February 25, 2012
The Iraqi People: Criminally Neglected by the International Community
Open Letter to The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay - 09 February 2012
Content:
Introduction
1. US soldiers have a licence to kill
2. Accountability
3. Maliki's culture of death
4. Eleven Iraqi men in danger of being executed
5. Rivers of blood: the WikiLeaks war logs
6. You shouldn’t trust Mr Maliki’s government
7. Maliki’s sectarian policies in education
8. Sectarianism through the back door
9. Iraqi academics under attack
10. Iraq’s Universities now the worst in the Arab World
11. Rivers of tears: no rights for women in Iraq
12. Enforced Disappearance
13. Investigation in Jadiriya detention and torture scandal needed
14. Results of Investigation into Ministry of Higher Education abduction scandal?
15. Efforts of the OHCHR: too little, too late
16. Tareq Aziz and the arbitrariness of the executioners
17. The "Dujail wedding massacre"
18. Executions after enforced confessions under torture
19. Mass Arrests
20. Were Iraqi Security Forces Involved in Baghdad Church Massacre?
21. Bloodmoney: Laura Bush Children’s Hospital in Basrah
22. About the OHCHR webpage on Iraq
23. International Criminal Court: Criminal denial
24. Sectarianism and dirty war in Iraq continue
25. Media disinformation
26. Conclusion
27. Footnotes
___________________________________________________
Dear Mrs Pillay,
On 24 of January you said you were "shocked" at reports that 34
individuals, including two women, were executed in Iraq on 19 January
following their conviction for various crimes.
"Even if the most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this
would be a terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day,"
you said.
"Given the lack of transparency in court proceedings, major concerns
about due process and fairness of trials, and the very wide range of
offences for which the death penalty can be imposed in Iraq, it is a truly
shocking figure."
"Most disturbingly," you added, "we do not have a single report
of anyone on death row being pardoned, despite the fact there are well
documented cases of confessions being extracted under duress. (…) I call on
the Government of Iraq to implement an immediate moratorium on the
institution of death penalty"
US soldiers have a licence to kill
On the same day that you made this statement, a U.S. military judge
sentenced a Marine squad leader, who pleaded guilty for war crimes in
connection with the assassination of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, to a
maximum of 90 days in prison and a reduction in pay and rank. But because he
pleaded guilty, Staff Sgt. Frank G. Wuterich won't serve any time in the
brig.Eight
Marines were initially charged. One was acquitted, and six others had their
cases dropped.
Understandably, the Iraqis reacted with outrage.
We wonder if you were "shocked" when you read this verdict. Did you
think this was an example of "transparency in court proceedings"?
Didn’t you have "major concerns about due process and fairness of trials"
in this case? We assume you did. So why didn’t your office issue a statement
condemning the US government? And what does this tell you about the value of
Iraqi lives?
You could have emphasized on the
importance of legal and political mechanisms that hold individuals and
governments accountable for their actions. The US rejects such
accountability for itself, while demanding that others in the world be held
accountable for their crimes. This adds intellectual racism to the other
deeds and crimes that the US should be held accountable for in Iraq and many
other places around the world, as Rami G. Khouri wrote so eloquently.
To date, no US official has been held accountable for US policies leading to
abuse in Iraq, or for the lies that started the war.
Despite the decreased US presence in Iraq, the country has been permanently
affected, and accountability should be high on the agenda of your office.
Maliki's culture of death
Iraqi authorities should halt all executions and abolish the death penalty,
Human Rights Watch said on 9 February. Since the beginning of 2012, Iraq
has executed at least 65 prisoners, 51 of them in January, and 14 more on
February 8, for various offenses. "The Iraqi government seems to have
given state executioners the green light to execute at will," said Joe
Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The government
needs to declare an immediate moratorium on all executions and begin an
overhaul of its flawed criminal justice system." A Justice Ministry
official confirmed to Human Rights Watch on February 8 that authorities had
executed 14 prisoners earlier in the day. "You should expect more
executions in the coming days and weeks," the official added.
According to your press release, the total number of individuals sentenced
to death in Iraq since 2004 is believed to stand at more than 1,200. The
total number actually executed since then is not known, although at least 63
individuals are thought to have been executed in the past two months alone.
The death penalty can be imposed in Iraq for around 48 crimes, including a
number of non-fatal crimes such as – under certain circumstances – damage to
public property.
On 28 May 2011, Amnesty International released its annual report. Their
conclusion: "Serious human rights violations were committed by Iraqi
security forces and US troops: thousands of people were detained without
charge or trial, including some held for several years. (…) Torture and
other ill-treatment of detainees by Iraqi security forces were endemic.(…)
The courts handed down death sentences after unfair trials and at least
1,300 prisoners were reported to be on death row."
"More than 1,200", "at least 1,300":
hundred Iraqis more or less on death row, who cares? We know that Iraqi
lives are worth less than a barrel of oil in the eyes of this sleeping world
community and the arrogant Iraqi government, which constantly provides your
office with incorrect figures. But the Iraqi people do care and won’t forget
the injustices that have been done to them.
Eleven Iraqi men in danger of being executed
On 25 January 2012 Amnesty International issued an urgent action alert to
halt the execution of eleven Iraqi men. The Iraqi presidency has ratified
the sentences of these men. They were sentenced to death on 14 January 2010
by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI) in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad;
sentenced to death in 2010 for their alleged involvement in bomb blasts at
the Finance and Foreign Affairs Ministries, in Baghdad on 19 August 2009.
They are at risk of imminent execution.
Very little information is available about the trial of the 11. According to
media reports, their trial was not open to the public or the media, and was
completed in a very short time. Trials heard before the CCCI consistently
fall short of international fair trial standards.
Lawyer Badie Aref Izzat appealed to the Iraqi legal authorities to cancel
the death sentence of these 11 convicts, and stated:
"These boys are waiting in death row and will be executed any moment now
for a crime they did not commit. They were unjustly charged and unlawfully
convicted and severe conditions made it impossible to defend themselves,
evidenced by the signs of brutal torture, which are still visible on their
bodies. These young men were convicted for the bomb attacks of bloody
Wednesday, which damaged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Finance. These
boys were convicted for the same crime to which another accused, Manaf Abdul
Rahim al-Rawi, has already admitted to be guilty of. That these boys did not
commit this crime is based on facts."
What measures is your office planning to take to halt these executions?
Rivers of blood: the WikiLeaks war logs
On 26 October 2010, you have urged Iraq and the United States to investigate
allegations of torture and unlawful killings in the Iraq conflict revealed
in the Wikileaks documents. You demanded for all alleged abuses against
Iraqi civilians by US troops to be properly investigated. The statement
followed revelations that the US handed over more than 9,000 detainees to
Iraqi authorities despite knowing of hundreds of reports of torture by Iraqi
Security forces.
On 3 November 2010, in the Special Information Session of Extra-territorial
Abuses of Human Rights by the United States in Geneva, I have asked you: "We
are very surprised by this statement. Does the High Commissioner think it is
appropriate for criminals to investigate their own crimes? Wijdan Mikhail,
the Iraqi Minister of Human Rights in Iraq has called for putting Julian
Assange on trial instead of investigating the crimes. Prime minister Nouri
al-Maliki attempted to dismiss the leaks as "media games and bubbles". And
since the Obama administration has shown no desire to expose any of the
crimes committed by US officials in Iraq, an international investigation
under the auspices of the High Commissioner of Human Rights is necessary."
