| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"~Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
02 Aug 2005 05:19:20 PM |
| Object: |
"What, a democrat worry?" |
Alliance Internationale pour la Justice
International Alliance for Justice
News service - Crimes against Humanity perpetrated by the regime of
Saddam Hussein - Thursday September 12, 2002
IRAQ
[1] Top 12 Crimes against Humanity perpetrated by the regime of Saddam
Hussein
[2] Iraq : crimes against Humanity - Leaders as Executioners
[3] The deportations of the Fayli Kurds
[4] Financial Times: The Enduring Pain of Halabja: Chemical Weapons
[5] Washington File: Iraqi Regime Devastates Environment of Marsh
Arabs
[6] AIJ - FIDH: Arbitrary arrest and detention - Executions
[7] KTRS: Forced arabization and continuous ethnic cleaning of Kurds,
Turkmen and Assyro - Chaldeans in Iraqi Kurdistan
[8] Kurdish Media: Iran-Iraq war: 22 years since the case of the
hostages in Iraq
[9] Invading Kuwait
[10] Washington Post: Establish an international criminal tribunal to
investigate and prosecute the Iraqi leadership
[1] Top 12 Crimes against Humanity perpetrated by the regime of Saddam
Hussein
. Massive deportations of Feyli Kurds in violation of articles 49 and
147 of the Geneva Convention IV.
. Systematic and deliberate organized policies to destroy all or part
of the Kurdish population of northern Iraq during the Anfal operations in
violation of the Convention on Genocide (1948).
. Use of chemical weapons in several regions, notably in Halabja.
. Crimes against the Environment in Kuwait, in the Kurdish region with
destruction of water springs, of thousands of trees, in southern Iraq with
the drying out of the marshes and the destruction of the whole ecosystem of
that region.
. Attempted destruction of the Arabs of the marshes in southern Iraq
in violation of the Convention on Genocide (1948).
. Inhuman and degrading t reatment, summary and arbitrary executions,
displacements of population in order to attempt to destroy the Shi'a
populations in southern Iraq in violation of article 3 of the Geneva
Convention.
. Systematic use of rape, torture and of summary and arbitrary
executions as instruments of repression in violation of articles 27 and 31
of the Geneva convention IV.
. Forced arabization and continuous ethnic cleaning of Kurds, Turkmen
and Assyro - C h a l d e a n s in Iraqi Kurdistan.
. Invasion of Iran in 1980 in violation of article 24 of the Charter
of the United Nations.
. Violation of the Geneva Protocol (1925) regarding the ban on using
poison gas, nerve gas or any other asphyxiate gas during the Iran-Iraq war.
. Invasion of Kuwait in 1990 in violation of article 24 of the Charter
of the United Nations.
. Rape, torture, arbitrary executions and illegal deportations in
violation of article 147 of the Geneva Convention IV during the occupation
of Kuwait.
[2] Iraq : crimes against Humanity - Leaders as Executioners
Saddam Hussein
President of Iraq since 1979 (Vice President from 1968-79). Dictator
who stops at nothing to preserve personal power and regime survival. After
the 1968 Ba'athist Coup, began his career as Chief of Iraq's security
services.
* Executed opponents and suspected potential rivals, including scores
of high-level government officials and thousands of political prisoners.
* Since the 1970s, escalated and made routine the systematic torture
and execution of political prisoners.
* Ordered the use of chemical weapons against Iranian forces in the
1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and against Iraq's Kurdish population in 1988. The
1980-88 Iran-Iraq war left 150,000 to 340,000 Iraqis and 450,000 to 730,000
Iranians dead.
* Ordered the invasion and destruction of Kuwait in 1990-91 with 1,000
Kuwaitis killed.
* Directed the 1991 bloody suppression of Ku rdish and Shi'a
insurgencies in northern and southern Iraq with at least 30,000 to 60,000
killed.
* Ordered the destruction of southern marshes to extinguish the Shi'a
insurgency.
Qusay Saddam Hussein
Saddam's second son and heir apparent. Oversees all Iraqi intelligence
and security services, the Republican Guard, and the Special Republican
Guard. In 2001, was named Deputy of Ba'ath Party's Military Bureau and
elected member Ba'ath Regional Command.
* Qusay swiftly helps Saddam eliminate any real or perceived threat to
the regime by using bloody and shocking "tools of repression" to blackmail,
force confessions, and destroy opponents.
* Authorizes interrogation, jailing, and execution of political
prisoners and their families.
* Periodically ordered during 1988-99 mass prison executions of
several thousand inmates ("prison cleansing").
* Led crackdown against the al-Dulaym tribe in 1995 and local Shi'a
revolt i n 1997.
Uday Saddam Hussein
Saddam's eldest son, increasingly marginalized in favor of his brother
Qusay. Editor of Babil newspaper and in control of all Iraqi media, National
Assembly member, and Chairman of Iraq's Olympic Committee.
* History of extreme violent behavior including murder, torture, and
rape of women and girls.
* Has tortured and jailed members of Iraq's national Soccer Team for
losing games.
* A leading regime figure in the wholesale looting of Kuwaiti
property.
* Heavily involved in Iraq's smuggling against UN sanctions, and in
illicit financial dealings.
Ali Hasan al-Majid
Presidential adviser and member of the Revolutionary Command Council.
* Known as "Chemical Ali" and "Butcher of Kurdistan" for atrocities in
repressing revolts during the 1987-88 Anfal Campaign.
* Ordered the 1988 use of chemical weapons on Halabjah's Kurdish pop
ulation.
* As Governor of occupied Kuwait in August-November 1990, he
brutalized Kuwait through torture, murder, rape, and wholesale looting.
* As Interior Minister, he coordinated the brutal suppression of the
1991 Shi'a insurgency in Southern Iraq.
Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi
Known as Saddam's "Shi'a thug", he violently suppressed the 1991 Shi'a
uprisings after the Gulf War with tens of thousands killed.
* Featured in Iraqi news video kicking and beating captured Shi'a
dissidents.
* Presided over the destruction of the southern marshes in 1992-98.
* As Commander of Central Euphrates Region from 1998 to 2000,
continued repressing Shi'a political-religious activities and unrests.
* Was relieved in 2001 of positions as Deputy Prime Minister and
member of the Ba'ath Party Regional Command.
Aziz Salih Numan
Ba'ath Party Regional Command member (responsible for the Southern
Office); former Governor of occupied Kuwait, Basrah, Dhi Qar, An Najaf, and
Karbala'.
* According to press reports, ordered the destruction of Shi'a holy
sites while Governor of Karbala' (1977-83) and An Najaf (1983-86).
* As Governor of occupied Kuwait in November 1990-February 1991, he
continued the policy of "reintegrating Iraq's 19th province."
* A career Ba'ath functionary, he rose from low-key provincial
positions thanks to his reputed cruelty, brutal efficiency, and loyalty.
[3] The deportations of the Fayli Kurds
By Ismail Kamandar-Fattah
Writer and representative of the Fayli Kurds in France
July 2002
When one considers the extent of the horrendous crimes committed by
the Iraqi regime, it is rather difficult to single out a particular crime,
how painful it may be for the victims.
The deportation of the Fayli Kurds to Iran represents one of the most
serious violations of the Human Rights attributable to Saddam Hussein's
regime.
It may be useful to recall that the large Southern Kurdish area
between Iran and Iraq has a population of approximately 4,000,000 Shiite
Muslims who speak a specific Kurdish dialect called southern Kurdish. Fayli
Kurds account for approximately half of the population and half the
territories of the greater southern Kurdish areas.& nbsp;
In Iraq, the denomination Fayli Kurd has progressively been used to
identify all of the Shiite Kurds of Iraq living in a region that ranges from
the territories north of the city of Khanaqin, including towns and areas
populated almost exclusively by Fayli Kurds, such as Sa'diyya, Jalawla,
Mandeli, Zurbatiya, Badra, Chaykh Sa'ad, Ali Al Garbi; and towns such as
Al-Hayy, Al No'maniyya and Ali Chardji, all the way south to the outskirts
of Bassorah and the Iranian border, where they account for half of the
population.
There were hundreds of thousands of Fayli Kurds in the cities of
Baghdad, Bassorah and Amara until the deportation that started in 1980.
Between 15 and 20% of Iraqi Kurds were Fayli Kurds.
The first massive wave of deportations took place in 1969, the second
in 1971. An estimated 200,000 people were deported. The third and most
horrendous campaign started in 1980 and involved more than 200,000 people,
mostly Fayli Kurds and som e Shiite Arabs and Persians, who settled
centuries ago in Iraq.
The deported Fayli Kurds came from the areas already mentioned, as
well as from bordering areas in Iran. Part of this population established in
Iraq one or several centuries ago, in other words, before the foundation of
the modern Iraqi state in 1920.
