Kurdish Genocide

David Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Great support has also been given by members of the Newcastle-Gateshead medical volunteers, led by Deiary Kader, who, as well as the people from Sheffield, have been going over to Kurdistan to treat people for a number of years. Next month, they will go there for the eighth time. Over those years, thousands and thousands of people have benefited from the relationship that we have developed between our two countries.

[Meg Munn]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that partnership to the attention of the House. It is true that in the UK there are very many doctors of Iraqi and Iraqi-Kurdish origin. While they have continued to serve and provide support for our community, they are also doing such things as my hon. Friend described and doing what they can at a time when the health services in Iraq still need a great deal of investment to develop to serve an ordinary population, let alone one that has suffered the kind of trauma, torture and chemical attacks that have been suffered in Iraq, particularly in Kurdistan.

Alongside the physical impact of repression on the population, we must not underestimate the psychological effects: living with the grief of lost family members, remembering the terror of attacks and, above all, the constant fear. As a woman says in one of the DVDs I mentioned, Iraqi people had no dignity because they had to sell out their consciences to Saddam Hussein to stay alive.

Thirty-five years of dictatorship are not easily forgotten, but there have been positive moments since the 2003 invasion. We remember the TV pictures of the purple-stained fingers shown with pride when the Iraqi people were able to exercise the right to vote—something that we take for granted. They were excited about being able to take part in the first democratic elections. But of course voting is only the first act; building the institutions and democratic habits are much more difficult—all the more so when people have not been allowed to make their own decisions, and acting on their own initiative was a risky thing to do.

My involvement with the Kurdistan regional and Iraqi national parliaments has shown me just how difficult this task is, but it is a task to which many brave Iraqis are committed. To take on these tasks and build a new society is complex and demanding; it will take time, dedication and determination. We should continue to support them in this. An important way to do that is formally to recognise what happened to them. Former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner argues that

“human rights should mean that people are protected within their own countries”.

When these rights are violated, it is the duty of the international community to honour victims and to ensure that history cannot repeat itself. If democratic Governments cannot be clear about genocide and say that such crimes must be stamped out, then who will?

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[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I should like to start by praising the modern-day Bard, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), for successfully securing the debate, and those wonderful people on the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to hold the debate today. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for the work they have done on this issue.

Three decades ago, most of us in our places today were not Members of the House and what was happening in Iraq was only part of the background to our lives—perhaps not so much for the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon because of his personal links, but most of us had other things to occupy us. The issue did not get the attention it should have had at the time. Perhaps if we had been as actively involved as we became two decades later, things might have been different. If we had had a different attitude to the Iraqi Government at that time, things might have been different and we would not be talking about the issue today.

Let me focus on the impact of what happened back then on real human beings. My interaction with Iraq started in 2003, when I was the president of Unison—the biggest trade union in Britain at the time—and a member of the general council of the TUC. Like most people in the labour movement, I was completely and utterly opposed to the invasion of Iraq. I believed that the reasons for going into Iraq were not justified, that the argument about weapons of mass destruction was not proven and that we had gone in far too early, with Hans Blix doing good work on the ground, despite the obstacles put in his way. Nothing should have happened until his work had been completed.

I remain convinced today that the leader of my party and the Prime Minister at the time decided to go into Iraq alongside the Americans for two reasons. First, he passionately believed that Saddam should be got rid of, and, secondly, he wanted to keep good relations with the Americans. I believe that the Americans went in for different reasons. They wanted to get rid of Saddam, too, but they also wanted to gain control of the oil wealth in that part of the world and, even more important for the American Republican party, they wanted to ensure that George Bush got re-elected 18 months after the invasion. I remain convinced that that was why, no matter what we did, the Americans would have gone into Iraq around the time they did, as it was a perfect way of winning the election that lay some 18 months ahead.

