STILL MISSING
This is Jamal, a Kurd, born in Baghdad in 1952. He graduated from Al Mustanceria University in 1979 and was then conscripted into the Iraqi Army. In 1980 he was taken hostage to ensure that his family did not resist, or make public protest, when they were stripped of their possessions and Iraqi citizenship and deported to Iran.
Since 1984 all contact with him has been lost and it is not known whether he is alive or dead. Worry about him contributed to his Mother’s and young sister’s early deaths and has affected the health of other family members.
On 18 December 2001 it was reported that a number of hostages similar to Jamal had been released and deported to Iran but Jamal was not among them. On 19 October 2002 President Saddam Hussein announced a general amnesty decree and the prisons were reportedly “emptied”, but again Jamal was not one of those released.
BACKGROUND
On direct orders from Saddam Hussein approximately one million people, the overwhelming majority of whom were Iraqi citizens, were forcibly deported to Iran between April 1980 and the end of 1990, commencing six months before the Iran-Iraq war. Their belongings, homes, businesses, money and valuables, and all their papers, passports and citizenship documents were confiscated.
To silence protest on the part of the deportees, and prevent retaliatory action, the Iraqi authorities detained members of each family as hostages - approximately one detainee for every ten deportees. There may have been as many as one hundred thousand detainees, although the number is very hard to ascertain. The great majority were men aged between sixteen and forty, but there were some women and children and older men.
Many of these hostages were released quite soon; first foreign nationals. Then those with immediate family members still living in Iraq, and lastly some whose immediate families had already been deported and who were not doing military service at the time of their detention. After their release, most were themselves immediately deported.
During the 1980/88 Iran/Iraq war, many of the hostages were sent to the front. Some were used as human shields and some were used to clear minefields with their feet. Others died from disease or from the harsh conditions in their places of detention. Between 1986 and 1989 a further small number of hostages with immediate families still living in Iraq were released, and many of them provided up-to-date information on these abuses.
The remaining hostages were accused of being “of Iranian origin” although almost all of them had Iraqi passports and most of them were dong military service. (It is against Iraqi law for non-Iraqi citizens to serve in the forces.) The majority of the hostages still detained were well-educated lawyers, teachers, doctors, university lecturers, students, business people and high-ranking military officers.
They were held in, and moved frequently between, a total of 171 prisons and concentration camps throughout Iraq.
Four of these (Dywania, Ar Ar, Qualat al Salman and Samawa) were estimated, at that time, to be holding 20 to 25 thousand hostages between them, and lie in the area overrun by the Coalition forces during the second Gulf War. All efforts to discover the fate of these prisoners have so far come to nothing, in spite of the fact that the Allies’ surveillance equipment must have detected what happened to them.
How many of the hostages remain in detention today is hard to calculate; all contact with most of them was lost in 1986, and we know of no contact at all since 1988. However, we have the names and details of more than 900, and know of a further 3,000 or so whose relatives are too apprehensive to give information, so we estimate that the total still being held is anywhere 4,000.
Although released hostages have told us that many of these detainees were used for chemical and biological warfare experiments we still believe that many are still alive. The latest news from Iraq is that most of the surviving hostages are now being held in the underground prisons in Rathwania, where they are referred to by number only; their real names are never used.
UN Resolution 687 demanding the dismantling of Saddam’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capability has been fairly rigorously enforced.
UN Resolution 1441 demanding that UN Weapons Inspectors are able to search anywhere in Iraq for evidence of weapons of mass destruction is being even more rigorously enforced.
UN Resolution 688 demanding the release of all hostages and the restoration of human rights in Iraq is being largely ignored. Why?
Unfortunately, these hostages have no recognised status in international law, since they are Iraqi citizens. Nevertheless, a number of political and humanitarian organisations such as The United Nations, The Red Cross, Red Crescent and Amnesty International, have taken some interest. These hostages are not common criminals; none of them has been convicted of any crime. They are not prisoners of war; none of them has fought for either Iran or Kuwait. They are not internees; both Gulf Wars have ended.
The Iraqi people are suffering dreadfully under UN sanctions, and their Government has been informed that human rights must be improved before sanctions will be lifted. We call on the Iraqi authorities to release all hostages remaining in detention and to release to their families full details of those who are no longer alive. Such action would show the world that as well as complying with Resolution 1441 the Iraqi authorities are also showing respect for human rights.
The Committee for the Release of Hostages and Detainees in Iraq was set up in June 1993 to campaign on behalf of Iraqi citizens (Kurds and Arabs), Europeans, Kuwaitis and others held hostage in Iraq from April 1980 onwards. Its objectives include: -
Ascertaining the numbers and full details of these hostages and seeking their safe release in accordance with UN Procedure 1503 (XLVIII) and Resolution 688.
Opening a channel of communication with the Government of Iraq and requesting Governments, Churches, Trade Unions, International bodies and prominent individuals to make direct representation to the Government of Iraq on behalf of these Hostages and Detainees.
For further information or to register support contact:
THE COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF HOSTAGES AND DETAINEES IN IRAQ
PO BOX 3713, GLASGOW G41 3WG, SCOTLAND, UK
e-mail: iraqi_hostages@hotmail.com www.9neesan.com/iraqihostages