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| "Facts don't justify wholesale murder" |
Itsdb |
08/16/06 |
That was a comment on my answer to Elliot's previous question.
So, for those who need reminding again...
"Iraq is a terrifying place to live. People are in constant fear of being denounced as opponents of the
regime. They are encouraged to report on the activities of family and neighbours. The security services can strike at any time. Arbitrary arrests and killings are commonplace. Between three and four million Iraqis, about 15% of the population, have fled their homeland rather than live under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
These grave violations of human rights are not the work of a number of overzealous individuals but the deliberate policy of the regime. Fear is Saddam’s chosen method for staying in power."
That was the opening lines of "SADDAM HUSSEIN: crimes and human rights abuses", by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London, 2002. Sources of this report:
Sources: US Committee for Refugees Report 2002, Human Rights Watch Country Report, International Alliance for Justice News Service 12/9/2002, Amnesty International Report – Victims of Systematic Repression, British Government’s own sources
Selections from the report:
"On 19 April 2002, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution drawing attention to “the systematic, widespread and extremely grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law by the Government of Iraq, resulting in an all-pervasive repression and oppression sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror.”
"Torture is systematic in Iraq. The most senior figures in the regime are personally involved."
Udayy Saddam Hussein:
"Saddam’s elder son. He has been frequently accused of serial rape and murder of young women. He maintained a private torture chamber, known as “al-Ghurfa al-Hamra” (the Red Room), disguised as an electricity installation, in a building on the banks of the Tigris.
He personally executed dissidents in Basra during the uprising that followed the Gulf War in March 1991. In one infamous incident of mass torture, Udayy Hussein ordered the national football team to be caned on the soles of their feet after losing a World Cup qualifying match."
Qusayy Saddam Hussein:
"Saddam’s younger son. As head of the Iraqi internal security agencies, he has permitted and encouraged the endemic use of torture, including rape and the threat of rape, in Iraq."
"Under Saddam Hussein’s regime women lack even the basic right to life. A 1990 decree allows male relatives to kill a female relative in the name of honour without any punishment. Women have been tortured, ill-treated and in some cases summarily executed too, according to Amnesty International."
The “Mahjar” prison...normal occupancy of the “Mahjar” is 600-700 people. Thirty of the cells are underground and thirty other cells used to be dog kennels. Prisoners are beaten twice a day and the women regularly raped by their guards. They receive no medical treatment, but some prisoners have survived up to a year in the “Mahjar”. Two large oil storage tanks each with a capacity of 36,000 litres have been built close to the “Mahjar”. The tanks are full of petrol and are connected by pipes to the prison buildings in the Mahjar”. The prison authorities have instructions to set light to the petrol and destroy the "Mahjar" in an emergency.
The “Sijn Al-Tarbut” (the casket prison)...in Baghdad. The prisoners here are kept in rows of rectangular steel boxes, as found in mortuaries, until they either confess to their crimes or die. There are around 100-150 boxes which are opened for half an hour a day to allow the prisoners some light and air. The prisoners receive only liquids.
The “Qurtiyya” (the can) prison...consists of 50-60 metal boxes the size of old tea chests in which detainees are locked under the same conditions as the “Sijn Al-Tarbut”. Each box has a tap for water and a floor made of mesh to allow the detainees to defecate."
Instructions for dealing with demonstrations:
1. All officers, deputies and NCOs to report to their bases with all their weapons immediately upon hearing of a demonstration, in order to receive instructions.
2. All of those responsible for the self defence of the directorate to remain at post without leaving their place of duty under the supervision of officer in charge.
3. In the event of a hostile demonstration, these groups will be contained by closing all access routes and by taking control of all high points overlooking them.
4. After taking the above measures and containing the hostile elements, armed force will be used in accordance with central instructions to kill 95% of them, and to leave 5% for interrogation.
5. If the force comes under hostile fire from other directions and it is possible that there are saboteur elements in the vicinity to protect the demonstration, the force will return fire intensively.
6. An emergency force will be prepared to reinforce the primary force and to defend sensitive sites.
7. The technical unit will, when authorised, use technical means as instructed under the supervision of the officer of the unit and the security representative Tahir Mahmud Ahmad.
(Editorial note: technical unit and technical means are euphemisms for chemical weapons.) (Steve's note...shooting fish in a barrel)
"In 1984, 4,000 political prisoners were executed at a single prison, the Abu Ghraib. An estimated 2,500 prisoners were executed between 1997 and 1999 in a further “prison cleansing” campaign. In February 2000, 64 male prisoners were executed at Abu Ghraib, followed in March by a further 58, all of whom had previously been held in solitary confinement. In October 2001, 23 political prisoners, mainly Shia Muslims, were executed at Abu Ghraib.
Between 1993 and 1998 around 3,000 prisoners from the “Mahjar” prison were executed in an execution area called the “Hadiqa” (garden) near to the prison."
"Documents captured by the Kurds during the Gulf War and handed over to the nongovernmental organisation Human Rights Watch provided much information about Saddam’s persecution of the Kurds. They detail the arrest and execution in 1983 of 8,000 Kurdish males aged 13 and upwards.
