Hundreds protest as Kurds remember Halabja gas attack

Kurdish security forces shot dead one man and wounded at least eight others when they opened fire on protestors on the 18th anniversary of what became the most notorious atrocity of Saddam Hussein. "The Kurdish government exploited Halabja to draw attention to the plight of the Kurds and get donations that have never reached us," said one angry protestor.

Although the poison gas attack on Halabja is frequently invoked as a symbol of their people's suffering by Kurdish leaders the inhabitants of Halabja complain that their houses are dilapidated and supplies of water and electricity are poor. They had earlier announced that officials would be banned from attending the meeting commemorating the gas attack.

"We plan to block any official from entering because every year they came and make empty promises," said Zakaria Mahmood, a 22-year-old organizer of the protest, according a report by the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. "Officials visit Halbja just for publicity," said Mohammed Kareem, 61, a shopkeeper five of whose children were killed by the gas. "Halabja looks the same as the day it was attacked."

When the memorial meeting started at about 10am local people were infuriated when a Kurdish government official called Shahu Mohammed Saed tried to address the crowd. They shouted him down and stormed the one-storey circular museum where they set fire to displays reconstructing the gas attack on 15 March 1988 as well as photographs of victims and glass cases containing the clothes of the dead.

By the time the demonstration ended people in Halabja had a fresh victim to mourn. "We have received one body and eight wounded people," said a doctor in Halabja's Malabar hospital adding that the dead man was 18 years old.

Halabja, south east of the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, was sealed off after the shooting by Pesh Merga and police of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. They confiscated video film showing what had taken place. Adnan Mufti, the Speaker of the Kurdish Parliament and a PUK leader, told The Independent in Arbil yesterday that part of the problem was that before 2003 Halabja was partly under the control of Islamic parties and had received little aid. Mr Saed, whose ill-timed speech provoked the riot, claimed that neighbouring states, presumably Iran or Turkey, were responsible for the violence.

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