We’re still awaiting your answer.
Three days after the documents were released, Iraq's national security
council agreed to establish a cross-government committee to examine the
evidence of the endemic use of torture and extrajudicial murder by all of
the state's security services. Have you heard something about that ever
since? We didn’t. However, the political storm caused by the WikiLeaks
documents failed to ignite public outrage in Iraq. The Iraqi population has
lived with violent instability, civil strife and routine abuse by militias,
police and the army since the invasion of 2003. Iraqis did not need
WikiLeaks to tell them about the hell they have lived in since the US-led
invasion.
You shouldn’t trust Mr Maliki’s government
We think you know that figures provided by the Iraqi government cannot be
trusted. We think you know that the actual deeds of the Iraqi government
don’t match their words, their statements, their promises. This is a
sectarian and corrupt government at all levels.
Of significance, Iraq completed the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in
February 2010. The Government of Iraq accepted 135 recommendations, and
committed publicly to develop and implement a National Action Plan on Human
Rights. However, no real moves were undertaken to implement the commitments
made during the UPR. Another issue put on hold was the establishment of the
Independent High Commission on Human Rights[12],
for which your office and the UN have repeatedly asked.
You know that between 50 and 180 bodies were dumped on Baghdad's streets
each day at the height of the sectarian killing spree, and many bore signs
of torture, such as drill holes or cigarette burns.
You know that the Iraqi government had issued instructions to all security
and health offices not to give out body count numbers to the media. This was
confirmed by a doctor at the Baghdad morgue who said on February 19 2008: "We
are not authorized to issue any numbers, but I can tell you that we are
still receiving human bodies every day; the men have no identity on them".
On August 10, 2006 Reuters mentioned that Iraq's Health, Interior and
Defence ministries consistently provided lower figures than those released
by the morgue.
Maliki’s sectarian policies in education
Sectarian policies of the Maliki government hamper the right to education of
Iraqi children in predominantly Sunni areas. Attacks on educational
institutions by the Iraqi Army and government militias, to intimidate,
frighten, kidnap, arrest and kill students occur on a regular basis. As a
consequence school attendance has decreased dramatically. A few examples
will make this clear. On 3 February 2011 the Muthanna Brigade of the Iraqi
army prevented students of the Isra school for boys and from the Ascension
High School for Girls in Haswa area of the district of Abu Ghraib, west of
Baghdad, from going to school to perform their mid-term exams. An Iraqi
source said: "the army used force to prevent teachers and also the
observers from the exams to reach their schools and ordered them to return
to their homes." He added: "the army struck terror into the hearts of
students and citizens alike, amid the apparent absence of human rights and
law."
On Wednesday afternoon, Jan 25, 2012, in the Sunni area east of the city of
Yathrib, Tikrit, Salah al Din province, Iraqi Government security forces
belonging to the LEWA [17] of the Fourth Division in the Iraqi Army, broke
into the Medina Secondary mixed high school, raided and searched the pupils,
then arrested during this raid seven school pupils - eight and ninth grade
students between the ages of 13 and14 years - in a brutal way. The school
was raided during the performance of students for their mid-year exams. The
government forces didn’t give any reason or motive for this raid.
Witnesses said that the forces raided the school in a most provocative and
shocking way, spreading terror among the pupils, male and female, and led
the students to leave the exam and the classroom. The witnesses added that
the raid was carried out in the most heinous and barbarian way even though
they were dealing with children, they have no regard to the sanctity of
weather the pupils were boys or girls. The Director of the school (Jassim
Mohammed Alhashmawi) tried to prevent these forces from entering the exam
halls, but the forces verbally insulted and beat him and they forced him out
of the school.
Sectarianism through the back door
It seems that the students in dominantly "Shia" provinces obtained much
better results than those in provinces with a predominantly Sunni
population.
In 2009 protests broke out in three Sunni Muslim cities in which
conspicuously low numbers of students passed their national exams, fuelling
suspicions that Iraq's Shiite Muslim-led government is discriminating
against Sunnis and others, reported McClatchy Newspapers on 10 September
2009. Alaa Makki who headed the parliament's education committee said he was
troubled by allegations that the Ministry of Education discriminated against
minorities, noting that students failed their exams at disproportionately
high rates in Sunni Anbar province, in the Sunni city of Tikrit and in the
Sunni neighbourhood of Adhamiyah in Baghdad. Education Minister Khudhayir al
Khuzai is a Shiite. Just 27 percent of the students passed their 12th-grade
national examinations in Fallujah, a city in Anbar. "These people can't
suddenly have lost their ability to study and all failed," Makki said. "There
is an error, and we hope to correct it."
These sectarian "errors" have not been "corrected", quite to the contrary.
Sectarianism is endemic in today’s Iraq.
In 2009, the Iraqi Prime Minister announced from Washington D.C a
massive-scale initiative for higher education. Fifty thousand Iraqi
students were to be sent abroad over 5 years period to complete their higher
studies and revamp Iraq’s education system.
70% of the students are to be sent to the US, seemingly a recompense for its
destruction of Iraqi cultural and educational system. However, as with all
other occupation's glitzy projects, this initiative has become another story
of corruption and political-sectarian manipulation run from the Prime
Minister’s office. Furthermore, fraud was uncovered in the 'non-profit’ US
based educational group charged with the organizational structure of the
project at its Iraqi base.
We’re convinced that you understand ethnic discrimination, from your 28
years experience as a lawyer in South Africa, when you defended
anti-Apartheid activists.
The BRussells Tribunal receives many
similar stories of ethnic and religious discriminations against minorities
and political opponents. We will gladly share all the information we have.
Iraqi academics under attack
You were the first South African to obtain a doctorate in law from Harvard
Law School. So we’re sure you care about the hundreds of lawyers and judges
who have been assassinated in Iraq. As a renowned academic, we think you’re
aware of the tragedy of the systematic liquidation of Iraq’s academics.
Under occupation, Iraq’s intellectual and technical class has been subject
to a systematic and ongoing campaign of intimidation, abduction, extortion,
random killings and targeted assassinations. Running parallel with the
destruction of Iraq’s educational infrastructure, this repression led to the
mass forced displacement of the bulk of Iraq’s educated middle class — the
main engine of progress and development in modern states.
In 2005 the BRussells Tribunal
started a campaign to create awareness about the catastrophic situation of
Iraqi academics. We issued a statement in which we requested that an
independent international investigation be launched immediately to probe
these extrajudicial killings. This investigation should also examine the
issue of responsibility to clearly identify who is accountable for this
state of affairs. We appealed to the special rapporteur on summary
executions at OHCHR in Geneva.
Until today, after six long years, we still haven’t received an answer,
although we compiled a list of 467 well-documented cases of assassinations.
The most recent case dates from 21 December 2011, when Firas Yawoz Abdul
Qadir Awchi, scientific assistant dean of the school of law at
Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad was killed while leaving his office,
when unknown gunmen attacked him. He was the father of two kids.