After the military action had finished, my role in my trade union was to ask, “What do we do now?” One benefit of Saddam’s removal was the re-emergence of a trade union movement in Iraq—a movement that, before Saddam’s reign, had been one of the most active and one of the largest from Europe to Australia but that had been suppressed. We took the decision as a trade union to do all we could to try to help people who had not been involved in real trade union activity for at least four decades to get involved in that role in the world again. We started a training scheme for trade union stewards and we brought people from Iraq—basically Kurdistan because no one could get out of the rest of Iraq—to London. This was a training scheme for a small group of trade unionists who could then go back and train the trainers.

[Meg Munn]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the work done by the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers? Similar work was done with Iraqi trade unions—training trainers so that the Iraqi teachers’ union could develop across the whole of Iraq?

[Mr Anderson]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I am very well aware of it. I shall refer later to a member of the delegation I led in 2006. She was the treasurer of NASUWT at the time, and she also chaired the TUC task group on Iraq.

That training programme was so successful that we ended up expanding it. Instead of bringing people out of Kurdistan to London, we got them out of there to Amman in Jordan, which was much easier in terms of the numbers. I was really proud when we were finally able to establish a trade union training school in Irbil in Kurdistan in early 2006.

As a newly elected MP, I was delighted to receive the backing of the trade union movement to take a delegation out to Irbil in early 2006. There were eight of us, including members from the NASUWT, the journalists’ union, Unison, local councillors and others active in supporting the Iraqi cause for many years. We went out there to see what we could do to develop trade unionism on the ground. Straight away, I was immensely struck by the attitude of the trade unionists we met. To me, they were comrades. The fact that they were from another part of the world was irrelevant to me. They were my friends, standing up for working people and trying to develop their skills so that they could look after people properly.

The first thing that those trade union members said to us was, “We need your help. We need your Government to start investing in this country, because if they do not invest we will not have work, and if we do not have work we do not have a trade union movement.” That was a very simple equation. When we asked what practical help we could give, they arranged for us to meet their labour, equality and health Ministers and the Minister responsible for matters relating to the Anfal genocide. That was the first time I had really been exposed to what had happened.

The other thing that those people said to us, very clearly, was “We thank you, as a nation, for what you did for us in 1991, and we thank you even more for what you did for us in 2003, when you liberated us.” That was a shock for me: it was a slap in the face. I had seen what happened in 2003 as an invasion. However, it was all very well for me, sitting in the comfort of Blaydon, to say that it was really, really wrong. It was not me who was being wiped off the face of the earth, it was not my parents who were being buried alive, it was not my village that was being flattened, and it was not my real life—my community—that was being devastated and destroyed. That was happening to these people. Listening to what they said did not change my view that we went into Iraq for the wrong reasons, but what became very clear to me, and has remained clear to me ever since, was that we should have done it 20 years earlier. Why on earth did we not do that? If we had, this disgraceful thing would not have happened.

What were we doing 20 years earlier? Unfortunately, we were doing the bidding of Saddam Hussein. We were, to an extent, sitting on our hands and supporting the Americans yet again while they, and the rest of the world powers, were sitting back happily watching the Iranians and the Iraqis wipe out 1 million of their own citizens, using them as pawns. If, as a by-product, we saw the Marsh Arabs being wiped off the face of the earth and the attack on the Kurds, we just had to ignore it. It was a price worth paying if Saddam was able to keep the ayatollah and his acolytes under control. Was it worth it in terms of the international situation? Well, other people will decide when it is history, but, looking back and seeing what I see now, I think that it was absolutely the wrong thing to do.

We were not just sitting back innocently. As was said earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North, we were actively engaged: we were selling arms to that regime. In fact, we were selling arms to both regimes, and it was the wrong thing to do. It may have been very grandiose in the big scheme of things, but it did nothing to help the people on the ground.

Since that first visit to Kurdistan, I have been back there, and have also been to Baghdad. On both occasions, I was hugely impressed by the generosity and warmth of the people. That is typical of people in the middle east, but it is even more noticeable in Kurdistan. They were like people from the north-east of England, who, as everyone knows, are always much warmer, more generous, more humorous and more giving. Everyone understands that, wherever they are from.

