EFL - a prety grim read. I don't think that Sadaam's Iraq was as happy a place as Michael Moore makes it out to have been.
"Entitled 'The Settlements and Villages of the Christian Assyrians in the Region of Kurdistan Iraq,' the document, which goes to 104 pages, is a shocking view of a previously mostly unknown campaign of terror against a tiny minority in Iraq." Joseph says 290 villages were named in the documentation with the word "destroyed" next to each one. "The document with 'Confidential For Internal Use Only' and subtitled 'The Contribution of the International Non-Governmental Organizations to the Islamization of Assyrian Villages' goes into great detail on the destruction of the indigenous people of the region," he writes.
The villages in question had been inhabited by Christians for centuries, while the Assyrian people have lived in the area since before the time of Christ. According to Joseph, the Kurdistan Regional Government worked together with Saddam in the cleansing operations. "Entry after entry reads 'demography forcibly changed,' 'destroyed,' 'disappeared,' 'gas holocaust,' 'intifada,'" he writes. "Entries read 'gas-Anfal,' meaning the villagers were gassed during the 'Anfal Campaign' by the Saddam government to destroy the area and 'Islamizize' and 'Arabize' it. "The 'gassing of the Kurds' extended to a much greater population of Assyrian Christians as well, although this has been previously completely hidden." |