ONCE AGAIN the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has resorted to the use of chemical weapons, this time against a civilian population. By diffusing deadly gas in the Kurdish town of Halabja and its environs, the Bagdad regime has shown, if this were not already clear, that there is no limit to its barbarism, especially when it is directed against other nations.
Once again, the Kurdish people has been the victim of the barbarism of its national oppressors. The new atrocity committed by the Ba'athist dictatorship is another in a list series of outrages against the Kurdish people, including those perpetrated by the Turkish, Iranian and Syrian regimes.
Subjected to these four dictatorships, the Kurdish nation is one of the most oppressed in the world. Not only is its right to independence and national unity denied by its oppressors but even the simple exercise of its cultural rights and its right to self-government in its territories.
The national emancipation of the Kurdish people is tightly bound up with overthrowing the oppressor regimes. In particular, the people of Kurdistan in Iraq and Iran need to unite their forces against the Bagdad and Tehran dictatorships, which are now busy savaging themselves in a war whose murderous madness continually grows worse.
The Fourth International unreservedly supports the right of the Kurdish nation to self-determination, as well as the struggle of the Kurdish people against its national oppressors, regardless of the policy of the various leaderships of this struggle in Kurdistan.