To this date, there has been no systematic investigation of this phenomenon
by the occupation authorities, the Iraqi government, or the international
Human Rights Bodies. Not a single arrest has been reported in regard to this
terrorization of the intellectuals. The starting point for any investigation
into the killings of Iraqi academics, which began with the illegal invasion
and occupation of a sovereign nation by British and American forces, is with
those forces and their political leaders themselves. Here’s a clue: In 2008
president Bashar al-Assad of Syria disclosed that in May 2003 Colin Powell,
then US Secretary of State, visited Syria and met him personally. In this
meeting and after boasting about the US achievements in Iraq he warned the
Syrian president against harbouring any Iraqi scientists or academics. "A
lot of them were later assassinated" president al-Assad added.
The President of Tikrit University resigned on 14 October 2011 after the
sacking of 300 University lecturers by the Minister of Higher Education Ali
Al-Adeeb,
140 employees and professors at the University of Tikrit alone.
The President of the University stated that they were all very good
lecturers. Iraqi sources claim that Ali-Al Adeeb has discharged some 1.200
lecturers since he became a Minister. Ali Al-Adeeb
also wanted to impose Islamic law in Iraqi universities through the
imposition of sectarianism and the veil and the separation of the sexes,
leading to discontent in university circles.
Iraq’s Universities now the worst in the Arab World
Iraqi academic institutions, once leaders among universities and research
centres in the rest of the Arab World, were instrumental in creating a
strong Iraqi national identity after years of colonization. The virtual
collapse of Iraq’s educational infrastructure has gutted the vehicle that
has served to cement a unifying history in the public mind.
The results of the policies of the occupying authorities are disastrous.
Iraq’s universities are now probably the worst in the Arab region, Asia and
the world. The Ranking Web of World Universities is published twice a year
(January and July), covering more than 20,000 Higher Education Institutions
worldwide.On
the Arab level not one Iraqi university is in the top 100 of Arab
universities in the ranking of July 2011. On the global level only 11 Iraqi
universities figure in the top 12.000. The showpiece of Iraq: Baghdad
University, ranks only 10.673th.
Following an International Seminar on the Situation of Iraqi Academics:
Defending education in times of war and occupation at Ghent University –
Belgium 9-12 March 2011,
we wrote down the recommendations of this seminar in a brochure titled
BEYOND EDUCIDE. Sanctions, Occupation and the Struggle for Higher Education
in Iraq, published by Academia Press in Ghent, ISBN 978 90 382 1885 4.
We will gladly provide your office with free copies of this booklet.
Rivers of tears: no rights for women in Iraq
We know you care a lot about women’s rights. As a member of the Women’s
National Coalition, you contributed to the inclusion in South Africa’s
Constitution of an equality clause prohibiting discrimination on the grounds
of race, religion and sexual orientation. In 1992, you co-founded the
international women's rights group Equality Now. We assume you’re
aware of the fact that religious fundamentalism of the occupation appointed
government in Iraq pulled women’s rights back to the dark ages. There are
many Human Rights reports that confirm this. Drawing on stereotypes
regarding the position of women in Arab and Muslim societies, US and British
officials have defended the occupation regime in Iraq by suggesting its
positive effects for women’s emancipation. These claims not only ignored the
considerable advancements in women’s education and employment made during
the first twenty years of Baa’thist rule; they also cover up the
particularly detrimental impact of US-UN-imposed sanctions on Iraqi women
during the 1990s. Similarly, these stereotypes distract attention from the
further deterioration of women’s rights and access to education and
employment under the religious fundamentalist occupation regime. Drawing on
a comprehensive statistical survey, Dr.Souad Al Azzawi showed that the
deteriorating security situation drove Iraqi women out of work. At least 85%
of educated women are unemployed.
In spite of reports of a decline in violence in Iraq as a whole, nearly 60%
of women surveyed (Oxfam 2009) said that security and safety remained their
most pressing concern. The survey importantly illustrated that the ripples
of conflict have washed over almost every aspect of many women’s lives – and
those of their families.
"Eight years after the US invasion, life in Iraq is actually getting
worse for women and minorities, while journalists and detainees face
significant rights violations," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East
director at Human Rights Watch, on 21 February 2011. "The women and girls
of Iraq have borne the biggest brunt of this conflict and resulting
insecurity," Stork said. "For Iraqi women, who enjoyed some of the
highest levels of rights protection and social participation in the region
before 1991, this has been an enormously bitter pill to swallow."
Hundreds of women have been targeted and killed as professionals or for
their public role in Iraq. In the medical profession alone, many have fled
or abandoned their work, triggering a brain drain and crippling the health
system. And there are now two million widows, most of them without financial
means or government support.
While both men and women are kidnapped, the trauma of the abduction for many
women does not end with the release. The shame associated with the event is
a lasting stigma. Such incidents are probably underreported by families for
the same reason.
And it’s not getting better. A report, released in August 2011 by the UN
Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and your Office, noted that women’s
rights in some ways deteriorated in 2010 and children continue to suffer
from violence and armed conflict.
U.S.-led coalition forces showed higher rates of indiscriminate killing of
women and children than insurgents, a study has found in 2011.
Does your Office have specific plans to address this poignant problem of
blatant inequality of Iraqi women?
Maybe the UN, the US Administration and Human Rights bodies should follow
the wishes of the Iraqi women.
72.7% of respondents in the Women for Women International-Iraq 2007
survey said that in the future there should be one unified Iraq with a
central government in Baghdad, and 88.6% of women thought that the
separation of people along ethnic/religious/sectarian lines was a bad thing.
However, only 32.3% of respondents thought there would in fact be one
unified Iraq with a central government in Baghdad in five years. This is
another indication that women do not feel as though their opinions are being
considered in decisions about their country’s future.
A unified Iraq is also what the anti-occupation movement in Iraq wants. So
why does the world community not start talks and negotiations with this
movement that represents the only reasonable voice in Iraqi politics, a
voice that reflects the will of the majority of the Iraqi people?
The total internally displaced population (IDP) as of November 2009 was
estimated to be 2,76 million or 467.517 families.
20% of these families reported children to be missing. A simple calculation
shows that more than 93,500 children of internally displaced families are
missing. Moreover, many communities reported missing family members (30% of
IDP, 30% of IDP returnees, 27% of refugee returnees) indicating that they
were missing because of kidnappings, abductions and detentions and that they
did not know what happened to their missing family members.
A rough estimate would therefore bring the number of missing persons among
the refugee population and the internally displaced after "Shock and Awe" to
260,000, most of them enforced disappearances.
On 24 November 2010 you have welcomed the entry into force of a landmark new
treaty to deter enforced disappearance after Iraq became the 20th State to
ratify the convention. "This ground-breaking Convention provides a solid
international framework to put an end to impunity and pursue justice, and as
a result will hopefully have a significant deterrent effect" you said.
Rough estimates indicate more than one million persons have disappeared in
Iraq. According to UN data, the country has the most disappeared in the
world. The disappearances stem from different periods since the Iran-Iraq
war in 1980. Disappearances still occur on a very regular basis. The most
important parties involved are the Iraqi army, police, various militias,
Al-Qu’aida and the American army.
Has your office already asked the US Administration and the Iraqi Government
if they have made progress to find out what happened to the tens of
thousands of disappeared persons after the invasion in 2003? After all, the
US was responsible for the protection of Iraqi civilians during the
occupation, according to Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of
Civilian Persons in Time of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949.
