Kurdish Genocide

Iraqi Genocide of the Kurdish Population
The genocide of the Kurdish population in the northern portion of Iraq by Saddam Hussein and the Ba 'ath Party reached its more intense period form 1987 until 1989. During this campaign, it is estimated that as many as 182,000 Kurdish men, women, and children were killed by chemical weapon attacks, through mass executions, or because of horrible conditions and treatment in prison camps
(Sinan, 2007). More then one third of the 3.5 million Kurds in northern Iraq were displaced and tens of thousands fell victim of forced disappearances (Amnesty International, 2012, p. 16). The campaign was lead by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, the Secretary General of
the
Iraqi-Kurdish conflicts begun following the Iraqi Ba 'ath Party and Saddam Hussein 's rise to power in 1968. Initially the Ba 'ath Party and the Kurdistan Democratic Party – Iraq (KDP) negotiated an agreement which allowed the Kurds a significant level of political autonomy and granted the Kurds the legal rights to use and broadcast their language which had been outlawed by the pervious regime. However, the agreement begun to dissolve because of what the Kurds viewed as the Ba 'ath Party 's encroachment on their oil resources. By March
1974, the the KDP, backed by Iran, Israel, and the US, rebelled against Saddam Hussein and sparked a brutal war which caused 130,000 Kurds to fled to Iran. (Benvenuto, J., Jacobs, R., & Lim, J., 2013)
However the revolt ended just one year later when Iran and Iraq reached a border agreement and the
KDP 's support was withdrawn (Gendercide, 2013). Following the rebellion, the Iraqi regime begun
This begun the pattern of the use of chemical weapons by the Iraqi regime indiscriminately against the Kurdish population (Human Rights Watch, 1993)
The infamous Anfal campaigns begun on February 23, 1988 with an assault on the PUK political headquarters. (Human Rights Watch, 1993). Following the assault the Iraqi army and al-Majid launched eight Anfel waves into the Kurdish controlled prohibited areas killing and capturing Kurds, those who were captured were transported to prison camps and later executed in mass killings. Because of the massive technological advantage possessed by the Iraqi military they quickly overran any resistance. During the eighth and final wave of the Anfal campaigns, the Iraqi ceasefire with Iran allowed for thousands of additional troops to join the campaign and swept into the more difficult and mountainous terrain. Over four thousand square miles of Kurdistan was brutally and relentlessly assaulted in the final wave alone (Gendercide, 2013).
By 1990 the damage to Kurdistan was immense, in total, over 90% of Kurdish villages and been destroyed, over twenty small cities has been completely wiped off the map, and the rural land in