Collaboration And Rescue : The role of the Jashes during the Anfal campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan 1988

Abstract: The utilisation of collaboration and collaborationism as a strategy to address the Kurdish question in Iraq and the involvement of the collaborators in the perpetration of mass violence and genocide is a subject that has not been thoroughly investigated.  The objective of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying motivations that drove a specific subset of the Kurdish population to engage in collaboration and collaborationism with the Iraqi regime. Additionally, the study seeks to comprehend the factors that contributed to the behavioural changes within those collaborationists “Jashes”, as they shifted from a collaborative role to assuming a rescue role during the Anfal Campaign.  This study employs the theoretical frameworks of collaboration and collaborationism, as well as altruism and egoism, to analyse data obtained from in-depth interviews with the Jashes. By employing qualitative content analysis, this research could be able to gain insights into the motivations underlying their actions.  This study posits that the collaborative activities observed in southern Kurdistan can be most accurately categorised as collaborationism. The motivations behind participating in these activities were varied, encompassing factors such as evading conscription and punishment, tribal conflict, economic incentives, and internal political disputes within the Kurdish political parties. Moreover, this research contends that the incentives behind behavioural changes within jashes encompassed both egoistic and altruistic motivations.