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Kurdish memorial

(Amna Suraka glass memorial - Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.)
I hit a bit of luck. I met a guy who is rather well connected to the old city. He works in one of shops I frequent. He also has a government type job. Working two jobs - sounds like America these days. Alright, I can buy into it. He showed up dressed to the nines to take me to the Amna Suraka war memorial in Sulaymaniyah. This is a former Saddam prison, now memorial.

The care takers of Amna Surake have tried to leave it the way it was when the Peshmerga soldiers liberated the place after our 1991 war with Iraq. It is truly a place a visitor to this part of the world should see. It is probably the only official visitor-site I will go to. I am not a big official-site person. But this former prison-now-memorial subtly begs a visit.

Saddam is said to have destroyed 5000 Kurdish villages. Thousands of people were killed. The Anfal campaign to torment and kill the Kurds reached its pinnacle with the poison gassing of the city of Halabja in 1988. Thousands were injured; it is figured 5000 were killed. In the picture "Amna Suraka glass memorial," the lights and pieces of glass represent all the lost people and villages in Northern Iraq.

School kids were being taken on a tour when we got to the memorial. A man at the office took my guide and I through personally. The kids we maneuvered around were born a generation after the prison was liberated.

The history of the last 40 years involving the Kurds in their multi-country region is most likely lost to most of us Americans. Their struggle is one event we can point to that we have influenced in what the Kurds would consider a good way. That too I am afraid is lost to Americans as we toil in our own daily struggles.

Bob Keith
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

View more pictures from Bob's travels.