Ali Hassan al-Majid, the paternal cousin of Saddam Hussein who held many important posts in the Ba’ath party, was executed on January 25.
Chemical Ali, as he was known, was found guilty of crimes against humanity for the 1988 chemical weapons siege on the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq. Iraqi jets sprayed the town with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas and nerve agents, leaving 5000 people dead. The sentence was the fourth death sentence passed against Majid by the tribunal formed in 2004 to try officials of the Saddam Hussein regime.
In June 2007, Majid was given a death sentence for ordering the Anfal campaign in 1988 when he was the governor of northern Iraq. Under the pretence of a counter-insurgency operation to eradicate Kurdish rebels, the campaign entailed the extermination of the Kurdish population of northern Iraq and led to the destruction of 2000 villages and the death of 180,000 civilians.
In December 2008, he was found guilty of brutally crushing the 1991 Shiite revolt in the south and Kurdish revolt in the north which began after the Iraqi army was ousted from Kuwait by the US led international military coalition at the end of the Gulf War. The revolt began when the rebels took control of 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, taking advantage of the Iraqi army’s demoralized state after their defeat but the lack of organization and leadership in the rebel initiative gave the army time to recuperate. As the nation’s Defence Minister, Majid mobilized soldiers, tanks and gunships to suppress the revolt through indiscriminate killings. The revolt was quickly defeated and the dead were buried in mass graves which were later discovered by American forces after the Iraq invasion in 2003.
In March 2009, Majid was convicted with others of ordering the Iraqi military to open fire on Shiites in the Sadr city district of Baghdad and the city of Najaf in 1999. The victims were protesting against the Ba’ath regime for its alleged hand in the assassination of prominent Shia cleric, Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr. Over 100 protestors were killed.
With three life sentences heaped against him, Majid’s death penalty was delayed as it was necessary to charge him with the Halabja chemical attack. With a coalition government now operating through the slow transition from American control, Majid’s execution is seen as a move towards national reconciliation, delivering justice to both victimized communities after a prolonged delay. That said, the media and political rhetoric surrounding the brutalities overlook the nefarious role of the United States.
In December 2005, Frans Van Anraat, a Dutch businessman, was found guilty of war crimes for brokering a deal for 1,100 tons of thiodiglycol between the Ba’ath regime and US based chemical company, Alcolac Inc. Thiodiglycol is a chemical compound crucial in the production of mustard gas which was used against the Iraqi Kurds in the Anfal campaign. While Van Anraat was given a 17-year prison sentence, Alcolac Inc. payed a fine after being found in breach of US export laws and denied any direct business relations in Iraq. There were no criminal convictions against any of its operating executives.
Before the 1991 Shia and Kurdish revolt, George Bush Sr. appealed to Iraqi citizens through a Voice of America radio announcement to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime. The rebels subsequently began engaging in a revolt, hoping for American military support. But after the ceasefire at the end of February between the international coalition and the Iraqi army, the military support never came and the unorganized rebellion was brutally quashed.
The trial and execution of Saddam’s former minister and cousin, and the rhetoric surrounding it, seems to serve a dual purpose for the United States. On one hand it paves the way for democratic harmony in Iraq, improving the conditions for peace and the eagerly awaited troop withdrawals. On the other hand it attempts to wipe clean the nation’s bloody interventionist past, turning it into a future beacon of justice and democracy. This really is political calculation at its best.
