STUDENT PROTEST SPARKED HALABJAH VIOLENCE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000078

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

BAGHDAD FOR POL, PAO, ROL COORDINATOR, NCT, IRMO, USAID

E.O. 12958: DECL: 4/7/2016
TAGS: PINS PGOV KDEM KCOR KISL IZ IR
SUBJECT: STUDENT PROTEST SPARKED HALABJAH VIOLENCE

REF: KIRKUK 69

KIRKUK 00000078 001.2 OF 002


CLASSIFIED BY: Scott Dean, Acting Regional Coordinator, , REO
Kirkuk, DoS.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (C) SUMMARY. The KRG had denied permission for the March
16 protests at Halabjah. The KRG Deputy PM had agreed to
student protest organizers' demands the night before, but was
too late to prevent the violent March 16 Halabjah protests.
Protestors were mostly male students from Halabjah, and
represented a variety of political parties and universities.
The protestors were demonstrating against what they viewed as
government officials' using the Halabjah monument to collect
foreign assistance for themselves instead of for rebuilding the
city. The protestors calculated that if they destroyed the
monument, Halabjah visitors would instead have to enter the town
and see that the government had not used their donations to
rebuild the city. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) This is the first in a series of cables reporting an
in-depth look at the March 16 violent protests in Halabjah.
This cable lays out the events leading up to and the day of the
protests. The other two cables will report on the subsequent
security crackdown and prospects for violence elsewhere in the
Kurdish Region of Iraq. RC(A) and IPAO on March 28 met with
Yerivan Adham Sa'id, a freelance press interpreter and native of
Halabjah, who was present during the entirety of the Halabjah
events and supported the demonstrations. Sa'id was the
freelance interpreter for the March 17 New York Times story, a
subsequent National Public Radio story and was a major source
for reftel.

The Organizers
--------------


3. (SBU) Sa'id said that a week before the Halabjah events of
March 16, the main organizers of the demonstrations - about 10
students - asked local PUK officials for permission to
demonstrate peacefully by the Halabjah monument during the
annual ceremony commemorating the Ba'ath regime's chemical
attacks on the city. The PUK officials rejected the request,
saying that the timing was inappropriate, since international
delegations (Italian and Japanese) were planning to attend the
ceremony. The officials warned that any protests would be
considered illegal and liable to punishment.


4. (SBU) Halabjah's mayor took the organizers to see KRG
Deputy Prime Minister Omar Fattah on March 15, the evening
before the scheduled protests, probably in an effort to
forestall the protests. The students presented a "memorandum"
in which the students demanded the KRG build a university in
Halabjah, construct a youth center, build new homes for Anfal
victims, pave roads, and compensate family members of Anfal
victims. Fattah agreed to their demands and wrote "for
implementation" on the memo. Once they saw this, the organizers
opted out of the demonstrations to rid themselves of
responsibility. (Note: Although the organizers did not attend
the demonstrations, their plans to protest were still well
enough in place to attract a big turnout on March 16. End
Note.) Sa'id said the organizers were Halabjah natives and were
a mix of KDP and PUK supporters who attended the universities of
As Sulaymaniyah, Kou Senjaq, and Salah ad Din (Arbil).

Protestors Mostly Young Male Students
--------------


5. (SBU) On March 16 - the day of the ceremony -
approximately 20 students arrived around 8 a.m. and began
demonstrating near the monument. The number of protestors
rapidly increased. The group consisted mostly of male students
between the ages of 14 and 30, with a much smaller portion of
older participants. Like the organizers, most of the protestors
were students from the universities of As Sulaymaniyah, Kou
Senjaq, and Salah ad Din (Arbil),who were home on break for the
Halabjah ceremony. The families of Halabjah victims - wearing
the customary all black - originally came to participate in the
ceremony, but many eventually joined the protests.

Demonstrations Turn Violent
--------------


6. (C) The first signs that the demonstrations were turning
violent occurred around 9 a.m. when the students began burning
tires and shouting for the visitors to leave Halabjah. The
police confronted the protestors at that time and tried to break
up what Sa'id said were then around 1,000 people near the
monument. The police tried to force the protestors away from
the monument by hitting them with their Kalashnikovs and firing

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gunshots above them. Approximately three students and two
journalists were beaten at that time, and the crowd dispersed
from the monument. The actions of the PUK security forces,
however, only fueled the protestors' anger.


7. (SBU) By 10 a.m., the crowd was getting much larger, and
protestors began lying on the road approximately one kilometer
in front of the monument to prevent visitors from attending the
ceremony. After about 30 minutes on the road, the crowd started
to move back towards the monument, but did not get very far
before some in the crowd convinced most to continue to block the
road. The students at this time began chanting slogans such as,
"We will not allow robbers into Halabjah," and "Halabjah died
for you, but you do not give Halabjah services." Many of the
protestors were holding signs that displayed the money sign,
suggesting that government officials had been pocketing Halabjah
donations for themselves.


8. (SBU) By 11 a.m., more than 6,000 protestors were present.
The protestors abandoned their strategy to block the road and
returned to the monument. When the students arrived near the
monument at around 11:30 a.m., PUK security forces again shot
over their heads, only angering the protestors even more. The
protestors scattered but began to attack property and throw
stones at the security forces. At this point, the government
officials there to attend the ceremony fled, and the security
forces shot at the crowd, injuring two more students. The
protestors stormed the monument when the security forces shot at
the crowd.

Destroying the Monument
--------------


9. (SBU) Sa'id said the protestors calculated that if they
destroyed the monument, Halabjah visitors would instead enter
the town and see that the government had not used their
donations to rebuild the city. Security forces withdrew from
the scene, as the protestors destroyed virtually everything
inside and around the monument. According to Sa'id, the
protestors, however, did not destroy the room with photos of
Anfal victims, even though the PUK claimed they did. Sa'id
claimed that the protestors purposefully left the pictures on
the walls because many of the photos belonged to their relatives
and friends.


10. (SBU) The protestors threw chairs through the glass,
destroyed computers and technical equipment, and set the
monument on fire by carrying inside the fuel tank from the
museum's generator, splashing around the fuel and lighting it.
After having withdrawn about 3 kilometers, the security forces
at some point returned and began shooting randomly again at the
protestors going in and out of the monument. The security
forces at this time killed a 17-year-old student and injured
five others. The crowd dispersed and went into the town to
destroy a new PUK office that was not yet finished. Peshmerga
forces, however, were guarding the office and fired at crowd to
keep them away - no one was injured, and the crowd dispersed.
By 12:30 or 1 p.m., the riots had ended. No ambulances
appeared; families took victims to hospitals on their own.

Comment
--------------


11. (C) We doubt that Fattah was ready to build a new
university in Halabjah on the suggestion of 10 students. We
suspect, though, that the combination of threats against
protestors and (sometimes empty) promises is the KRG's normal
method to prevent demonstrations. Sa'id's account that the
protestors were angry enough to conduct destructive acts in the
face of what appears to have been somewhat aggressive PUK
security forces is noteworthy. The protestor's choice of
attacking a memorial to the past may reflect the public's
rejection of the argument they still owe loyalty to the PUK and
KDP for past glories rather than for present day services.
While a strategy of destroying the monument to prompt Halabjah
visitors to enter the city and see its true conditions is
plausible, the actual attack probably grew from the fury of the
moment rather than planning. Sa'id's report that both PUK and
KDP supporters were protesting together is an interesting trend.
ORESTE