MEW/PHR have reached the following principal conclusions concerning the foregoing events, based on the testimony the forensic team received and the physical forensic evidence it examined. In the view of MEW/PHR, these conclusions would be accepted by a court of law operating in conformity with internationally accepted standards of due process.
Conclusions of Fact1. Koreme and Birjinni are Kurdish villages in Dohuk governorate that were enveloped by Iraqi army forces during August 1988 in the course of the Anfal campaign.
2. Anfal was an operation of the Iraqi government and army, occurring in part during August 1988, which had as its intent the depopulation of extensive zones of rural Kurdistan, the death or forced relocation of great numbers of Kurdish villagers, and the complete physical destruction of great numbers of Kurdish villages in those zones. Although the forensic team saw ample evidence of the depopulation of wide zones, death or forced relocation of great numbers of Kurdish villagers, and the complete destruction of great numbers of Kurdish villages, it was not in a position to offer more specific assessments of the extent of destruction across Iraqi Kurdistan. It leaves this matter to be determined by other MEW and PHR investigations.
3. The inhabitants of Koreme (including villagers from Chalkey) and Birjinni attempted to flee from the Iraqi army's Anfal operations on foot and by animal to Turkey during the last week of August 1988. Most were unsuccessful and returned to their villages, although some Birjinni villagers did finally reach Turkey.
4. Anfal operations conducted by the Iraqi army included the chemical weapons bombardment of Birjinni on or about August 25, 1988. Four Birjinni villagers died as a result of this attack, and an undetermined number were injured.
5. Eyewitness descriptions of symptoms experienced from chemical weapons injuries are consistent with those received by PHR ininvestigations it conducted in Turkey of similar bombardments.1 Descriptions of symptoms by victims and eyewitnesses are tentatively consistent with the use of nerve agents.
6. On August 28, 1988, Koreme villagers (including villagers from Chalkey), numbering between 150 and 300 men, women, and children, together with their animals, returned from an unsuccessful flight to Turkey, surrendering to an Iraqi army unit at the outskirts of Koreme village.
7. On the afternoon of August 28, 1988, two Iraqi army lieutenants in charge of the Iraqi army unit ordered a group of men and boys from Koreme to form a line and squat. They reduced the line to thirty three men and boys by removing some (apparently young boys) from the line and sending them to join their families, who were taken to a place near the village school, out of sight, but not out of earshot, of the line of men and boys.
8. One of the Iraqi army officers communicated with his headquarters in Mengish by walkie-talkie, asking for instructions on what to do with the prisoners in the line. Although there were no witnesses to the reply sent by walkie-talkie, he was apparently instructed to execute the prisoners. Evidence from other locations, e.g. the village of Mergatou, shows a similar pattern of executions on orders from local headquarters.
9. Immediately upon receiving a reply from headquarters in Mengish, the officer ordered the soldiers guarding the line of Koreme men and boys -- approximately fifteen soldiers armed with automatic rifles -- to open fire. At least seven soldiers did so, one approaching the victim line and having to reload at least once. Following several volleys of fire, several soldiers were ordered to approach the fallen men and boys, and they delivered additional shots as coups de grace into the mass of bodies.
10. Of the thirty three men and boys in the line, twenty seven died. Six survived the execution, one of whom later disappeared after being seized again by Iraqi forces.
11. The dead men and boys were left unburied for some time, and were eventually deposited in two mass graves near where they fell byIraqi soldiers. The graves were undisturbed from the time of burial to the time of exhumation by the forensic team.2
12. Surviving Koreme villagers were removed by Iraqi army forces to detention first at Mengish and later at Dohuk. Conditions in detention included very little food or water during the three to five days most villagers were held there.
13. While in detention at Dohuk fort, on or about September 1, 1988, approximately twenty six Koreme men and boys, comprising nearly all the remaining adult and teenage males of Koreme village, disappeared at the hands of Iraqi security forces. Men and boys from many other villages who were also detained in the fort also disappeared.
14. The removal of the approximately twenty six Koreme men and boys was carried out by guards and other Iraqi army or security agents at Dohuk, and MEW/PHR consider their fate to be the responsibility of the Iraqi government. The evidence suggests that the disappeared men are dead, and that they were killed by Iraqi forces.
15. Surviving elderly men of Koreme were taken from Dohuk fort to the camps of Beharke and Jeznikam, near Erbil.
16. Surviving women and children of Koreme were taken from Dohuk fort to a facility at Salamia, where they remained approximately two weeks. Food was distributed on a regular basis at Salamia fort.
17. After approximately two weeks at Salamia fort, surviving women and children of Koreme were removed to the camps of Beharke and Jeznikam.
18. These camps consisted of a perimeter of guard towers and a security post at the main entrance. The camps contained no shelters or structures for the relocated. During the first two to three months, until approximately December 1988, Iraqi authorities made no systematic provision for food, water, blankets, medicine, or medical care for the people they had forcibly relocated there. The people slept in the open during the first several months.
19. Supplies on which the Koreme villagers and other relocated persons survived were not provided by Iraqi authorities, but on a voluntary basis by residents of the nearby Kurdish city of Erbil. Iraqi authorities initially opposed such voluntary aid, and so supplies had to be brought clandestinely and at great risk into the camp. Iraqi authoritiesgradually relaxed the prohibition on supplies. Several months after the arrival of the forcibly relocated in Beharke, the Iraqi government began making some shipments of supplies, and at the end of the first year, in approximately September 1989, it established a medical post in Beharke.
