Tracking Number: 215498
Title: "Iraqi Rights Victims Total Hundreds of Thousands." UN special rapporteur Max van der Stoel described the human rights situation in Iraq to the UN Commission on Human
Rights as one of such exceptional gravity that the premanent presence of a UN human rights monitor is needed in the country. (920220)
Translated Title: Victimas derechos humanos Iraquies suman cientos de miles.; Les violations
des droits de l`homme en Irak. (920220)
Author: NEWMANN, ROBIN (USIA STAFF WRITER)
Date: 19920220
Text:
IRAQI RIGHTS VICTIMS TOTAL HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS
(UNCHR rapporteur details violations in Geneva) (1080)
By Robin Newmann
USIA European Correspondent
Geneva -- A United Nations special rapporteur has described the human
rights situation in Iraq as one of "such exceptional gravity" that a
permanent presence of U.N. human rights monitors is needed in the country.
"Every day, Iraqi citizens are in danger of losing their lives," Max van der Stoel told the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva February 20. "Scarcely a day passes without executions or hangings, he said.
Van der Stoel said the data he had collected for his 82-page report since he was appointed special rapporteur last June confirms that "flagrant" violations of human rights have been committed by the government of Iraq and its security apparatus.
The report states that there are "few parallels" of such "grave" and "massive" human rights violations since the Second World War.
"In such a situation mere condemnations are not enough. A resolute effort must be made to save lives."
He added that if the Iraqi government could be "persuaded" to accept monitors, "this might offer some protection to the thousands who are now in constant danger. It might also be a first indication that the Iraqi government might be willing to reconsider its human rights policy."
However, van der Stoel said, if the Iraqi government refuses to accept such monitors, "this would have to be considered as a clear indication that the present policy of repression will continue unabated."
The 53-nation Commission -- the U.N.'s main watchdog on compliance with international human rights standards -- established the special rapporteur last year because of international concern over Iraq's questionable human rights record.
According to the evidence amassed by van der Stoel, "All through the 1980s and up to the present day, arbitrary and summary executions have taken place" in Iraq. "Arbitrary detention of political and religious opponents has been practiced and is still being practiced on a large scale. Enforced or involuntary disappearances occur frequently. Torture has been used and is still being used to extract confessions."
Van der Stoel said that he had the names of 17,000 people who have disappeared in Iraq during the past decade, adding that "it is no exaggeration to say that under the present regime many tens of thousands of people have disappeared."
The Kurds alone put the number of the vanished at some 180,000, van der Stoel said, pointing out that thousands of Kurdish and Assyrian villages have been destroyed, some through chemical attacks.
Van der Stoel also discussed the "oppression and persecution" of the Turkoman minority in Iraq, and the "serious violations" of the religious rights of the Shi'a community in the south.
"The government has been waging a concerted attack against the Shi'a clergy," he said, noting that their numbers in the holy city of Najaf has been reduced from 8,000-9,000 20 years ago to 800 before the uprising of 1991 following the Persian Gulf war. "It is alleged that virtually all of them" are now under arrest or have disappeared.
Van der Stoel appealed for a permanent U.N. presence in the southern marshes area in Iraq "where strong Iraqi forces are concentrated in an attempt to submit those still opposing the central government." A U.N. presence "might help to reduce the danger of a new blood bath," he said.
"Massive evidence is available concerning the widespread use of torture, often in its most cruel forms," van der Stoel declared, stating that he had met victims and had photographic evidence to back up his remarks.
The report speaks of "irrefutable evidence of torture...being practiced on a very large scale," and cites beatings, burnings, extraction of finger nails, sexual assault including rape, electric shocks, acid baths, deprivation of food, water, sleep or rest, and mock executions. It also says that there are over 100 places of detention, as against the four prisons claimed by the Iraqi government.
The report also says "the rule of law has been completely undermined." There is no freedom of speech -- "the clearest evidence of violation of the freedom of expression continues to be found in Iraqi law which, for example, prescribes severe penalties including death for...anyone slandering or insulting the president or anyone representing him."
Van der Stoel said when he met with Iraqi government leaders last January that he had hoped to "detect signs" that Iraq was taking steps to improve its human rights situation. "After having spoken with six ministers, I had regretfully to come to the conclusion that so far any evidence of such progress is lacking," he said.
Van der Stoel rejected the excuses given by the Iraqi government that the abnormal situation in the country, resulting from the gulf war and the continuing U.N. embargo against Iraq, had adverse effects on the human rights situation.
"Abnormal circumstances can never justify what tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens had to suffer: arbitrary punishment, or even arbitrary execution; chemical attacks, and tortures," he said.
The "fundamental problem" in Iraq, van der Stoel declared, is "that the whole structure of the state is subordinated to one aim: to secure the unrestricted rule of the Baath party and its leader, Saddam Hussein."
"Only after radical changes would be made in this system could human rights flourish in Iraq."
Van der Stoel cited a conversation he had with the deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, in which Aziz showed no sympathy and offered no apology for the execution of Shi'a clerics. Later, van der Stoel showed videotaped film to reporters of brutal interrogations carried out by the Iraqi military with the present Iraqi prime minister and minister of defense joining in.
"Weighing all the evidence he has assembled, the Special Rapporteur has no hesitation in concluding that there have been massive violations of human rights of the gravest nature for which the government of Iraq may be held responsible," the report concludes. "Nor is there any reliable indication that the government of Iraq has taken steps to ensure that there will be no further violations of human rights."
"The volume of accumulated evidence...leads to the firm conclusion that the government of Iraq has systematically violated and continues to violate the international human rights obligations it has undertaken. The number of victims suffering from these violations is certainly in the hundreds of thousands, if not higher."
NNNN
File Identification: 02/20/92, PO-408; 02/20/92, EP-413; 02/20/92, EU-412; 02/20/92, NE-404; 02/21/92, AE-505; 02/21/92, AR-507; 02/21/92, AS-508; 02/21/92, NA-505; 02/27/92, AF-410
Product Name: Wireless
File
Product Code: WF
Languages: Arabic; Spanish; French
Keywords: IRAQ/Politics & Government; HUMAN RIGHTS; UNITED NATIONS-HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION; INVESTIGATIONS; VAN DER STOEL, MAX;
REPORTS & STUDIES; HUSSEIN, SADDAM; KURDS; MINORITIES; FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Thematic Codes: 2HA; 1UN
Target Areas: AF; AR; EA; EU; NE
PDQ Text Link: 215498; 215755; 217241
USIA
Notes: *92022008.POL
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