Chemical Ali Will Hang

by hilzoy

I oppose capital punishment, but if anyone deserves it, Chemical Ali is definitely on the list:

"Three senior aides to Saddam Hussein were found guilty on Sunday of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Iraqi High Tribunal and sentenced to death by hanging for their roles in the slaughter of as many as 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s.

The most notorious of the defendants, Ali Hassan al-Majeed -- a former general known as "Chemical Ali" -- received five death sentences for ordering the use of deadly mustard gas and nerve agents against the Kurds during the so-called Anfal campaign."

Here's Human Rights Watch on the Anfal:

"Iraqi troops tore through rural Kurdistan with the motion of a gigantic windshield wiper, sweeping first clockwise, then counterclockwise, through one after another of the "prohibited areas." (...) Each stage of Anfal followed roughly the same pattern. It characteristically began with chemical attacks from the air on both civilian and peshmerga targets, accompanied by a military blitz against PUK or KDP military bases and fortified positions. The deadly cocktail of mustard and nerve gases was much more lethal against civilians than against the peshmerga, some of whom had acquired gas masks and other rudimentary defenses. In the village of Sayw Senan (Second Anfal), more than eighty civilians died; in Goktapa (Fourth Anfal), the death toll was more than 150; in Wara (Fifth Anfal) it was thirty-seven. In the largest chemical attack of all, the March 16 bombing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, between 3,200 and 5,000 residents died. As a city, Halabja was not technically part of Anfal--the raid was carried out in reprisal for its capture by peshmerga supported by Iranian Revolutionary Guards--but it was very much part of the Kurdish genocide.

After the initial assault, ground troops and jahsh enveloped the target area from all sides, destroying all human habitation in their path, looting household possessions and farm animals and setting fire to homes, before calling in demolition crews to finish the job. As the destruction proceeded, so did Hilberg's phase of the "concentration" or "seizure" of the target group. Convoys of army trucks stood by to transport the villagers to nearby holding centers and transit camps, while the jahsh combed the hillsides to track down anyone who had escaped. (Some members of the militia, an asset of dubious reliability to the regime, also saved thousands of lives by spiriting people away to safety or helping them across army lines.) Secret police combed the towns, cities and complexes to hunt down Anfal fugitives, and in several cases lured them out of hiding with false offers of amnesty and a "return to the national ranks"--a promise that now concealed a more sinister meaning."

This used to be a village before the Anfal Campaign:

And these used to be people:

Here are two of Chemical Ali's orders for the Anfal Campaign, courtesy of Human Rights Watch:

"The full extent of the Iraqi regime's intentions, however, are spelled out with brutal clarity in two directives issued by al-Majid's office in June 1987. (...) The first is a personal directive, numbered 28/3650, signed by Ali Hassan al-Majid himself and dated June 3, 1987. Addressed to a number of civilian and military agencies, including the Commanders of the First, Second and Fifth Army Corps, the Security Directorate (Amn) of the Autonomous Region, the Istikhbarat and Mukhabarat, it states the following:

1. It is totally prohibited for any foodstuffs or persons or machinery to reach the villages that have been prohibited for security reasons that are included in the second stage of collecting the villages. Anyone who so desires is permitted to return to the national ranks. It is not allowed for relatives to contact them except with the knowledge of the security agencies.

2. The presence of the people from relocated areas who are from villages prohibited for security reasons includedin the first stage until June 21, 1987, is prohibited for the areas included in the second stage.

3. Concerning the harvest: after the conclusion of winter, which must end before July 15, farming will not be authorized in [the area] during the coming winter and summer seasons, starting this year.

4. It is prohibited to take cattle to pasture within these areas.

5. Within their jurisdiction, the armed forces must kill any human being or animal present within these areas. They are totally prohibited. (emphasis added)

6. The persons who are to be included in the relocation to the complexes will be notified of this decision, and they will bear full responsibility if they violate it. (...)

The most important document of all, however, was issued on June 20, 1987. Issued by the Northern Bureau Command over Ali Hassan al-Majid's signature, and additionally stamped with the seal of the RCC's Northern Affairs Committee, this directive, coded SF/4008, amended and expanded the June 3 instructions in a number of very important ways--including a direct incitement to pillage, in clear violation of the rules of war, and the baldest possible statement of a policy of mass murder, ordered by the highest levels of the Iraqi regime. From the repeated references to it in official documents throughout 1988, it is apparent that directive 4008 remained in force as the standing orders for the Iraqi armed forces and security services during the Anfal campaign and beyond. For example, a letter from Amn Suleimaniyeh, dated October 29, 1988, makes reference to the directive as the basis for "the execution of 19 accused, executed by this directorate because of their presence in the security-prohibited villages."

It is quite apparent that al-Majid's demand for the summary killing of people arrested in the prohibited areas caused some consternation among those who were charged with carrying out his orders. Throughout 1987 and 1988, high-level Iraqi officials issued a steady stream of ill-tempered clarifications of clause 5 of directive SF/4008--the paragraph that concerns executions. "The security agencies should not trouble us with queries about clause 5," complains a Northern Bureau letter of December 1987; "the wording is self-explanatory and requires no higher authority." Instructions from Amn Erbil, dated November 22, 1988, insist that clause 5 must be "implemented without exception."

