Appendix F
Iraqi Hostages in Iraq and the Implementation of Resolutions 688 and 1441
On 4th April 1980 the Iraqi government initiated a mass deportation of Iraqi citizens to Iran. The Red Cross estimates that one hundred thousand people were deported in the first six months and in total approximately one million people were deported over the decade 1980-1990. At the same time tens of thousands of the relatives of these deportees were retained as hostages. Over the last twenty-two years many of them were subsequently deported and others died, either in prison or at the front in the Iran-Iraq war. Many of them were used in Iraqi chemical and biological warfare experiments.
There are still an estimated 4000 hostages about whom there is no information at the present time. Their relatives are still demanding that the Iraqi Government releases these hostages and allows them to join their families wherever they are.
At the time of the deportation all belongings and documents, including Iraqi citizenship documents and passports, title to property and certificates of qualification and bank accounts, were confiscated. The families are also demanding that their property and Iraqi citizenship is returned and that are compensated for their losses and suffering due to deportation. They are also demanding an official apology.
This top secret decision of the deportation and hostage taking has been taken by the highest authority in Iraq and by direct order from President Saddam Hussein. They considered certain sectors of the Iraqi society (Faylee Kurds, Persian and some Arabs) as being of Iranian origin, in spite of the fact that these people and their ancestors have been born on Iraqi soil. Many of these families their origin extends to well before the appearance of the Islamic civilization in the region. It then transpired that the main purpose of this policy was for the Iraqi regime to prepare for their invasion into Iran, which has started on September 1980.
The deportation has taken place in a form of the entire family and this is including elderly, children, pregnant women and handicapped people of different ages. The deportations have taken place in inhumane form and without any pre-warning. These families have been forced to walk for days on their feet during the severe winter and snow and through the Iraq/Iran border, without them being given any food or water. Some of these family members have died in the road during their journey and some have been killed by landmine and others have been robbed. Many of these deportees have managed then to leave Iran at different periods and have applied for asylum in mainly European countries as well as other countries around the globe and the remaining ones in Iran have been scattered throughout different cities in Iran and especially the ones bordering the Iraqi border and some have been kept until now in refugee camps.
These deportees’ families they were in the middle of the eight year war between Iraq and Iran. Many of them have been killed through the Iraqi strikes on the Iranian cities with various weapons and artillery and some by chemical weapons. Many of the remainder of these refugees in Iran lives in poverty because of hardship to find suitable employment and a lot of them by now have become aged and their only hope is for donations from charitable people and charitable organizations.
The other problem for these deportees in Iran is that the Iranian government until now do not consider them as refugees or give them Iranian citizenship or papers, they have not been given any form of work permit or to be able to buy or sell officially. But the Iranian government has issued them with an identity card (the green card) and this card states that this person is from Iraqi origin and he is not permitted to use this card for any official dealings by buying or selling or owning property in the country.
The main hope for these deported families and until now is for them to know the fate of their families who have been detained by the Iraqi government as hostages that they will be released and for them to be able to go back to their homes and jobs in Iraq and to reinstate their Iraqi citizenship and their livelihood.
The detention of the young Iraqi nationals who came from all over the cities, towns and villages of Iraq and their separation from their deported families have started from 4th April 1980. In the first six months, the estimated number of the detainees was about 20,000 hostages and their number increased when more people were being deported from these families to Iran. Many of these detainees were either military officials or they were doing their national service. The Iraqi military rule states that no non- Iraqi citizen is allowed to serve in the army!
The detained youths who were serving at the military have initially been taken to military detention barracks in which they were serving. Then they were transferred to Al-Harathia military barracks which were situated in the west of Baghdad and after one week they were transferred to prison no. 1 at Al-Rasheed military barracks which is situated in the south of Baghdad and they were detained there for many months until the decree came out to release the detainees from other origin except the ones from Iranian origin.
After one month of this decree then they issued another decree to release the Christian detainees and even if they were of Iranian origin. While the Muslim detainees they have been detained under the accusation of them to be of Iranian origin. Some high Iraqi military officials have visited them at the military prison no. 1 of Al-Rasheed barracks and they told the detainees ‘you are our brothers and our sons and the reason we are detaining you is because we care for you and we do not want to give chance for the Iranian agents to mix with you and brainwash you against your country Iraq and after a short while we will release you and you must consider yourself here as our guests.’.
