Many people on here know more or less about the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq; the Anfal campaign (1986-89) and the attack on Halabja but the aftermath of the 1974-1975 war.

After the Baath regime had suppressed the Kurdish armed resistance, it moved quickly to straighten its grip on the region.

It was a profoundly bitter period for the population, for the regime created a security belt along the Iranian and Turkish border which progressively widened from 5 km to eventually 50 km in places.

This involved the razing of at least 500 villages in the first phase and may have reached more than 1400 by 1978 (not to be confused with Anfal). At least 600.000 and probably very many more men, women and children were deported to Mujama'at, 'collective' resettlement camps.

These collective villages were drab townships located near major towns, with long wide avenues to permit control by armoured vehicles. Anyone caught returning to their ancestral homelands were summarily executed, without regard to age or sex.

It is difficult to believe that the regime did not intend to shatter the communities it transferred, and to strip them of their independence and dignity.

Others were sent to south Iraq, to Diwaniya, Nasiriya, Basra and Afak. These tended to be the families of recalcitrants or active supporters of the revolution, or the refugees who had failed to return during the period of amnesty (up to 20 May 1975).

Of the 210.000 Kurds who sought refuge in Iran, only 140.000 had returned by the expired date. The government also used the opportunity to settle the demographic balance in disputed areas.

According to Kurdish sources on million residents were removed from the disputed districts of Khanaqin, Kirkuk, Mandali, Shaikhan, Zaxo and Sinjar. Such deportees were replaces with Egyptian and Arab Iraqi settlers.

The towns with heavy Kurdish majority, for example Kalar (30.000), Kifri (50.000) and Chamchamal (50.000) and Tuz Khurmatu (80.000) were removed from Kirkuk and allocated to Slemani, Diwaniya and the new province of Salahadin.

Other distasteful measures included financial rewards to Arabs who took Kurdish wives, a deliberate encouragement of ethnic assimilation.

The transfer of Kurdish civil servants, soldiers and police out of Kurdistan, the removal of Kurdish faculty from the new university of Sulaymaniya and the Arabizing of some place names. Undoubtedly the regime also resorted to arrests, torture and executions to ensure control.