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PREFACE
We as (Aram Muhammed, Saud Mustafa and Sleman Jajis) are administration board of Baran Organization for the case of Anfal. We all lost our family members and relatives in Anfal Genocide. We all are working voluntarily in this organization. This is because we have suffered a lot due to losing our family members and relatives in the Anfal Genocide. We also can feel the pain of those people who lost their family members and relatives in the barbaric actions of Saddam's regime in the entire Iraq. And, one of the main objectives of our organization (Baran Organization for the case of Anfal) is to collect more information about crimes f that done against people by Saddam's regime and try to documentary those data and information as an evidence. We want to collect information from the victims who suffered a lot by Saddam's regime.
In 2018, in the 30th anniversary of Anfal Genocide, we will try to do something very significant. We will print a book which is written by Arif Qurbany. This book is about those people who survived from the Anfal Genocide in 1988, and they are still alive. The author of this book interviewed with the victims and collected information in a book. This book is also translated to some other languages. Another part of our project that we will do is printing 6 books, and 5 of these books are about those people who survived from Anfal Genocide. And, the 6th book is about a driver who participated in Anfal Genocide by digging a huge hole to put the bodies of people in. We really want to work on Anfal Genocide in order to be known as an international Genocide.
We want people around the world be aware of the Anfal Genocide from the victims of this genocide.
Staff of Baran Organization for the case of Anfal
Introduction
I have been working on Anfal crimes for long years, collecting information, studying documents, meeting the families of the victims and interviewing the survivals of the mass-graves and even the headsmen of the overthrown regime of Saddam Hussein and eventually I could author several books on those genocidal crimes.
But I always felt that my work is incomplete because I could not get sufficient information on the mass killing of the women and children that happened in 1988, this is due to the fact that the four-other eyewitnesses (Faraj, Uzer, Wahid and Ramadan) were all adults during the mass killing and they knew nothing about the massacring of the children. The only survivor among the children was a little boy under twelve called Taimur who was wounded and partly covered with the sand of the desert.
Miraculously, Taimur found a chance to escape, to bear bleeding and dehydration, to pass through the dark desert and wild animals, and avoiding military posts till finding a Bedouin tent where he was warmly received, welcomed, treated and protected. Taimur spent two years with that generous family before returning to Kurdistan.
In 1996, Taimur was taken to the United States by the Middle East Watch Organization and was given a refugee status. I was working hard to find for several years to meet him especially after reading a report written on him by the Human Rights Watch. I failed to meet him in Kurdistan and failed to persuade him to arrange the interview when he came back to our homeland in 2009, and thus thirteen years of waiting went in vain. Taimur refused to be interviewed because he was not happy with the way he was treated by the regional government. However, I never gave up and tried once more when he came back from the States for good in 2013.
Taimur had settled down in Smud camp (now known as Rzgary village). I met him in his house in the evening of 17th July 2013. Our talks started at 21hrs, and continued until one o’clock in the morning, and could do the main part of our work. We agreed on some other meetings until we finish the whole book, and thus we met two more times; on 30th August and 17th September in his house.
Meeting the guy in 2013 means remembering what had happened after twenty-five years of the Anfal Campaign. Thanks God Taimur possess a video image memory. He could remember so many details and names that made the story very realistic and reliable. One thing I have to mention is; Taimur was still living in the agony of losing his parents and sisters. Therefore, I had to work hard to calm him down. Once he told that his heart is cut to two pieces, the other half of it is buried in the mass grave with his mother. Taimur is turned to be a heavy smoker and that is quite understandable.
By finishing the interview with Taimur, I had achieved the main goal in serving the darkest days in the history of my nations. Luckily, I could meet five of the survivors and five books are either published or on the way to be released. It is worth to mention that there are six other men who could escape the shooting in the desert; they are Uzer, Faraj, Ramadan, Wahid, Hama Ali Alian and Anwar Tayar (the last two are not interviewed because they passed away while serving in the Peshmerga forces after their heroic escape). Ramdan’s interview is not yet organized as a book yet, but I will work on it very soon.
Arif Qurbany
Foreword
History is adorned with heroic stories. The nations are proud of their men and women who drafted amazing events by showing unique braveness and making unforgettable legendry stories that enlighten the road of glory to generations to come. Greeks are proud of Alexander the Great, Britain's of Nelson, and French people of Napoleon.
The Kurdish nation has also heroes to be proud of. They afe proud of Saladin and his companions, proud of Peshmerga brave fighters who with simple arms challenged the fifth strongest army of the world.
Over and Above, we the Kurds have yet others to be proud of. They are simply those intrepid who challenged the headsmen of Saddam Hussein and resisted the fire-squad troops. So far seven of the victims bore bleeding wounds and the risk of being caught again by the killing troops had made their ways out the mass graves.