Then they have been transferred to the military prisons of the Ministry of Defence in Baghdad and they have spent a few weeks there and faced a lot of insults and humiliation. They were then transferred to the Central Iraqi Civilian Security Services in Baghdad. At this place they have officially accused them of being of Iranian origin and they have ordered them to take off their military uniforms which they were wearing throughout the period of detention. Then they have transferred them as civilians to the Central Abu-Ghraib prison at the heavy sentence section of the prison. This prison is situated in Abu-Ghraib area northwest of Baghdad. During these transfer from the various prisons the detainees were forced to fill in long forms which contained a lot of questions.
While the civilian detainees initially they were detained with their families at Al-Fathailyah prison which is situated at the Fathailyah area in east of Baghdad. This place and the Iraqi national football stadium in Baghdad were transit centers for the deportees. Other groups of the deportees were detained in the houses of the previous deportees that many of these deportees’ houses were transferred into prisons. At these prisons the younger members of the families have been separated and divided into 2 groups according to their age. At anyone aged between 16-40 years have been handcuffed and transferred to the central security prisons in Baghdad. While the ones under 16 years have been transferred to the juvenile prisons which is located in the east of Baghdad.
The remaining families have been kept in the above prisons in Baghdad and these places have become over-crowded with the families awaiting their deportation. There was no health care or regular diet and especially for the infants, there was no milk provided. Every day they were facing humiliation and insults from the prison guards. They have been kept in these prisons under these conditions for a few months until their turn comes for deportation to Iran.
The detainees in Abu-Ghraib prison have been distributed into section 7 and its annex and section 8 of this prison. Each section consisted of 20 cells. The area for each cell was 4 x 5m2 and in each cell there was one toilet and there was no windows apart from a very small vent open to the outside. Every morning the detainees were taken outside to the prison courtyard for one hour and for the first few months the detainees were not allowed any visitors.
Then some of these civilian detainees were released and deported to Iran. This has continued until the time of the strike which the detainees in Abu Ghraib prison have started in protest against their detention and the bad treatment for them, especially when one of the civilian detainees Mr. Hassan Haddad has become ill with a serious stomach illness and he was not allowed to go to hospital and he has not received any medical treatment. He then died in his cell at 6pm on 30th April 1981.
This incident has inflamed and angered the rest of the detainees and they have managed to break the metal barriers of their cells and go out to the passages and then to the main court of Abu Ghraib prison and they faced violent and bloody attacks from the prison guards. Then the detainees were shouting and demanding to meet any high official of Saddam Hussain’s government to know about their fate. That same night around 2.30am a helicopter has landed at the prison and heavily armed republican guards came out of it with video cameras and among them appeared Barzan Al-Takriti the half-brother of Saddam Hussain. He initially tried to calm the situation and to negotiate with them. He told them he understood their situation and they were ready to improve the detention conditions and to fulfil all your demands except 2 things:
Firstly that we are not going to deport you to Iran that you will be able to join your deported families
Secondly we cannot release you at the present time because your release from here will depend on the end of the Iraq/Iran war. You will be released as soon as this war finishes. This is a decision taken by the highest authority in Iraq (Saddam Hussain). Then the detainees have replied to him that we do not need anything from you except to release us and give us back our freedom because we are not criminals and we have not committed any crime and there is no legal case against us. If you consider us Iraqis therefore release us and we are ready to go back to serve in the national service and go back to the front line to defend our country Iraq. If you consider us Iranian origin or Iranians then send us to Iran and let us to join with the rest of our deported families there. Then Barzan Al-Takriti answered them and stated ‘that this is an impossible demand and I would like to confirm and explain one point for you that if any of you want to stay alive and see your family again then you must keep quiet and go back to your prison cells and the ones who do not obey this order will die like dogs’. The detainees shouted ‘this is the top of oppression against us and we totally reject it.’ Then Barzan Takriti ordered his republican guards to force the detainees back into their prison cells by using force and then a fight broke out and Barzan Takriti ordered his guards to use fire arms and teargas weapons and then he cut the water and electricity power from them. This has continued until 5am and the detainees were forced to go back to their prison cells after many of them received serious injuries and were in a total misery.