Amnesty International in 1985 drew attention to reports of hundreds more dead and missing, including the disappearance of 300 Kurdish children arrested in Sulaimaniya, of whom some were tortured and three died in custody.
In 1988, Iraqi government forces systematically razed Kurdish villages and killed civilians. Amnesty International estimates that over 100,000 Kurds were killed or disappeared during 1987-1988, in an operation known as the Anfal campaigns...The campaign included the use of chemical weapons. According to Human Rights Watch, a single attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja killed up to 5,000 civilians and injured some 10,000 more."
"The UN Special Rapporteur reports claims by Kurdish opposition sources that 94,000 individuals have been expelled from their homes since 1991."
"More than 100 Shia clerics have disappeared since the 1991 uprising...In early 1999, during a peaceful demonstration in response to the Iraqi regime’s murder of the most senior Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, security forces fired into the crowd of protestors, killing hundreds of civilians, including women and children. Security forces were also involved in efforts to break-up Shia Friday prayers in Baghdad and other cities. Large numbers of Shia were rounded up, imprisoned without trial and tortured. In May 2001, two more Shia clerics were executed in Baghdad for publicly accusing the regime of the Grand Ayatollah’s murder.
In response to attacks on government buildings and officials in southern Iraq during 1999, the Iraqi army and militia forces destroyed entire Shia villages in the south.
During the 1990s, Saddam pursued a policy of draining the marshes area of southern Iraq so forcing the population to relocate to urban areas where it was less able to offer assistance to antiregime elements and could be controlled more effectively by the regime’s security forces. As an UN Environment Programme report put it – ‘The collapse of Marsh Arab society, a distinct indigenous people that has inhabited the marshlands for millennia, adds a human dimension to this environmental disaster. Around 40,000 of the estimated half-million Marsh Arabs are now living in refugee camps in Iran, while the rest are internally displaced within Iraq. A 5,000-year-old culture, heir to the ancient Sumerians and Babylonians, is in serious jeopardy of coming to an abrupt end.’"
Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990. Iraqi forces committed robbery, raped Kuwaitis and expatriates, and carried out summary executions. Amnesty International documented many other abuses during the occupation of Kuwait.
Iraq denied access to the Red Cross, which has a mandate to provide protection and assistance to
civilians affected by international armed conflict.
As Iraq tried to impose its own identity on the occupied territory, Kuwaiti civilians were arrested
for “crimes” such as wearing beards. People were dragged from their homes and held in improvised
detention centres. In findings based on a large number of interviews, Amnesty International listed 38 methods of torture used by the Iraqi occupiers, including beatings, breaking of limbs, extracting finger and toenails, inserting bottle necks into the rectum, and subjecting detainees to mock executions.
More than 600 Kuwaiti and third country nationals remain unaccounted for. The British Government believe some were still alive in 1998. Iraq refuses to comply with its UN obligation to account for the missing. It has failed to provide sufficient information to close more than three of the 600 or so files.
In an attempt to deter military action to expel it from Kuwait, the Iraqi regime took hostage several hundred foreign nationals (including children) in Iraq and Kuwait, and prevented thousands more from leaving. Worse still, hostages were held as human shields at a number of strategic military and civilian sites, many in inhumane conditions.
At the end of the Gulf War, the Iraqi army fleeing Kuwait set fire to some 1,160 Kuwaiti oil wells, with serious environmental consequences."
"The following methods of torture have all been reported to international human rights groups, such
as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, by the victims of torture or their families.
Eye gouging: Amnesty International reported the case of a Kurdish businessman in Baghdad who was executed in 1997. When his family retrieved his body, the eyes had been gouged out and the empty eye
sockets stuffed with paper.
Piercing of hands with electric drill: A common method of torture for political detainees. Amnesty International reported one victim who then had acid poured into his open wounds.
Suspension from the ceiling: Victims are blindfolded, stripped and suspended for hours by their wrists, often with their hands tied behind their backs. This causes dislocation of shoulders and tearing of muscles and ligaments.
Electric shock: A common torture method. Shocks are applied to various parts of the body, including the genitals, ears, tongue and fingers.
Sexual abuse: Victims, particularly women, have been raped and sexually abused, including reports of broken bottles being forced into the victim’s anus.
"Falaqa": Victims are forced to lie face down and are then beaten on the soles of their feet with a cable, often losing consciousness.
Other physical torture: Extinguishing cigarettes on various parts of the body, extraction of fingernails and toenails and beatings with canes, whips, hose pipes and metal rods are common.
Mock executions: Victims are told that they are to be executed by firing squad and a mock execution is staged. Victims are hooded and brought before a firing squad, who then fire blank rounds.
Acid baths: David Scheffer, US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes, reported that photographic evidence showed that Iraq had used acid baths during the invasion of Kuwait. Victims were hung by their wrists and gradually lowered into the acid.
There's some facts for you...and this is one of the milder reports. But I guess if Saddam was no threat to us then why bother, right?
Steve |
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