Kurdistan: Genocide and Rebirth
Davan Yahya Khalil
The Writing Company
One man's true story of horror and hope in Kurdistan.
In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein's regime tortured, maimec and murdered thousands of innocent people.
Davan Yahya Khalil saw first-hand the horrific crimes inflicted on men, women and children under Saddam, and witnessed his Iraqi Kurdistan homeland torn apart. Forced to flee from the Iraqi army and start a new life in the UK, the author now shares his story for the first time.
Offering a unique insight into the life of the Kurds unde Saddam Hussein, this story is both horrific and compelling. But the author speaks of much more than just horror. He also tells a story of hope - hope for the people of modern Kurdistan, who are seeing their region rise from the ashes.
Davan Yahya Khalil is a political activist and supporter of the PDK (Partiya Demokrata Kurdistan – Kurdistan Democratic Party). Born on the 1st July, 1974 in a small Village called Sherwan in the Barzan region of Iraqi Kurdistan, he was resettled from his home by Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s. There he witnessed the atrocities inflicted upon his people first-hand. Forced to leave his homeland in 1993 like many of his countrymen he started a new life in the UK. He continued his fight against Saddam by raising awareness for his people and their plight. This book is an insight into the oppression suffered, the struggle endured and an optimistic feeling for the future of modern Kurdistan.
Contents
Introduction / 9
1. Kurdistan - a brief history / 33
2. The Seventies
- a prelude to genocide / 55
3. The Camp / 81
4. The Anfal / 103
5. Halabja / 127
6.1991 uprising / 151
7. Rebuilding and civil war / 171
8. Genocide
- a lesson we do not learn from / 193
9. Acknowledging history
for a better future / 217
10. Looking back to move ahead / 241
11. Rebirth / 263
Glossary / 287
Further Reading / 295
About the author / 299
INTRODUCTION
What is Kurdistan? It is a more difficult question to answer than it might sound at first. One of the hardest things for someone to do is to sum up a place. A region. Potentially an entire country. That is particularly true when it is a place they know well, because there is too much detail in what they know to ever sum it up in just a few words. Which details are the ones that will really capture the essence of a place? Which ones only skim the surface?
I could refer to some of the things that have been done to Kurdistan and my people, the Kurds, in the past. It is the way that so many people have viewed Kurdistan before, and it is the topic I intend to explore in this book. Yet to begin that way would be doing the region a disservice. It would mean that the only impression those readers who have never visited Kurdistan will get is of a region defined by the violence done to it, and that is not acceptable. Kurdistan is so much more than that.
So instead, let us begin with what a visitor to Kurdistan would see. Arriving either by air or travelling over the border by road, they would quickly find themselves at the heart of one of Kurdistan's modern, prosperous cities. They would see the constant signs of building and probably note the wealth around them in many areas. Landing in Erbil or Sulaymaniyah, they could look around and think that they were in any of the world's major urban centres. They would see prosperous surroundings, safe, orderly environments, and the hectic pace of ordinary life the world over.
They could see all this, in what is currently a region of Iraq.
That's the dichotomy of Kurdistan. It has been in the middle of one of the most reported on conflicts on the planet, yet it is also a comparatively safe, booming region. It is a region that has, in a very short space of time, almost entirely reinvented itself. It is a region where there are. new houses and projects going up every day, and where strong natural resources provide the potential for future growth. There are even those who are starting to refer to it as a potential 'second Dubai'. All that, in an area of the world that continues to be war tom, and where surrounding countries currently face significant political, social and economic difficulties.
It's a level of transformation that can be shocking. In 2010,1 returned to the country for the first time in almost twenty years. When I left, there was literally nothing there. Not in the sense that someone in a developed Western country might say that a town or region has nothing in it; this wasn't a case of lacking a few luxuries, or perhaps being short on opportunities for youth. Instead, there were no real hospitals. There was no airport. There weren't hotels or universities. There were very few schools. Most of the houses consisted at least as much of earth as of modem building materials. There weren't even good roads. All that had been destroyed. That's how little there was when I left.
When I came back, that had changed so much it almost didn't seem like the same place. Areas that had been literally nothing but desert were now thriving with multiple construction projects. There were two major airports in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, and a third being started in Dohuk so that suddenly I wasn't faced with a dangerous, hour's long drive to get into the country. There seemed to be private universities everywhere I looked, with people so eager to do well that they've driven a boom in demand for higher education. Even abroad, you now find Kurdish students succeeding in universities in all comers of the globe.
I saw a group of children on their way to school, wearing identically neat, perfect uniforms. That probably doesn't sound like much, but when I was a boy, I had to make do with clothes that my mother had patched up repeatedly, wearing them until they were either worn through so …
Davan Yahya Khalil
Kurdistan: Genocide and Rebirth
The destruction of Kurdistan and its rebuilding
The Writing Company
The Writing Company
Kurdistan: Genocide Rebirth
The destruction of Kurdistan and its rebuilding
Davan Yahya Khalil
Davan Yahya Khalil UK
Copyright © by Davan Yahya Khalil
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior permission of the author.
First Edition 2013
Manufactured in the UK.
Publishers' Acknowledgements
Editorial: Davan Yahya Khalil
Project Co-ordinator: Demi Quinn
Typsetting: Su Quinn
Cover design: Chris Berry
Published by: The Writing Company
For the people of Kurdistan
ISBN 978-1482721843
