What if anything did Canada do with Respect to Iraq's Gassing of the Kurds

[Logitech]

Sorry, I know It’s homework, but googling “Anfal campaign” +canada isn’t doing anything, the top link :http://www.gendercide.org/case_anfal.html doesn’t work, and all the rest of the pages seem to be random news sites that have Canada written half way down the page.

So could anyone tell me if Canada did anything in response to the Gassing of the Kurds?

Thanks!

[Atticus_Finch]

Not very much. They participated in the second Gulf War in 1991, if that’s any help. Perhaps you can give us the full question / topic…

[Logitech]

The full question is as follows:

Evaluate the rile played by Canada in addressing, stopping, and preventing human rights violations (I had a list of choices, I chose the Gassing of the Kurds, because I figured it would be more interesting than some of the older rights violations)
Include:
[ol]
[li]Background of the event[/li][li]Role of Canada[/li][li]Should Canada have intervened[/li][li]Why or Why not[/li][li]Explain what Canada did do[/li][/ol]

I can do all but the last one. It seems like Canada really did nothing (I imagine there was some Diplomatic kerfuffle, but I cannot find anything to that effect either) no one wants to make a website that says “Canada did not play a role in the Gassing of the Kurds”. It would be nice if a university, etc made a website like that so that I could stop looking.

[ElvisL1ves]

More than most, if only in words:

Clearly, Iraq’s powerful allies did not want Baghdad condemned. In August 1988 the United Nations Sub-Committee on Human Rights voted by 11 votes to 8 not to condemn Iraq for human rights violations. Only the Scandinavian countries, Australia and Canada, together with bodies like the European Parliament and the Socialist International, saved their honour by clearly condemning Iraq.

But then there’s this, from a Muslim site:

The first week of October [1999] saw protests against the anti-Iraq sanctions in many Western cities, including one in Toronto, Canada. Approximately 400 people came to protest outside the provincial legislature. Most were non-Arab Muslim students. Speakers repeatedly pointed out that the sanctions’ main effect is to kill children. Iraq now has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. A true Muslim cannot go to sleep while his neighbour is hungry, one reminded the crowd.

I could not help but remember that only 25 of us (including our small children) had stood in this very spot in 1988, demonstrating against Saddam’s use of chemical weapons at Halabja, and few in the larger Muslim community or the ‘international community’ could have cared less. Hundreds of children, as well as adults, died horribly at Halabja and other Iraqi Kurdish villages, such as Khalifan, where the Iraqi government used poison gas.

In the 1980s, Saddam destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages, and tortured and executed thousands of people. The sexually abuse the female relatives of dissidents and guerillas was routine. The ‘international community’ looked the other way as Iraq was fighting the world’s war against Iran. Only when Saddam invaded Kuwait did the ‘international community’ discover the unspeakable crimes that had been committed in Halabda, because any evidence that Saddam was a monster was welcome to bolster western public opinion in favour of the west’s war.

[RickJay]

The OP’s followup post sounds dangerously like a homework assignment…

[Critical_Mass]

@RickJay

The OP’s followup post sounds dangerously like a homework assignment…

As does the OP

@Logitech

Sorry, I know It’s homework, …

[John_Kentzel-Griffin]

Do your own homework.

This is closed.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator