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Anfal, the Prolonged Genocide, Remains in Our Memory
To the Public of Kurdistan
On the 38th Anniversary of the Behdînan Anfal: We Have Not Forgotten, and We Will Not Forget!
On the 38th anniversary of the Behdînan Anfal, we remember with respect and mercy those who gave their lives in the Anfal Genocide — a genocide that lives on in the memory of the Kurdish nation as a deep wound and cannot be erased.
The Anfal operations carried out against Kurdistan between 1986 and 1989 by the Ba'ath regime under the leadership of Saddam Hussein constitute one of the gravest examples of a systematic policy of extermination that targeted the existence, the identity and the geography of the Kurdish people. Thousands of people were killed, tens of thousands were disappeared, villages were emptied and thousands of settlements were destroyed; by this means an attempt was made to leave vast parts of the soil of Kurdistan empty of human beings.
Systematic Extermination and the Destruction of a Land
In the course of Anfal, Kurdish civilians were targeted without any distinction between women, children, the elderly and the young; thousands of people were killed en masse or were forcibly driven from their homes and lands. The fate of tens of thousands of people is still not fully known today.
The destruction of thousands of Kurdish villages, of farmland and of the sources of life was part of a broader policy whose aim was not only the annihilation of human beings, but at the same time the erasure of the historical spaces of life of the Kurdish nation.
In order to legitimise these grave crimes, the Ba'ath regime also exploited religious concepts and the sacred values of the Islamic world. The naming of these operations of annihilation after Surat al-Anfal in the Qur'an is a painful sign of the regime's attempt to legitimise its oppression and tyranny under a religious cover.
From Behdînan to Halabja: Our Memory Is Alive
The Behdînan Anfal — from Amêdî to Akrê, from Şêxan to Barzan and to the other regions of Kurdistan — is part of a great tragedy of humanity.
From the civilians killed with chemical weapons in Halabja to the people disappeared in the Anfal operations, from the burned and ruined villages to the mass graves found in the desert wastes, every trace bears witness to the systematic oppression that the Ba'ath regime carried out against the Kurdish nation.
Today, commemorating the victims of Anfal is not only the remembrance of past pain. This commemoration is the defence of truth and the demand for justice. And commemorating those who gave their lives in Anfal means keeping historical memory alive so that crimes against humanity such as this are never committed again.
We will continue our struggle for the Anfal Genocide to be recognised in all its dimensions, for the fate of the victims and the disappeared to be brought to light, for the mass graves to be investigated, and for these grave crimes to receive the response they deserve within the framework of international law.
We Have Not Forgotten, and We Will Not Forget!
As the National Initiative of Kurdistan, on the 38th anniversary of the Behdînan Anfal we remember with mercy and respect all our own who lost their lives in the Anfal Genocide.
We condemn and curse this grave crime against humanity committed against the Kurdish nation, and the mentality that stands behind this crime, and we declare once again that our struggle for justice, truth and historical memory will continue.
We have not forgotten our martyrs!
We have not forgotten our disappeared!
We have not forgotten Anfal!
We will not forget!
National Initiative of Kurdistan