The deportation of Fayli Kurds is one of the major crimes of Saddam's
regime in peacetime. Hundreds of thousands of victims, often of Iraqi
nationality, have been plundered, chased away towards landmine fields or
thrown hopeless out of Iraq. This people, which has been deported to Iran
for over 20 years, has experienced every level in the scale of suffering.
Probably half of this population has left Iran in despair because of
economic or social hardship. Let me remind you that the hundreds of victims
in the shipwreck off Australia's coast a few months ago were mostly victims
of Saddam's deportation campaigns.
Another aspect of the depo rtation of Fayli Kurds, which is a crime
against humanity, is the detention and disappearances of 6000 to 8000 sons
of deportees, as innocent as their parents who don't know what the regime
has done to their children. As this crime was perpetrated, the great
international organisations, and above all the UN, remained silent. We still
request a UN commission of inquiry to investigate the disappearances of
Fayli Kurds.
The tragedy of the Fayli Kurds of Iraq must be analysed in relation to
the confessionalist practices of the Iraqi state that imposed the de facto
domination of the Sunni Arab minority over all key positions in the state
administration. This situation has practically not changed and to some
extent often worsened. In addition to this great injustice, Arab nationalism
developed in the 50's and especially in the 60's with the fascist ideology
of the Baath Party. The first massive deportation campaign of Fayli Kurds
took place in 1969, immediately after the rise to power of the current Iraqi
leaders. It was followed by an even more massive campaign in 1971, as
mentioned earlier.
It is sad to notice that the Iraqi regime has achieved to mislead
large categories of the Iraqi people, including Kurds, by confusing Fayli
Kurds and Iranians or people of Iranian origin, thus making them subject to
deportation at any time according to the confessionalist and racialist
policies of the Iraqi state.
However, you would have to be totally naïve to consider this problem
separately from the massive ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the regime
immediately after it stepped up to power, when it "arabised" vast areas in
the Mossoul and Kirkuk provinces, thus causing the deportation of hundreds
of thousands of Kurds and Turkmens, who were replaced by Arabs. This
strategy of ethnic cleansing was carried out more discreetly in the Southern
Fayli Kurdish-majority areas, such as Khanaqin, Mandeli, Ali Al Garbi, etc.,
even after the conclusio n of the March 11, 1970 Agreement between the
Kurdish movement and the regime, which never stopped its effort to chase the
non-Arab population away from the oil-rich areas, and to outnumber the
Shiite majority in Iraq by bringing in millions of Arab workers (from Egypt,
Morocco, etc.), who are all Sunni Muslims.
In this context, the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Fayli
Kurds was the perfect solution for the double goal pursued by the Iraqi
regime in terms of ethnic and confessional composition of the population of
Iraq. This very high number of deported Faylis must be completed by the
hundreds of thousands of Kurds who were victims of the arabisation campaigns
and who were displaced within the borders of Iraq.
Fayli Kurds have paid a high toll for their double specificity, which
gives them a responsibility that they will keep on facing no matter how high
the price may be.
One of the latest victims of ethnic cleansing is the great Iraqi Kurd
historian Mohammad Jamil Rojbayani, who was assassinated by the regime last
year at the age of 90, after his courageous statements condemning the
arabisation of the Kurdish areas of Khanaqin and Mandeli. As a conclusion, I
would like to pay homage to him, to the hundreds of thousands of victims of
Saddam and to those who fight against his regime.
In my speeches, I have always asked for the creation of an ad hoc
International Criminal Tribunal to prosecute Saddam and his government for
war crimes and crimes against humanity. Once again, in memory of the
hundreds of thousands of Fayli Kurds who were deported or who disappeared,
for the victims of Al Anfal, and for all the other victims of the Iraqi
regime, I repeat my request here today.
[4] The Enduring Pain of Halabja: Chemical Weapons
Financial Times
By Guy Dinmore
July 10, 2002
"We could smell something strange like apples," recalls Aras Abed
Akra. "Down in our shelter we felt short of breath. A soldier went out and
next door he saw that the caged birds of our neighbour were all dead."
Gently prompted by a doctor to relive his experiences as a form of
therapy, Mr Akra slowly describes the events of March 1988, when Iraqi jets
bombed the northern Kurdish town of Halabja, the most devastating poison gas
attack on a civilian population in history.
The first wave of aircraft dropped conventional bombs, sending people
down into basements.
With the next wave came innocent-looking streamers, which, with
hindsight, people realised were dropped to gauge wind speed and directi on.
"We stayed in the shelter until evening, but then I just wanted to
escape," continues Mr Akra, then 22. "We wrapped our faces in wet towels. It
was hard to breathe. One friend became blind immediately w hen he removed
his towel. We got confused and lost, couldn't see more than a metre ahead."
Halabja was singled out for attack because the local Kurdish
population had sided with Iran in the eight-year war with Iraq that began in
1980.
Mr Akra was picked up by the Iranians and, like many other victims,
taken to hospital inside Iran. He returned to Halabja in search of his
family. "I saw over 200 bodies in just 100 metres. There was a terrible
smell from the chemicals and the corpses. I went to the shelter. I first saw
my grandmother. She had swollen up. Then I saw the blackened face of my
mother and I lost consciousness."
Some months later Mr Akra was captured by the Iraq i army and
conscripted. Bitterly, he recalls he was posted to a chemical warfare
administration unit.
Kaveh Golestan, an Iranian photographer, was about 8km outside Halabja
with a military helicopter when the Iraqi MiG-26s flew in. He was in a
village that had already been gassed, empty of people but full of dead
sheep.
The journalists had chemical suits, syringes for drugs to counteract
the effects and masks - except that the filter in the mouthpiece was
missing.
"It was not as big as a nuclear mushroom cloud, but several smaller
ones: thick smoke," says Mr Golestan, winner of a Pulitzer award.
Nervous of being caught in the attack, their pilots flew back to Iran.
They returned the next day. Mr Golestan had seen gas attacks before,
when he was at the frontline, but this was different.
"It was life frozen. Life had sto pped, like watching a film and
suddenly it hangs on one frame. It was a new kind of death to me. You went
into a room, a kitchen and you saw the body of a woman holding a knife where
she had been cutting a carrot.
"The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some
villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging
us to take them to hospital. So all the press sa t there and we were each
handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl's
mouth and she died in my arms."
According to Christine Gosden, a professor of medical genetics at
Liverpool University, the Halabja attack involved a cocktail of chemical
agents, including mustard gas, and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX.
More than 14 years have passed, but still the Kurds of Halabja are
suffering.
Dr Gosden says the occurrences of genetic mutations and cancer in
Halabja "appear comparable with those who were one to two kilometres from
ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
Adil Kerem Fatah, director of the local hospital, is convinced that
higher incidences of cancer and birth defects in the region are linked to
the use of chemical agents, but he is exasperated over the lack of aid for
research or treatment.
Dr Fatah has carried out his own surveys which, he says, show higher
incidences of cancer, especially of the breast and colon, as well as
infertility, congenital birth defects, diseases of the respiratory system
and severe eye problems.
His hospital performed 108 deliveries in April and among them were
four cases of anencephaly, where part of the brain is missing - a rate that
is far higher than the international norm.
The people of Halabja, under the control of autonomous Kurdish
administrations since 1991, find it ironic that the US now condemns Saddam
Hussein's regime as forming part of an "axis of evil".
Back in 1988, the US and much of Europe had tilted heavily towards
Iraq in its war with Iran. There was little international reaction to the
attack, which the Kurds say killed some 5,000 people.
Despite its isolation, Halabja is slowly recovering. Wedged at the end
of a broad valley with marshlands and lakes, the fields are fertile and
shops are full of local produce from soil that has never been thoroughly
tested.
Graveyards, just a jumble of small mou nds marked by jagged rocks, are
disappearing among fields of wheat and barley. Stone houses still lie in
ruins.
Apart from the hospital patients like Mr Akra, seeking treatment for
trauma and physical disorders, the only obvious sign of the tragedy is a
simple memorial on the main road, two prone figures in stone, of a man in a
last futile attempt to shield his grandson.
[5] Iraqi Regime Devastates Environment of Marsh Arabs
Washington File
24 April 2002
By Jim Fuller
Washington -- The marshlands of southern Iraq are a unique part of the
world. The region, lying between the lower reaches of the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers, is where the ancient Sumerians, it is believed, became the
first people to control the flow of rivers by means of dams and irrigation
canals.
The region's current inhabitants, known as the Ma'dan people or Marsh
Arabs, have spent the last 5,000 years subsisting through farming, fishing,
hunting, reed gathering and the grazing of water buffalo.
They live on islands entirely constructed of reeds, using these to
build beautiful, cathedral-like homes in a wetland environment that extends
over an area of about 20,000 square kilometers -- about the size of Lebanon
and Qatar comb ined. The Marshlands are the Middle East's largest wetland
ecosystem.
