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Halabja Kurds celebrate

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Anchor Marco Werman speaks with New York Times reporter Sam Dagher in Halabja, the Iraqi town that was subjected to a poison gas attack in 1988. Residents there celebrated the execution of the attack’s mastermind, a man known as “Chemical Ali.”

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston.  Kurdish families gathered today at a cemetery in Halabja.  They were honoring the victims of a poison gas attack against the Iraqi town in 1988.  The ceremony took place one day after the man who carried the attack was executed.  He was Saddam Hussein’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, but he was better known as Chemical Ali.  He was hanged after a series of convictions for atrocities that included mass killings and crimes against humanity.  Most Iraqi Kurds are probably pleased with the way justice was done, but not Freshta Raper.  She lost 22 family members in Halabja, but she wishes that Chemical Ali were still alive.

FRESHTA RAPER:  I would wish him to be rotting in jail.  I would wish to go at least visit him once, once at least in prison and talk to him face to face and just to see whether he showed any remorse, whether he had any regret.  Just find out what make him so evil to commit such a huge crime.

MARCO WERMAN: Iraqi Kurd Freshta Raper speaking to the BBC today.  New York Times reporter Sam Dagher was in Halabja today.  He’s now back in Sulemaniya, about 45 miles away.  Sam, what was the mood in Halabja today as you saw it?

SAM DAGHER: I headed to the center of town and the shops were open, markets were bustling, people milling about.  But the sentiment regarding the execution was rather subdued.  Some thought it should have happened sooner.  I didn’t see any banners or anything like that cheering the execution as usually the case in Iraq during similar, when similar things had happened before.  Many people did express relief and satisfaction, especially those who had lost relatives in the attacks in 1988.

MARCO WERMAN: And reaction was so strong that even people like Barham Salih, the Kurdish Prime Minister, who opposed the death penalty actually supported it in this particular case.

BARHAM SALIH:  I’m an opponent of the death penalty.  But I have to admit that in the case of someone like Ali Hassan al-Majid, I cannot be true to my feelings about the death penalty.  I believe Ali Hassan al-Majid is an exceptional criminal and he personifies murder, personifies tyranny and this hopefully will bring a bit of solace to the families of the victims.

MARCO WERMAN: Sam Dagher with the New York Times, do you think the execution of Chemical Ali provided any solace?

SAM DAGHER: Yes particularly to those who lost loved ones as I mentioned.  I spoke to a man who had lost his sister and six other relatives and he expressed some pretty strong emotions.  He said Chemical Ali was not even a human being and deserved even more.  But there were others that were perhaps looking for more attention from the government, perhaps more compensation, looking to improve their lot, looking for better services to their town, looking just to improve their standard of living.  There were a lot of people who had thought the government had not done enough to compensate them for the atrocities.  The Prime Minister Barham Salih did acknowledge that and said more would be done particularly approaching the central government in Baghdad about compensating victims of Halabja and more broadly the Amfal campaign against the Kurds that was waged during the Saddam era.  He also said that his government was currently studying the possibility of suing, filing lawsuits against the companies that supplied armament to Saddam during those years.

MARCO WERMAN: New York Times reporter Sam Dagher who was in Halabja today back in Sulemaniya.  Thank you very much for your time.

SAM DAGHER: You’re most welcome Marco.

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