NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/6550

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From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
Subject: AI concerns over Iraq
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/** mideast.action: 24.0 **/
** Topic: AI-IRAQ: summary of concerns **
** Written  8:23 pm  Sep 13, 1992 by pnmideast in cdp:mideast.action **
From: <pnmideast>
Subject: AI-IRAQ: summary of concerns


/* Written 11:23 pm  Sep 12, 1992 by aiusala in cdp:ai.general */
/* ---------- "IRAQ: summary of concerns" ---------- */
Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London WC1X 8DJ
United Kingdom

FROM: PRESS AND PUBLICATIONS
DATE: 3 SEPTEMBER 1992

WEEKLY UPDATE SERVICE 35/92
            EXTERNAL

            IRAQ: SUMMARY OF CONCERNS

            Introduction

Amnesty International remains gravely concerned about the critical human
rights situation in Iraq, and believes that the United Nations (UN) should
urgently resume discussion of how to implement monitoring of the human
rights situation throughout the country.  Irrespective of the military
steps which have been taken recently by a number of governments with the
stated aim of offering the local population of southern Iraq some immediate
protection, Amnesty International believes that the human rights crisis in
Iraq needs to be addressed by multilateral action through the UN.  The UN's
Special Rapporteur on Iraq, appointed by the Commission on Human Rights in
1991, has proposed establishing an on-site human rights monitoring
operation in Iraq.  To date the UN has failed, through any of its bodies,
to take action on this proposal.

Amnesty International's concerns

Scores of unarmed civilians are reported to have been killed in recent
weeks in the al-Ahwar (marshes) region of southern Iraq as a result of
repeated military attacks on the area by the Iraqi armed forces.  Amnesty
International fears that many of these were deliberate and arbitrary
killings perpetrated outside the immediate context of conflict with armed
combatants.  The extent and persistence of the bombardment of civilian
targets over the past two months in particular, and the lack of any attempt
by the authorities to detain rather than kill alleged suspects and to
provide for due process of law, heightens Amnesty International's fears not
only that the Iraqi government may have failed to discriminate between
unarmed civilians and combatants, but that it has apparently adopted a
policy of deliberately targeting non-combatant civilians.

Amnesty International does not take a position on the current armed
conflict between Iraqi government forces and their opponents in southern
Iraq.  Amnesty International does not identify itself with any of the
parties to a particular conflict, nor does it presume to judge in any
situation whether recourse to violence is justified or not.  In a situation
of armed conflict, Amnesty International restricts itself to working for
the protection of the human rights that fall within its mandate and does
not comment or act on issues that fall outside those terms of reference.
In this case, Amnesty International is deeply concerned that the Iraqi
government appears to be targeting manifestly non- combatant groups of
people for reasons unrelated to any acts of violence.  In addition to
attempts by the government to force its opponents in the marshes out of
hiding, Amnesty International fears that the current military campaign may
also be intended as a punitive measure against the civilian population of
the marshes, for their failure to comply with government directives to
evacuate the area, for their imputed political sympathies, and for the acts
of some who are harbouring and assisting government opponents taking refuge
there.

Amnesty International believes that its present fears are further justified
by the Iraqi government's past human rights record in general and its
repressive policies towards its Kurdish population in particular.  Recent
events in the southern marshes bear a strong resemblance to those that have
taken place in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in recent years.  There,
the government carried out a series of similar operations, targeting
civilian areas as a punitive measure against the population for their
imputed political sympathies and because some had harboured and assisted
armed Kurdish fighters.  Tens of thousands of civilians were forcibly
evacuated from their homes which were then razed to the ground.  Their
villages and towns were declared to be "prohibited for reasons of security"
and orders were given to execute anyone deemed to have defied them.
Amnesty International has documented cases of this kind in its past reports
on human rights violations in Iraq.  It has also documented thousands of
cases of the "disappearance" of civilians who were forced to leave their
homes on the pretext of relocation to purpose-built resettlement camps said
by the government to offer better living conditions.  Thousands of others
"disappeared" after reaching the resettlement camps: some are known
subsequently to have been executed.  These and other policies used against
the Kurds, including the chemical weapon attacks on unarmed civilians, led
Amnesty International to conclude that the Iraqi government was pursuing a
policy of deliberate elimination of large numbers of civilians.  At the
height of the repression against the Kurds between 1987 and 1989, the
official responsible for implementing these policies was 'Ali Hassan
al-Majid, who was later appointed governor of Kuwait during its seven-month
occupation.  He currently holds the post of Minister of Defence with
responsibility for military operations in southern Iraq.