After this incident the treatment of the detainees has become worse and less humane. They reduced their food ration and they reduced the time for them to go outside for fresh air and they closed even the small vent in each prison cell.
This situation has continued until 14th July 1981 until government officials came to the prison and they selected a number of these detainees according to name lists which they brought with them and under the pretext that these ones they will get released and deported to Iran and their number was between 700-750 Detainees (among them was my brother Jamal). This group of the transferred detainees was not deported and until now nobody knows of their whereabouts or any contact with them or their fate except the officials of the Iraqi government who should know about their fate. It has transpired that the reason for the selection of this group of detainees that the authorities thought that they were behind this violent strike in the prison.
On 12th August 1981 the prison authorities have and for the first time allowed visits of the remaining relatives and friends of the detainees in Abu Ghraib prison to be visited on the 12th day of each month. Then the following day the detainees were ordered to fill in special forms which were given to them by the prison management.
With the continuation of the deportation of the Iraqi citizens to Iran the detainees have been continued to be imprisoned in the Iraqi prisons. While the treatment of the prison guards to them became worse when they were getting news that the Iranian forces were advancing on the frontlines. This situation of the detainees has continued until 5th December 1984 then and without notification they have been transferred in the form of 3 groups, each group was composed of six to seven hundred detainees and transferred to Qalat Al Salman prison. This Qalat (fortress) is situated on a hill distance about 5km from the old Nugrat Al Salman prison which is about 160km from the city of Al Samawa which is the center of the El Muthana region nearer to the Saudi border in the deserts or Arar. There is a similar Qalat (fortress) built in an area called Spelek near Galee Ali Beg in region of Arbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan. The journey of the transfer of the deportees from Abu Ghraib prison to Qalat Al Salman has started in the early morning and ended after midnight. The road leading to this prison was complete desert and the authorities had to use local Bedouins to show them the way to the prison because there was no surfaced road leading to it. This prison has consisted of 16 halls with 6 annexes and in each hall they put in 100-120 detainees and in each annex about 30 detainees.
Before the arrival of the detainees to Qalat Al Salman prison the prison guards there have been briefed and told that they are going to receive a group of Iranian prisoners and they have been warned not to mix with them. But then when the detainees arrived to the prison and then eventually the prison guards realized they are in fact Iraqi citizens like them they started to be nice to them and then they have allowed the remaining relatives and friends of these detainees to come and visit them. They have allowed the detainees to receive food, clothing, cooking and sports equipment, radio, television, cameras from their visitors. Therefore their treatment there was far, far better than the one in Abu Ghraib prison in spite of the fact they were in the middle of nowhere in the desert. Then the Chief of Al Muthana region at that time Mr. Nazhar Mutne Awad has visited them and spoke to them and said that you are our sons and the reason for your detention here is mainly for security reasons and you never consider yourselves that you are prisoners here.
Then more detainees from other prisons in Iraq have been brought to Qalat Al Salman and also from the prisons of Al Fatheledy and the juvenile prisons. There was one detainee among these he was from Indian origin and another was handicapped in that he had no limbs and he was dumb, he was from the city of Al Kassim from Babylon region and the irony was in spite of his handicap they kept him all these years in detention with the rest of the hostages.
During October 1985 a governmental decree have reached the detainees in Qalat Al Salman prison. The Deputy Chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service for Political Affairs who was Colonel Abou Saif and he told the detainees there that with the good will and the generosity of President Saddam Hussain any of the detainees who have and remain in Iraq a father, mother, brother or a sister not deported or a wife provided she is not divorced from you or a brother who was a martyr in the war and has official papers to prove this and witnesses, then when this is proven you can be released. Therefore and according to this decree they have given them forms to fill and followed by an official interview with them. Then on early 1986 they have started to transfer groups of these detainees from Qalat Al Salman prison after they provided them with the militia uniform. These transfers have taken a form of groups of between 50-100 detainees in each group and on a monthly basis. They have transferred them to unknown places and each of these groups were sub-divided to smaller groups and scattered and detained them in prisons of the various cities in Iraq.
