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 Dutch socialist party gives 200,000 Euros for Halabja monument 

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Dutch socialist party gives 200,000 Euros for Halabja monument  17.12.2010
By Wladimir van Wilgenburg



December 17, 2010

HAGUE, —  The Socialist Party (SP) in the city council of The Hague, the Netherlands, has given 200,000 euros of municipal compensation money back to the council and asked the municipality to use this money for a monument to the victims of the 1988 chemical attack in Kurdistan’s Halabja city. Iraqi Kurdish organizations have welcomed the initiative.

SP lawmaker Harry van Bommel told Rudaw this did not mean that all the money would be used for the monument or that other Dutch political parties would support it.

“But the SP in The Hague will talk with other local political parties and the Halabja committee in the Netherlands to get political support for this idea,” said Bommel.

Bommel will visit Halabja in Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region from December 18th to 21st with Dana Mirza of the Association of Victims of Halabja,
www.ekurd.neta group which seeks assistance for the victims of the chemical bombing of Halabja by the Iraqi government in 1988, in which at least 5000 civilians were killed.

Ali Mahmud from the Centre of Halabja Against Genocide and Anfalization of Kurds (CHAK), an organization active in Europe and Kurdistan, was one of those who supported the SP’s idea.
              

Iraqi Kurdish honour guards stand outside Halabja monument. Photo: Reuters
“I think this is a very good thing and I think not only Dutch Kurds will receive this as good news, but also the whole Kurdish population,” said Mahmud.

The SP’s initiative was also praised by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a Kurdish party led by the Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, and the Federation of Kurdish Organizations in the Netherlands (FED-KOM).

“What the regime of Saddam Hussein did in the city of Halabja was against humanity, and should never be forgotten,” said Bachtiar Bakr, a representative of the PUK.

“Let’s hope other Dutch political parties feel inspired to support this initiative.”

In 2008 Bommel and another Dutch lawmaker, Fred Teeven, from the People's Party for Freedom, first called for the establishment of a monument to the Halabja victims in The Hague, but a monument has so far not been built.
  

Copyright, respective author or news agency, rudaw.net   

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