Hello KLP. You ask, "WHERE are the press, the Human Rights groups and the world citizens on this??" regarding those murdered by the Saddam regime.
I infer from your question that you think that Human Rights groups have been silent on the issue. However,Human Rights Watch has been publicizing conditions in Iraq and the actions of the regime since since 1990.
Human Rights in Iraq (http://store.yahoo.com/hrwpubs/ir1.html)
A comprehensive investigation of brutal human rights violations told in chillingly dispassionate style, Human Rights in Iraq describes how the Ba’ath regime subjects Iraqi citizens to forced relocation and deportation, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, “disappearance,” and summary political execution. The book reveals the methods used by the Iraqi government to impose its rule and examines its treatment of the Kurds.
Whatever Happened To The Iraqi Kurds?
staging.hrw.org
It has been nearly three years since the chemical bombardment of Halabja, a small town on Iraq's northeastern border with Iran in which up to 5,000 civilians, mostly women and children, died a painful and well publicized death. Despite the international outcry over this one infamous event, little was heard in the United States about Saddam Hussein's brutal treatment of his own people until his invasion of Kuwait last August 2. Even now, virtually no mention is made of the many other times the Iraqi government has gassed its large Kurdish minority. Halabja was not the first time Iraq had turned its chemical arsenal on the Kurds. Thousands -- and most likely tens of thousands -- of civilians were killed during chemical and conventional bombardments stretching from the spring of 1987 through the fall of 1988. The attacks were part of a long-standing campaign that destroyed almost every Kurdish village in Iraq -- along with a centuries-old way of life -- and displaced at least a million of the country's estimated 3.5 million Kurdish population. Since the outset of the Kuwait crisis, however, Halabja has become a leitmotif for Saddam Hussein's disregard of human rights, and a major rationale for the war. Although chemical weapons were not seen in action in the latest Persian Gulf war, no one is disputing that Iraq has them and is willing to use them. Yet, over the past three years the international community has done practically nothing to help the Halabja survivors, or the other tens of thousands of Kurds driven out of their country by Iraq's chemical warfare. Around 140,000 people fled the country in 1988 alone. This newsletter traces the fate of the Kurdish refugees who have fled the Iraqi gas attacks.
Unquiet Graves
hrw.org
The Search for the Disappeared in Iraqi Kurdistan
Across northern Iraq, Kurds, freed for now from President Saddam Hussein's grip, have begun revealing the horrors of nearly a quarter of a century of repressive rule. In former Iraqi police stations and prisons, Kurdish officials have discovered torture chambers and execution sites where they say thousands of political prisoners died under torture or were shot in the 1980s. Meanwhile, municipal grave diggers and villagers, now free to tell their stories, have led Kurdish investigators to hundreds of unmarked, single and mass graves. The Kurds have long charged the Saddam Hussein government with gross violations of human rights. Some especially severe cases have been independently substantiated and widely publicized;[1] most notably the attacks with chemical and conventional weapons on Kurdish towns and villages in the late 1980s in which thousands--and most likely tens of thousands--were killed. But it was not until the March 1991 uprising, when the Kurdish resistance fighters, or peshmerga,[2] drove the Iraqis from the region, that the systematic nature, and extent, of Baghdad's repression became fully known.
Endless Torment
hrw.org
The 1991 Uprising in Iraq And Its Aftermath
Saddam Hussein's record of brutally suppressing even mild dissent is well-known. When the March 1991 uprising confronted his regime with the most serious internal challenge it had ever faced, government forces responded with atrocities on a predictably massive scale. The human rights repercussions continue to be felt throughout the country. In their attempts to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalist forces killed thousands of unarmed civilians by firing indiscriminately into residential areas; executing young people on the streets, in homes and in hospitals; rounding up suspects, especially young men, during house-to-house searches, and arresting them without charge or shooting them en masse; and using helicopters to attack unarmed civilians as they fled the cities. One year later, the fate of thousands of Kurds and Shi'a who were seized during the suppression of the uprising remains unknown. While many are believed to be in detention, the government has provided little information about their location and legal status. The rebels also committed gross abuses during the uprising, summarily executing suspected members of the security forces, including many who were in custody.
The Anfal Campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan: The Destruction of Koreme hrw.org
Just as the Iran-Iraq War was coming to an end in 1988, the Iraqi government and army embarked on a vengeful campaign against Kurdish villagers living in Iraqi Kurdistan. Taken from a Koranic verse, Anfal refers to "the plunder of the infidel," and evidently was intended to give the campaign the veneer of religious justification, though the Kurds are Muslim, and Iraq is a secular state. Using a similarly destructive pattern throughout northern Kurdistan, the Iraqi army first attacked a chosen village — often with chemical weapons — captured the villagers as they tried to flee, then pulverized their dwellings. Many villagers were later killed. The Kurdish village of Koreme serves as a case study of this campaign, showing how the policies of Saddam Hussein’s government were implemented. Some of Koreme’s captured men and boys were executed on the spot, the remainder were taken to a local army fort or Ba’ath Party office where they disappeared while in the hands of security agents. Surviving Koreme villagers — starving women, children and the elderly — were transferred by truck to bleak camps. Middle East Watch and Physicians for Human Rights conclude that the Iraqi government’s Anfal campaign, constituting murder, forcible disappearance, involuntary relocation, the refusal to provide minimal conditions of life to detainees, chemical weapons attacks against civilians, and the physical destruction of Kurdish villages, are at a minimum, crimes against humanity. Ultimately, they may form the basis for a case of genocide.