Gross violations of human rights are also continuing in other parts of
Iraq, exemplified by the recent summary execution in Baghdad of some 40
merchants and businessmen accused of profiteering, some of whom were
reportedly tortured while in custody.  Hundreds of others have also been
arrested in a crackdown on Iraqis accused of fixing the prices of goods at
levels different to those specified by the state, and whose fate and
whereabouts remain unknown.  The fate of over 200,000 people who
"disappeared" in recent years, and the hundreds who "disappeared" after the
March 1991 uprising, remains unknown.  Thousands of victims of arbitrary
arrest and torture, many of whom have been held without trial for over a
decade, remain in detention.  (See Iraq: Human rights violations since the
uprising, July 1991, AI Index: MDE 14/05/91)

Developments in southern Iraq since the 1991 uprising:

Since the crushing of the Kurdish and Arab Shi'a uprisings in April 1991,
the Iraqi government has continued to perpetrate widespread human rights
violations.  With respect to the largely Arab Shi'a population of southern
Iraq, these violations have included arbitrary arrests, detention without
trial, "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions.  At the same time, a
series of articles published in government newspapers in the aftermath of
the uprising criticised the Shi'a faith and questioned its validity.  The
Shi'a population of the marshes came in for particular condemnation, with
one newspaper article describing them as "un-Iraqi" and an inferior people.
On the military level, Amnesty International has received details of
persistent attacks on villages in the marshes of al- 'Amara, Basra and
al-Nasiriyya provinces since July 1991.  The United Nations Special
Rapporteur on Iraq, Max van der Stoel, stated the following in the interim
report on the human rights situation in the country which he presented to
the Security Council on 11 August 1992:

"... the Special Rapporteur is especially cognizant of a video-tape in his
possession wherein the present Prime Minister [of Iraq] is heard to
instruct late in 1991 several Iraqi army generals to "wipe out" three
specific Marsh Arab tribes.  The same video-tape ... shows Iraqi army
personnel apparently training to carry out assaults on the population, with
some portions of the video-tape appearing to show actual interrogations and
raids in progress."

A copy of this video-tape is also in Amnesty International's possession.

In April 1992, Iraq's National Assembly approved a decree authorizing the
creation of resettlement camps outside the marshes region, and orders were
issued to the local inhabitants to evacuate their villages.  The rationale
behind these moves, according to government statements, was to offer the
local population improved living conditions.  Since April, military attacks
by the armed forces on the marshes region have intensified, with the
increased use of heavy artillery and helicopter gunships.  Some of these
attacks were reportedly made on clearly civilian targets.  In one incident
on 20 May 1992, for example, 13 civilians were reported to have been killed
as a result of helicopter gunship attacks on a wedding ceremony in the
village of al- Agir in al-'Amara province.  Amnesty International has
received the names of the victims, who include men, women and children.

Since mid-July, the situation is reported to have deteriorated further.
Heavy military bombardment is reportedly concentrated in the al- 'Amara
marshes and eastward towards the Iran-Iraq border.  Amnesty International
is deeply concerned that many of the unarmed civilians who were victims of
such attacks were killed or injured outside the immediate context of armed
conflict.  Moreover, the Iraqi authorities have not acknowledged taking any
prisoners.  On 7 July, several brigades of the Iraqi army launched an
offensive on the villages of al-Wadiya, Umm al-Hosh, al-Muzar and
al-Hajiya.  A tank battalion of the Republican Guards was said to have
participated in the attacks, in which helicopter gunships and fighter
planes were also reportedly used.  Further attacks took place on the
villages of Shumbara and al-'Uwaili on 9 July, and on the villages of Abu
Sabbur, al-Muzar and Umm al-Hosh on 10 July.  On 21 July, the armed forces
renewed their bombardment and artillery shelling of some of these villages
and other areas, including al-Agar, al-Saigal, al-Duwara, al- Mufsil and
al-Sihhin.  The military attacks were said to have lasted several hours,
continuing on 22 July when other areas also came under attack, including
al-Cheddi and al- Tar.  Similar attacks have continued during August.  On 2
August, the village of al-Bahra in al-'Amara province was shelled with
heavy artillery, as were the regions of Abu Sabbur, al- Naggara and
al-Wadiya on 17 August.

Amnesty International is currently investigating reports it has received of
the use of napalm by the Iraqi armed forces on the local population of the
marshes in recent weeks outside the immediate context of armed conflict.
It has received details of one incident said to have taken place on 16 July
in the village of al-Agar in the al-'Amara marshes.  According to
information received, Iraqi army helicopters circled the village and gave
orders for immediate evacuation.  The villagers were reportedly not given
adequate time to comply with these orders before military attacks began,
and which were said to include the dropping of napalm containers onto the
reed dwellings in the village.  Several unarmed civilians are said to have
been killed as a result.  Amnesty International has received the names of
three of them, all males aged between 19 and 75.

