Iraq: The relatives of 5,000 Kurds killed in a gas attack ordered by Saddam Hussein are following his case closely, writes Nicholas Birch, in Halabja
Locals call this the "heart of Halabja" - a vast building similar in form to the World Cup trophy. Under the dome, in the black marble-clad interior, are the names of 5,000 men, women and children who died on March 16th, 1988, suffocated by the poisoned bombs of Saddam Hussein's airforce. On a billboard outside the entrance, in huge letters, the words 'No Baathists here'.
"All Kurds suffered under the former Iraqi regime, but Halabja suffered the most," says Ferhang Dara (21), a local guide. "Nowhere else in Iraq have people been following the trial of Saddam and his henchmen so closely."
A visit to the centre of this provincial town in the southeast corner of Iraqi Kurdistan suggests he is right. The normally bustling streets are empty, tradesmen and farmers crammed into teahouses to watch the patchy coverage from Baghdad. But while the trial raises strong feelings, they are by no means uniform.
Some, such as the local notary Hama Kerim (51), describe the Coalition decision to hand Saddam over for trial as the second best day of their lives.
"Nothing can beat the sight of Saddam being dragged out of his hole by US troops," he explains.
"This was a man whose word was enough to prevent us breathing the air around us, a man who called himself the Knight of the Arab peoples, a man who promised to fight the Americans down to his last bullet. We saw him utterly humiliated."
He describes the carnival atmosphere that descended on the town when the trial began last week. Despite warnings from the security forces, young men shot rifles into the air. Others drove through the town hooting their horns, as if it was a wedding.
"I rushed out and bought two dozen chocolate bars and gave them to children in the street", Mr Mohamed says. "I wanted this day to stick in their minds. This is the birth of a new Iraq."
At the vegetable stall a hundred yards down the main road, conversation centres on the punishment that should be meted out to the former dictator and Ali Hasan Majid, nicknamed Chemical Ali, the man who ordered the 1988 gas attacks.
Like the notary, stallholder Jelal Hama (41), feels the accused should be handed over to the town of Halabja for trial.
"We are kind-hearted people," he says. "It wouldn't be a question of execution, merely of getting these men to look into the eyes of those whose lives they have destroyed."
"They should be beheaded," interrupts Abdulrahman Hussein (27). There are murmurs of agreement.
"This trial is just play acting," says Abbas Ahmed (41), a local farmer who lost 16 members of his family during the attacks. He escaped by chance, when the wind blowing gas clouds towards him changed direction.
"If the democracy the Americans have promised us means treating these men humanely, we want nothing to do with it. Revenge plays an important part of Kurdish culture, and we want revenge."
But this bloodthirsty talk is not just the result of the strong passions raised by Saddam Hussein's appearance in the dock. It is also tinged with the wave of anti-American feeling that has swept a region that was Washington's unconditional ally until barely a month ago.
"The Bush government is big on grand gestures, first pulling down Saddam's statue in Baghdad, then stage-managing his trial. They told us they came to Iraq to bring us security and wealth. Why not help build Halabja up to the way it was before 1988?" asks Jelal Hama.
"The US helped this man to power and said nothing while he gassed us," says Shamal Khalaf, (34), a taxi driver. "And they expect us to applaud when they pull him down again."
Mohamed Mustafa has no time for such controversy. The memories raised by the trial are too painful. Just 21 in 1988, and working as an apprentice barber in his father's salon, he remembers getting home shortly before the bombing started to find his mother preparing lunch.
"We heard the planes and rushed down to the basement - me, my parents, my six brothers and two sisters-in-law," he recalls. "But these didn't sound like normal bombs."
His elder brother went up to the street to see what was happening. When he came down again, he was white. "He told us to run for our lives."
The whole family set off for their home village, three kilometres outside the town. Within 200 metres, Mohamed Mustafa's mother and three brothers were dead.
"I was carrying my nephew, Awdir Jamal, who was only six," he says, tears rolling down his cheeks. "He was crying, and I thought he might be hungry, so I handed him to my sister-in-law. Seconds later, she fell down, clawed the ground and stopped moving. "Of my entire family, only me and one brother survived. How can anything that happens today possibly make up for what I have seen?"