A statement by President Masoud Barzani on the Anniversary of the Anfal Operations in the Badinan region by the defunct Ba'athist regime

In the name of Allah, the Gracious,  the Merciful

The Anfal crime was an extension of a series of crimes and atrocities that the Iraqi government had been perpetrating in the eighties of the last century in different regions of Kurdistan with the aim of wiping out and exterminating the people of Kurdistan. During the period from 25 August 1988 to 6 September 1988, many villages and areas in the Badinan region were subjected to that vicious campaign and chemical bombardment. The innocent people in those areas were also arrested, killed, deported by the Iraqi regime forces, and as a result thousands of innocent citizens were martyred. The fate of many remains un-known, and hundreds of Kurdish villages were destroyed.

The biggest problem for the previous regimes and the enemies of Kurdistan was the existence of a people who possessed the history, geography, and identity of a nation. Those regimes also wanted to end people through force, violence, genocide, al-Anfal and demographic change. But the steadfastness of the people of Kurdistan thwarted these ominous plots.

On the anniversary of the disastrous Anfal of Badinan, we affirm the fairness and legitimacy of the rights and demands of our people, and we call for the need for the Iraqi state to fulfil its duty to compensate the people of Kurdistan for all the crimes and disasters that have afflicted them during the past 100 years.

On that bitter memory, we send our greetings to the pure souls of the martyrs of Badinan, Garmian, Barzan and all the martyrs of the path of freedom of Kurdistan, and we announce that those crimes and injustices committed against our people will remain alive in the memory and will never be forgotten.

 

Masoud Barzani

25 August 2020