General al-Majid arrived in Damascus,
Syria, today for talks with President Bashar al-Assad, reportedly as
part of efforts to avert a possible war against Iraq. According to
press reports, he may also visit Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon in the
coming days.
Al-Majid commanded Iraq's notorious "Anfal" campaign, which
resulted in the murder and "disappearance" of some 100,000 Kurds and
was marked by the use of chemical weapons, according to a Human
Rights Watch book on that campaign, Genocide In Iraq: The Anfal
Campaign Against the Kurds (http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/).
Al-Majid is widely known in Iraq as "Chemical Ali" for his repeated
use of outlawed chemical warfare. He was later in charge of Iraq's
brutal military occupation of Kuwait.
"Al-Majid is Saddam Hussein's hatchet man. He has been involved
in some of Iraq's worst crimes -- including genocide and crimes
against humanity," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human
Rights Watch. "Bringing him to justice is an essential priority."
Who is Ali Hassan al-Majid?
Ali Hassan al-Majid, as secretary general of the Northern Bureau
of Iraq's Ba'th Party, held authority over all agencies of the state
in the Kurdish region from March 1987 to April 1989, including the
1st and 5th Corps of the army, the General Security Directorate, and
Military Intelligence. This included the period of the "Anfal"
genocide against the region's Kurdish residents. One of his orders,
dated June 20, 1987, directed army commanders "to carry out special
bombardments [a reference to chemical weapon use]...to kill the
largest number of persons present in...prohibited zones."
Named after a Koranic verse, justifying pillage of properties of
infidels, the "Anfal" campaign unfolded as the 1980-1988 Iran/Iraq
war was winding down. The Anfal campaign, under al-Majid's command,
resulted in the murder and "disappearance" of some 100,000
noncombatants, the use of chemical weapons against non-combatants in
dozens of locations, and the near-total destruction of family and
community assets, including agricultural and other infrastructure,
throughout the rural Kurdish areas. Documents captured from Iraqi
intelligence services demonstrate that the mass killings,
"disappearances," forced displacement, and other crimes were carried
out in a coherent and highly centralized manner under al-Majid's
direct supervision. Ali Hassan al-Majid was subsequently in charge
of Iraq's military occupation of Kuwait and led forces that
suppressed the popular uprising in the south of the country in March
1991. All of these campaigns were marked by executions, arbitrary
arrests, "disappearances," torture and other atrocities.
"Chemical Ali posing as a peace envoy is like Bosnian Serb war
criminal Ratko Mladic lecturing on human rights," said Roth. "He
should be received by prison guards, not heads of state."
According to Iraqi opposition activists and refugee testimony,
al-Majid also played a leading role in the campaign against Iraq's
Marsh Arab population in the 1990s, a campaign that included the
systematic bombardment of villages, torture, "disappearances,"
forced displacement, which reduced a community that once numbered
over a quarter of a million people to less than 40,000 today.
"Chemical Ali" in his own Words
According to a 1988 audiotape of a meeting of leading Iraqi
officials published by Human Rights Watch, al-Majid vowed to use
chemical weapons against the Kurds, saying:
"I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say
anything? The international community? Fuck them! the international
community, and those who listen to them!
"I will not attack them with chemicals just one day, but I will
continue to attack them with chemicals for fifteen days."
The Legal Basis for a Prosecution
According to the United Nations Convention against Torture and
Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which
Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon are state parties, these government are
under an international legal obligation to prosecute -- or to
extradite for prosecution -- persons on its territory accused of
torture, no matter where the torture was committed. Similarly, under
the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide, which Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria have
ratified, these governments undertook to prevent and to punish acts
of genocide. Finally, all four countries have ratified the Geneva
Conventions, which prescribes that states parties must search for
persons alleged to have committed war crimes, and bring such
persons, regardless of their nationality, before their own courts.