Maybe we can give you a hint where to start:
On 29 October 2011, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (HEYET)
called for the formation of an independent international
commission of inquiry to uncover the dimensions of brutal crimes taking
place in Iraq under US occupation and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The demand came in a statement published after the discovery of mass graves
in northern Fallujah of Anbar Province that included more than 400 bodies
killed by the American occupation forces during the second Fallujah attack.
On 27 April 2011 the Iraqi government has set up a "committee" to trace
thousands of Iraqis missing since the 2003 US-led invasion, said an
official. The government committee includes representatives from the
ministries of defence (Islamic Dawa Party), interior (Islamic Dawa Party),
national security (Islamic Dawa Party), health (Al Sadr bloc), justice
(Islamic Virtue Party) and human rights (Islamic Dawa Party), in addition to
intelligence services and anti-terrorism forces.
Many of those Ministries are involved or are leading the very militias that
have been suspected of carrying out most of the ferocious crimes of
extrajudicial assassination, sectarian violence, torture and enforced
disappearance, in conjunction with the occupying forces. So how can one
expect this "committee" to investigate the very crimes that their militias
are responsible for?
On April 8 2011 you condemned the raid by Iraqi security forces on Camp
Ashraf that killed at least 34 people. However, the problem still exists and
a solution is not immediately in sight.
Investigation in Jadiriya detention and torture scandal needed
The Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, 19
February 2010, mentions:
"In 2006, drawing attention to the lack of effective investigations after
its discovery, UNAMI noted that: One year after the discovery of the illegal
detention centre of al-Jadiriya’s bunker in Baghdad, on 13 November 2005,
where 168 detainees were unlawfully detained and abused, the United Nations
and international NGOs … continue to request that the Government of Iraq
publish the findings of the investigation on this illegal detention (…) The
failure to publish the al-Jadiriya report, as well as other investigations
carried out by the Government regarding conditions of detention in the
country, remains a matter of serious concern and affects Iraq’s commitment
to establish a new system based on the respect of human rights and the rule
of law."
Why was the nature and extent of involvement and cooperation between
different individuals and groups within the US occupation structure and the
Ministry of Interior never investigated? After all, American Intelligence
Officers had their headquarters in building of the Ministry of Interior
where torture and unlawful detentions took place. Without an independent
international investigation the urgent problem of enforced disappearance in
Iraq cannot be solved.
Results of Investigation into Ministry of Higher Education abduction
scandal?
In November 2006, between 140 and 150 members of the Grants Department in
the ministry of higher education were abducted in full daylight. It was the
biggest kidnapping operation in Iraqi history. The raid took place in broad
daylight, 1km from the Green Zone, in an area that contained several
high-security compounds, with a heavy presence of Iraqi troops and several
checkpoints. The paramilitary force estimated at between at least 50 and
100, in the uniforms of Iraqi National Police commandos, arrived in a fleet
of some 20-30 camouflage pickup trucks of the kind employed by the Interior
Ministry and rapidly established a cordon of the area. They made their
arrests according to lists, confirming the identities of those present by
their ID cards, then handcuffed and blindfolded the detainees and put them
into the backs of the pickups and into two larger vehicles. They then made
their exit through heavy traffic without opposition, despite the reported
presence of a regular police vehicle. The majority were later murdered,
while the fate of more than 60 is still unknown.
Prime Minister Maliki declared that this was not a
case of terrorism, but a dispute between 'militias’. US commanders stated
that they would support all efforts to free the detainees. On 14 November
2006 the UN called for immediate action to free the kidnapped education
ministry workers.
Can the results of this "immediate action" and the possible
investigation into these enforced disappearances be provided?
Efforts of the OHCHR: too little, too late
You issued several statements about the Iraqi Armageddon. But I’m afraid
it’s all too little, too late for the hundreds of thousands Iraqi human
beings that unnecessarily lost their lives in this illegal war and
occupation; too late for the millions of refugees; too late to stop
religious fundamentalism and sectarianism, the ethnic cleansing and the
destruction of Iraq’s social fabric.
The international Human Rights bodies have not fulfilled their duties in
condemning and informing the public correctly about the atrocities that have
taken place in Iraq by the Occupying Powers and the US installed government.
As a consequence, millions of Iraqi citizen are suffering from trauma’s from
which they will never recover. Many more millions around the world now think
that the Iraqi people have been killing each other, that the US Army is a
stabilizing force in Iraq that is not to blame for the so-called "civil war"
in Iraq.
Surely you must be aware that violations of Human Rights in Iraq under
occupation have taken multiple forms: deprivation of resources and services,
mass arrests, assassinations, deportation of millions, torture of every
kind, death squads, hanging and other death penalties, confiscating property
and houses, destroying cities, ethnic cleansing, blowing up residences,
markets and groupings, killing at checkpoints and in the streets for no
reason, trade of children and women, inhuman conditions in secret or public
prisons, rape of children, men and women, killing from the air, killing on
identity, kidnappings, stealing during investigation, extorting money from
prisoners, stealing organs in hospitals, killing thousands of academics,
media professionals, doctors and state servants, threats, deprivation of
legal rights and human rights, imprisonment without charge for long periods
of time, re-imprisonment of the innocent after release, illegal and unfair
trials, etc. All Iraqi communities are victims of this repression.
There is not one single human right in Iraq that hasn’t been seriously
violated. And all this has taken place under the watchful eyes of the world
community, including your office, the
Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.
A colleague of yours, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António
Guterres, has noted that Iraq is the world’s best-known conflict but the
least well-known humanitarian crisis.
According to figures released on January 22, 2008 by the UN Refugee Agency
(UNHCR), Iraqi refugees in Syria were suffering from extreme levels of
trauma, far higher than among refugees from other recent conflicts
elsewhere. The figures revealed that 89.5 per cent were suffering from
depression, 81.6 per cent from anxiety and 67.6 per cent from Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD).According
to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), the fourth leading cause of
morbidity among Iraqis older than five years is "mental disorders,"
which ranked higher than infectious disease.
Adding to that,
"Widespread poverty, economic stagnation, lack of opportunities,
environmental degradation and an absence of basic services constitute
'silent' human rights violations that affect large sectors of the population",
a UN report released on 08 August 2011 concludes.
This information is shocking. But your office didn’t seem to realize the
urgency for drastic measures or issuing strong condemnations against the
Anglo-American occupation authorities, to stop these grave violations of
human rights.
Since the so-called "withdrawal" of many American troops, the killing orgy,
the repression and ethnic cleansing of the US-installed government of Iraq,
led by Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, continue unabated.
Tareq Aziz and the arbitrariness of the executioners
"Tariq Aziz will be executed next year, after U.S. forces have pulled out
of the country", an adviser to Iraq's prime minister told CNN on Monday.
"It will definitely take place, and it will take place after the
Americans leave Iraq," said the adviser, Saad Yousif al-Muttalibi.
A lawyer for Aziz, Badi Arif, said he was surprised. "I did not expect
the government would be that stupid, by doing this they will drag this
country to the edge of the abyss".
"If legality does not prevail in the case of Tareq Aziz, his colleagues
and of all those unaccountably detained simply for differing political or
religious beliefs, facing a terrible demise in the name of Western
"liberation", all we collectively profess to hold dear, with legality’s
Treaties and Conventions, stand condemned, including the relevant silent
United Nations Organisations in New York and Geneva (…)", journalist
Felicity Arbuthnot, member of the BRussells
Tribunal, rightfully concludes.