The marshes region

The al-Ahwar (marshes) region is located between the southern Iraqi cities
of al-'Amara, al-Nasiriyya and Basra, traditionally home to several hundred
thousand Arabs.  Due to the nature of the terrain and the consequent
difficulties of access, the marshes have also served as an area of refuge
for government opponents and army deserters alike.  In recent years the
government made a number of unsuccessful attempts to drain the marshes in
order to facilitate its military and security operations there.  Following
the crushing of the March 1991 uprising, thousands more Iraqis fleeing from
the advancing Iraqi army went into hiding in the marshes, together with
their families.  The government's attempts to force them out intensified
earlier this year, while at the same time it denied all United Nations (UN)
personnel and international humanitarian agencies access to the area for
the distribution of food and other relief aid to the civilian population.
In April, the government ordered the evacuation of the marshes region, and
the current military offensives are said to be in part a retaliatory
measure for non-compliance with these orders.  In recent months, a number
of steps have been taken to increase the pressure on the local inhabitants,
principally by further isolating the area and cutting off food supplies.
Dry agricultural lands bordering the marshes have been expropriated, crops
have been burned and homes have been destroyed.  Measures have also been
taken to block the tributaries of rivers flowing through the marshes and to
redirect the flow of water.  These are said to include the tributaries of
al-Majar, Nahiyat al-Salam, al-Shadhrit, Abu 'Ushra and al-Wadiya.  Living
conditions for the local inhabitants are said to be dire.

The need for human rights monitoring in Iraq

Amnesty International takes no position for or against military action in
any situation.  Amnesty International's role is to research and make public
its concerns about the human rights situation in any country; the stating
of these concerns does not in any way imply advocacy of or support for
military action.  The organisation's concern is for the protection of
fundamental human rights, which often are subjected to widespread abuse in
the context of internal or international armed conflict.

Amnesty International does believe that the international community has a
responsibility to seek to prevent human rights violations in all parts of
Iraq.  Jan Eliasson, the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, recently went
to Baghdad to press for the renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding
agreed last year between the Iraqi Government and the UN, which expired at
the end of June.  This agreement, originally signed in April 1991 and
renewed last November, provided for a UN humanitarian assistance and relief
program and the setting up of UN sub-offices and Humanitarian Centres in
Iraq wherever a humanitarian presence might be needed.  In addition, a
contingent of UN guards were deployed in Iraq to protect UN personnel and
operations linked with the humanitarian program.  Amnesty International
considers that this agreement should be renewed without delay.  However,
although it appears that the UN humanitarian presence, including the guards
contingent, may have served as some measure of protection for sectors of
the civilian population against human rights violations, it is not by
itself sufficient to address the critical human rights situation in the
country.  In particular, a humanitarian presence was never fully
established in the south of the country owing to the lack of cooperation by
the Iraqi authorities.  If the Memorandum of Understanding is renewed, it
is imperative that it be fully respected by the Iraqi Government and the UN
be permitted to establish a humanitarian presence wherever it is needed in
any part of the country.

Amnesty International still considers that further steps are needed to
address the human rights situation in Iraq.  In July 1991 the organisation
called for the establishment by the United Nations of an on-site human
rights monitoring operation in Iraq.  It welcomes the fact that the Special
Rapporteur on Iraq in his report to the UN Commission on Human Rights in
February 1991 strongly urged such an exceptional response by the UN to the
human rights situation in Iraq, and that he has subsequently developed his
own proposal for on-site monitoring in considerable detail as the
Commission requested him to do.  His proposal includes the sending of a
number of mobile teams of human rights monitors to Iraq to establish local
offices and a public presence.  The teams, which would be the
intermediaries of the Special Rapporteur and would report to him, would
monitor events in the surrounding region, receive information relating to
allegations of human rights violations and investigate these.  They could
also make representations to the local authorities on urgent matters on
behalf of the Special Rapporteur.  Amnesty International regrets that
neither the UN Commission on Human Rights nor the Security Council have
adopted this proposal and has pressed Iraq to accept such monitoring.

The fact that gross human rights violations are continuing in Iraq, some of
which are again attracting international attention, further underlines the
need for an on-going monitoring presence in all parts of the country.
Amnesty International hopes that the Special Rapporteur's proposal will be
urgently considered by the UN and that steps can be taken to implement an
operation of this nature.

The organization recognizes, as the Special Rapporteur himself has pointed
out, that on-site monitoring could only be established with the cooperation
of the Iraqi Government in a way that enables the monitors to operate
effectively.  What is required now is for the UN to press the Government of
Iraq for such cooperation with the support of all member governments,
including those not currently involved in the implementation of the "no-fly
zone".  The Government of Iraq took a number of foreign journalists to one
location in the marshes on 23 August, and Iraq's representative to the UN
has now suggested a visit to the country by a committee of 'wise men' drawn
from a list of countries acceptable to Iraq.  This committee would
investigate human rights abuses in order to establish 'the truth as Iraq
has been saying it'.  Amnesty International believes that the Government of
Iraq should indeed permit human rights investigation, and should do so by
giving full access to the Special Rapporteur and accepting implementation
of his proposal for establishing on-site monitoring.

** End of text from cdp:mideast.action **