The full text of directive SF/4008 reads:

June 20, 1987

From: Northern Bureau Command

To: First Corps Command, Second Corps Command, Fifth Corps Command

Subject: Procedure to deal with the villages that are prohibited for security reasons

In view of the fact that the officially announced deadline for the amalgamation of these villages expires on June 21, 1987, we have decided that the following action should be taken with effect from June 22, 1987:

1. All the villages in which subversives, agents of Iran and similar traitors to Iraq are still to be found shall be regarded as out of bounds for security reasons;

2. They shall be regarded as operational zones that are strictly out of bounds to all persons and animals and in which the troops can open fire at will, without any restrictions, unless otherwise instructed by our Bureau;

3. Travel to and from these zones, as well as all agricultural, animal husbandry and industrial activities shall be prohibited and carefully monitored by all the competent agencies within their respective fields of jurisdiction;

4. The corps commanders shall carry out random bombardments using artillery, helicopters and aircraft, at all times of the day or night in order to kill the largest number of persons present in those prohibited zones, keeping us informed of the results; [emphasis added]

5. All persons captured in those villages shall be detained and interrogated by the security services and those between the ages of 15 and 70 shall be executed after any useful information has been obtained from them, of which we should be duly notified; [emphasis added]

6. Those who surrender to the governmental or Party authorities shall be interrogated by the competent agencies for a maximum period of three days, which may be extended to ten days if necessary, provided that we are notified of such cases. If the interrogation requires a longer period of time, approval must be obtained from us by telephone or telegraph or through comrade Taher [Tawfiq] al-Ani;

7. Everything seized by the advisers [mustashars] and troops of the National Defense Battalions shall be retained by them, with the exception of heavy, mounted and medium weapons. They can keep the light weapons, notifying us only of the number of these weapons. The Corps commanders shall promptly bring this to the attention of all the advisers, company commanders and platoon leaders and shall provide us with detailed information concerning their activities in the National Defense Battalions. [emphasis added]

For information and action within your respective fields of jurisdiction. Keep us informed.

[Signed]

Comrade

Ali Hassan al-Majid"

I have no idea what kind of person could write an order saying: "Within their jurisdiction, the armed forces must kill any human being or animal present within these areas. They are totally prohibited." None at all.

Comments

[rilkefan]

I'd say something about fair trials but it seems stupid in the face of those documents.

[hilzoy]

I should say two things. First, in the documents, the ellipses did not cut off any of the actual orders, jut HRW's background.

Second, this from the first order:

"3. Concerning the harvest: after the conclusion of winter, which must end before July 15, farming will not be authorized in [the area] during the coming winter and summer seasons, starting this year.

4. It is prohibited to take cattle to pasture within these areas."

-- is also a death sentence. I've been near this part of Iraq, across the border in Turkey. It is very mountainous, and most of the villages are cut off in winter. What they do not grow, they do not eat. When I was in SE Turkey, in a tiny remote village that has probably since been bulldozed during the war with the PKK, it was early October, and everyone was desperately drying, smoking, curing, in every imaginable way preserving things for the winter, because if you happen to run out of food, then you starve.

During the summer, people take their animals to pasture in the mountains, and this keeps them alive as well.

There is just no room at all in their lives for not farming and not taking their animals to pasture. None at all.

[rilkefan]

Re 4008, esp. 3: is this quite equivalent to "Go to place X and kill everybody", or is it more "If anyone hasn't fled place P after date D, kill them"? Is the "return to national ranks" thing just hiding concentration camps?

[hilzoy]

rilkefan: the places in which everyone was to be killed -- that were (2) "strictly out of bounds to all persons" -- made up a pretty large chunk of the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. See here. I have never heard that they gave people warning, or the chance to flee.

[Hartmut]

That order reminds me of the "executing the ban"* in the Old Testament (that also included the animals). That might be a deliberate allusion.

*I don't know, whether that is the term used in English, I just retranslated the German wording.

[Jesurgislac]

I suppose it's not even worth asking what the Reagan administration knew about this?

[liberal japonicus]

Mistah Reagan-he dead

[Phil]

Hartmut: I thought the same thing as soon as I read that. Our New GOP Overlords ostensibly worship a deity who ordered the same thing repeatedly to the Israelites.

LJ: Mistah Reagan may be dead, but his administration lives on, as so many of them work for GWB now. It would be interesting to know whether they knew of and condoned this then, seeing as how they used information like this to whip people into a war frenzy now.

[liberal japonicus]

Phil, not to get all literary on you, isn't the point of the servant telling the Marlowe and the manager in such a rough way is to suggest that nothing has really changed? Which might be why TS Eliot chose to use it for Hollow Men.

[Bernard Yomtov]

It is because of people like Ali that I do not strictly oppose capital punishment.

He will hang? Good.

[Donald Johnson]

This is so sad. Under different geopolitical circumstances, this man could be earning a degree at the Kennedy School of Government

[Hartmut]

But death by bees would violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment ;-)
Oh, for a workable Prometheus treatment!

[Phil]

Much to my chagrin, LJ, I've never read Conrad. (I am something of an unstudied cretin. But points for getting the allusion even if not its context, right?)

[liberal japonicus]

Definitely, Phil. In fact, I am wondering if the campaign against King Leopold (of which Heart of Darkness is related to) would be a template for dealing with the current administration.