UNAMI Human Rights Office/OHCHR, 2010 Report on Human Rights in Iraq stated:
"In mid-November, Iraqi President Talabani refused to sign the decree
authorizing the execution of former Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, who
had been sentenced to death on 26 October by the Supreme Iraqi Criminal
Tribunal. President Talabani reportedly objected to the execution because of
Aziz’s age and because Aziz is a Christian. "
UNAMI welcomed President Talabani’s objection to the execution of Tariq
Aziz.
Reidar Visser’s observation: while signing execution orders is indeed
enumerated as a presidential prerogative in article 73, no specific
authority to issue a pardon is mentioned, and the constitution does not say
what should happen if the president refuses to sign an execution order.
In practice, since 2005, Iraqi judges have frequently made the case that
strictly speaking no presidential decree is needed to implement a death
sentence. In that and other cases, the deputies of the president signed
presidential decrees, thereby completing the procedure specified in the
constitution. The selection of Khudayr al-Khuzaie (a Dawa Party hardliner)
as third deputy president was in part based on a desire by Shiite Islamists
to have a presidential deputy who would be prepared to sign execution orders
if president Talabani might be reluctant to do so.
To what extent should Talabani’s "objection" be welcomed, when he has
unscrupulous executioners at his disposal who gladly sign the death orders and carry out
the death sentences. This is a textbook example of hypocrisy. Talabani is as much responsible for the killing orgy as
the rest of the criminal gang in the Green Zone.
The "Dujail wedding massacre"
At the end of May 2011, a group of men made a confession on Iraqi TV to a
horrific crime. In 2006, as members of a Sunni terrorist organisation, they
were said to have kidnapped the wedding entourage of a mixed Shiite and
Sunni couple. Women were raped, children thrown in the river. Seventy people
in total were reportedly murdered. Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW)
investigated the event.
RNW spoke via a contact person to tribal leaders and officials from the
Shiite village of Dujail, said to have been the home of most of the victims.
They say anonymously that the massacre never took place.
Seventy people are said to have died, yet no family members of the victims
could be found. Supposed family members did appear in the TV broadcast. When
a parliamentary delegation travelled to meet them, they all turned out to
have lost family members in other attacks.
The fifteen men were sentenced to death on 16 June 2011, only days after
"confessions" by several of them were broadcast on Iraqi television. They
may not have received a fair trial.
On 24 November, 12 of the "suspects" were hanged in one of Baghdad's prisons,
for a crime that most probably didn’t happen.
One of the suspects of the Dujail wedding massacre, Firas Hassan Fleih
al-Juburi, took part in demonstrations against the Iraqi government. The
confessions about the wedding crimes were broadcast on 28 May, a few days
before a major anti-government demonstration was planned. Firas was
presented on TV as an activist who proved to be a terrorist. The
"confessions" were highly convenient for the government. As well as being a
human rights activist, Firas was also a member of the Iraqiya party, led by
the prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s great political rival Ayad Allawi. Very
suspicious chain of events, wouldn’t you say?
Did your office ever ask for an official independent investigation into this
case?
Executions after enforced confessions under torture
In 2005, Parliament passed a terrorism law approving the death sentence not
only for those who commit terrorist acts, but also for those who finance,
provoke, plan, or enable such acts. Furthermore, the terrorism law offered
amnesty and anonymity to al-mukhbir al-sirri, secret informers who
report alleged terrorist activities. Those reports contributed to the
detention of thousands of Iraqis. Because of the "secret informers," many
have been arrested without substantiated charges and many have been wrongly
executed. Detainees are tortured and forced to confess crimes or terrorist
acts during pre-trial interrogations, confessions they later denounce in
court.
This has created a weak judicial process, where many Iraqis are detained and
sentenced to death shortly after getting arrested.
These so-called "acts of terrorism" are heavily advertised to the public and
are regularly broadcast on the state-funded Al Iraqiya TV channel. While the
government says these confessions are meant to provide a sense of security
and justice, it’s difficult to find out under what conditions those
confessions were given.
All these "irregularities" are well known to you. Alarming reports about
these terrible human rights violations have been published by numerous Human
Rights bodies. But the consequence of not mentioning the connection between
the US and the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade militia, the US-backed Wolf
Brigade and other Special Police Commando units, or the extent of American
recruitment, training, command, and control of Iraqi intelligence units
distorted perceptions of events in Iraq, creating the impression of
senseless violence initiated by the Iraqis themselves and concealing the
American hand in the planning and execution of the most savage forms of
violence. News editors and Human Rights bodies played a significant role in
avoiding the public outrage that might have discouraged the further
escalation of these killing campaigns if they had investigated the precise
extent of US complicity in different aspects and phases of death squad
operations, torture and disappearances.
The prime responsibility for this policy, and for the crimes it involved,
rests with the individuals in the civilian and military command structure of
the US Department of Defense, the CIA and the White House who devised,
approved and implemented the "Phoenix" or "Salvador" terror policy in Iraq.
In the wake of the troops withdrawal, mass arrests have been made throughout
Iraq. Police forces in Basra have arrested about 2312 wanted persons since
the beginning of 2011 until 25 June. Most of the arrested were detained on
criminal charges, as well as terrorist activities.
Hundreds more have been arrested in the following months in different Iraqi
provinces. On 31 October Government security forces arrested 115 civilians
during raids and searches carried out in various Iraqi Provinces including
Nineveh, Diyala, Baghdad, Saladin, Anbar, Vasit and DhiQar. They also
arrested 347 civilians after similar military raids and attacks in many
provinces.
By early November 2011, the government announced that 655 former Baathists
had been picked up.
Unlawful arrests continue to take place on a daily basis.
The Human Rights Department of the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq
(HEYET) published its monthly report on violations and showed that in
December 2011 government security forces carried out 220 operations
resulting in the arrest of 1726 innocent civilians including dozens of
women. According to the HEYET department, attacks were carried out in 14
provinces. Their report clarified that these statistics of attacks and
arrests were based only on official announcements of current Defense and
Interior Ministries. Arrests and violations perpetrated by the National
Security Ministry, Anti-Terror Units, Awakening Councils, Kurdish Peshmerga
forces and other militias were not included in the report. These militia
groups also commit grave human rights abuses and violations.
In Januari 2012, government security forces carried out 210 operations in 14
provinces resulting in the arrest of 1388 innocent civilians including more
than 5 women.
Again I ask your office to intervene with the Iraqi government to put an
immediate halt to these random unlawful and sectarian arrests. The fate of
many of these arrestees remains unknown. Family members are desperately
seeking their missing loved ones. Can your office ask the Iraqi government
what happened to these enforced disappeared persons?
Were Iraqi Security Forces Involved in Baghdad Church Massacre?
On 31 October 2010, Our Lady of Salvation Church, in Baghdad's central
Karrada neighbourhood, was attacked by "Al Qaeda". In the deadly attack,
gunmen stormed the building and gunned down the priest and worshippers,
before exploding their suicide vests.
Despite an outcry against attacks on Christians, the targeting of churches
in Iraq has been a regular feature, since the U.S. invasion of the country
in 2003. In all, 68 worshippers died while attending church that day, and
another 98 were wounded.
On 2 August 2011, an Iraqi court has convicted three people and awarded them
the death penalty for their role last year in this siege and underscored the
uphill task faced by rulers of protecting religious minorities,
which are on the verge of extinction.
