Created in Montauban, where more than 400 Kurdish political refugees live, the world association of the victims of the Kurdish genocide (AMVGK) wants to act on all grounds, in particular judicial and political, to have the crimes committed by the regime of Saddam Hussein recognized in 1988. She is organizing a photo exhibition this weekend in Montauban.
This is the story of a forgotten genocide. The one of which at least 182,000 Kurdish women, men and children were victims during the sinister “Anfal” operation carried out by Saddam Hussein’s regime from March 16 to September 6, 1988, in northern Iraq. A painful story experienced by Tchiayi Emin. Having survived the chemical attacks, he will find refuge in Turkey with his family. Tchiayi is one of the 1500 Kurds welcomed in France as political refugees, from 1989, following the action led at the time by Danielle Mitterrand, president of the France Libertés Foundation. If the first Kurdish refugees were welcomed in Auvergne, in August 1989, “it is Montauban which today shelters the largest community in France, nearly 400 people”, indicates Tchiayi Emin. “We came here because in Kurdistan we lived in a region of fruit production, especially apples.” Today, most of the Tarn-et-Garonne Kurds work in construction”, specifies Tchiayi Emin. To have the Kurdish genocide recognized in Iraq, it is the long and difficult fight that the Montalbanais decided to lead. beating on all grounds, starting with the judicial field.
The World Association of Kurdish Genocide Victims (AMVGK), created at the end of 2017 in Montauban, took advice from two lawyers, Me Jean-Lou Lévi and Me Karwan Najeeb, the latter also being a member of the Kurdistan Journalists Association . “At present, three genocides are recognized by the international community: that of the Armenians in 1915, the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda. Our goal is therefore to have recognized, in France and abroad, what was committed in 1988 and 1989 in Iraq, this Kurdish people gassed during a methodical operation carried out in eight stages by the regime of Saddam Hussein”, explains Me Levi.
300 family complaints are ready to be filed in France
The Montalban lawyer himself filed a complaint, on February 11, 2020, with a Paris investigating judge for one of the families who were victims of the genocide, “but the file has not yet begun to be examined on the merits. I have been objected that the facts referred to are prior to the date that included the crime of genocide in the Penal Code More than 300 victim files are ready to be filed, but before that, we will have to obtain the modification of the text 211 of the Penal Code on this non-retroactivity”.
The AMVGK does not start from nothing to obtain justice and reparation for the victims. Me Jean-Lou Levi recalls that “two tribunals have considered that the crimes committed in Iraqi Kurdistan amounted to genocide, the tribunal of The Hague in 2005 and the special tribunal of Baghdad in 2007”. This resulted in the conviction of Ali Hassan al-Majid, nicknamed “Chemical Ali”, and Tarak Aziz, who was Saddam Hussein’s foreign minister “but in reality the Kurdish genocide was never recognized at the International scale”.
What about in France? On November 6, 2021, in the National Assembly, a bill presented by the UDI Jean-Christophe Lagarde, was rejected by only 5 votes. “We have to do entryism, political lobbying”, knows well Me Levi. For its part, the AMVGK has already created a support committee, bringing together personalities in France and abroad, particularly in Germany. “I will travel everywhere in France and abroad to talk about this genocide”, promises Tchiayi Emin. He also announces the creation in Paris of a group of researchers on war crimes and genocide.
In the meantime, the association is organizing a first public meeting, Saturday April 30 in Montauban: an exhibition of photos in support of the victims of the genocide, to be seen from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Comète social center (580, Francois-Mauriac Street). The prelude to “a big event in 2023, over a month, with exhibitions and conferences”.
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