Other Members who have been to Kurdistan have mentioned the “red house”, the torture chamber in Sulaymaniyah. No one who goes there can fail to be struck by it. The first thing that struck me was what a huge building it was. It is a huge building in the main street of one of the biggest cities in that part of the world. No attempt was made to hide from the public what went on in that place. Indeed, everything that was done was documented. The holocaust was mentioned earlier; exactly the same methods were used in this case. There were documents on everyone, and all the documents were in triplicate. Wiping people from the face of the earth was seen as a normal thing to do by people who did not care about them and just wanted to replace them with their own people. It was absolutely unbelievable.

One thing stuck in my mind particularly. In 2006, as we were walking out of the “red house”, we saw five Kurdish guards in the reception area, sitting around watching television. On the television screen, live, was the trial of Saddam Hussein. I felt that that was real history in the making. For those people, it was life-changing: it would give them a chance to get their lives back. As I said earlier, for people such as me who had not wanted this country to go into Iraq, it was a huge wake-up call, making us ask what we could do. I think that what we can certainly do is promote what we are doing today.

[Meg Munn]

My hon. Friend is right: the regime did document these events. The most shocking aspect of the DVD I mentioned is the fact that the footage of what happened—such as people being shot—is taken by the regime. The most horrific thing I saw—I am not sure why this was more shocking than seeing somebody being killed—was a man being held by several other men while having his wrist beaten until it was broken, and at the end someone came along and moved his arm but there was no connection between the two parts. It is just brutal, and there is no excuse for our not recognising this, as the evidence is there.

[Mr Anderson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There was never any attempt to pretend this was not happening; it was just hoped that the rest of the world would not care that it was happening and would turn a blind eye, which is exactly what we in the international community all did. Today, we have a chance at least to make amends in a small way, and it is very important that we do that.

As well as visiting the “red house”, I visited some of the villages in the north-east of the country, where people saw their way of life totally terminated. Not only did the perpetrators take the men away from their homes and kill them, but what really shocked me was that many of these people were buried alive. They did not even give them the justice of putting a bullet in their brain. They put them in trenches and covered them over using bulldozers. That is how little feeling, and how much contempt, they had for these people.

I discussed with families and friends their despair. I visited what effectively had become a concentration camp in the capital, Irbil. Only young men and women were held there. They had been taken from the agricultural area, which had been the bread basket of Iraq and which is now devastated. All these young people want is to go back home. Sadly, however, if they go back home they will not know how to start getting the farms up and running again, because they have lost contact with the farming industry. Their fathers were taken away and killed 20 or 25 years ago, so they have nobody to tell them how to do things.

We visited a place in the north of the country. I spoke to a village elder, who thought I was my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown); I do not know where he got that idea from, or who was more miffed, me or Gordon. This elder explained to me how passionately he had welcomed Baroness Lynda Chalker in 1991, who had gone there in her capacity as overseas aid Minister and had built some temporary accommodation. He remembered that 17 years later, and he felt such gratitude for my country for having helped his country in that way that it made me very proud to be a Member of this House, but it also made me frustrated, as we had not kept up with the work of supporting those people as we should have done. The big question asked of us was why we had not helped them earlier. I have talked about that, and I hope today’s debate will remind us of why we should have.

I want to read out a letter I received from a very close friend of mine, Hangaw Khan. He is a trade union leader in Kurdistan, and is someone I am very proud to call a comrade. He asked me if I would go and visit his mother and father, and I said, “Certainly I will”. I did not realise there would be a three-and-a-half-hour ride up into the mountains, but it was well worth doing. They were so proud of what their son had done. When we began our campaign with colleagues from across the House, he sent a letter on behalf of his trade union executive in which he thanked us for starting the campaign and said:

“Kurdish United Workers are well aware of all the genocide which has been committed against Kurdish people in Iraq. Moreover, our (KUWU) members are made aware that the Kurdish people are still suffering significantly from the genocide effects on all their life aspects.