But the Assyrian Christian Community, Iraqi bloggers and even some
politicians have openly accused the Iraqi government for its handling of the
October 31 attack.
a) They point out that the terrorists brought explosives and weapons to the
church in cars with dark-tinted windows and no license plates that are only
available to officials with high-level security clearance. This allowed them
to get waved through checkpoints without being stopped.
b) They also point to the slow reaction of the security forces, and the
botched handling of the rescue attempt itself. It still remains unclear how
many of the victims were killed or wounded by the Iraqi rescue team, who
opened fire wildly once they burst into the church.
c) A senior officer in the Iraqi police, who asked not to be identified
because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that for the 10 days prior
to the attack that the Interior Ministry security forces gradually moved
barriers closer to the church, until the terrorists could drive right up in
front.
d) Dr. Duraid Tobiya, who heads the Mosul section of the Assyrian Democratic
Movement, the largest Christian political party in Iraq, told Newsmax, "I
can't accuse the government directly because I haven't seen the evidence.
But this is what we have heard from survivors and from eyewitnesses who
talked to people who were inside."
Duraid and other secular Christian leaders interviewed in northern Iraq
believe that the Shiite Dawa party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malaki, which
controls the Interior Ministry forces, was complicit in the attack, and that
the Iraqi police has become the instrument of the ruling party, not the
state.
He pointed out that right after the church massacre, the Baghdad city
council, which is also controlled by the Dawa party, passed new laws banning
liquor stores, nightclubs, and educational associations run by Christians. "Even
the universities in Baghdad imposed new dress codes on students and
separated classes by sex, like the Taliban."
Duraid and other leaders in the north believe the terrorist attacks against
Christians are not just carried out on religious grounds, but are also an
attempt at driving Assyrians as an ethnic minority out of Iraq. "We are
the indigenous Iraqis," Duraid said. "So the purpose of these attacks
is to destroy the Christians and force us to leave the country. The orders
for these terrorist attacks are coming from entities and political parties
inside the government."
These are the consequences of sectarianism and counterinsurgency policies,
introduced in Iraq by the Anglo-American invaders.
As usual, the Obama administration praised the Iraqi government for its
handling of the investigation. "Al-Qaida threatened to attack churches,
there was a church attack, and then al-Qaida claimed responsibility. I
simply do not believe Maliki or his forces, for all their ills, did this.
The US has seen no evidence that the government of Iraq was complicit in the
attack on the church. To the contrary, the Iraqi government has universally
condemned the attack on the church as well as attacks on Christians and
members of all faiths," the State Department official said.
Are they blind, I keep asking myself? Or are they
knee deep involved in spreading this kind of terror and chaos?
Would it not be just and fair to listen to the Iraqi voices and seriously
investigate their claims? Or will the International Human Rights
Organisations - including your office – keep on repeating the words of the
neighbourhood bully: the USA.
A Women for Women International – Iraq 2008 report gives a pretty
accurate picture of how Iraqi politics work and who is responsible for the
Iraqi catastrophe:
"Within the central government in Baghdad, Iraqi politics are largely
deadlocked. The current government is made up largely of Shiite politicians
closely tied to various militia warlords.
The Sunnis are not well represented in the government or the parliament, and
tribal sheiks of Anbar, Ninawah, and Salah al-Din provinces tend to view the
government as a front for Iran. Even among the Shiites, many believe that
the politicians in Baghdad are working for the best interests of the
militias, not the best interests of the Shiites as a whole, let alone all
Iraq.
The problem derives in large part from the flawed decisions that went into
the creation of the IGC in 2003 and the interim government of 2004. Having
brought exiles and militia leaders into the government and given them
positions of power, it became virtually impossible to get them out, and even
more difficult to convince them to make compromises. The militia leaders
used their positions to maintain and expand their power at the expense of
their rivals outside the government as well as in the central government
itself.
As a result, each ministry in Baghdad is wholly captive to the militia that
controls it."
I couldn’t have formulated it better. The Anglo-American occupation has
created these monstrous structures of death. The victims are the Iraqi
people.
Bloodmoney: Laura Bush Children’s Hospital in Basrah
I wish to draw your attention to a 28 July 2009 report of the Office Of The
Special Inspector General For Iraq Reconstruction.
Here are some quotes from the report.
Large oil reserves and abundant natural and human resources enabled Iraq to
attain the status of a middle income country in the 1970s while enjoying
perhaps the best health care system in the Middle East. There was an
extensive network of well-equipped and well-staffed health care facilities.
The Government of Iraq (GOI) estimated that 97% of urban and 79% of rural
populations had access to health care, which included public health programs
for malaria and tuberculosis control, and an expanded immunization program.
However, three wars and international economic sanctions have stifled
economic growth and development and debilitated basic infrastructure and
social services and have left many Iraqi sectors dysfunctional.
Although the needs are dire and extend to cover all sectors, the extremely
deteriorated health sector situation, medical facilities status, and
capacity, coupled with the ongoing violence, has resulted in bringing the
attention of all involved to the urgent needs of the sector.
The severity of the decline in Iraq’s health care sector is emphasized by
the contrasting improvement of children’s health in many other countries.
Its health care, once the envy of the Middle East, now is rated by the World
Health Organization (WHO), as a country with high adult and child mortality
alongside much poorer countries, such as the Sudan, Yemen, and Djibouti.
In 2003 (while her husband, George W. was busy bombing the country)
the First Lady of the United States became "increasingly concerned"
about the deteriorating Iraqi health care system, especially for the
children suffering from cancer.
Project HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere) made a factfinding
mission to Iraq to identify the most appropriate opportunity to fund a
children’s hospital. Project HOPE found "deplorable health care conditions
plaguing Iraqi society."
Specifically, Project HOPE identified a very high child mortality rate in
southern Iraq, where 150 out of 1,000 children were dying before reaching
the age of five; most died before their first birthday. In addition, cancer
is almost five times higher in southern Iraq than the national average.
The project eventually became known as the Basrah Children’s Hospital (BCH),
also referred to as the Laura Bush Children’s Hospital. No, Mrs
Pillay, this is not a joke.
In a 27 June 2006 report by the Louis Berger Group, Inc. on the Basrah
Children’s Hospital, the background of the decline in healthcare in Iraq was
explained. Mortality rates for children and maternity mortality rates have
doubled; moreover, adult mortality has grown exponentially. In Iraq,
childhood cancers are 8-10 times more common than in the western world; the
incidence rate in Iraq is 8%, compared to 0.5-1% in developed countries. 8%
of Iraqi children with leukemia survive compared to 80% in the United
States. The most common childhood cancers are leukemia, lymphomas, brain
tumors, and other nervous system tumors. Since 1993, the Iraqi cancer
registry has reported an increase in the number and proportion of cases of
leukemia in the southern provinces. Children under the age of five account
for approximately 56% of the registered cancer cases.
As of May 2009, the total project cost was $165.7 million, more than three
times the original estimated costs. By June 2006, when Bechtel was issued
the "stop work" order, the U.S. government assessment concluded that poor
contractor performance and inadequate management oversight were key reasons
for project cost overruns and for being over 9 months behind schedule.