After the Gulf War ended in 1991, the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein
began an ambitious civil engineering project aimed at deliberately draining
the marshes to permit military access and greater political control of the
Marsh Arabs. Iraq's Sunni government is attempting to weaken the Marsh Arabs
because they are Shiite Muslims. The systematic draining of the land
followed a 1991 uprising by Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq that was
immediately crushed by Iraqi forces.
Various international organizations monitoring the situation in
southern Iraq, such as the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the International
Wildfowl and Wetlands Research Bureau, and Middle East Watch, have found
evidence indicating that the Iraqi government has been attempting to force
the Marsh Arabs from their southern wetland settlements by literally
draining the life from Iraq's marshes.
According to a report released last February by the AMAR International
Charitable Foundation -- a non-governmental organization set up in 1991 in
response to the plight of the Marsh Arabs -- the draining of the marshes has
led to the destruction of the Marsh Arabs' self-sufficient economy, the
near-complete atrophy of the entire ecosystem, and the flight of tens of
thousands of refugees, including 95,000 to a camp in Iran.
The AMAR Appeal (which stands for "Assisting Marsh Arabs and
Refugees") maintains a web site at www.amarappeal.com, which contains
documentation of the environmental devastation occurring in the Iraqi
marshes. AMAR Executive Director Peter Clark said in an interview
April 23 that the key findings of the report, entitled "The Iraqi
Marshlands: A Human and Environmental Study," are based on satellite photos
spanning over two decades. The findings demonstrate how the government 's
practice of draining the marshes through a series of dams and irrigation
works has devastated both the environment and the way of life of the marsh
dwellers -- the marshes themselves being reduced to 15 percent of what they
once were.
Clark concludes that because the marsh dwellers have no sustainable
way of life to which they can return, they represent some of the most
desperate and overlooked victims of Saddam's regime.
Clark said the AMAR report, which is due to be published as a book in
June, and a three-day conference to be held in May 2001 are part of an
effort to promote the human rights of the Marsh Arabs and Iraqi
refugees.
"We have been delivering essential medical and educational services to
Iraqi refugees in Iran over the last 10 years," Clark said. He said AMAR has
received funding for its humanitarian projects from the United States and
Kuwait, as well as private organizations. He als o said AMAR has been in
contact with international experts to explore the feasibility of restoring a
large portion of the Marshlands.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, European Parliamentary Rapporteur
on Iraq and AMAR president, told a conference in London last May that the
draining of the southern Iraqi marshes was "a humanitarian and
cultural catastrophe as much as an ecological one."
"One of the oldest natural habitats in the world has been
systematically destroyed for political reasons and its inhabitants either
killed or sent into exile," she said.
The United Nations, which has been attempting to monitor the
situation, has passed only one piece of legislation applying to the
Marshlands situation. U.N. resolution 688, passed in April 1991, calls on
the Iraqi government to provide free access to U.N. and non-governmental
humanitarian agencies to all parts of the marshes so that essential aid can
be provided.
In January 1995, the European parliament passed a resolution
characterizing the Marsh Arabs as a persecuted minority "whose very survival
is threatened by the Iraqi government." The resolution described the
government's treatment of the marsh inhabitants as "genocide."
In March 1995, the U.N. Human Rights Commission passed a resolution
calling for an end to military operations and efforts to drain the Iraqi
marshes.
According to a U.N. report, from December 4, 1991 to January 18, 1992
"military attacks were launched against the Marsh Arabs ... resulting in
hundreds of deaths. Animal and bird life was said to have been killed in
large numbers, while the marsh waters themselves were allegedly filled with
toxic chemicals."
AMAR reports that during that two-month period, the Iraqi army had
encircled the region and tightened control over food supplies coming into
the a rea. Iraqi army records showed that more than 50,000 people
were removed and 70 marsh villages were destroyed.
According to AMAR, in September 1994, "military forces used incendiary
bombs and launched an armored attack against the area of Al Seigel in the Al
Amara marshes," home to the Ma'dan people near the confluence
of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The army later set fire to the
entire area. The 1994 military operations caused an undetermined number of
civilian casualties, and forced more than 10,000 refugees from the marshes
to flee to Iran.
A report released on September 13, 1999, by the U.S. Department of
State, entitled "Saddam Hussein's Iraq,"
(http://www.usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/iraq99.htm) states: "In the
southern marshes, government forces have burned houses and fields,
demolished houses with bulldozers, and undertaken a delibera te campaign to
drain and poison the marshes. Villages belonging to the al Juwaibiri, al
Shumaish, al Musa and al Rahma tribes were entirely destroyed and the
inhabitants forcibly expelled. Government troops expelled the population in
other areas at gunpoint and also forced them to relocate by cutting off
their water supply."
AMAR reports that there have been schemes for draining the marshlands
throughout the 20th century. However, while drainage plans drawn up by
British companies in the 1940s and 1970s were linked to irrigation and
cultivation projects, the massive water diversion efforts undertaken by the
Iraqi regime over the last decade were aimed at destroying the environment
of the marsh dwellers.
According to AMAR, another motive for the drainage is related to
Iraq's negotiations since 1991 with several international oil companies for
the prospective development of southern oil fields in close proximity to the
marshes.
The AMAR reports provide satellite imagery that shows the draining of
the marshes increased sharply in 1991-1992. Compared to the mid-1980s, when
initial marsh drainage projects were conducted to reclaim
agricultural land, "the amount of land drained (by 1992) had
quadrupled to approximately 367,000 hectares," the report said.
It notes that within the central Marshland area, a large, formerly
permanent lake, Haur Zikri, appeared on satellite imagery to be "desiccated
and covered with a salt crust." The most easterly of the central marshes, Al
Azair and Al Jazair, had been completely reclaimed.
According to reports from various international organizations, the
Iraqi government by 1993 was able to prevent water from reaching two-thirds
of the Marshlands; the flow of the Euphrates River had been
almost entirely diverted to the so-called Third River Canal, bypassing
most of the marshes; and the flow of th e Tigris River had been channeled
into tributary rivers, their artificially high banks prohibiting water from
seeping into the Marshlands.
AMAR reports that this has had disastrous ecological, social and human
consequences for the region. The sparse water remaining has contributed to
the salinization of the land. Crops are being destroyed, as well as the land
and the marshes themselves. Humans are being displaced. The future for
wildlife in the region also looks bleak. The marshes are home to fish and
migratory birds from western Eurasia such as pelicans, herons and flamingos.
Without fresh water, the ecosystem will easily become damaged.
U.S. government analysts have estimated that more than 200,000 of the
250,000 former inhabitants of the marshes have been driven from the area
since 1991. Experts report that if the marshes continue to be drained at the
current rate, they will probably cease to exist in another 50 years.
[6] Arbitrary arrest and detention - Executions
Iraq : an intolerable, forgotten and unpunished repression
Alliance Internationale pour la Justice - Fédération Internationale
des Droits de l'Homme
July 2001
Arrests can occur at any time of day or night and in any location, but
usually at the victim's home.
Arrests take place on a large scale throughout the country.
Typical conditions of arrest reported to us by the witnesses are as
follows:
- there is no ground for the arrest;
- the families are not informed of the arrest or are only aware
because members of the family were present when their
relative was abducted;
- the place of detention is almost always secret;
- most detainees cannot receive visits from their families.
Arrests are made by:
- the General Security Directorate,
- the military securit y services,
- the military intelligence services,
- the Ba'th Party militia,
- the Fidayi Saddam,
- the Mukhabarat (secret service).
The reasons given by the regime for arresting and detaining people, if
any, are often vague. It is always difficult for the families to obtain
information. The witnesses we spoke to took every precaution so that nothing
they said could be traced back to them, for fear of reprisals against their
families.
However, based on the testimonies of the witnesses we met, we can cite
the following reasons for arrest:
- A family connection with a person who is sought by the authorities,
who has been arrested or who has left the country;
- A connection with Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq Sadr or the networks or
associations that supported him (see paragraph above on the death of the
Ayatollah and its consequences);
- Direct or indirect participation in the uprising of the provinces in
March 1991;< BR>- Suspicion that a person does not fully support the regime,
or criticism of the regime or of a member of Saddam Hussein's family,
particularly by army officers;
- Any act or spoken or written word displeasing to the members of the
security services or Saddam Hussein's family;
- Membership of "the opposition";
- Refusal to register as an Arab in the Kurdish regions of Kirkuk,
Khanaqin and Sinjar.
Men and women are arrested and detained for long periods:
- without being informed of the charges against them ;
- without appearing before a judge ;
- without access to a lawyer.
Torture is systematic and after a person is released, he or she is
often harassed and arrested several more times, or tortured or executed if
he or she refuses to act as an informer. An arrest is usually the start of a
vicious circle of repression, from which the victims and their families have
no choice but to flee.
After an arrest, the families are constantly intimidated: other family
members are arrested and beaten, their ration cards are taken away, their
possessions are confiscated, they are banned from enrolling in university or
expelled from school, "disappeared", etc..
