With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

As 2nd Hussein Trial Starts, Kurds Are Fixated

Facing a charge of genocide for trying to annihilate Iraq’s Kurdish minority, Saddam Hussein defiantly refused to enter a plea as his second trial began today, and insisted that he was still president of the country.

Mr. Hussein sat stone-faced in a courtroom in the fortified Green Zone of Baghdad, listening as prosecutors gave a detailed account of how Mr. Hussein and six co-defendants embarked on an eight-stage military campaign in 1988 to eliminate the Kurds from swaths of their mountainous homeland in northern Iraq. Prosecutors said the campaign, called Anfal, killed at least 50,000 Kurds and resulted in the destruction of 2,000 villages.

Here in Iraqi Kurdistan, people sat in cafes, homes and offices fixated to the television screen, watching as the former dictator and some of his most feared aides underwent questioning before black-robed judges. On a main thoroughfare in downtown Sulaimaniya, young men hung up a black banner bearing Mr. Hussein’s face and slogans saying that the voices of the dead would finally be heard.
Read entire article at NYT