The grim passing of the Syrian conflict into its fourth year this weekend has an unfortunate parallel with another anniversary of sustained mass slaughter and oppression in the Middle East this month: the gassing of the Kurds at Halabja by Saddam Hussein.
The plight of the Syrians who have endured chemical weapons attacks, over 100,000 killed and millions forced to flee in the past three years and their future was brought home to me on a recent visit to neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan.
Listening to how the Kurds suffered genocide, including chemical weapons, by another Baathist dictator and their commendable efforts to overcome a legacy of wanton murder and shattered physical resources may be mirrored for decades in Syria after Assad’s eventual departure.
Sadly, the international community also ignored the suffering of the Iraqi Kurds when Saddam Hussein sought to eliminate them in the 1980s. We turned a blind eye to the increasingly ferocious and industrialised genocide against the Kurds, most notoriously symbolised by the chemical attack on Halabja 26 years ago this month, where 5,000 civilians died in one fell swoop.
After Saddam was evicted from Kuwait and turned on Iraqis, a million Kurds fled to the icy mountains. It finally prompted the United States, Britain and France to establish a no-fly zone over most of Kurdistan, protecting them until the liberation of Iraq as a whole in 2003 rescued them.
I visited these mountains to see the small village of Balisan, the first of many to be chemically bombarded by Saddam. Sipping chai in a village elder’s house, we heard about Saddam’s savagery. A woman told us how she directly confronted Saddam at his trial with what his forces inflicted. He had no answers. We paid our respects at the graveyard before visiting a nearby museum to see pictures of men, women and children who had perished. One day we will see similar sights in Syria.
There has to be compensation for the Kurds and a moral reckoning. Kurdish leaders are encouraging the world to recognise that Saddam’s actions amounted to genocide. They do this to ensure that victims are not forgotten, tell their stories and so it never happens again to them or anyone else. Sadly, too late for the Syrians, 250,000 of whom have been welcomed as refugees.
But the Kurds are not prepared to wallow in the past. A new society is being born. My impression of Kurdistan region is a society gripped by the opportunity of liberation plus its more recent discovery of substantial energy resources to remake itself. I saw great dynamism, judged by the number of cranes everywhere and, on the downside, congestion on roads crammed with cars. Others who have visited over many years can better detail positive changes in income, schools, hospitals, universities, hotels and more.
But it is crystal clear that Kurdistan, isolated for so long, is keen to connect to the outside world. And it is also clear from, for instance, talking to British-educated health professionals building the Kurdistan Children’s Hospital that they have learned much from the UK and our NHS. The hospital seems innovative and can lift low health standards.
Talking to the health and higher education ministers as well as the UK-educated former prime minister, Barham Salih, it is clear that the UK is a source of good policy and practice. Many understand us very well. The receptionist at the European Training and Technology Centre in Erbil, part-funded by the Foreign Office, was a near-neighbour in London.
The UK is officially a ‘partner of choice’ and can provide quality goods and services, technology and know-how in reshaping their education and health systems, and their model of governance. It is what they want and yet we know little about Kurdistan.
Delegations such as this one organised by the active all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan region, will further publicise these opportunities. The forthcoming foreign affairs committee inquiry could sharpen our understanding of how small and large companies as well as public institutions can help.
But I want to focus on politics. Kurdistan is streets ahead of the rest of Iraq, mired in sectarianism and bloodshed, and has made a historic peace with its old Turkish foe. Kurdistan has largely escaped the scourge of terrorism – one attack in the last seven years – and is a beacon of tolerance, judged by life in its capital, Erbil’s Christian quarter.
Politics, however, is new. The judicious mix of what makes democracy is work in progress. Successful democracies require more than elections but also need independent institutions such as the judiciary and a professional media to provide checks and balances.
Many find it difficult to believe that any part of Iraq is untainted by the invasion. The Kurds see it differently and owe their success to two interventions. They could become a moderating power that brokers agreements and trade with once hostile forces: a dynamic driver of a new settlement in the Middle East.
Kurdistan welcomes Brits and is trying to consciously learn lessons from us. British engagement in trade, investment as well as soft power – English (its second language), culture, and political experience through the Foreign Office as well as thinktanks (a new Kurdish IPPR-type group is now being formed) can help them to help themselves. They see themselves as our allies and partners. History has too long ignored them. We must not let them down as we are letting down the Syrians.
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John Woodcock MP is a vice-chair of Progress and a member of the defence select committee. He tweets @JWoodcockMP
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