We really appreciate your invaluable efforts along side other different parties and groups to ask the government urgently not to ignore all the crimes against humanity which had been committed against our nation for decades and to recognise it as genocide.

In fact, having recognised this genocide against our nation will enter the history for ever and will be the proud step in the view of human beings especially the Kurdish people. Also, there is no doubt that this act consider as a voice of conscience of humanity.

Finally, let us thank you very much in the name of our burned country, the pure pink blood of our genocide martyrs, buried alive innocent women and children, burned and drowned thousands Kurdish by chemical gas. As we are part of human beings, we do hope that all of us & the governments and nations will be aware of recognising any genocide which is committed anywhere in the world.”

That was sent from the Kurdistan United Workers Union last September.

In the past 50 years, millions of lives have been wasted in Iraq. Billions of pounds have been wasted and trillions of words have been wasted. I hope that the words of Hangaw Khan are not wasted and we should listen to him today. I am convinced that the House will pass this motion, which will be a huge statement, but, to be honest, although that is important it is not as important as our Government saying that they support what we are trying to do. I ask those on both Front Benches to think about what has been said in today’s debate.

I know that there are legal issues and that people will say that they want to deal with this, but they cannot. We have seen this week the rebirth of that horrible phrase “weasel words”. I have nothing but respect for those on both Front Benches and I know that they are both committed to the work they are doing. Unless we do something other than saying well done to those who have spoken in the debate and unless we get a commitment that our Government will lead this campaign, as we should, the debate will have been meaningless. No disrespect to the intention of the people who led the debate or those who supported us in bringing it together, but we need real action.

We must also bear in mind that 25 years ago, if we had taken real action, we as a nation could have stopped this. We chose not to. Let us not repeat that mistake today.

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[Ian Lucas]

It certainly is important that such matters are dealt with collectively. We are an international community with international institutions and, in international situations such as the one we are discussing, the appropriate approach is to work through international justice bodies to recognise when certain circumstances amount to a genocide. We then need to use our institutions to establish the facts and their implications in law. The legal implications of recognising any set of events—not just those under discussion—as a genocide are considerable. They constitute a particular crime under international law, which imposes obligations on states to prevent and punish with regard to such circumstances.

If something that has happened in the past—such as the events under discussion—is defined as genocide, the question arises of whether retrospective action can be taken. It would be helpful if the Minister clarified whether it is his understanding that a statement that an act was genocide would have a retrospective effect and allow action to be taken against anyone who is held responsible for actions that took place in the 1980s.

We heard about the considerable progress that Kurdistan has made. That has built on the relationship that exists between this country and the Kurdistan region of Iraq. I hope that this debate will add to that relationship. There is a strong group of Members of this House who have spoken eloquently today and who have great respect for Kurdistan and the Kurdish people.

We must work together to reflect on our discussions today. We must also look at what action is being taken in other countries, whether by their Parliaments or Governments, on this issue of genocide in the Kurdish region and see what is the appropriate forum to take that forward.

[Mr Anderson]

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) asked about practical things that the Opposition can do. Will the shadow Minister commit our party to entering discussions with representatives of the Kurdistan Regional Government based in this country to see whether they can help us to get evidence that would help to create a legal argument that we could present to the international community? Other countries could then say whether they think that it was genocide or not and give reasons why.

[Ian Lucas]

I would be pleased to meet representatives of the Kurdish Regional Government to discuss the issues that we have been debating and to see what barriers are in the way of this matter being taken forward. I would also be pleased to discuss this with the Minister to explore what further common ground there is on this issue, which is considered important by a number of Back Benchers from both our parties who have made an eloquent and compelling case.

We cannot reach conclusions today, but we have heard a compelling case. This is the start of the matter, not the end. We need to continue to discuss this in detail and to reflect on the best way to take it forward. That is best done collectively both within this country and internationally. We need to reflect on the action that other Parliaments have taken and consider what steps it would be best to take to deal with the appalling set of circumstances that the people of Kurdistan suffered in the 1980s. We must work together to ensure that their pain, suffering and grief is not shared by any other group of people in the future.