When Fashionable Ethnic Groups Go Bad
I remember when the plight of the Kurds was cynically used to pull at our heartstrings in order to support the war to further enslave the Iraqi people, but how will the warmongers explain this?
HALABJA, Iraq, March 16 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Kurdish protesters destroyed a memorial to the 1988 gas attack in the Iraqi town of Halabja on Thursday, setting the museum ablaze on the 18th anniversary of the deaths of 5,000 local people.A hospital official said one man was shot dead when a gathering to commemorate the attack turned into a protest over poor local services.
A local journalist working for Reuters said he saw police and Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen fire shots to disperse the protesters after they rampaged through the one-storey, circular museum that serves as a potent reminder of the 1988 attack.
..."The Kurdish government exploited Halabja to draw world attention to the plight of the Kurds and get donations that have never reached us," one angry protester said.
Witnesses said residents had gathered outside the museum to mark the attack but began shouting angrily when Shahu Mohammad Saed, a representative of the Kurdish government, appeared.
Residents complain many buildings in Halabja are dilapidated and that electricity and water supplies are poor. They said the museum was the only new building to have been constructed in the town by the regional government in more than a decade.
People stormed into the museum, pulling down ceilings and smashing displays reconstructing the gas attack. One rioter used a metal chair to smash the polished black stone memorial bearing the names of each of the 5,000 victims.
If the war can't control the Kurds, what is under control?