From:  Bob Keith - Cool Dadio Media - Halabja, Iraq, Tuesday, 2:00 p.m. 17 October 2006.

 

  This drive to Halabja, Iraq was my most sensitive (nerve wracking, precarious) travel yet.  It is only about five miles from Iran.  Halabja is the site of the 1988 poison gassing of the Kurdish people here.  Estimates put the death toll at 5,000. But who really knows.  I saw some people with injury and facial burns due to the gassing.  I did not take their pictures out of respect.  I did not want to appear as if I might profit some how from their plight.  Also, it seems inappropriate for tourist photos as well.  But, also I was stopped by soldiers twice and asked for my identification.  They are very sensitive here to outsiders especially since Saddam Hussein's trial is currently discussing the Kurdish genocides done by his regime. 

 

  The bus I was on was detained at one of 10 check points on the journey from Sulaymaniyah because of me, and everyone had to wait until the Pesmerga soldiers figured out that I was an American.  It took longer than usual.  The man sitting next to me read my visa stamp wording from my pass port to one of the soldiers.  What ever language the visa information is in, the soldiers could not read it.  The man sitting next to me read it off and then wiped his brow after the soldiers waved us on. They had their AK-47 machine guns at the ready as this took place. The man that helped with visa language then looked at me as if to say, "we appreciate your taking the effort to visit our nation, but please, next time take a different bus."  The Pesmerga do not mess around. 

 

  I saw the memorial that was dedicated in 2003 to the dead in Halabja and then Secretary of State Colin Powell was on hand for that event.  The memorial has since been wrecked by Kurds mad at the current government management of the area.  I of course, dared not take a picture of the site.  There were guards around it today.  Click here to see this site for information on the Halabja Memorial. 

 

 As usual, I have snapped pictures of street scenes.  Just imagine a couple machine gun toting soldiers every hundred feet or so beyond the scope of the photos. 

 

End of message.

 

Bob Keith - Cool Dadio Media 


    - The grimy streets of Halabja, Iraq 18 years after the poison gas attack.  Photo by 
       Bob Keith, October 2006 -