Minors are also arrested and detained simply because they are related
to an arrested person, especially when he or she is a suspected member of
the opposition.
Number and power of security services
One witness lived in Al Amara in Maysan province (south-east Iraq).
The circumstances of his arrest give some idea of the large number of people
employed by the various intelligence and security services and the
surprising speed and violence of their actions: "I was outside my door with
some friends when someone who said he knew me, a dark-haired man of about
twenty wearing a dishdasha came up to talk to me, keeping an eye on a white
Land Cruiser driving up at speed, full of me mbers of the special forces who
ran towards me shouting, with guns in their hands. At the same time a white
1980s Toyota turned up and a fat lieutenant got out pointing his gun and
using a walkie-talkie, with a policeman by his side. My friends were
searched and two of them were taken away, including a boy of fourteen who
was later released."
Arrests of family members
Another witness spoken to in Amman reported how the arrest and
conviction of his father, an army officer, caused continued general
punishment of the whole family: "My father, an intelligence officer, was
arrested on 28 March 2000. After ten days with no news of him, my brother
and I were called in by members of the general security forces who
questioned us separately about our father, punching and slapping us about
for ten days, and then let us go. Then an officer friend of ours came to
tell my mother to save her children because Qusay was going to execute us.
My brother Faher, born in 1973, disappeared one day. I don't know if they
kidnapped him or if he escaped. On 28 June 2000, my mother was told that my
father had been executed. An escapee-smuggler brought me across to Syria."
Belonging to an opposition party
A number of witnesses say that they were arrested for belonging to an
opposition party. They only saved their skins because their families paid
large amounts to various middlemen. One of the witnesses, accused of
belonging to the Islamist party Al Daawa, was imprisoned from 1993 to 1995,
and from 1999 to 2000. He was arrested on 4 April 1999 and sentenced in May
2000.
The other, from Al Fouhoud, was arrested for the same reason in 1979
when he was 17, and then again in 1982. He was sentenced to life
imprisonment and released after ten years.
Arrest of minors
A woman from Najaf, whose husband was executed for refusing to preach
in favour of the war against Iran, said that her two children, aged eleven
and thirteen, were imprisoned for three and six months. She had to pay to
get them released. Another witness says, "In 1999, while I was under arrest
in Abu Ghreb, I saw a group of women brought into prison with children of
between three and five. It became standard practice to arrest women and
children to put pressure on husbands, brothers and fathers. They were kept
for one to three months and released only if they confessed. Often the
children caught scabies." A witness living in Damascus said, "In 1987, I saw
three Kurdish children at the revolutionary court in Abu Ghreb. They were
less than seventeen and I don't know their names. I think they were
sentenced to death, because when the court pronounced the death sentence,
the prisoners would be taken away without being seen again."
Another witness said, "We children were between four and twelve in
1981 when we were taken to prison with my mother and my aun t. I can
remember the hunger I felt. When we ran to embrace my mother, who had
instruments on either side of her head and was screaming, we felt pain
because she was full of electric current."
Uprising in the provinces in 1991
One witness said: "In November 1991, I was an army driver working
between Kuwait and Basra, and I was in Basra the day of the popular uprising
in March 1991. My cousins took part in the revolt. But my brother and I
didn't. My cousins were executed and their bodies were returned to the
family. Three and half or four months later, the security people raided our
house." After being arrested and tortured, he was never brought to court.
"One of my uncles paid to get me out. My brother disappeared."
The popular uprising in 1991 was like an abscess for Saddam Hussein.
His reaction took the form of seeking to systematically destroy the least
sign of opposition and methodically purging any person in these provinces w
ho had anything, however slight, to do with the revolt.
In Amman, one witness said, "We were three children out of ten to be
arrested in Nasiriya in 1991. I paid to get out. I was arrested again in
1998 and held for four days, and then, 48 hours later, I was called in again
for further questioning and held for four months and tortured. I was
arrested again with some other young men, three months later, after the
death of a Ba'th party official in Nasiriya. After three and a half months,
one of the young men admitted committing the murder. I was then released."
Arrests for "unpleasant" behaviour
Every Iraqi is obliged to demonstrate their allegiance and submission
to the regime and its representatives, particularly close members of Saddam
Hussein's family. The President's close family runs the country and any deed
or word that implies that a person does not totally submit to the regime
exposes the suspect to an uninterrupted series of repressive ac ts.
"I am a specialist in classical Arab music and I used to play at
private evenings organised by the elite. One evening Hachem Hassan Al Mejid
was present, a cousin of Saddam Hussein. He asked the group to come twice a
week to the house where he was that evening. The first Thursday in July
2000, there was an incident. Namir Daham El Hassem, Saddam Hussein's nephew,
ordered a musician to stand up to sing, although this is not the tradition
in Arab music. The singer stood up but the nephew went on insulting and
attacking him. The man and his personal guard then struck and slapped us. We
were taken off in a car at three or four in the morning. We were held for
three days in an abandoned house, the guards gave us their leftovers to eat
after beating us up with electric batons, insulting, humiliating and kicking
us. They dumped us beside a road. Five days later I rang home. My wife said,
'Don't come here, whatever you do.' I didn't understand. I could see no w ay
of defending myself and I was discovering a terrifying world. My family was
deprived of ration cards and I was ordered to fetch the cards myself. If you
refuse to obey the armed forces for any reason, the kidnappings, arrests,
disappearances and executions start and you never know when it will end."
EXECUTIONS
The mission wishes to stress the extent of executions in Iraq. During
our eight-day mission, a non-exhaustive list of 89 persons executed was
given to us by the witnesses questioned, the vast majority of whom spoke of
executions. Despite the reports and information15 produced, particularly
concerning the prison clean-out operation, no effective international action
has been taken to put an end to this phenomenon, which continues both within
prisons and outside, as demonstrated by the beheading of women accused of
prostitution.
Prison clean-out operation
A number of disturbin g reports since autumn 1997 have referred to a
so-called "prison clean-out" campaign, which is reported to have resulted in
the execution of 2,500 prisoners by the end of 1998. A former Mukhabarat
officer who defected, Khalid Sajit Al Janabi, described the visit to Abu
Ghreb of Qusay and the order that same day to execute 2,000 persons in that
prison. This was the massive, continuous and systematic elimination of
prisoners and political detainees sentenced to death or more than 15 years'
imprisonment.
Some observers believe that one reason for this campaign was the
allegedly "excessive" cost of so many prisoners. This clean-out apparently
occurs whenever the number of prisoners becomes too great.
Other executions
Witnesses' statements report executions from the 1980s until 2001. All
of them mention the execution of members of their families, sometimes from
one generation to another (grandfather, father, husband , son), or of people
they knew. Executions are numerous and systematic, particularly of all those
who "admit" having taking part in an act of subversion or being an opponent
of the regime.
One witness, imprisoned in Radhwaniyah for a number of years after
1991, reports, "We were four being interrogated: those who said, 'Yes, we
took part in the rising of the provinces in 1991', I never saw again. The
officials of the tripartite committee, made up of members of the special
security forces, the Mukhabarat and Saddam's Fidayi, would come twice or
three times a week, or once, or every ten days, and summon someone or other
for execution. One of my uncles paid to get me out. When I was called, I
said a prayer, because I thought they were going to execute me."
Death sentences are issued on the spot and are not subject to appeal,
except to Saddam Hussein. A large number of executions follow death
sentences issued according to the laws and decrees of the Revolutionary
Command Council. Sometimes, if a large sum of money is paid, the family
manages to save the prisoner's life and get the death sentence commuted to
life imprisonment. It would also appear that most of the executions are
extra-judicial, especially those of people who took part in the 1991
uprising.
"My cousins took part in the 1991 revolt; they were arrested in Basra
in November 1991 and both were executed two months later."
One man held from 1993 to 1995 and from 1999 to 2000 showed the marks
of bullet wounds he received when Qusay came to the Abu Ghreb prison and his
guards fired on the prisoners. "It happened after a hunger strike by
prisoners protesting about conditions. Following this mutiny there were
executions, many of them: 200 to 350 prisoners were executed in Abu Ghreb in
August 1994. There were always executions on Sundays and Wednesdays, ten to
fifteen each time. The bodies were buried in a deserted place to the east of
Baghdad, near Hamadi and Ramadi. It is an unofficial cemetery that looks
like a common grave."
The bodies are rarely returned to the families, and are buried at
night. This is current practice in Iraq. If the family manages to recover
the body, they have to pay the cost of the execution and the price of the
bullets. Mourning and mourning ceremonies are forbidden, and the burials
often take place with only a few family members surrounded by members of the
security forces. One witness reports that prisoners are taken to the Karada
hospital in Baghdad for their kidneys and eyes to be removed and sold for
transplantation.