The First Lady must have been very proud of this achievement: all these
Iraqi children with cancer who are being treated in HER hospital. Well,
thanks but no thanks, Laura. Your gracious gift is peanuts compared to the
expenses of this multi trillion dollar war. The cost of deploying one U.S.
soldier for one year in Iraq? $390.000. Can you count, Laura? I can. It’s
the price for keeping 425 US soldiers in Iraq for one year.
In 2011, it was estimated that a single Tomahawk cruise missile costs
$830.000. So the Laura Bush Children’s Hospital has been built for the price
of 200 Tomahawk missiles. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, more than 725
tomahawk missiles were fired. Well, you know what's in Tomahawk missiles?
Yes: depleted uranium. Numerous reasons are given in this 75 pages report
for the exponential increase in cancers, but never, not even once is the use
of illegal weaponry mentioned. White Phosphorous, Daisy cutters, Depleted
Uranium and other heavy metals, Thermobaric bombs, Clusterbombs, Napalm:
you won’t find it in this report. So you won’t read in this report that
there is in fact little hope for the children of Iraq. Recent studies about
cancer rates in Fallujah prove this.
The birth defects and cancers among children are a human rights scandal
beyond imagination and are causing irreparable damage to future generations
in Iraq, if ever there is a future.
About the OHCHR webpage on Iraq
What is the answer of the Office of the High Commissioner to the Iraqi
killing fields? Did it appoint a Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for
Iraq? No it didn’t. Apparently your Office believes the fantasy story of a
"blossoming democracy" in Iraq, repeating the fictitious US tales about
overall improvements for the Iraqi people. What can be more cynical than
this quote on the main webpage of OHCHR in Iraq:
"From 2006 to 2009, UNAMI Human Rights Office carried out a number of
training courses for the staff of the Ministry of Human Rights, Ministry of
Justice, Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense on the relevant
human rights standards and the international humanitarian law (IHL), and
sponsored several high-level seminars on the protection of human rights
within the framework of Iraq’s counter-terrorism measures. UNAMI Human
Rights Office and OHCHR was also actively engaged on the development of
capacity of the Ministry of Human Rights and the Ministry of Justice by
sponsoring workshops and training courses for their staff in Baghdad and
governorates on detention standards and human rights monitoring, and it
assisted and continues to assist with the establishment of the Iraq’s High
Commission of Human Rights, a Center for Missing and Disappeared Persons and
a national Center for the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Torture."
The World Community has clearly abandoned the Iraqi people. Human Rights
don’t apply to them. The Iraqi National Police (the notorious Special Police
Commandos) fall under the authority of the Ministry of Interior. The USA
reorganised the Ministry of Interior and turned the Special Commandos into a
lethal, deadly force. The USA organized, trained, armed, funded and used
these forces to terrorize and kill the Iraqi people. There is ample evidence
to substantiate this claim. Already on 30 April 2006 the BRussells
Tribunal reported:
"After exact counting and documenting, the Iraqi Organisation for
Follow-up and Monitoring has confirmed that 92 % of the 3498 bodies found in
different regions of Iraq have been arrested by officials of the Ministry of
Interior. Nothing was known about the arrestees’ fate until their riddled
bodies were found with marks of horrible torture. It’s regrettable and
shameful that these crimes are being suppressed and that several states
receive government officials, who fail to investigate these crimes."
The report of the Human Rights Office of UNAMI, issued on September
8th 2005, written by John Pace, was also very explicit, linking the campaign
of detentions, torture and extra-judicial executions directly to the
Interior Ministry and thus also to the US-led Multi-National Forces, who
reorganised the Ministry of Interior and established the Special Police
Commandos.
John Pace, who left Baghdad in January 2006, told The Independent on Sunday
that up to three-quarters of the corpses stacked in the city's mortuary show
evidence of gunshot wounds to the head or injuries caused by drill-bits or
burning cigarettes. Much of the killing, he said, was carried out by Shia
Muslim groups under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.
And your office gave these death squads "a number of training courses on
the relevant human rights standards and the international humanitarian law"?
What are we supposed to conclude from this? The nature and extent of
involvement of different individuals and groups within the US occupation
structure in death squad operations has never been investigated, but there
are many leads that could be followed by any serious inquiry, especially by
the appropriate Rapporteurs of the OHCHR. I wonder why your office didn’t
call for such an independent investigation?
International Criminal Court: Criminal denial
In February 2003, you were elected to the first ever panel of judges of the
International Criminal Court and assigned to the Appeals Division. So I
think you know how shamefully the ICC has abandoned and betrayed the Iraqi
people.
"The Office of the Prosecutor has received over 240 communications
concerning the situation in Iraq. (…) The available information provided no
reasonable indicia that Coalition forces had "intent to destroy, in whole or
in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such", as
required in the definition of genocide (Article 6). Similarly, the available
information provided no reasonable indicia of the required elements for a
crime against humanity, i.e. a widespread or systematic attack directed
against any civilian population. (…) The available information did not
indicate intentional attacks on a civilian population. (…) After analyzing
all the available information, it was concluded that there was a reasonable
basis to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court had been
committed, namely wilful killing and inhuman treatment. (…) The information
available at this time supports a reasonable basis for an estimated 4 to 12
victims of wilful killing and a limited number of victims of inhuman
treatment, totalling in all less than 20 persons. Even where there is a
reasonable basis to believe that a crime has been committed, this is not
sufficient for the initiation of an investigation by the International
Criminal Court."
This was Special Prosecutor Moreno Ocampo’s amazing statement on 9 February
2006. And at that time you were working there. He waited years to answer the
240 individuals and organisations who filed complaints, and his answer came
after Fallujah and other Iraqi cities had been bombed to pieces. I think you
agree with me that the ICC has only managed to prosecute Africans, apart
from some Serbians. Notice the huge difference with Libya. On 24 March 2011
the International Criminal Court prosecutor said that he would present a
case for possible war crimes by Libya's Muammar Gaddafi in May and that he
could open a second case to include more recent attacks on civilians.His
declaration came days after unsubstantiated rumours and dubious reports,
while in Iraq on the other hand enough credible sources were available to
open a multitude of cases against the occupying powers, for war crimes and
crimes against humanity. So where can the Iraqi people turn to if they want
to seek justice? Maybe you know the answer.
Sectarianism and dirty war in Iraq continue
Mrs. Pillay, we realise this is a very long letter. We can only present to
you a small fragment of the grave human rights violations that have taken
place and continue to take place in this war-torn country. We would have to
write a whole book to sum up all the violations of human rights that
occurred in Iraq while the country was under occupation. And as you have
read, it does not look likely that the situation will improve soon. You must
have read in numerous press accounts that the sectarian policies of the
current government and the counterinsurgency war of the Special Operation
Forces continue.
You may remember that 458 people – predominantly Sunnis - were excluded from
contesting the 2010 election by the so-called de-Ba’athification commission.
Iraq commentator Reidar Visser referred to the "selective
de-Ba'athification" process being pursued in Iraq, given that historically,
he notes, the Shias and Sunnis alike co-operated with the old regime in
their millions.
