“Transitional justice” refers to a set of strategies for promoting reconciliation in societies that have been ravaged by conflict and human rights abuses in the recent past. In some cases, however, the political leaders of post-conflict societies choose not to pursue transitional justice, instead preferring to keep the status-quo peace. This essay explores the situation in the Kurdistan region of Iraq after the genocidal Anfal campaign of the late 1980s. The Kurdish political authorities at the time did not use any transitional justice measure against the Kurds who collaborated in the persecution and killing of their fellow Kurds. Instead, they declared a unilateral amnesty for all collaborators, without the consent of the victims’ families. This paper argues that this grant of “blanket amnesty,” which protected the accused from legal liability at the expense of victims’ right to justice, brought neither justice nor peace. Conversely, it negatively affected the process of democratization, rule of law, and social reconciliation in the region. The paper concludes that justice and lasting peace will not be realized in the region if the abuses of the past are left unaddressed.

Towards the end of the decade long Iran–Iraq war, Saddam Hussein launched a deadly attack against the Kurds, known as the Anfal Campaign, killing more than a hundred thousand. One of the largest acts of genocide occurred on 18 March 1988 in the Kurdish city of Halabja. On that day, sweet-smelling poison gas was poured over the city, killing at least five thousand. Since 2001 Kurdish moviemakers have memorialized the tragedy of the Halabja massacre by producing cinematic dramas and narrative documentaries. These films are part of a discourse of authenticity and a politics of culture that permeate the Kurdish independence movement. This essay proposes that Halabja films can be divided into three stages: the era of consolidation, 2000 to 2009; the golden era, 2009 to early 2014; and the fall which followed the fall of Mosul to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Each era reveals new attitudes towards politics, society, and the massacre.