One woman, who left Baghdad in mid-1999, reports, "When someone is
executed, the families are not allowed to weep, or mourn, as happened for my
cousin. When I was visiting my brother in prison, I saw a woman tearing her
hair. A taxi was leaving with the bodies of her father, her two brothe rs
and her cousin. You are not allowed to show any reaction when someone dies.
It is forbidden to weep. The male relatives cover their faces so as not to
show any reaction and tell their womenfolk not to weep or they will beat
them. My brother was afraid of the executions, because in the morning he
could hear the cries of those who were going to be executed. Then, if the
families wanted to recover the bodies, they had to pay 5,000-6,000 Iraqi
dinars."
"In Iraq, not a day passes without us hearing that someone from a
family we know has been executed. For example, my neighbour's son was shot
outside her house and no one could save him. When he died, the special
security forces came and asked her to pay 50,000 Iraqi dinars per bullet to
be able to recover the body. She sold everything she had and paid to be able
to bury him, on her own, with two police cars accompanying her, and the
police buried him. Three days later they came to demolish her house and she
was left on the street with her three daughters. I saw that with my own
eyes."
[7] Forced arabization and continuous ethnic cleaning of Kurds,
Turkmen and Assyro - C haldeans in Iraqi Kurdistan
Kirkuk Trust for Research and Studies
By Nouri Talabany - Professor of Law, Director
July 2002
The Iraqi regime's policy of the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds began
in 1963 and became much harsher in 1968. In the mid-eighties it directed
this policy against the Turkmans. The Chaldean/Assyrians and Armenians were
simply considered as Arabs!
After the nationalisation of the IPC in June 1971, the regime changed
the historic name of Kirkuk to 'Al-Tamim', meaning "nationalisation". In
1976 it also reduced the area of the governorate by annexing four Kurdish
districts to the neighbouring governorates, thus making the Kurds a minority
in the Kirkuk governorate. Where the regime was unable to settle Arabs, it
destroyed all the Kurdish villages and forced their inhabitants into
concentration camps. The Anfal operations of 1988 claimed the lives of
about 182,000 Kurdish civilians, most of whom were from the Kirkuk region.
Since the villagers in that region lived far from international borders,
they were unable to reach them and so surrendered to the army and secret
services and were later sent to the south of Iraq where they were massacred.
By the end of the eighties, Kirkuk city had lost its historic
character as the Arab settlers had become dominant and were ruling the city
and its administration, and security and the army were all under their
control. Most of the best agricultural land was given to them. It was
plain to everyone that people from outside the area were in charge and that
the original inhabitants had become strangers in their own city.
This state of affairs continued until the Gulf War in 1991. After the
Iraqi regime's defeat in Kuwait, Ali Hassan Al Majid, then Minister of
Defence took many measures in the city to preserve the status quo. For
example, he arrested more than 30,000 Kurds and held them for several days
in confined spaces, without water or food, as a result of which many of the
elderly and sick died. He also ordered the destruction of a number of
Kurdish sectors of the city. After fierce fighting, the city was taken by
the Kurds on 21st March 1991. During three days of street battles, many
Kurdish civilians, among them women and children, were killed in the
bombardment by Iraqi artillery and helicopter gunships.
Because of Kirkuk's strategic importance to the regime, determined
efforts were made to re-occupy it with the collaboration of the "Mujahidin
Khalk", a group from the Iranian opposition supported by Saddam Hussein,
whose members act as mercenaries for him. Some of these mercenaries
succeeded in entering the city by disguising themsel ves as Peshmarga. From
the 27th to the 29th March, Kirkuk was subjected to such an intense
bombardment that its inhabitants were forced to evacuate the city, leaving
behind their possessions, which were looted by the Iraqi army and the Arab
settlers who returned with military help.
Most of the Kurds and Turkmans forced to leave Kirkuk were unable to
return for fear of arrest. It can be said that the collapse of the uprising
of March 1991 was a further reason for many Kurds and Turkmans leaving their
city. Those who did return, especially the young people, faced intimidation
and arrest.
During negotiations between the Iraqi regime and representatives of
the Kurds, the regime agreed to allow the citizens of Kirkuk to return to
their homes, but this promise was only partially honoured. After the
collapse of the negotiations, and especially after the withdrawal of the
Iraqi administration from three governorates of K urdistan in September
1991, the Kurds in Kirkuk became the target of a renewed reign of terror
which intensified during the years from 1994 to 1996 and was particularly
severe at the beginning of 1997 during the preparations for a new census.
Even after the census of 1997 the Iraqi regime continued its policy of
expulsion and the methods used by it exceeded even those used during the
apartheid era in South Africa. On the 6th September 2001 the Iraqi
Revolutionary Command Council - which ranks higher than the so-called Iraqi
Parliament- passed Resolution No.199 giving all non-Arab Iraqis over 18 the
right to change their ethnic identity to that of Arab. Such a decision is
contrary to all the principles of human rights and is politically motivated.
Its purpose is to compel all non-Arabs in Iraq to adopt an Arab ethnic
identity. This law legalizes the regime's policy of ethnic cleansing
directed against all Kurds, Turkmans and Assyro-Chaldeans. This law is in
direct violation even of the Article 19/A of the Iraqi Provisional
Constitution of 1970 which states that all Iraqis are equal, regardless of
ethnic language, religion or social class. Furthermore, Article 5/B of that
Constitution states that the people of Iraq is composed of two main ethnic
groups, Arab and Kurds, and recognizes the rights of the Kurds and other
minorities. The Kurds and others were issued with official forms on which
they were required to declare that they had been wrongly registered as
non-Arabs in previous censuses. They were told that anyone refusing to sign
these forms would be expelled from the city and, in this way, the regime
ensured that thousands of Kurds were expelled from Kirkuk. In a public
declaration Izzat Ibrahim, the vice-president and responsible for
arabization in Kirkuk, said that no non-Arab would be permitted to remain in
Kirkuk.
To date, more than 120,000 people have been expelled from the ar eas
under the control of the regime, especially from Kirkuk. Most of those
expelled people are now living in camps in appalling conditions and are
dependent on aid from international relief organisations. As a result of
their continuing misery, some of them, especially the young people, try to
make their way to Europe illegally and many lose their money, and sometimes
their lives, before arriving there. Sadly, the international community
still ignores the plight of these people. It puts no pressure on the Iraqi
regime to halt this racist policy which is completely contrary to Security
Council Resolution No. 688 of 1991 and against all those international
documents to which, as a member of the UN and its organisations, Iraq is a
signatory. Meanwhile, the majority of the Iraqi opposition still refuses to
condemn the regime's policy which endangers co-existence between Kurds and
Arabs in Iraq and which will probably lead to the disintegration of the I
raqi state.
From the Iraqi regime's ability to continue expelling the people of
Kirkuk from their homes in flagrant violation of international law and
Resolution No.688 which condemns this policy, it is obvious that it will not
stop unless forced to do so by the resolve of the international community.
On May 26th 2002 the European Parliament adopted by a large majority, the
resolutions and the report entitled 'The situation in Iraq, eleven years
after the Gulf War' which condemns 'the arbization policy and ethnic
cleansing in the Kirkuk, Sinjar, Mandali, Jalawla and Mosul regions which
led to the internal displacement of several hundred thousand people'. We
greatly appreciate this document.
In mid-April I visited the camps of Barda-Qaraman and Benaslawa built
in the liberated part of Kurdistan for the expelled Kurds from the city of
Kirkuk and other parts of Kurdistan remaining under the control of the Iraqi
regime Most of them told me that they were given the choice of displacement
or the enforced change of ethnic identity. All their belongings were
confiscated before their expulsion and even their identity cards were taken
from them so as to deny them proof that they are from that region. During
my visit to these camps, I witnessed the misery and abject poverty in which
these people are forced to live. The only protection from the elements is
flimsy nylon tents; they have to walk long distances to reach the only water
supply and they have no medical facilities. In these circumstances there is
the ever-present risk of disease, in particular among the children and
elderly who are malnourished, depressed and increasing withdrawn. In the
camp of Benaslawa I met survivors of the Anfal, and one woman I met had lost
eleven members of her family and she lives in the vain hope of seeing them
again. They all have harrowing stories to tell and their situation is eve n
worse than that of the displaced people. They are suffering physically and
mentally and most of them find themselves alone in the world with no
relatives to support and care for them. The survivors of Anfal also should
be compensated from the revenue from the Oil for Food Programme. It is also
time that all documents concerning the Anfal operations and other crimes
committed by the Iraqi regime be prepared to be used as evidence to bring
the perpetrators of these crimes to justice before an International
Tribunal.
All those expelled Kurds, Turkmans and Chaldo-Assyrians must be able
to return to their homes and the Arab settlers be sent back to the parts of
Iraq from which they came originally. This will only happen when the
Kurdistan region which remains under the control of the regime, especially
Kirkuk, comes under the control of the international community until Saddam
Hussein's regime ends an d democracy is established in Iraq. This would
provide the only guarantee of protection for the civilian population there.
