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The announcement of the german government to abate the depts of Iraq should not obscure Germany’s role as the accomplice of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein who is guilty of poison gas attacks, according to Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (GfbV) / Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). „Germany’s system of export credit guarantees (Hermesbürgschaften) made it possible for German firms to arm Iraq“, argued GfbV/STP’s General Secretary Tilman Zülch speaking on Thursday. „The Federal Government must publish details of the firms who benefited from these guarantees, immediately. At least 86 German companies stand accused of having helped create the Iraqi poison gas industry and develop other weapon systems. These companies should hand over the equivalent of the money they made from their arms dealing activities to compensate the surviving victims of gas attacks and their relatives.
180,000 Kurds, including members of the Assyrian-Chaldean and Yezidi communities, died during Saddam Hussein’s 1987/88 Anfal Offensive, carried out under the direction of Ali Hassan al-Majid, „Chemical Ali“. One of the most significant events in this campaign was the gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja that killed at least 5,000 people.
GfbV/STP is aware of a total of 1.93 billion euros worth of export credit guarantees granted by Germany since 1990 to cover sales to Iraq that include the supply of facilities for poison gas manufacture and production of Scud rockets, the construction of aircraft factories and the delivery of jet fighters. Iraqi air force pilots were trained at Federal Armed Forces training schools. The former German Democratic Republic may have constructed military bunkers, sold weapons and trained secret service agents and details of the GDR’s business dealings with Iraq need to be made public as well, Zülch urged. Outstandings worth some one billion euros are still in place. Approximately one billion of a total of 4.4 billion euros owed by Iraq to Germany represents outstanding interest payments.
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