20. Many persons, especially infants and children, died at Beharke and Jeznikam from causes resulting directly from the Iraqi policy of not supplying basic necessities to those it had forcibly relocated. Causes of death included exposure, malnutrition, dehydration, and disease. Epidemics of serious diseases, including typhoid and cholera, took place in the camps by reason of the policy of the Iraqi government of refusing even minimally to provide for the survival of those it had taken into custody. Infants and children appear to have constituted approximately two-thirds of the total deaths suffered in Beharke and Jeznikam camps, on the basis of the survey of graves at Jeznikam cemetery.
21. The forensic team found physical evidence of malnutrition in the skeletal remains of Farman Taha Mostafa, a female infant who was born in Koreme and died in Beharke-Jeznikam at the age of approximately one year. On the basis of physical evidence it was not possible to determine whether she died of malnutrition, disease or some other cause, although there was no evidence of trauma to the skeleton. 22. The refusal to provide minimal conditions for the maintenance of life to those forcibly relocated to the camps appears to have been an official policy of the Iraqi government, and not due to administrative confusion, errors, or negligence. Based on (i) the Iraqi government's refusal to provide the minimal conditions to maintain life, (ii) repeated statements by soldiers to forcibly relocated persons that they had been sent to the camps to die, (iii) the logistical sophistication of other phases of the Anfal campaign, (iv) the general aims of the Anfal campaign as demonstrated in the use of chemical weapons against unarmed civilians, mass executions, and mass disappearances, and (v) captured Iraqi army documents, MEW/PHR conclude that the Iraqi government intended the deaths of many, if not all, of those forcibly relocated to the camps.
23. The Iraqi government appears to have intended that exposure, malnutrition, and disease in the camps would accomplish what would otherwise require setting up an active machinery of killing. The Iraqi government appears to have carried out this homicidal intention during the first two to three months after the forcibly relocated arrived at the camps; in subsequent months it appears to have relaxed itsvigilance. It finally gave up this aim by the end of the first year, lapsing into mere negligence.
24. In the spring of 1991, by reason of the 1991 Gulf War and the March 1991 Kurdish uprising, Koreme survivors were able to leave Beharke and Jeznikam and return to Koreme.
25. The physical premises of Koreme, including approximately 160 houses, a school, a mosque, electric power lines, and irrigation facilities, were totally destroyed down to the foundations by the Iraqi army, using trained demolition squads. This destruction was not collateral damage in the course of army operations, either legitimate or illegitimate, but part of a specific Iraqi government policy to destroy Kurdish villages, and an integral part of the Anfal campaign.
1. The executions and disappearances of Koreme men and boys, the forcible relocation of surviving villagers, the conditions in detention centers and the relocation camps resulting in the death and severe suffering of surviving villagers, and the destruction of Koreme's physical premises, and the chemical attacks on and destruction of the village of Birjinni, if shown to be undertaken with "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group," constitute genocidal acts by the government of Iraq and by the individuals who ordered or carried them out.3
2. The executions and disappearances of Koreme men and boys, the forcible relocation of surviving villagers, the conditions in detention and the camps resulting in deaths and severe suffering among surviving villagers, and the destruction of Koreme's physical premises, as well as the chemical attacks on and destruction of the village of Birjinni, constitute "crimes against humanity," within the meaning of that term as used in the 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal, by the government of Iraq and by the individuals who ordered or carried them out.4
3. The executions and resulting deaths of twenty seven Koreme men and boys were murder by the Iraqi government and by army forces who ordered or carried them out.
4. The disappearances and presumed deaths of approximately additional twenty six Koreme men and boys were murder by the Iraqi government and by army forces who ordered or carried them out.
5. The deaths of four Birjinni villagers in the chemical weapons attack in the last week of August 1988 were murder by the Iraqi government and by army forces who ordered or carried it out.
6. The death of Farman Taha Mostafa at Beharke camp in late 1988 was murder by the Iraqi government and by army forces who ordered or carried out actions implementing the intent to deny the minimal conditions for the maintenance of human life to those forcibly displaced and held in the camps.
7. The crimes and violations of human rights described in the foregoing are gross abuses of human rights by the government of Iraq within the meaning of United States laws governing, among other things, the provision of certain types of foreign assistance furnished to Iraq during the period following the aforementioned crimes at, inter alia, Koreme, Birjinni, Mengish, Dohuk, Beharke and Jeznikam in the course of the Anfal campaign up to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990.5 The extent of U.S. government knowledge of these crimes when they were taking place remains to determined.
8. The use of chemical weapons against Iraqi civilians is, in the opinion of HRW, a violation of customary international law by the government of Iraq.6
1 See generally Winds of Death.
2 Dr. Snow made an exploratory entry into the graves in March 1992 prior to the arrival of the full forensic team in May 1992.
3 See the Genocide Convention, reproduced at Appendix 4.
4 See Appendix 5 for a memorandum stating Human Rights Watch's view of the legal elements for "crimes against humanity" applied to events described in this report.
5 See, inter alia, 22 U.S.C. section 2304 (1988) (Section 502B, Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended); 22 U.S.C. section 2151n (1988) (Section 116 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended); and 7 U.S.C. section 1712 (1988) (Section 112 of the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954, as amended).
6 See generally Letter of Human Rights Watch to Rolf Ekeus, Chairman of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, dated December 30, 1992 for discussion of this customary law prohibition.