The request for this was made on 29th December 2000 by 122 Kurdish civil
organisations and political parties, both inside and outside Kurdistan,
supported by several organisations and public figures in Europe, in a
memorandum presented to the Security Council, other international
organisations and western states. The memorandum also stressed that such a
measure would contribute "to the establishing of peace and security in the
otherwise turbulent Middle East".
[8] Iran-Iraq war: 22 years since the case of the hostages in Iraq
KurdishMedia
By Dr Kamal Ketuly
September 11, 2002
The relatives of the hostages they are continuing and still demanding
the Iraqi Government to issue an official decree for the release of the
detained hostages and give them the freedom to join their families wherever
they are and also to lift the sanction on their properties and to compensate
for what they have lost through the deportation operations which has taken
place between the period of 1980-1990 and to give them back their Iraqi
nationality documents and to allow them to go back to their country of
origin which is Iraq. It is also important to declare the fate of the
disappeared ones among these detainees.
This case concerns the fate of more than 4,000 young Iraqis (including
young females and children of different ages). The Iraqi authorities have
detained them and took them as hostages during the deportation of their
families from their country Iraq to Iran.
The deportation operations of these Iraqi citizens has started on 4th
April 1980 and the families were deported after the confiscation of all
their belongings and their personal identity documents (their Iraqi
nationality documents, Iraqi civil document, Iraqi certificate of
naturalization document, military service document, driving licence,
certificate for import/export in the case of businessmen, certificate of
industrial projects for the engineers, house and property title deeds, the
school/colleges/university certificates etc.).
This top secret decision of the deportation and hostage taking has
been taken by the highest authority in Iraq and by direct order from
President Saddam Hussein. They considered certain sectors of the Iraqi
society (Fayl ee Kurds, Persian and some Arabs) as being of Iranian origin,
in spite of the fact that these people and their ancestors have been born on
Iraqi soil. Many of these families their origin extends to well before the
appearance of the Islamic civilization in the region. It t hen transpired
that the main purpose of this policy was for the Iraqi regime to prepare for
their invasion into Iran, which has started on September 1980.
The number of the Iraqi deportees to Iran during 4th April 1980 until
19th May 1990 has been estimated at around 1 million and this is according
to the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. The deportation has taken place in a
form of the entire family and this is including elderly, children, pregnant
women and handicapped people of different ages. The deportations have taken
place in inhumane form and without any pre-warning. These families have been
forced to walk for days on their feet during the severe winter and snow and
through the Iraq /Iran border, without them being given any food or water.
Some of these family members have died in the road during their journey and
some have been killed by landmine and others have been robbed. Many of these
deportees have managed then to leave Iran at different periods and have
applied fo r asylum in mainly European countries as well as other countries
around the globe and the remaining ones in Iran have been scattered
throughout different cities in Iran and especially the ones bordering the
Iraqi border and some have been kept until now in refugee camps.
These deportees' families they were in the middle of the eight year
war between Iraq and Iran. Many of them have been killed through the Iraqi
strikes on the Iranian cities with various weapons and artillery and some by
chemical weapons. Many of the remainder of these refugees in Iran lives in
poverty because of hardship to find suitable employment and a lot of them by
now have become aged and their o nly hope is for donations from charitable
people and charitable organizations.
The other problem for these deportees in Iran is that the Iranian
government until now do not consider them as refugees or give them Iranian
citizenship or papers, they have not been given any form of work permit or
to be able to buy or sell officially. But the Iranian government has issued
them with an identity card (the green card) and this card states that this
person is from Iraqi origin and he is not permitted to use this card for any
official dealings by buying or selling or owning property in the country.
The main hope for these deported families and until now is for them to
know the fate of their families who have been detained by the Iraqi
government as hostages that they will be released and for them to be able to
go back to their homes and jobs in Iraq and to reinstate their Iraqi
citizenship and their livelihood.
The detention of the young Iraqi nationals who came from all over the
cities, towns and villages of Iraq and their separation from their deported
families have started from 4th April 1980. In the first six months, the
estimated number of the detainees was about 20,000 hostages and their number
increased when more people were being deported from these families to Iran.
M any of these detainees were either military officials or they were doing
their national service. The Iraqi military rule states that no non- Iraqi
citizen is allowed to serve in the army!
The detained youths who were serving at the military have initially
been taken to military detention barracks in which they were serving. Then
they were transferred to Al-Harathia military barracks which were situated
in the west of Baghdad and after one week they were transferred to prison
no. 1 at Al-Rasheed military barracks which is situated in the south of
Baghdad and they were detained there for man y months until the decree came
out to release the detainees from other origin except the ones from Iranian
origin.
After one month of this decree then they issued another decree to
release the Christian detainees and even if they were of Iranian origin.
While the Muslim detainees they have been detained under the accusation of
them to be of Iranian origin. Some high Iraqi military of ficials have
visited them at the military prison no. 1 of Al-Rasheed barracks and they
told the detainees 'you are our brothers and our sons and the reason we are
detaining you is because we care for you and we do not want to give chance
for the Iranian agents to mix with you and brainwash you against your
country Iraq and after a short while we will release you and you must
consider yourself here as our guests.'.
Then they have been transferred to the military prisons of the
Ministry of Defence in Baghdad and they have spent a few weeks there and f
aced a lot of insults and humiliation. They were then transferred to the
Central Iraqi Civilian Security Services in Baghdad. At this place they have
officially accused them of being of Iranian origin and they have ordered
them to take off their military uniforms which they were wearing throughout
the period of detention. Then they have transferred them as civilians to the
Central Abu-Ghraib prison at the heavy sentence section of the prison. This
prison is situated in Abu-Ghraib area northwest of Baghdad. During these
transfer from the various prisons the detainees were forced to fill in long
forms which contained a lot of questions.
While the civilian detainees initially they were detained with their
families at Al-Fathailyah prison which is situated at the Fathailyah area in
east of Baghdad. This place and the Iraqi national football stadium in
Baghdad were transit centers for the deportees. Other groups of the
deportees were detained in the houses of t he previous deportees that many
of these deportees' houses were transferred into prisons. At these prisons
the younger members of the families have been separated and divided into 2
groups according to their age. At anyone aged between 16-40 years have been
handcuffed and transferred to the central security prisons in Baghdad. While
the ones under 16 years have been transferred to the juvenile prisons which
is located in the east of Baghdad.
T he remaining families have been kept in the above prisons in Baghdad
and these places have become over-crowded with the families awaiting their
deportation. There was no health care or regular diet and especially for the
infants, there was no milk provided. Every day they were facing humiliation
and insults from the prison guards. They have been kept in these prisons
under these conditions for a few months until their turn comes for
deportation to Iran.
The detainees in Abu-Ghraib prison h ave been distributed into section
7 and its annex and section 8 of this prison. Each section consisted of 20
cells. The area for each cell was 4 x 5m2 and in each cell there was one
toilet and there was no windows apart from a very small vent open to the
outside. Every morning the detainees were taken outside to the prison
courtyard for one hour and for the first few months the detainees were not
allowed any visitors.
Then some of these civilian detainees were released and deported t o
Iran. This has continued until the time of the strike which the detainees in
Abu Ghraib prison have started in protest against their detention and the
bad treatment for them, especially when one of the civilian detainees Mr.
Hassan Haddad has become ill with a serious stomach illness and he was not
allowed to go to hospital and he has not received any medical treatment. He
then died in his cell at 6pm on 30th April 1981.
This incident has inflamed and angered the rest of the detainees and
they have managed to break the metal barriers of their cells and go out to
the passages and then to the main court of Abu Ghraib prison and they faced
violent and bloody attacks from the prison guards. Then the detainees were
shouting and demanding to meet any high official of Saddam Hussain's
government to know about their fate. That same night around 2.30am a
helicopter has landed at the prison and heavily armed republican guards came
out of it with video cameras and among them appeared Barzan Al-Takriti the
half-brother of Saddam Hussain. He initially tried to calm the situation and
to negotiate with them. He told them he understood their situation and they
were ready to improve the detention conditions and to fulfil all your
demands except 2 things:
Firstly that we are not going to deport you to Iran that you will be
able to join your deported families
Secondly we cannot release you at the present time because your
release from here will depend on the end of the Iraq/Iran war. You will be
released as soon as this war finishes. This is a decision taken by the
highest authority in Iraq (Saddam Hussain). Then the detainees have replied
to him that we do not need anything from you except to release us and give
us back our freedom because we are not criminals and we have not committed
any crime and there is no legal case against us. If you consider us Iraqis
therefore release us and we are ready to go back to serve in the national
service and go back to the front line to defend our country Iraq. If you
consider us Iranian origin or Iranians then send us to Iran and let us to
join with the rest of our deported families there. Then Barzan Al-Takriti
answered them and stated 'that this is an impossible demand and I would like
to confirm and explain one point for you that if any of you want to stay
alive and see your family again then you must keep quiet and go back to your
prison cells and the ones who do not obey this order will die like dogs'.
