INHERITORS OF THE NUREMBERG TRIALS FEAR THAT THEIR
CULPABILITY IN THIS ATROCIOUS WAR WILL BE FULLY EXPOSED WITH THE
DEMISE OF THEIR BOY, SADDAM?!!!!

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

One April day in 1988, a man called Azad Abdullah was one of a
group of peshmergas -- Kurdish freedom fighters -- who came
across dozens of people, blistered and burned, stumbling silently
from a stricken village in the Kurdish region of Garmiyan.

Among them were a small boy and girl, clinging to each other. 
While running away through a wheat field they had come under
attack from an Iraqi helicopter and become separated from their
parents.  The parents had died but the children did not know
this.  They kept saying that when it grew light they would go and
look for them.  They thought it was night.  They did not realise
that they were blind.  (Testimony of Azad Abdullah to KCC,
London)

Almost to the day, a British Junior Foreign Office Minister was
forecasting that British industry would soon find "a large market
in Iraq".  (12th April 1988)

Was the British Government unaware of what was going on in Iraq?

Surely not.  It was barely a a month since the terrible chemical
attack on Halabja in which more than 6,000 men, women and
children met their deaths.

Once the Iraq-Iran war had ended in August 1988, there could be
no doubt that Iraq's army had begun a massive, and particularly
brutal push against the Kurds -- a chemical offensive so massive
that it shocked even the West.

World leaders, including Turkey's Turgut Ozal, the USA's George
Schultz and Britain's Sir Geoffrey Howe, called the Iraqi actions
'genocide' and 'barbaric'.

On 8th September 1988, five months after Halabja, Amnesty
appealed directly to the United Nations Security Council to stop
the massacre of Kurdish civilians by Iraq.  Nothing effective was
done.

Two days later Nicholas Ashford wrote in the Independent:

	"The bully boy of Baghdad looks as though he is
	again going to get away with his butchery and
	barbarism.  Saddam Hussein is hardly likely to
	rein in his troops until they have completed their
	bloody mission.  His hope of depopulating Kurdistan
	and solving the Kurdish problem once and for all,
	may yet become a reality."

	- The Independent, 10th September 1988

Unbelievably, despite the fact that there was now no doubt that
Saddam Hussein was conducting a genocide against the Kurds,
Western countries still hesitated to condemn Iraq outright on the
use of chemical weapons.

But on 16th September, 1988, a Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani,
addressed a letter to the British Government.  The following is
an extract:

	"We were hoping that the UN peace efforts
	to end the [Iraq-Iran] War would result in
	restraining Iraq from persisting in its
	chauvininstic policy towards the Kurds.  We
	had high hopes that the International Community,
	in the face of the immense human tragedy
	prevailing in Kurdistan, would address itself,
	at last, to the political and human dimensions
	of the Kurdish issue and act to relieve the
	misery endured by our people for so long.

	"The Kurds have no official access to the
	United Nations to whom our numerous appeals
	and memoranda have gone unanswered.  Although
	they stand condemned by the International
	Community for the use of chemical weapons in
	the [Iraq-Iran] War, Iraq has exploited what
	seems to be the world's indifference to their
	continued use against the Kurds to persist in
	their policy of genocide in Kurdistan.

	"One of our few remaining hopes is that democrats
	and those who cherish values of justice, peace
	and freedom would voice their concern for the
	plight of the Kurds.  That is why I am making this
	direct appeal to you on behalf of the Iraqi
	Kurdistan Front, which represents all Kurdish
	political organisations in Iraq... to reques that
	Britain as a permanent member of the Security
	Council:

	1)  Raises the matter with the Security Council
	which has already passed a unanimous resolution
	condemning the use of chemical weapons in the
	[Iraq-Iran] War.

	2)  Presses the UN Secretary General to ensure
	that a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question
	is also on the agenda for the peace talks in
	Geneva.

	3)  Makes a direct approach to the Iraqi
	government to express its condemnation of Iraqi
	policy of genocide in Kurdistan.

	"We are hopeful that the British Government will
	take this matter most seriously as Britain's
	long term interests and international standing
	cannot lie in supporting or appearing to condone
	a dictatorship whose life span cannot last much
	longer.  Surely, the gravity of the situation
	requires the British response to be more than
	just a formal diplomatic protest."

What was the British Government's response to this grave
situtation?

	'The United Kingdom has a credit line to Iraq
	worth approximately $300 million, expected to
	double when reconstruction starts.  West Germany
	agreed a $165 credit line in 1987.'

	- The Independent, 5th October 1988

British credit to Iraq did indeed almost double when Trade
Minister Tony Newton travelled to Baghdad at the head of a
20-strong delegation.  In his pocket were credit lines for
Anglo-Iraq trade worth #340 million for 1988-89.

According to the Sunday Times newspaper, between 1988 and last
year British firms Matrix Churchill and Bimec Industries played a
key role in helping Iraq to develop the long-range SCUD missiles
that are now hitting Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Sam Smith, Chairman of Bimec Industries, said he was shocked at
the idea that his company's products were being used for missile
production.  He said the Department of Trade and Industry had
approved the contract in July 1989.

July 1989 was more than a year after Halabja and the blinded
children of Garmiyan.

	"[Iraq's] is a regime which continues to defy
	any normal and reasonable definition.

	"It a government that has accumulated the worst
	human rights record in recent history, but it is
	also a member state of the United Nations which
	many other members deem expedient to placate.

	"It is a one-man horror show where Saddam Hussein,
	the 'Leader-Hero' is consumed in his search for
	means of mass destruction (chemical weapons,
	missiles, super guns, nuclear weapons) and is
	being helped by Western companies and manufacturers
	who are willing to look the other way in the
	interest of commercial profit.

	"It is a government by deceit and duplicity, yet
	it can, with impunity, embarrass others who want
	improved trade relations and lucrative contracts
	at any price."

	- The Kurdish Observer, June 1990

Weeks after this piece in the Kurdish Observer, Iraq invaded
Kuwait.

Would you like to know more about the Kurds?  Please respond now,
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	This topic posted by:

	The Kurdish Cultural Centre
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