Hansard

I thank Bob Doris for securing today’s debate. I would like to start with the words: “Bismillah-hir-Rahman-nir-Rahim”. For the record, that means: “In the name of God, the benevolent and merciful”. I also add: “As-salam alaykum”. That means: “Peace be upon you all”—and in particular upon our guests today in the chamber and their brothers and sisters at home in Kurdistan.

I add my voice to the debate and urge the Scottish Government to recognise formally the genocide of the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. I also encourage the European Union and the United Nations to do likewise, as many of the perpetrators seem to have escaped prosecution. Doing so will enable the Kurdish people—many of whom are in Scotland—to feel a sense of achievement and justice after their loss. The United Kingdom Parliament has already recognised the Kurdish genocide after the campaign led by Bayan Abdul Rahman. I congratulate her and her team on that achievement.

The genocide went on for decades—in fact, since early 1963—and it involved the deportation of ordinary Kurdish people, the use of chemical weapons in the 1970 and 1980s, and then the campaign of 1987-88 in which hundreds of thousands of innocent people died. Families were torn apart. More than 4,500 villages were destroyed between 1976 and 1988 alone—genocide at its worst, while the whole world sat back and did nothing. That we allowed that genocide to happen in our day and age is a shame upon us.

On a positive note, I am very fortunate to have made at least two visits to Kurdistan in recent years and I am planning a third. I have received six delegations from Kurdistan, who have had meetings with people including the First Minister, the justice secretary, the education secretary and many officials and members—all in a bid to do our bit in trying to correct history. I have written two reports that explore how we can offer support to our friends in Kurdistan—one of which I have presented to the First Minister—and a third report is being done just now.

On education, we are looking at establishing university campuses in Kurdistan and at students coming to Scotland to study. We are also looking at law and order and policing, as has already been mentioned. I had the privilege of visiting the police training centre in Erbil and I was very impressed with the level of training on offer and, more importantly, the feeling that I got from the young students there who felt an ownership. They felt that they could work with the community rather than the community feeling dictated to and abused by the police force. That is a new concept in policing.

We also looked at water supply and water treatment issues, and at gas and oil exploration. We are now exploring the possibility of ministerial visits to Kurdistan, in a bid to bridge the gaps between our communities.

Kurdistan is similar to Scotland. It has a population of approximately 5 million and it is a mountainous region. The shame is that, in the genocide that took place, it was the innocent people who suffered. The people who were scratching a living on the barren, hard land with no irrigation facilities were targeted with poison gas weapons. I still cannot understand how the Iraqi Government got away with it. I still do not understand why we human beings allow such things to happen internationally.