The detainees shouted 'this is the top of oppression against us and we
totally reject it.' Then Barzan Takriti ordered his republican guards to
force the detainees back into their prison cells by using force and then a
fight broke out and Barzan Takriti ordered his guards to use fire arms and
teargas weapons and then he cut the water and electricity power from them.
This has continued until 5am and the detainees were forced to go back to
their prison cells after many of them received serious i njuries and were in
a total misery.
After this incident the treatment of the detainees has become worse
and less humane. They reduced their food ration and they reduced the time
for them to go outside for fresh air and they closed even the small vent in
each prison cell.
This situation has continued until 14th July 1981 until government
officials came to the pri son and they selected a number of these detainees
according to name lists which they brought with them and under the pretext
that these ones they will get released and deported to Iran and their number
was between 700-750 .
Detainees (among them was my brother Jamal). This group of the
transferred detainees was not deported and until now nobody knows of their
whereabouts or any contact with them or their fate except the officials of
the Iraqi government who should know about their fate. It has transpired
that the reason for the selection of this group of detainees that the
authorities thought that they we re behind this violent strike in the
prison.
On 12th August 1981 the prison authorities have and for the first time
allowed visits of the remaining relatives and friends of the detainees in
Abu Ghraib prison to be visited on the 12th day of each month. Then the
following day the detainees were ordered to fill in special forms wh ich
were given to them by the prison management.
With the continuation of the deportation of the Iraqi citizens to Iran
the detainees have been continued to be imprisoned in the Iraqi prisons.
While the treatment of the prison guards to them became worse when they were
getting news that the Iranian forces were advancing on the frontlines. This
situation of the detainees has continued until 5th December 1984 then and
without notification they have been transferred in the form of 3 groups,
each group was composed of six to seven hundred detainees and transferred to
Qalat Al Salman prison. This Qalat (fortress) is situated on a hill distance
about 5km from the old Nugrat Al Salman prison which is about 160km from the
city of Al Samawa which is the center of the El Muthana region nearer to the
Saudi border in the deserts or Arar. There is a similar Qalat (fortress)
built in an area called Spelek near Galee Ali Beg in region of Arbil, in
Iraqi Kurdistan. The jo urney of the transfer of the deportees from Abu
Ghraib prison to Qalat Al Salman has started in the early morning and ended
after midnight. The road leading to this prison was complete desert and the
authorities had to use local Bedouins to show them the way to the prison
because there was no surfaced road leading to it. This prison has consisted
of 16 halls with 6 annexes and in each hall they put in 100-120 detainees
and in each annex about 30 detainees.
Before the arrival of the detainees to Qalat Al Salman prison the
prison guards there have been briefed and told that they are going to
receive a group of Iranian prisoners and they have been warned not to mix w
ith them. But then when the detainees arrived to the prison and then
eventually the prison guards realized they are in fact Iraqi citizens like
them they started to be nice to them and then they have allowed the
remaining relatives and friends of these detainees to come and visit them.
They have allowed the detainees to receive food, clothing, cooking and
sports equipment, radio, television, cameras from their visitors. Therefore
their treatment there was far, far better than the one in Abu Ghraib prison
in spite of the fact they were in the middle of nowhere in the desert. Then
the Chief of Al Muthana region at that time Mr. Nazhar Mutne Awad has
visited them and spoke to them and said that you are our sons and the reason
for your detention here is mainly for security reasons and you never
consider yourselves that you are prisoners here.
Then more detainees from other prisons in Iraq have been brought to
Qalat Al Salman and also from the prisons of Al Fatheledy and the juven ile
prisons. There was one detainee among these he was from Indian origin and
another was handicapped in that he had no limbs and he was dumb, he was from
the city of Al Kassim from Babylon region and the irony was in spite of his
handicap they kept him all these years in det ention with the rest of the
hostages.
During October 1985 a governmental decree have reached the detainees
in Qalat Al Salman prison. The Deputy Chief of the Iraqi Intelligence
Service for Political Affairs who was Colonel Abou Saif and he told the
detainees there that with the good will and the generosity of President
Saddam Hussain any of the detainees who have and remain in Iraq a father,
mother, brother or a sister not deported or a wife provided she is not
divorced from you or a brother who was a martyr in the war and has official
papers to prove this and witnesses, then when this is proven you can be
released. Therefore and according to this decree they have given them forms
to fill and followed by an official interview with them. Then on early 1986
they have started to transfer groups of these detainees from Qalat Al Salman
prison after they provided them with the militia uniform. These transfers
have taken a form of groups of between 50-100 detaine es in each group and
on a monthly basis. They have transferred them to unknown places and each of
these groups were sub-divided to smaller groups and scattered and detained
them in prisons of the various cities in Iraq.
Every period they would transfer them to other prisons in order that
they would not stay long in any one prison. After 2 years from these
transfers small groups have actually been released from these detainees.
Before their release they were taken back to Abu Ghraib prison and the
authorities tried to be friendly with them and tried to recruit them to work
for them. Then they transferred them finally to Baghdad Central Security
Prisons and there they give them 2 telephone numbers to contact the
authorities if they need to pass them any information as informers. Then at
the day of their release they give them Saddam Hussain's portrait and
banners and they brought television cameras and the press and they ordered
them to show happiness and to shout we are grateful for Saddam's amnesty and
President Saddam Hussain's generosities.
From the start of the transfer of the groups of detainees from Qalat
Salman prison on early 1986 and until early 1989 there were about 650 of
these detainees were released who have been covered by the amnesty decree,
while the remaining detainees who have been transferred from Qalat Al Salman
prison nobody has heard or been able to communicate with them or know their
fate until now.
The question now is that when the current Iraqi Government will answer
on the fate of more than 4,000 Iraqi detainees in Iraq or to take any
decision about their case. Now, 22 years have past on the detention of these
people and they are not prisoners of war or political opposition or common
criminals and they have tasted all the forms of humiliation, psychological
and physical torture in addition that the suffering of the families of these
detainees especially t heir fathers and mothers whom they still hope that
their sons and daughters will be released or at least to get any news about
them or their whereabouts or to be able to write to them. Many of these
parents have died and their last wish was to hear about their detained sons
or to meet them.
The Iraq/Iran war has ended on August 1988 and many prisoners of war
between Iraq and Iran has been and still in the exchange process. The second
Gulf War also finished on February 1991 and many of the Western detainees
and human shields and some Eastern and Kuwaiti detainees were released. And
the question now that why these Iraqi detainees have not been released until
now? The Iraqi authorities have promised them and sworn on oath that their
release will take place as soon as the Iraq/Iran war h as stopped but until
now they have not fulfilled their promise. We still repeat and insist and
remind and demand from the Iraqi President Saddam Hussain to release our
detaine d brothers and relatives and to declare on the fate of the
disappeared ones. When some mediators have been sent to some of the Iraqi
revolutionary council members and also to Barzan Al Takriti they have
hesitated and tried to change the subject on talking on this issue and they
said clearly 'that President Saddam Hussain he is the only authority in Iraq
that is able to make a decision about the issue of these detainees'. These
detainees were the cream of Iraqi society and many of them were University
graduates and had professional scientific, medical, industrial and
commercial qualification and experience and would be a benefit for their
families and their country Iraq and to rebuild the country which is
destroyed by the war and the sanctions.
The abovementioned report of this case has been compiled afte r years
of research and investigation about the fate of these detainees and the
picture becomes clearer after we were able to meet with five released deta
inees and also from some of the detainees who were released in the early
months or years of the 1980's. Also information has been compiled from
hundreds of the relatives of the hostages who sent this committee documents
including photographs of the detainees during their detention in Qalat Al
Salman prison. Without the help and collaboration of these people this
committee would not have been able to collect such detailed information and
in this degree of clarity. Therefore these efforts must be continued from
all over the world and especially from international officials and
organizations to put pressure on the Iraqi government to be able to get an
official reply from them on the fate of these hostages.
