1991 Uprisings in Iraq - Aftermath

Aftermath

In March and early April, nearly two million Iraqis, 1.5 million of them Kurds, escaped from strife-torn cities to the mountains along the northern borders, into the southern marshes, and to Turkey and Iran. By April 6, the UNCHR estimated that about 750,000 Iraqi Kurds had fled to Iran and 280,000 to Turkey, with 300,000 more gathered at the Turkish border. Their exodus was sudden and chaotic, with thousands of desperate refugees fleeing on foot, on donkeys, or crammed onto open-backed trucks and tractors. Many were gunned down by Republic Guard helicopters, which deliberately strafed columns of fleeing civilians in a number of incidents in both the north and south. Others were maimed when they stepped on land mines planted by Iraqi troops near the eastern border during the war with Iran. According to the U.S. Department of State and international relief organizations, between 500 and 1,000 Kurds have been dying each day along Iraq's Turkish border. According to some reports, hundreds of refugees were dying each day along the way to Iran as well. Beginning in March 1991, the U.S. and some of the Gulf War allies barred Saddam's forces from conducting jet aircraft attacks by establishing the no-fly zone over northern Iraq and provided humanitarian assistance to the Kurds during Operation Provide Comfort. On April 17, U.S. forces began to take control of areas more than 60 miles into Iraq to build camps for Kurdish refugees; the last American soldiers left the northern Iraq on July 15. In Yasilova incident in April, British and Turkish forces confronted each other over the treatment of Kurdish refugees in Turkey.

In southeastern Iraq, thousands of Shia civilians, army deserters and rebels began seeking precarious shelter in remote areas of the Hawizeh Marshes straddling the Iranian border. After the uprising, the Marsh Arabs were singled out for mass reprisals, accompanied by ecologically catastrophic drainage of the Iraqi marshlands and the large-scale and systematic forcible transfer of the local population. The Marsh Arab resistance was led by the Hezbollah Movement in Iraq (completely unrelated to the Hezbollah of Lebanon), which after 2003 became their main political party. On July 10, 1991, the United Nations announced plans to open a humanitarian center at Lake Hammar to care for Shia opposition hiding out in the southern marshlands, but Iraqi forces did not allow UN relief workers into the marshlands or the Shia out. A large scale government offensive against estimated 10,000 Shia fighters and 200,000 displaced persons hiding in the marshes began in March–April 1992, using fixed-wing aircraft; a U.S. Department of State report claimed that Iraq dumped toxic chemicals in the waters in an effort to drive out the Shia. In July 1992, the government has begun trying to drain the marshlands and the government ordered the residents of settlements to evacuate, after which the army burned down their homes there to prevent them from returning. A curfew was also enforced throughout the south and Iraqi government forces began arresting and moving large numbers of Shia out of the south and into detention camps in the central part of the country. At a special meeting of the UN Security Council on August 11, 1992, Britain, France and the United States accused Iraq of conducting a "systematic military campaign" against the marshlands, warning Baghdad to face possible consequences. On August 22, 1992, President Bush announced that the U.S. and allies have established a second no-fly zone for any Iraqi aircraft south of the 32nd parallel to protect Shia dissidents from attacks by the government, as sanctioned by UN Security Council Resolution 688. On March 2, 1993, a UN investigation reported hundreds of executions of Shia from the marshes in the preceding months, asserting that the Iraqi army's behavior in the south is the most "worrying development in the past year" and adding that following the formation of the no fly zone, the army switched to long-range artillery attacks, followed by ground assaults resulting in "heavy casualties" and widespread destruction of property, with allegations of mass executions. In November 1993, Iran reported that as a result of the drainage of the marshlands, Iraqi Shia can no longer fish or grow rice and that over 60,000 of them have fled to Iran since 1991; Iranian officials appealed to the world to send aid to help the refugees. That same month, UN reported that 40% of the marshlands in the south have been drained, while unconfirmed reports surfaced that the Iraq army has used poisonous gas against Shia villages near the border of Iran. In December 1993, the U.S. Department of State accused Iraq of "indiscriminate military operations in the south, which include the burning of villages and forced relocation of non-combatants." On February 23, 1994, Iraq diverted waters from the Tigris river to Shia areas south and east of the main marshlands, resulting in floods of up to 10 feet of water, in order to render the farmlands there useless and drive the rebels who have been hiding there to flee back to the marshes which ere being drained of water. In March 1994, a team of British scientists estimated that 57% of the marshlands have been drained and that in 10 to 20 years the entire wetland ecosystem in southern Iraq will be gone. In April 1994, the U.S. officials said Iraq was still continuing a military campaign in Iraq's remote marshes.

In the north, fighting continued until October when an agreement was made for Iraqi withdrawal from parts of Iraq's Kurdish-inhabited region. This led to the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government and creation of a Kurdish Autonomous Republic in three provinces of northern Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers dug-in along the front, backed by tanks and heavy artillery, while the Iraqi government established a blockade of food, fuel and other goods going to the area. The U.S. Air Force kept enforcing a no-fly zone over northern Iraq; the U.S. forces have also built and maintained several refugee camps there in 1991. The general stalemate was broken during the 1994–1997 Iraqi Kurdish Civil War, when due to the PUK alliance with Iran, the KDP called in Iraqi support and Saddam sent his military into Kurdistan, capturing Arbil and Sulaymaniyah, but his forces retreated after the U.S. intervened by launching air raids over Iraq. Kurds further expanded their area of control after participating in the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, which led to the recognition of Kurdish autonomy by the new Iraqi government.

Many of the people killed were buried in mass graves. Several mass graves containing thousands of bodies have been uncovered since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, notably in the Shia Arab south and Kurdish north. Of the 200 mass graves the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry had registered in the three years since the American-led invasion, the majority were in the South, including one located south of Baghdad that is believed to hold as many as 10,000 to 15,000 victims. The trial of 15 former aides to Saddam Hussein, including Ali Hassan al-Majid also known as "Chemical Ali", over their alleged role in the 1991 suppression of the Shia and the deaths of 60,000 to 100,000 people, took place in Baghdad in 2007–2008. According to the prosecutor, "The acts committed against the Iraqi people in 1991 by the security forces and by the defendants were among one of the ugliest crimes ever committed against humanity in modern history." Al-Majid had been already sentenced to death in June 2007 for genocide regarding his role in the Operation Anfal; he was also convicted for his role in the events of 1991, given another death sentence, and executed in 2010. The issue was also given much attention during the trial of Saddam Hussein.