The Iraq Memory
Foundation plans to house in a single newly designed and carefully
chosen site in central Baghdad the
following ongoing projects:
-
A Documentation
Project
-
An Oral Histoy
Project
-
A Museum of
Remembrance
-
A Public Outreach
Program
-
A Reseach Program
-
A Liaison and
Coordinating Center
-
Placing the Iraqi
Experience
1. A Documentation Project
expanding and developing the Iraq Research and Documentation Project
(IRDP). Today the main holding of the Iraq Memory Foundation (MF)
consist of the North Iraq Dataset, a collection of 2.4 million pages
of official Iraqi documents captured by Iraqi Kurdish groups during
the 1991 uprising; the Kuwait Dataset, a collection of 750,000 pages
of Iraqi documents captured in Kuwait after its liberation by
Coalition forces in 1991; and the Ba’th Regional Command Collection,
approximately 3.0 million pages gathered from Ba’th Party Regional
Command Headquarters in Baghdad following the fall of Saddam in
2003.
2. An Oral History Project
An Iraqi Oral History on Film Project to film and archive the
in-depth stories of many hundreds of survivors or first-hand
witnesses to atrocity.
3. A Museum of Remembrance
The Iraq Memory Foundation plans a museum of remembrance containing
cultural artifacts, both those produced to legitimate atrocity in
Iraq, and those produced to protest it. The museum will cover what
was done to all of Iraq’s communities, from the anti-Semitism of the
late 1960s and the Anfal operations against Kurdish Iraqis, to the
campaign against the Shi’i Iraqis which culminated in the mass
killings of 1991. The MF will request that the Coalition Provisional
Authority take possession of all major torture instruments captured
by the Coalition, which will be relocated to the MF offices in the
“Crossed Swords” complex.
4. A Public Outreach Program
A Public Outreach Project intended to train elementary and secondary
school teachers, current and future, with methods and materials
designed to help children face what happened in Iraq 1968-2003. This
might be similar in function to the Facing History and Ourselves
curricula.
5. A Research Program
A Research Project linked to the future Iraqi university system
providing trained librarians and a fully indexed archive of first
hand materials to facilitate future research on the 1968-2003
period.
6. A Liaison and Coordinating Center
whose function is to link up with and support Iraqi human
rights-related NGOs. The center would ensure that the works of the
NGOs would have a space to exhibit its activities.
7. Placing the Iraqi Experience
in its global context. While unique in its details, the Iraqi
experience of suffering and oppression is part of a larger history
of pain and injustice at the shared human level. The Iraq Memory
Foundation plans to engage international institutions of similar
mandate in a program of cooperation. The Iraqi public will learn
more of the experiences of other communities, and an international
audience will better understand the Iraqi experience. This
cooperation will take the form of exhibits, publications, and
audio-visual programs.