Since the establishment of the Committee for the Release of Hostages &
Detainees in Iraq and on 22nd June 1993 in Londo n, Britain and until now
this Committee has been able to pass many obstacles and to be able to have
an intense communication and pass ing the information to many international
political humanitarian personalities and organizations in Britain and in
Europe to be able to achieve the goals of this humanitarian case. The main
contacted authorities are as follows:
Various Members of the British Parliament and 3 early day motions have
been submitted by the British Parliament
British House of Lords
British Trade Union Congress
The Committee for Human Rights at the European Parliament and at the
Swedish Parliament
3 Human Rights Committees at United Nations Office in Geneva
The British Red Cross and the Swedish Red Cross
Amnesty International London
Kuwaiti Embassy in London
Kuwaiti Sheik Salim Al Sabah
The Committee for the Release of the Kuwaiti Prisoners of War (This
organization has initially showed their will ingness to collaborate with us
but unfortunately and until now they have shown no interest or done any
collaboration with us on this issue)
Sir Edward Heath - ex Prime Minister of United Kingdom (but he was not
able to help to mediate, while he was successful in releasing in Human
Shield hostages during the Gulf War)
Most of the world embassies and governments including USA, Russia,
China, the Islamic Conference and the Arabic countries, the Arab League and
all the United Nation member countries - diplomatic representation at UN in
New York
The Iranian Government
The Iranian Red Crescent
After intense communications and correspondence with Mr. Van Der Stoil
the ex-UN - Human Rights Co-ordinator in Iraq in Geneva and the other 2 UN
humanitarian groups wanted this committee to supply them with full details
of the lists of the names of the hostages and the documentation. On 18
February 1996 this Committee has sent lists and documentation in the na me
of 935 hostages to:-
Human Rights Officer, Special Proc edures
United Nations Office Centre for Human Rights - Geneva
Then over the phone they confirmed they have received these documents.
Then after many months when we have contacted them after no correspondence
from them they have apologized that they have lost our files and the lists.
Then we sent them copies of these documents again and after that and until
now and after many correspondence with them they said they are going to send
us some lists of their own for us to check whether our list corresponds with
their list and so on, and so on. Until now this goes into an empty circle!
Also Amnesty International in UK and after many official meetings with them
at the beginning they were not willing to meet with us but after years of
attempts to meet with them we were successful to meet them in their
headquarters in London. They agreed to draw up a programme of collaboration
to publicise this issue and put the demands officially to the Iraqi
government. We a lso arranged for them to meet with the ex-hostages in
Europe who now reside in Europe and also the relatives of the hostages and
with the time of executing these programme came which was in October 1995
but nothing has happened from their side and it appeared then from their
correspondence with us that the officers who were supposed to do the
collaboration work with us on this case have been transferred and the new
officers didn't show any interest to help or to collaborate on working on
this programme.
While the Red Cross International and the British Representatives
after many correspondence and several meetings with their top officials we
have requested from them to mediate with the Iraqi government and to go and
investigate the fate of these hostages then they officially replied to us
that they cannot work on this case because it is not in their rules and
regulations or constitution of the Red Cross International to med iate to
release hostages or deta inees within the same country. Then we asked them
how then they had the authority and the constitution to go to Iraq and visit
the western hostages in Iraq during the second Gulf War and to mediate with
the Iraqi government to release them!
In a general conference which was organized by the various human
rights organizations in Europe which has taken place in London on September
1989 and in which I have personally attended in the name of the Iraqi
hostages I have highlighted in that conference the issue of these detainees
and I asked them to intervene and to help us on this issue. The answer of
the Chairman of the Conference and who was the British Representative for
Human Rights at United Nations Office in Geneva at that time was 'we could
work on and intervene on many humanitarian issues and human rights which
come to our attention from most countries in this world except the cases
which in relation with human rights in Iraq. These cases we c annot inter
vene or do anything about it'.
While the Arabic and the Islamic human right and political
organizations and including the Arab league and the Islamic Conference and
all Arabic countries and Islamic Countries and also India, Korea, China,
Russia, United States of America they have never answered any of our
official letters or willing to advise or show any interest.
In conclusion the issue of these hostages in Iraq is a humanitarian
one and now time is now well overdue for the world community to give
consideration to this issue and to put pressure on Saddam Hussain's
government to declare on the fate of these detainees and this Committee is
welcoming any constructive suggestions and assistance and this is including
documentation, important information especially from the Iraqi officials who
escaped from Iraq and who were in contact with these detainees and have
information on the places of detention to be able to contact this comm ittee
at the address as below :
Contacts :
For the Committee for the Release of Hostages & Detainees in Iraq
P O Box 3713, Glasgow, G41 3WG, Scotland, U.K.
Email:Iraqi_hostages@hotmail.com
Internet: http://members.fortunecity.com/iraqihostage
September 2002
[10] Establish an international criminal tribunal to investigate and
prosecute the Iraqi leadership
Washington Post
By David J. Scheffer
September 12, 2002
The writer is senior vice president of the U.N. Association of the USA
and former U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues.
The debate on Iraq overlooks the totality of Saddam Hussein's
atrocities and how that record can help build an international coalition to
end his rule over Iraq.
For two decades, top Iraqi officials have committed massive crimes and
atrocities -- genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. This list
includes far more than the common refrain that Hussein and his associates
gassed their own people, particularly at Halabja in 1988.
The criminal record includes other serious war crimes during the
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s; the genocidal A nfal campaign against Iraqi
Kurds in 1987 and 1988; the invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990; the
violent suppression of the 1991 uprising that led to 30,000 or more mostly
civilian deaths; the draining of the southern marshes during the 1990s,
which ethnically cleansed Hussein's southern flank of thousands of Iraqi
Shiites; more ethnic cleansing of the non-Arab population of Kirkuk and
other northern Iraqi areas; and the summary executions of thousands of
political opponents.
Following the invasion of Kuwait, Iraqi authorities killed more than
1,000 Kuwaiti civilians, held foreign diplomats hostage, unleashed
environmental crimes on a colossal scale, looted Kuwaiti property, rained
missiles down on Israeli civilians and committed war crimes against American
soldiers. The fate of more than 600 missing Kuwaiti citizens remains
unknown.
All these crimes have been impressively recorded by the United
Nations, the American, Kuwait i, British, Iranian and other governments, and
nongovernmental groups such as Human Rights Watch and the Iraqi opposition's
INDICT organization, which has received financial and political support from
Washington for years.
Throughout the Clinton administration, I waged an often lonely
campaign to compile the criminal record against the Iraqi regime and to seek
indictments of Iraqi officials. By the end of 2000 our investigative team
had amassed millions of pages of documents, resurrected an extensive archive
of evidence prepared by U.S. Army lawyers and investigators during the Gulf
War, interviewed key witnesses, and published a report and released aerial
photography demonstrating Iraqi crimes against humanity.
Yet no Iraqi official (at least 10 are of extreme interest) has ever
been indicted for some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. My efforts
to obtain U.N. Security Council approval for an ad hoc international
criminal tribunal encountered one obstacle after another in foreign
capitals, in New York and even within the Clinton administration. The usual
excuse was that a tribunal would jeopardize either the United Nations'
inspections regime or its sanctions regime. We needed Hussein's cooperation,
which a criminal indictment might discourage.
Now the stakes are much higher. While President Bush speaks of Hussein
as an "evil man" and tries to convince Congress and the rest of the world
that the Iraqi threat -- weapons of mass destruction, ties to international
terrorism -- merits military intervention and a regime change, his publicly
stated case seems oddly weak. How evil is Hussein compared with other
tyrants? Without a return of U.N. inspectors to verify (as best they can)
the state of Iraq's weapons production, what proof is there to compel such
drastic and potentially catastrophic action? How serious is any terrorist
connection?
We know from the ad hoc criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia
and Rwanda, and now for Sierra Leone, that indictments of alleged war
criminals who lead tyrannical and genocidal regimes can destroy their
political careers, isolate them internationally, end their regimes and even
achieve justice. Whether or not the Security Council authorizes use of force
against Iraq if credible inspections collapse, the United States should
build an anti-Hussein coalition through old-fashioned law enforcement.
The time has come for a Security Council resolution establishing an
international criminal tribunal to investigate and prosecute the Iraqi
leadership. Such a tribunal would confirm the evil character of the Iraqi
regime. Its indictees would be subject to arrest. And its creation could
pave the way for later U.N.-authorized military action to neutralize any
weapons and terrorism threats and to bring about regime change with
international support.
Wi th so much evidence readily available to a U.N. prosecutor,
preparation of indictments could be speedily accomplished. It would be
difficult for Russia or China or any other Security Council member to argue
against a tribunal if the alternative were an American rush to war.
In the meantime, an indictment process would discourage commercial
deals that embolden the Iraqi regime and would compel contracting
governments and companies to stall their implementation until new,
unindicted officials rule Iraq free of U.N. sanctions.
The time for offering Saddam Hussein incentives is over. He and his
colleagues deserve to be indicted, and the U.N. Security Council must disarm
Iraq. At the end of the day, both justice and international security must
prevail.
Alliance Internationale pour la Justice is not responsible for the
opinions expressed by the authors of the texts proposed in this news
service.
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Contact: Françoise Brié - Thierry ROYER
Alliance Internationale pour la Justice
Tel: +33.1.48.00.03.20
Fax: +33.1.48.00.03.30
E-mail:
The International Alliance for Justice (AIJ) coordinates a network of
275 international NGO's from more than 120 countries calling for the
establishment of an International Ad Hoc Tribunal for the Iraqi leadership's
crimes against humanity, crimes of war and genocide.
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