Musings on the anniversary of the Halabja Massacre

The Halabja poison gas attack (Kurdish: Kîmyabarana Helebce) was a genocid massacre that took place on March 16, 1988, during the closing days of the Iran-Iraq War, when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces in the Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack quickly killed thousands of people (around 5,000 dead) and injured around 11,000, most of them civilians;^[1][2] thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack.^[3] The incident, which has been officially defined as an act of genocide against the Kurdish people in Iraq,^[4] is the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history.^[5]

The Halabja genocide has been recognized as a separate event from the Anfal Genocide that was also conducted against the Kurdish people by the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein.^[6] The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as genocide on March 1, 2010, which 

decision was welcomed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. 

Why did I choose to blog about this event? The Halabja massacre, made me think of the recent killings in my region in the Philippines, which is Mindanao about the 50 plus journalists or so who accompanied a family who wants to run against the current person in position in the government. What has transpired in Halabja and in Cotabato exemplifies a display of how a single person can eventually decide on something so gruesome that would make you think that life here on earth is always on borrowed time.

I couldn't even begin to comprehend about how the mind of the people who put these things in motion works. But one thing's for sure though, they don't have conscience. And all of the people that were killed are just part of the collateral damage in order for them to move up in their goal of achieving power and wealth.

When I started living here in Kurdistan, I was aghast to know what they have gone thru like the disappearance of about 5,000 men and boys from the Barzani clan by Saddam's government and recently a mass grave was discovered in the dessert 

near Saudi believed to be that of these people.

I was saddened. I could not even begin to comprehend what if we Filipinos would 

go through the same thing. Yes, I have heard of the martial law cruelty but what happened here in Kurdistan and in Iraq in general was beyond my comprehension.

Now the question is, how are we able to avoid this? I guess, it starts within the family. If a child is properly instilled with the values of compassion and respect for life there will be no monsters such as the people who decided to gas the town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan or the killings of the envoy composed mostly of journalists in the town of Ampatuan, Cotabato in the Philippines.

I think for whatever atrocities that happened here in Kurdistan, in the Philippines and in all parts of the world, is attributed to a decision of mostly one person.

That person was once a child and by example he may have observed the greediness in his environment thus prompting him to dismiss life as nothing.

This blog is a call to those who value life, we should re-evaluate ourselves and begin to prepare today for tomorrow. In order to avoid events like this we should inculcate our children with respect for life in general in order to avoid atrocities like this in the near future.