Every period they would transfer them to other prisons in order that they would not stay long in any one prison. After 2 years from these transfers small groups have actually been released from these detainees. Before their release they were taken back to Abu Ghraib prison and the authorities tried to be friendly with them and tried to recruit them to work for them. Then they transferred them finally to Baghdad Central Security Prisons and there they give them 2 telephone numbers to contact the authorities if they need to pass them any information as informers. Then at the day of their release they give them Saddam Hussain’s portrait and banners and they brought television cameras and the press and they ordered them to show happiness and to shout we are grateful for Saddam’s amnesty and President Saddam Hussain’s generosities.
From the start of the transfer of the groups of detainees from Qalat Salman prison on early 1986 and until early 1989 there were about 650 of these detainees were released who have been covered by the amnesty decree, while the remaining detainees who have been transferred from Qalat Al Salman prison nobody has heard or been able to communicate with them or know their fate until now.
The question now is that when the current Iraqi Government will answer on the fate of more than 4,000 Iraqi detainees in Iraq or to take any decision about their case. Now, 22 years have past on the detention of these people and they are not prisoners of war or political opposition or common criminals and they have tasted all the forms of humiliation, psychological and physical torture in addition that the suffering of the families of these detainees especially their fathers and mothers whom they still hope that their sons and daughters will be released or at least to get any news about them or their whereabouts or to be able to write to them. Many of these parents have died and their last wish was to hear about their detained sons or to meet them.
The Iraq/Iran war has ended on August 1988 and many prisoners of war between Iraq and Iran has been and still in the exchange process. The second Gulf War also finished on February 1991 and many of the Western detainees and human shields and some Eastern and Kuwaiti detainees were released. And the question now that why these Iraqi detainees have not been released until now? The Iraqi authorities have promised them and sworn on oath that their release will take place as soon as the Iraq/Iran war has stopped but until now they have not fulfilled their promise. We still repeat and insist and remind and demand from the Iraqi President Saddam Hussain to release our detained brothers and relatives and to declare on the fate of the disappeared ones. When some mediators have been sent to some of the Iraqi revolutionary council members and also to Barzan Al Takriti they have hesitated and tried to change the subject on talking on this issue and they said clearly ‘that President Saddam Hussain he is the only authority in Iraq that is able to make a decision about the issue of these detainees’. These detainees were the cream of Iraqi society and many of them were University graduates and had professional scientific, medical, industrial and commercial qualification and experience and would be a benefit for their families and their country Iraq and to rebuild the country which is destroyed by the war and the sanctions.
The abovementioned report of this case has been compiled after years of research and investigation about the fate of these detainees and the picture becomes clearer after we were able to meet with five released detainees and also from some of the detainees who were released in the early months or years of the 1980’s. Also information has been compiled from hundreds of the relatives of the hostages who sent this committee documents including photographs of the detainees during their detention in Qalat Al Salman prison. Without the help and collaboration of these people this committee would not have been able to collect such detailed information and in this degree of clarity. Therefore these efforts must be continued from all over the world and especially from international officials and organizations to put pressure on the Iraqi government to be able to get an official reply from them on the fate of these hostages.