Genocide in Iraq:
hrw.org
The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds
A narrative account of the Iraqi government’s organized attempt to eradicate the Kurds living in northern Iraq, this report captures in riveting detail the multiple phases of the Anfal campaign. Anfal, meaning "the spoils," is the name of the eighth sura of the Koran. It is also the name given by the Iraqis to a series of military actions that lasted from February 23 until September 6, 1988. Relying in part on previously unpublished Iraqi government documents captured by Kurdish rebels during the Gulf War, Genocide in Iraq reveals a meticulously organized campaign incorporating prison camps, firing squads and chemical attacks. The campaigns of 1987-1989 were characterized by mass summary executions and the mass disappearance of many tens of thousands of noncombatants, including large numbers of women and children, and sometimes the entire population of villages; the widespread use of chemical weapons; the wholesale destruction of some 2,000 villages, including homes, schools, mosques and wells; the looting of civilian property; the arbitrary arrest and jailing in conditions of extreme deprivation of thousands of women, children and elderly people; the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of villagers; and the destruction of the rural Kurdish economy and infrastructure. Genocide in Iraq is the product of almost two years of research, during which we analyzed tons of captured Iraqi government documents and carried out field interviews with more than 350 witnesses, most of them survivors of the 1988 campaign. As a result of this painstaking work, we conclude that the Iraqi regime committed the crime of genocide.
Iraq's Brutal Decrees hrw.org
Amputation, Branding and the Death Penalty
eginning in June 1994, the government of Iraq issued at least nine decrees that establish severe penalties, including amputation, branding and the death penalty for criminal offenses such as theft, corruption, currency speculation and military desertion. These new decrees greatly impinge on individual human rights and constitute violations of several international human rights conventions and standards. The government of Iraq attempts to deflect international criticism of this cruelty by maintaining that the decrees were enacted to combat rising crime which, it says, is due to the poverty and desperation brought on by international economic sanctions. By implying that if sanctions are lifted and the situation improves the decrees could be repealed, Iraq appears to use these abuses as leverage for the lifting of sanctions. While arguing that the decrees serve as a deterrent to crime, the government has offered no information that they are serving this purpose.
Human Rights Watch Criticizes Iraq's Execution of Four Jordanians hrw.org
In a letter today to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Human Rights Watch expressed its deep concern over the execution of Walid Muhammad Tawfiq Nusseirat, Riziq Bishara Riziq, Sa`id Yusif `Ali al-Doji, and his brother Salah al-Doji
Prosecution of Iraqi in Austria Urged
hrw.org
Saddam Hussein Aide Accused of Genocide, Murder and Torture
Human Rights Watch today called on the Austrian authorities to prosecute a senior Iraqi leader accused of genocide, mass murder and torture.
Jordan Urged To Detain Iraqi Number Two For Trial
hrw.org
Saddam Hussein Deputy Accused of Genocide, Torture, Mass Murder
Human Rights Watch asked the government of Jordan to hold Iraq's number two leader, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, for trial or for extradition on charges that he is among those responsible for crimes of genocide, torture, and mass murder
Iraq: Clarify Fate of “Disappeared”
hrw.org
Iraq should follow up its welcome announcement of a prisoners’ amnesty by clarifying the fate of several hundred thousand detainees who have “disappeared,” died under torture or been summarily executed in previous years, Human Rights Watch urged today.
Prosecute Iraq's "Chemical Ali "http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/01/iraq0117.htm
Human Rights Watch called today for the immediate arrest and prosecution of Iraqi General Ali Hassan al-Majid, the architect of the 1988 genocidal "Anfal" campaign against the Iraqi Kurds, who is currently traveling through the Middle East.
hrw.org
In a 16-page briefing paper, “The Iraqi Government Assault on the Marsh Arabs,” Human Rights Watch documents how systematic bombardment of villages, widespread arbitrary arrests, torture, “disappearances,” summary executions, and forced displacement have reduced the Marsh Arabs from more than 250,000 to as few as 40,000.
Iraq: The Death Penalty, Executions, and "Prison Cleansing"
hrw.org
This briefing paper examines Iraq's arbitrary and widespread use of the death penalty and extrajudicial executions. For more than three decades, the government of President Saddam Hussein has sanctioned the use of the death penalty and extrajudicial executions as a tool of political repression, both in order to eliminate real or suspected political opponents and to maintain a reign of terror over the population at large. The executions that have taken place over this period constitute an integral part of more systematic repression - characterized by widespread arbitrary arrests, indefinite detention without trial, death in custody under torture, and large-scale "disappearances" - through which the government has sustained its rule. |
