Further to this recent post of mine, Gary Kent explains why today's House of Commons debate on recognizing the Kurdish genocide is important.
Halabja. The name of this small Kurdish town used to be a byword for the multiple crimes of a fascist regime - that of Saddam Hussein. Yet a new generation has come to see Iraq mainly through its experience of the intervention in 2003. Halabja and the wider genocide against the Kurds, in addition to Saddam's crimes against the people of the rest of Iraq, have been somewhat lost...
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MPs from the right and left of British politics will debate a motion moved by Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who was born in Iraq of a Kurdish father. They are active members of the all-party parliamentary group on the Kurdistan Region, which has sent several fact-finding delegations to Iraqi Kurdistan and seeks to deepen and broaden the commercial, political and cultural relationship between the Region and the UK, which also has a large Kurdish Diaspora.The motion formally recognises the genocide against the people of Iraqi Kurdistan and encourages governments, the EU and UN to do likewise. It says that this will enable Kurdish people, many in the UK, to achieve justice for their considerable loss and enable the UK, the home of democracy and freedom, to send out a message of support for international conventions and human rights, which is made even more pressing by the slaughter in Syria and the possible use of its chemical arsenals.