Among those seven survivors there was a twelve years old boy called Taimur who made a history and became the greatest Legendre of all time. The determination, valor and fearlessness of this little boy are unique in the history. History does not contain another legendary story equal to that of Taimur. Taimur and his family were subject to mass killing by fire squad and immediate covering by bulldozers in the middle of Arabia Desert and under the darkness of the night. Taimur was shot twice from his back, his wounds started bleeding and he fainted as a result but as soon as he recovered, he made his way out of the grave stepping on corpses. His first attempt to make his way out had failed because the snipers were still around; he hid himself until they disappeared and made a long way in the most mysterious land in the world, in the desert.
The desert is the most difficult land to walk through, because of wild dogs that Saddam’s troops had accustomed them to eat Anfal victims. Desert wolves, snakes and scorpions are exposing the same danger and above all sandstorms may bury travelers within minutes. The little boy took all that risks and cut seven kilometers long. He was bleeding and starving, and of course he was searching for some drops of water!
Eventually, Taimur had seen a light coming from a tent. He got close to it, but he was attacked by dogs. He could calm down the dogs by his skill and could turn the Bedouin man who opened his door and his heart for him to a life-time friend. This man, whose name was Ganim Alaisham, had told a Kurdish journalist who visited him in his place near the Iraqi border with Saudi Arabia that the adventure taken by Taimur at that dark night could never be taken by the strongest Bedouin man, he described the boy’s adventure as a miracle.
The author, Mr. Qurbani had made an inclusive interview with Taimur, here in Kurdistan. The interview is very inclusive and very informative. The both men tried to discuss every detail concern the life story of our hero from his childhood, the way he was taken with thousands of Kurds at gun point from different parts of Kurdistan to the heart of the desert near Saudi Arabia where trained troops started opening fire on children and women. In Taimur’s case men were taken to different places to be killed separately. Six men within the adult groups could survive, stay alive, and make their way back to Kurdistan. Nevertheless, Taimur whose age was just fewer than twelve years; was the only survivors in the family groups who could make his way back home.
Taimur had spent two years (from 1988 to 1990) in the southern part of Iraq where he was protected and looked after by an Arab family. He learnt Arabic and made several good Arab friends and remained in contact with them during his staying in Kurdistan and in the United States of America.
It is noteworthy mentioning what is the meaning of Anfal and how it became a dark face of genocide process of the Kurdish people. Anfal is a name that points to the eighth of Quran’s 114 Suras. This Sura (or chapter) is composed of 75 Verses and almost all of them deal with the extremity with which you treat your enemy; they are about how and when to use extreme actions against the enemy, and thus Verse 60 states; (Prepare whatever force you can, to terrorize the enemy of God and your enemy).
With the Ba’ath Party coming to power, a process of Arabization of the southern parts of Kurdistan commenced and continued without easing. The process included the confiscation of Kurdish homes and properties, the deportation of Kurdish families, and the settlement of Arabs into their houses. Man can say that Saddam Hussein planned to wipe out the Kurds; he caused the demolition of 4,500 villages, forcing their inhabitants into collective towns and into remote areas in the south of Iraq in order to break their cultural identity. In so doing, almost all the villagers were deprived of their income and means of making their living.
In the later period of the Iraq-Iran war when there were no international observers in the region, the regime caused the bombing of several Kurdish towns with chemical weapons (in 1987 to 1988). In Halabja alone, more than five thousand people were killed, and several thousands were badly wounded and diseased from the gases released; many of them are still suffering from chronic illnesses as a result.
In the same period of time the Anfal genocide operations started. The campaigns were carried out in open and arrogant fashion. Commanders such as Ali Hasan Majeed (Chemical Ali) were assigned to their positions and duties by laws passed in the parliament of the regime. Local headquarters were established in almost every Kurdish cities and towns, with large signs on the buildings that read: ‘Anfal Operations Command’! Tens of thousands of regular troops and mercenaries were prepared to gather inhabitants regardless of age and gender, and to take them at gun points to Topzawa concentration camp for registering their names, and then to send them to the killing fields in west of Baghdad and the other parts of the Arabia Desert south of Iraq.
In April 1988, Taimur family and all the other residents of “Kulajo” village, including children and women were taken to be exterminated in the same fashion!
My friend, Arif Qurbani, the Author, has the full story of our legendary chap Taimur in Kurdish and I have the honor to translate it to English.
Abdulkarim Uzeri (The Translator)
Here Is the Interview of the Eyewitness Mr. Taimur
- You are known as Taimur of Anfal, but what wifi you say if I ask you to introduce yourself to the readers of this book?
- It is true that I am, somehow, known to the public. But to tell you the truth; the story of my life and the agony that I had seen in the Anfal Genocidal Process is more heinous to what is known publically. I ask the Great God to help me to remember the happenings as accurately as possible. I am willing to give the right image of what I had seen and to tell you things that had not been mentioned yet. I do my best to make the real story out of this interview.
- Thank you very much. I also do my best to make the right story of your life, but tell me who is Taimur then?
- Taimur Abdulla Ahmad is my full name, but I don’t know my date of birth! One of the reasons for that is; I was a naughty little boy, and as my father told me long ago that one day I got a pair of scissors and chopped off my birth certificate to pieces. The day, month and year were mopped up, as if my destiny was determined to be a person of no-identity and to make Taimur of Anfal out of me.
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