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O R 071403Z APR 06
FM REO KIRKUK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0591
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD IMMEDIATE 0555
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHKUK/REO KIRKUK 0619

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 
 
KIRKUK 00000078  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
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