Human Rights Watch last week called for the arrest and prosecution of General Hassan al-Majid, an Iraqi senior official who has been accused of masterminding the genocidal Anfal campaign of 1988, in which thousands of Kurds were killed or disappeared toward the end of the Iraq-Iran war. Al-Majid is currently traveling to Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon for diplomatic talks with Arab officials. HRW called on those states to detain him and call him to account for his alleged crimes, pursuant to their ratification of the Geneva Convention and the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. These charters require member states to take action to punish and prosecute individuals for war crimes. Around 100,000 civilian casualties resulted from the Anfal campaign, according to HRW. Dozens of Kurdish communities were bombarded with chemical weapons.
