Realising justice for the Kurds, including compensation from the international community for having supplied the Iraqi regime with chemical weapons, continues to be an uphill battle, reports James Martin from Halabja In Sulaimaniya, a predominantly Kurdish city in northeastern Iraq, the news of Ali Hassan Al-Majid's conviction on Sunday was greeted with loud celebration. Trucks barrelled down the city's main road playing loud music and honking their horns, and people smiled at the sight of Al-Majid in court, wrapping their hands around their necks to show the universal sign of death by strangulation and their approval of his sentence. "My pleasure cannot be described, seeing him humbled in the courtroom like this," said Kurdish schoolteacher Fakhruddin Haji Salim, 58, after hearing the verdict. Al-Majid, the former Baath Party official infamously known as "Chemical Ali", was found guilty on Sunday of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes and was sentenced to death by hanging for his role in orchestrating the massacre of up to 180,000 Iraqi Kurds during the Al-Anfal Campaign of the late 1980s. The campaign, a systematic programme of execution and forced dislocation directed against Iraq's Kurdish minority, culminated in the use of chemical weapons against certain Kurdish towns along the Iranian border during the final months of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. But in Halabja, a town one hour southeast of Sulaimaniya where an estimated 5,000 people died in one of these chemical attacks, the mood was markedly more subdued the morning after Al-Majid's conviction. While happy to hear that Al-Majid would finally be punished, survivors expressed frustration that he would not be tried specifically for their case. The Anfal Case, in which a total of three former Baath Party officials, including Al-Majid, were sentenced to death on Sunday, did not take into consideration Al-Majid's role in the Halabja attack. A separate trial, which will focus specifically on Halabja, is scheduled for an unspecified later date. Many in Halabja fear Al-Majid's execution will come before he can be tried in this separate case, however, and that his role in directing this attack will never fully be uncovered. "We want the Anfal and the Halabja trials to be together," said Mohamed Faraj, who lost 35 family members on the day of the attack and now works as director of the Halabja Chemical Attack Victims Association. "I would've liked to read the verdict myself. We want Ali [Al-Majid] to be executed in Halabja." Alwan Ali Mahmoud, 27, who lives alone with her sister after losing both of her parents and three siblings to the gassing, agrees. "While we are happy to see Ali die, his trial was not related to the Halabja case. This attack was the biggest event that happened in Iraq in the 20th century and I want everyone to know about it. Anybody from Halabja would be upset our case was not addressed in the court." Without specific recognition of their own plight during Al-Majid's reign of terror, Halabja's residents fear the international community will never understand the extent of the Kurds' suffering under Saddam Hussein and will not take action in the future to protect them. "Up until now, genocide against the Kurds continues. No one considers us their friends," said one man in the town who lost three small children as he attempted to flee Halabja during the attack. "But if our case is recognised as genocide, other neighbouring powers won't be able to do anything against the Kurds in the future." According to Faraj, recognition of the Halabja case could also encourage renewed international interest in the fate of the town's survivors. While victims of the attack continue to suffer from its long-term health effects -- including increased rates of cancer and birth-defects -- foreign aid to Halabja is non-existent. "If one day we die because of this we will be considered martyrs. We consider ourselves dead now, because we are not treated medically. No international group treats us." The US in particular is to blame, he argued, as the use of chemical weapons in Halabja was cited as part of their case to topple the Baathist regime. Now, however, American aid is nowhere to be seen. "Bremer and Powell [both have visited Halabja] promised to carry out our wishes, but they didn't. And Powell said one of the reasons America was here was because of Halabja." Many also blame European and American corporations for providing Iraq with the chemical weapons used in the attack and hope that international recognition of the Halabja case will force them to compensate victims for their losses. Some even argue that it is the influence of these corporations that has made possible the ongoing postponement of the Halabja trial. If the case had been heard, argues Mahmoud, "Germany, France, and America would have been convicted as well, because it was these countries which gave chemical weapons to Saddam." Pushing for compensation from foreign companies and from the Iraqi government has been the main focus of Faraj's organisation since its founding in 1992. So far, however, its efforts have been unsuccessful. According to Arsalam Askandar, whose entire family died in the attack and who now is a member of the group, "We have not yet been compensated by the Iraqi government and our houses have not yet been rebuilt." For now, however, Faraj's main concern will be keeping Al-Majid alive until the Halabja case can be heard. His organisation will issue a memorandum to the Kurdish Regional Government urging them to force a postponement of Al-Majid's execution. The group made a similar move late last year, after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death following a trial that focussed exclusively on the 1982 murder of 148 Shia residents of Dujail and not on the Halabja chemical bombing. But even if Faraj does not find a sympathetic ear in the government and Al-Majid does not live to be a defendant at the next trial, he is convinced his efforts will one day be vindicated. For him, the battle for international recognition of the Halabja tragedy and for compensation of victims' losses is just another chapter in the ongoing story of the Kurds' fight for justice. "Since 1920, we have been struggling for our rights. It's a silent revolution and revolution takes a very long time."
