Iraq: German ambassador visits GfbV in Kurdistan/Iraq

The new German ambassador in Iraq, Martin Kobler, visited yesterday the office of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) in Arbil and furnished himself with information on the human rights work of the GfbV Section Kurdistan/Iraq. With regard to the rights and safety of minorities and nationalities the President of the GfbV International, Tilman Zülch, pointed out in a talk with the ambassador that the Kurdish state is on the way to becoming an example to the countries of the Middle East. The human rights organisation recognized with approval that members of the so-called smaller peoples of the Assyro-Chaldaic Christians and Turkmens and the religious community of the Yezidi were represented in the administration.

The ambassador assured the GfbV Kurdistan/Iraq that the autonomy and development of the Kurdish federal state lay close to his heart and emphasised that nationality rights were a decisive foundation on the road to a constitutional civil society.

Twelve of the 25 members of the advisory council of the GfbV Kurdistan/Iraq took part in the discussion with the ambassador, among them the Minister of State, Dr Daxil, as representative of the Yezidi, the Minister of Tourism and representative of the Christian Assyro-Chaldaeans, Namrud Bayto,, Ms Nazdar Mahmud as representative of the Barzan Women and Yusuf Dzayi, the General Secretary of the Organisation of the Surviving Anfal Victims.

The GfbV works closely together with the NGOs of the Anfal victims in Kurdistan/Iraq and shares with them an office building in Arbil. Anfal is the name of the campaign conducted under the Iraqi dictator, in which poison gas was used. It is reported that some 182,000 people, in the main Kurds, but also Assyro-Chaldaean Christians, Turkmens and Yezidi fell victim to it. The Organisation of the Anfal Victims is involved in the work of bringing together documents, eye-witness reports and evidence for the second trial of Saddam Hussein.

The Kurds living in the Barzan Valley had to suffer a similar fate to that of the inhabitants of Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995. Some 8,000 boys and men of the Barzan clan were killed by the units of Saddam Hussein.