Genocide Alleged : Senate Votes Stiff Sanctions Against Iraq

The Senate voted Friday to condemn alleged poison-gas genocide by the government of Iraq against the country’s Kurdish minority and to impose stiff punitive economic sanctions aimed at making it more difficult for Iraq to pay off its huge war debt.

“The Iraqi army is waging a campaign against the Kurdish population that can only be described as genocide,” said Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), before the Senate passed the measure by voice vote just 18 hours after it was drafted.

At the same time, Reps. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) and John Porter (R-Ill.) introduced an identical measure in the House. The lawmakers, co-chairmen of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, also sent a letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein calling for an end to “warfare against the Kurdish population.”

‘Crime Against Humanity’

Deploring the use of poison gas against Kurdish civilians and the dynamiting of Kurdish villages, Pell told the Senate: “This is truly a crime against humanity. It is genocide, in fact.”

Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) said the Senate was right in quickly moving to condemn “this horrible effort of the Iraqi government of systematically eradicating its own citizens of Kurdish descent.”

Sadoon Hamadi, minister of state for foreign affairs, denied Friday that any poison-gas attack had taken place. He said independent observers would not be permitted in the northern border area of Iraq, where many of the Kurds live, so long as hostilities persisted there.

The bill, which was sent to the House, would require the U.S. representative to international financial institutions such as the World Bank to vote against all loans to Iraq.

It would also bar all U.S. financial credits or credit guarantees.

$60-Billion Debt

Aides to Pell said this would have the immediate effect of barring at least $800 million in credit or credit guarantees, a step they said would make it even more difficult for Iraq to service its huge $60-billion debt incurred during its eight-year war with neighboring Iran.

The measure also would end the import of Iraqi oil into the United States, cut off any U.S. economic or military aid and bar the transfer to Iraq of sensitive high-technology items subject to U.S. export controls.

The Pell aides, who declined to be identified, said the latter step would prevent Iraq from importing vital spare parts for equipment and technology already in the country, prevent it from completing certain projects and bar the export to Iraq of such items as computers, petroleum drilling equipment and air traffic control equipment.

“I think this is as strong a set of sanctions as any that have been passed,” Pell told reporters after the Senate acted.

He said he hopes the Reagan Administration will quickly endorse the bill, adding that it provides an opportunity for Congress to demonstrate bipartisan unity on a foreign policy issue.

The bill says “conclusive evidence exists that the Iraqi army has used and is continuing to use chemical weapons against Kurdish insurgents and unarmed Kurdish civilians.”

“The Iraq army has undertaken a campaign to depopulate the Kurdish regions of Iraq by destroying all Kurdish villages in a large part of northern Iraq and by killing the civilian population,” the bill says.

About 3 million to 4 million Kurds reside in Iraq.

The bill also commends the government of Turkey for welcoming thousands of Kurdish refugees “fleeing extermination in Iraq.”

And it expresses the sense of the Senate that the United States would provide aid to refugees in need of medical assistance or other humanitarian assistance.