Halabja: Hope for Independence Tempered by Fear of Neighbors

HALABJA, Kurdistan Region—Omed Hama, 40, remembers cowering in a shelter at the height of the Iran-Iraq war a few days before the notorious 1988 chemical attack on Halabja. As they crouched together in the dark room, his family — who would be killed a few days later in the genocide by the Iraqi military — wondered aloud if the Kurds would one day have a nation of their own.

“My wounds have never completely healed,” he said. “But if the dream of independence comes true, I think I’ll be halfway there.”

Halabja is the symbol of the Baath regime’s atrocities against the Kurdish people. The chemical bombardment — a lethal mix of sarin, tabun, VX and mustard gas — killed an estimated 5,000 people and injured 10,000 more. Many still suffer from health complications including lung and skin problems, infertility and birth defects.

Hama is a survivor who tells his tragic story several times a day to visitors at the town’s memorial. Now that Iraqi Kurdistan is considering breaking away from Iraq, survivors of the chemical attack and the town’s residents say they fully back independence though remain concerned about international support for a Kurdish state. There is also deep mistrust of neighboring countries.

Harem Omar, 24, an IT specialist, was born after the Halabja attack but is a supporter of Kurdish independence, which he said would “prove that the enemy’s dream to defeat the Kurds was futile.”

Omar, however, worried about the reactions of neighboring countries: “Our neighbors aren’t Japan, Switzerland or Italy.”

Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran “might be different in their approaches, but when it comes to Kurdistan, they are four brothers, four friends united against us,” he said.

Turkey’s growing ties with Iraqi Kurdistan gives Omar hope but he questioned how long the relationship might last given that Turkey’s upcoming elections is expected to change the government.

Luqman Mohammed, 46, head of the Halabja Chemical Victims Society, also sees Iraq as a threat even though the Baathists are no longer in power, “The current Iraqi regime is no different from the previous regimes. We can’t trust Baghdad.”

Mohammed said Baghdad has “threatened the Kurdish people militarily,” and cut the Kurdistan Region’s 17 percent share of the federal budget — its main source of revenue — over oil disputes in January, leaving many civil servants unpaid. He also noted that some officials, most notably Hanan Fatlawi, a Shiite Arab MP, have accused the Kurds of collaborating with Sunni insurgents and even treason.  

The Iranian authorities have also threatened that they will close the border if the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) goes through with a referendum on independence. The threats are being taken seriously in Halabja, which lies just 12 kilometers from Iran.

Mamosta Adil, 50, a teacher, said, “We have to seize the opportunity (for independence) but it has to be done in coordination with our neighbors. They should agree with our plan.”

Hero Khan, 27, a women’s rights activist, said the Kurdish people “will shoulder the burden” of potential opposition by neighboring states “but if, and only if, the KRG takes (independence) seriously.”

Halabja’s victims have frequently visited foreign countries to raise awareness about the decades-long sufferings of the Kurds and appealed for international support.

A statue of Danielle Mitterrand, the former first lady of France who pushed for the no-fly zone in the 1990s that protected the Kurds from the Baath regime and enabled the creation of the KRG, sits in Halabja’s municipal building. She represents international support for Kurdish cause.

“My hope is that I will go abroad on a Kurdish passport, that people will identify me as a Kurdistani — from Kurdistan — not as someone from Iraq, Turkey or Iran,” Hama said.

“The international community shouldn’t forget about Halabja,” Mohammed maintained. “Halabja is a center for all nations to come and remember human rights atrocities — from Hiroshima to the Holocaust.”