Rare Hadi Al-Alawi article on Anfal resurfaces three decades on from publication

ERBIL — A long-unseen article by controversial Baghdadi thinker and historian Hadi Al-Alawi (1932–1998) has resurfaced in Iraq for the first time, drawing renewed attention to his reaction to the Anfal campaign and the chemical attack on Halabja.

Originally published on Sept. 23, 1988, in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir, the piece was never circulated inside Iraq. The Kurdish-language edition of 964media has now translated the article into Kurdish for the first time.

The column, preserved in the personal archive of veteran Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman, captures Al-Alawi’s shock at the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s campaign against Kurdish civilians during the late 1980s. Writing shortly after the height of the Anfal operations, Al-Alawi condemned the systematic destruction of Kurdish villages and the use of chemical weapons against civilians, including the attack on Halabja that killed an estimated 5,000 people.

Translation of Hadi Al-Alawi’s article

“A renouncement… To the children of Kurdistan”

It is neither reasonable nor logical for this river of blood to continue flowing without anyone trying to stop it. What kind of love for killing possesses this man, who can no longer live outside this river? It’s as if power means nothing to him [Saddam Hussein] now except issuing decrees of death—without limits, without justification, without purpose.

Even a blood thirsty or a hungry serial killer, may take a moment of rest, speak to himself, perhaps even question whether he made the right choices in selecting his victims. But this killer—this anomaly—refuses to pause, refuses to take a break long enough to ask himself such questions.

In the Third World, defending power requires killing in order to secure it. He has already killed enough people over twenty years to stabilize his authority, yet he has not stepped away from the game of death. His existence in power now hinges on the belief that the river of blood must not stop flowing—because if it does, his rule loses all meaning.

From 1968 to 1980, he exterminated nearly twenty thousand of his own citizens, mostly through his preferred method: torture—even of his closest loyalists. Stories say he executed Nazem Kzar, his head of security, by sawing him in half during a special trial, and that he boiled his industry minister, Mohammad Ayash, in a copper pot because he challenged him in a similar court. These tales, while extreme, stem from a deeper reality—one that explains much of what we find in both ancient and modern history. These are not just stories passed along for amusement; they are rooted in historical ground.

During the Iran-Iraq war, one million Iranians were killed, and the conflict cost his army half a million soldiers. Many were executed by firing squads behind the lines, accused of failure, cowardice, or retreat.

Now, with the Iranian front quiet, the corps are turning toward Kurdistan. The Iraqi army declares its presence there with the same intensity, the same equipment, the same methods of combat. This proves that the drive behind the war wasn’t the morale that Iraq’s defenders once claimed. Now, in Kurdistan, the same army continues its criminal wars with the same horrors. I used to say—this army will perform the same mission when it’s ordered to attack your homes.

What is happening these days defies imagination—no dictionary can describe it. I feel mute, overwhelmed, unable to find words. Believe me, I searched for language to describe what is happening in Iraqi Kurdistan, but no words came to my aid.

Statements from Amnesty International and some European governments expressed shock—but they did not get to the heart of the contradiction. What kind of army is this? What kind of man is giving the orders?

Right now, Iraqi soldiers are crossing into Turkish territory to rain artillery fire on Kurdish refugee camps. Has anyone heard of such a thing before? Refugees, once they cross the borders of their country, are supposed to be safe by international standards. But chasing them across borders, after they’ve settled into tents, in order to finish their extermination—this is something unique to our army and its commander. Even Turkish barbarism, with its long history of aggression against its own people and others, has become a refuge for these displaced. Were it not for the cowardice of our army and its fear of the Turks, those Kurdish camps would have been wiped off the map by now.

Iraqi soldiers storm Kurdish villages to carry out planned extermination campaigns—exactly as described by Amnesty International, which took the unusual step of abandoning its neutral English tone. These peaceful, humble villages, nestled in mountain corners, long overflowed with milk and honey and welcomed Iraqis with the word “Kaka”—a term that means: your life, your property, and your dignity are safe here. The Kurdish person, descended from the Medes, is like his green hills—only good comes from him. Even their thieves and bandits uphold moral values that far exceed those of many modern armies.

The Iraqi soldier wipes out these villages with boots laced in poison gas. Then he gathers the remaining children, mothers, and grandmothers to enjoy watching them lie like severed saplings under his machine gun. He does not hesitate to play this role. He feels no regret. The pilot never asks who he is bombing with chemical weapons, let alone thinks about landing in another country to reclaim his humanity and inform the world of what’s happening in this strange land. No—never. I say this with certainty—and as the Iraqi saying goes, we are all from one village—he’ll return after dropping his bombs on Kurdish bedrooms to brag to his wife or lover about his heroic day.

O Kurdish child, burned by gas in your small village, on your bed or in your playground—this is my declaration of innocence from your blood. I vow never to raise a glass to the false glory of Stone Age armies, and never to reach my hand to one of the regimes of the Stone Age.

I offer it to you with humility. I am overwhelmed by shame before you. I am weighed down by disgrace before others, that I carry the same identity as the pilot who attacked you. I wish people would relieve me of it, so I could truly be innocent of your precious blood. I am shattered by your loss, mourning you in the darkness of my long night, in a time ruled by human wolves, where we have nothing left but tears.

Accept it from me, O betrayed one—for it is my renouncement to you, from my own identity.