1. Using GIS to Support Conflict Recovery: A Response to Genocide and Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraqi Kurdish Communities Presented by Mike Amitay, Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI)

2. Halabja Post-Graduate Medical Institute (HMI) Doctors, Medical Schools, Health Officials, NGOs, and communities throughout Iraqi Kurdistan (est.1999) C. M. Gosden D. Gardener Royal Liverpool University Hospital United Kingdom Washington Kurdish Institute University of Liverpool

3. Our Program Goals Help people and communities recover Establishing sensitive treatment and medical research programs to account for complex long-term health effects of WMD exposure Strengthen local responses with training / technical assistance Help establish current risks of environmental contamination Raise awareness of “silent genocide” and generate international assistance Aid local and international conflict recovery and WMD preparedness/response efforts Correlate WMD agents to specific medical disorders Learn about attacks, survivors, health effects, best treatments

4. Integrating Data and Maps Mapping Software: ArcView GIS http://www.esri.com/ http://www.conservationgis.org/ecpstory/esriform.html http://www.esri.com/ http://www.conservationgis.org/ecpstory/esriform.html Political boundaries, population centers, roads, and waterways Topographic relief, satellite images, and vegetation maps. Collect data with creative, culturally sensitive methods designed for specific mission and local sensitivities Health indicators Housing Conditions Water Sources Socio-Economic indicators Migration patterns Exposure to Conflict Environmental testing results

5. Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Effective tool for complex conflict recovery efforts Collect, Integrate, Share and Understand Data GENERAL BENEFITS 1. Inform effective responses 2. Enhance strategic planning and coalition building 3. Aid advocacy, education and public awareness efforts 4. Facilitate realistic needs assessments 5. Support critical local information infrastructures

6. VISUALIZING ETHNIC CLEANSING: AL-ANFAL : “THE SPOILS” Military campaigns to subjugate and depopulate Kurdish areas at the end of Iran-Iraq War (Spring 1987 – Autumn 1988) Climax in decades-long effort by Baghdad regimes to forcibly administer the Kurdish people and their natural resources. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were killed, wounded, displaced, and dispossessed. Abitrary arrests Mass and Summary executions Mass disappearancesTorture Forced labourDestruction of villages/infrastructure Environmental degradationConcentration Camps Looting of property and livestock“Arabisation” Forced resettlementDestruction of rural economy DeskillingEconomic deprivation/blockade Use of Chemical Weapons and possibly other WMD

7. DOHUK SULEYMANIYEH Halabja ERBIL

8. WHY USE GENOTOXIC WEAPONS? - OFTEN CHEAP & EASY TO PRODUCE - DIFFICULT TO COUNTERACT - PRODUCE MANY CASUALTIES - TERRORIZE OPPONENTS - LONG TERM EFFECTS - SILENT GENOCIDE Infertility Childhood death and handicap Disability, deaths, cancers Elimination of population years after attacks WHY USE GENOTOXIC WEAPONS? - OFTEN CHEAP & EASY TO PRODUCE - DIFFICULT TO COUNTERACT - PRODUCE MANY CASUALTIES - TERRORIZE OPPONENTS - LONG TERM EFFECTS - SILENT GENOCIDE Infertility Childhood death and handicap Disability, deaths, cancers Elimination of population years after attacks

9. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD) CHEMICAL NERVE AGENTS SARIN CYCLOSARIN SOMAN TABUN VX BZ MUSTARD AGENTS SULPHER NITROGEN BIOLOGICAL BIOLOGICAL TOXINS BIOLOGICAL AGENTS ANTRHAX, BRUCELLA ROTAVIRUS, PLAGUE, TYPHOID, HEMORRAGHIC CONJUCTIVITIS VIRUS AFLATOXIN MYCOTOXIN BOTULINUM TRICHOTHECENES RADIOLOGICAL ENRICHED URANIUM MEDICAL ISOTOPE WASTE ? IRRADIATED REACTOR WASTE ? IRRADIATED ZICONIUM MUNITIONS

10. CIVILIANS PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE TO WMD LACK DETECTION SYSTEMS LACK PROTECTION (Gas Masks, detox materials, etc.) LACK MEDICINES & MEDICAL EQUIPMENT LACK DECONTAMINATION CAPABILITY DEPEND ON CONTAMINATED FOOD/WATER LACK INFORMED RESPONSES LACK DETECTION SYSTEMS LACK PROTECTION (Gas Masks, detox materials, etc.) LACK MEDICINES & MEDICAL EQUIPMENT LACK DECONTAMINATION CAPABILITY DEPEND ON CONTAMINATED FOOD/WATER LACK INFORMED RESPONSES

11. PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF WMD EFFECTS World War I Mustard Gas Factory Workers Hiroshima/Nagasaki US DOD Testing of “Volunteers” Chernobyl Iran/Iraq War Japan Sarin Attacks Biological Outbreaks World War I Mustard Gas Factory Workers Hiroshima/Nagasaki US DOD Testing of “Volunteers” Chernobyl Iran/Iraq War Japan Sarin Attacks Biological Outbreaks

12. GENOCIDAL EFFECTS OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION CHEMICAL WEAPONS Sterilize men and womenCause birth defectsCause stillbirths and infant deaths Terrify the population by affecting successive generations Dead babies and grieving parents · High emotional cost · Bereavement counselling · Ultimate cause of population disruption · Social stigma Male and female infertility · Disrupt family structure · No population growth · Divorce · Non-marriagability Handicapped children · Heart defects · Spina bifida · Facial clefts · Down’s syndrome · Childhood cancers

13. United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Resolution 260, United Nations General Assembly, 9 December 1948. ARTICLE 1 Genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish. ARTICLE 2 Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: The following acts shall be punishable: a) Genocide; b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; d) Attempt to commit genocide; e) Complicity in genocide. Persons committing genocide shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals. ARTICLE 3 a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. ARTICLE 4

14. DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iraq (Max van der Stoel) reported to the UN Human Rights Commission in 1993 Middle East Watch (Human Rights Watch) TESTIMONIAL EVIDENCE Testimony from eyewitnesses and victims Middle East Watch researchers Kurdish military personnel and leaders Former Iraqi military officers Staff of local and International NGOs FORENSIC EVIDENCE Berjinni site samples (bombed August 1988) 1993 MoD Porton Down reported degradation products of Mustard gas and nerve agent (sarin) in samples Mapping Known/Suspected WMD Attack Sites

15. BASRA HALABJA COMPOSITE MAP SHOWING EXTENT OF ANFAL CAMPAIGNS IN NORTHERN IRAQ FEBRUARY – SEPTEMBER, 1988 (Human Rights Watch) TURKEY SYRIA KUWAIT JORDAN IRAN BAGHDAD MOSIL KIRKUK SAUDI ARABIA DOHUK ERBIL SULEYMANIYEH DOHUK ERBIL KIRKUK SULEYMANIYEH HALABJA o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o A A A A Iraqi Kurdistan, 1988 population: 4,000,000

16. HEALTH DATA COLLECTION Health survey of 49,000 people in Dohuk, Erbil, Halabja,Suleymania regions (>1%) Health survey of 8,000 Kurdish and Iraqi refugees in 5 US cities Health data from 4,200 women participating in WKI birth defect prevention program (folic acid) Health data from 80,000 primary care recipients in vulnerable communities (IDPs, rural villagers, widows, orphans)

17. Respiratory cancers Nasopharyngeal Laryngeal Lung Eye diseases Recurrent corneal ulceration Delayed recurrent keratitis Chronic conjunctivitis Leukemia Acute nonlymphocytic leukemia Bone marrow and immunosuppression Reproductive dysfunction Genotoxic, mutagenic Causes sterility, germ cell destruction Sexual dysfunction, scrotal/penile scars Chronic respiratory diseases Chronic bronchitis & emphysema Asthma Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Chronic laryngitis Psychological disorders Mood disorders Anxiety disorders including PTSD Other traumatic stress disorder responses Skin cancer Chronic skin disease Chronic skin ulceration and scar formation Pigmentary abnormalities of skin Committee to Survey the Health Effects of Mustard Gas and Lewisite Division of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press, Washington DC 1993. Specific Findings: Evidence indicates causal relationship between exposure to mustard gas and following health conditions:

18. 5 0 10 15 20 MEDICAL CONDITIONS 14% population loss of under 16 year olds: World Food Programme 1987 - 1999 Conventional Radiological Chemical Biological Conventional Radiological Chemical Biological BIRTH DEFECTS PREVENTION BIRTH DEFECTS PREVENTION INFERTILITY TREATMENT CANCER TREATMENT Lymphoma Brain Leukaemia BIRTH DEFECTS TREATMENT CARDIO-RESPIRATORY TREATMENT

19. Folic Acid / Birth Defect Prevention Program Chokmakh Village: Suleymania 2003

20. Genotoxicity screening in soil, water, other materials Testing foodstuffs for bological toxins including aflatoxin Measuring radiation : gamma (full spectrum for all isotopes), as well as alpha and beta. Coordinating advanced testing to follow-up and confirm initial results and inform responses and remediation COLLECTING ENVIRONMENTAL DATA

21. Halabja/Anab Grid Map : Screening for Genotoxic and Cytotoxic Substances What can local authorities do when contamination is found? Is US-funded school being built on land known to be contaminated?

22. Limitations of GIS Model Technology dependent -electricity, computers, software, costs sometimes impractical Map deficiencies - unavailable in scale needed, inaccurate Significant training required

23. Mass grave memorial Halabja GIS: A Tool for Healing and Prevention