Since the establishment of the Committee for the Release of Hostages & Detainees in Iraq and on 22nd June 1993 in London, Britain and until now this Committee has been able to pass many obstacles and to be able to have an intense communication and passing the information to many international political humanitarian personalities and organizations in Britain and in Europe to be able to achieve the goals of this humanitarian case. The main contacted authorities are as follows:
Various Members of the British Parliament and 3 early day motions have been submitted by the British Parliament:
British House of Lords
British Trade Union Congress
The Committee for Human Rights at the European Parliament and at the Swedish Parliament
3 Human Rights Committees at United Nations Office in Geneva
The British Red Cross and the Swedish Red Cross
Amnesty International London
Kuwaiti Embassy in London
Kuwaiti Sheik Salim Al Sabah
The Committee for the Release of the Kuwaiti Prisoners of War (This organization has initially showed their willingness to collaborate with us but unfortunately and until now they have shown no interest or done any collaboration with us on this issue)
Sir Edward Heath – ex Prime Minister of United Kingdom (but he was not able to help to mediate, while he was successful in releasing in Human Shield hostages during the Gulf War)
Most of the world embassies and governments including USA, Russia, China, the Islamic Conference and the Arabic countries, the Arab League and all the United Nation member countries - diplomatic representation at UN in New York
The Iranian Government
The Iranian Red Crescent
After intense communications and correspondence with Mr. Van Der Stoil the ex-UN – Human Rights Co-ordinator in Iraq in Geneva and the other 2 UN humanitarian groups wanted this committee to supply them with full details of the lists of the names of the hostages and the documentation. On 18 February 1996 this Committee has sent lists and documentation in the name of 935 hostages to:-
Human Rights Officer, Special Procedures
United Nations Office Centre for Human Rights – Geneva
Then over the phone they confirmed they have received these documents. Then after many months when we have contacted them after no correspondence from them they have apologized that they have lost our files and the lists. Then we sent them copies of these documents again and after that and until now and after many correspondence with them they said they are going to send us some lists of their own for us to check whether our list corresponds with their list and so on, and so on. Until now this goes into an empty circle! Also Amnesty International in UK and after many official meetings with them at the beginning they were not willing to meet with us but after years of attempts to meet with them we were successful to meet them in their headquarters in London. They agreed to draw up a programme of collaboration to publicise this issue and put the demands officially to the Iraqi government. We also arranged for them to meet with the ex-hostages in Europe who now reside in Europe and also the relatives of the hostages and with the time of executing these programme came which was in October 1995 but nothing has happened from their side and it appeared then from their correspondence with us that the officers who were supposed to do the collaboration work with us on this case have been transferred and the new officers didn’t show any interest to help or to collaborate on working on this programme.
While the Red Cross International and the British Representatives after many correspondence and several meetings with their top officials we have requested from them to mediate with the Iraqi government and to go and investigate the fate of these hostages then they officially replied to us that they cannot work on this case because it is not in their rules and regulations or constitution of the Red Cross International to mediate to release hostages or detainees within the same country. Then we asked them how then they had the authority and the constitution to go to Iraq and visit the western hostages in Iraq during the second Gulf War and to mediate with the Iraqi government to release them!
In a general conference which was organized by the various human rights organizations in Europe which has taken place in London on September 1989 and in which I have personally attended in the name of the Iraqi hostages I have highlighted in that conference the issue of these detainees and I asked them to intervene and to help us on this issue. The answer of the Chairman of the Conference and who was the British Representative for Human Rights at United Nations Office in Geneva at that time was ‘we could work on and intervene on many humanitarian issues and human rights which come to our attention from most countries in this world except the cases which in relation with human rights in Iraq. These cases we cannot intervene or do anything about it’.
While the Arabic and the Islamic human right and political organizations and including the Arab league and the Islamic Conference and all Arabic countries and Islamic Countries and also India, Korea, China, Russia, United States of America they have never answered any of our official letters or willing to advise or show any interest.
In these crucial times this Committee demands the effective implementation of the United Nations Resolution No. 688. Analogously to the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 by sending in various investigation teams to search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction, we demand that the UN to arrange with Mr Hans Blix for a special investigation team to search for the whereabouts of hostages in Iraq. There is evidence from hostages who have been released that some of the remaining hostages have been used in chemical and biological warfare experiments. The Committee would be able to provide such inspection teams with names and some information about 935 hostages, who are believed still to be detained in Iraq.
In conclusion the issue of these hostages in Iraq is a humanitarian one and now time is now well overdue for the world community to give consideration to this issue and to put pressure on Saddam Hussain’s government to declare on the fate of these detainees and this Committee is welcoming any constructive suggestions and assistance and this is including documentation, important information especially from the Iraqi officials who escaped from Iraq and who were in contact with these detainees and have information on the places of detention to be able to contact this committee at the address as below:
Dr Kamal Ketuly
For the Committee for the Release of Hostages & Detainees in Iraq
P O Box 3713, Glasgow, G41 3WG, Scotland, U.K.
| Email: |
iraqi_hostages@hotmail.com |
| Web site: |
www.9neesan.com/iraqihostages |
6th January 2003