"More fundamentally, the question of "selective de-Ba’athification" comes on
the agenda here in a big way. It is a historical fact that Shiites and
Sunnis alike cooperated with the old regime in their millions, and it was
for example Shiite tribes that cracked down on the "Shiite" rebellion in the
south in 1991. Nonetheless, the exiles who returned to Iraq after 2003 have
tried to impose an artificial narrative in which the legacy of pragmatic
cooperation with the Baathist regime is not dealt with in a systematic and
neutral fashion as such; instead one singles out political opponents (often
Sunnis) as "Baathists" and silently co-opt political friends (especially if
they happen to be Shiites) without mentioning their Baathist ties at all.
The result is a hypocritical and sectarian approach to the whole question of
de-Ba’athification that will create a new Iraq on shaky foundations. (For
example, the Sadrists have been in the lead in the aggressive
de-Ba’athification campaign, yet it is well known that many Sadrists in fact
had Baathist ties in the past.)"
Still these elections were praised as "fair and impartial" by the Western
media. There wasn’t any criticism about this blatant fraudulent election
circus, neither from the US State Department nor from your Office.
Suicide bombings, assassinations and bombings in Iraq between December 18,
2011 (the date the U.S. most of its troops have withdrawn from the country)
and January 19, 2012, killed at least 265 people and hundreds of others were
injured, according to data from the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Health.
But as we told you earlier, the figures of the US-installed Maliki
government are not trustworthy. According to the Iraq Body Count database,
at least 450 Iraqi civilians died violently during that period. And the real
number is probably much higher.
"The wave of attacks, carried out mainly by Sunni extremists from
Al-Qaeda in Iraq against Shia communities, has alarmed many who fear the
country could descend into chaos once more, with the government itself
acknowledging it is not capable of ensuring security on its own."
This is the story that we constantly hear in the media, blaming the "Sunni"
terrorist group al-Qaida, which carries out attacks against the" Shiite"
population. What is most saddening is that this particular sentence was
written by IRIN, a news service of the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs. Why are the media so sure that it is "Sunni" Al Qaeda
killing innocent Shiites?
Let me put the record straight for you: in recent weeks there have been
several bomb attacks in Ramadi, Adamiya in Baghdad, Mosul, Haditha, Diyala,
Tikrit, Fallujah, etc., all Sunni areas. The wave of attacks is nationwide.
Please let your office check out the Iraqi press accounts of the previous
weeks.
Then why do the Western media and IRIN focus on Al Qaeda and declare the
Shiite population the main victims? Why would they do that? I wonder.
Maybe it would be good to remind the public about ruthless killings
perpetrated by Shiites against Shiites. Let me give you one example. On 27
February 2009, The New York Times reported that twenty-eight members of a
Shiite messianic cult responsible for brutal attacks on Shiite pilgrims in
Iraq were sentenced to death in the federal court in Dhi Qar Province. The
condemned were members of the Followers of the Mahdi, itself a part of the
Soldiers of Heaven or Jund As-Samaa, a destructive cult that believes that
sowing chaos will pave the way for the coming of the Mahdi, the 12th Imam,
who disappeared in the ninth century, and who Shiites believe will return as
a saviour of humanity. Nineteen other members of the group were sentenced to
life imprisonment, and six were acquitted, said the court official, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
publicly.
And why is there no mention of the thousands of Sunnis who were recently
arrested and detained by the government? Why don’t the mainstream media
write about the virulent sectarian politics of Maliki, who recently declared
that his primary identity is 'Shia'?
Why is there no mention of recent "suspicious incidents" that have been
reported in the Iraqi press? Let me give you a few examples:
On January 25, a senior source at the Iraqi Ministry of Transport confirmed
to Al-Mada daily newspaper that the British security company assigned for
the control of Bagdad airport caught a Czech security team of the Czech
Embassy in Baghdad with a number of silencers and explosives in the
beginning of January. The silencers had the smell of gunpowder according to
the source whose name the newspaper refrained to mention. The security of
Baghdad airport apprehended the Czech security team for a number of hours;
yet they were released following the intervention of the Czech Ambassador
after visiting Hady Al-Amery’s office, Iraqi Transport Minister, according
to the same source. The source told the newspaper that the security officers
at Baghdad airport find it very strange to find such silencer guns at the
possession of foreign diplomats since these weapons are used by "special
elements" for specific acts, which are assassinations. Why were they
released so quickly? Here’s one clue: It is well known that Al-Amery is the
head of the Badr Brigades, the armed wing of the Supreme Council of Iraqi
Islamic Revolution. The Badr Brigades have changed their name into the Badr
Organisation and joined the so-called "political process."
Said Salah Abdul-Razzaq, the governor of Baghdad, said in an interview in Al
sumaria News: "A unit of the security forces near my house ordered a grey
BMW to stop. In the car were four Americans, two men and two women, in the
possession of handguns with silencers and machine guns, and they wore bullet
proof vests." Salah Abdul-Razzaq said that the four Americans were
driving near his house, and urged the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs to
take diplomatic action and ask the US to clarify the reason for this
"violation", and warned of the possibility that his police forces would fire
to kill in the event of repeated violations, regardless of the nationality
of the offenders. They were released soon, after the American Embassy
intervened.
What can we conclude from all these events? Something that is being repeated
over and over again by many Iraqi witnesses, namely that the recent strings
of bomb attacks and assassinations are part of the counterinsurgency
strategies of the US in conjunction with Maliki’s government, and probably
Iran and other neighbouring countries, false flag operations in order to
create chaos and sectarian strife with the ultimate goal of discrediting
national reconciliation efforts so that the country can be partitioned
without too much popular protest and political opposition.
We hope you will not be influenced by the continuous flow of disinformation,
and that you are willing to dig deeper into the secret, dark underworld of
dirty war, media-manipulation and corruption. The terrible humanitarian
situation in Iraq is the ultimate responsibility of the Anglo-American
forces that invaded, occupied and keep occupying Iraq, together with the US
installed Iraqi government. And they should be held accountable.
The International Community and the International Human Rights bodies, who
have turned a blind eye to the unspeakable human rights violations in Iraq,
should take up their responsibilities urgently. If not, history will be the
judge of the criminal neglect of the Iraqi people by the International
Community during the past 20 years.
The BRussells Tribunal has been
monitoring the human rights violations in Iraq – and the dirty war - since
the illegal invasion of Iraq by Anglo-American Forces. Among our members are
many Iraqis and two former UN Assistant Secretary-Generals, human
coordinators for Iraq: Mr. Denis Halliday and Graf Hans von Sponeck.
We sincerely hope your office will closely monitor the human rights abuses
of Nouri Al-Maliki’s government, the American "advisers" and the foreign
mercenaries who are still present in Iraq. Don’t hesitate to ask our help if
you’re in need of relevant information about human rights violations
committed by the occupation and the Iraqi government. We will gladly provide
you with all the necessary information.
We will never accept that history will be rewritten by the invading powers
that illegally occupied a sovereign country, an invasion and occupation that
your office has never condemned. "To initiate a war of aggression is
essentially an evil thing (…) It is not only an international crime; it is
the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in
that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole",
according to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, which
followed World War II. And not once have I seen a word of condemnation from
International Human Rights bodies about the illegality of the Anglo-American
invasion. Your office has excelled in silence. Silence is complicity. And
silence kills.
We will never give up defending the pledge for justice of the Iraqi people.
We will never give up exposing the unspeakable violations of human rights
that take place in Iraq. We will never give up highlighting the
responsibilities of the International Community.
------------------------
In Her Own
Words: Iraqi women talk about their greatest concerns and
challenges
|
