15 April 1998
UN: IRAQ EXECUTED MORE THAN 1,500 POLITICAL PRISONERS IN 1997
(Human Rights conditions further deteriorated during past year) (430) By Wendy Lubetkin USIA European Correspondent Geneva -- Max Van der Stoel, the former Dutch Foreign Minister who has been charged by the UN with investigating human rights violations in Iraq, believes it is "highly probable" that Iraq carried out more than 1,500 executions for political purposes during 1997. Most of the executions took place during the "Prison Cleaning Campaign" of November and December 1997, which followed a November 18 visit to the Abu Ghraib prison by Saddam Hussein's youngest son, Qusay Saddam Hussein. In his report to the 1998 session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Van der Stoel writes that human rights conditions in Iraq deteriorated further during the past year and that extrajudicial executions were carried out "at a reportedly increased pace" in Iraq's prisons. According to accounts received by Van Der Stoel, the political executions were carried out by shooting, hanging or electrocution. If relatives wanted to recover the body, they were forced to pay for the bullet. In addition to the mass executions of hundreds of political prisoners, four Jordanian nationals were executed on December 8, 1997, for having smuggled $850 worth of car parts. The case led the Government of Jordan to expel several Iraqi diplomats from Amman in protest. Property crimes are punishable by death in Iraq, and the government continues to carry out such sentences, the report notes. Van der Stoel's report also charges that the Iraqi authorities continue to forcibly displace Iraqi Kurds and Turkomans from Kirkuk, Khanaqin and Douz. Throughout the country, "basic civil and political rights such as freedom of assembly, expression, and movement are severely restricted when not forbidden." The report notes that prior to the Gulf War in 1990, Iraq had one of the highest per capita food availabilities in the region. Instead of complying with Security Council resolutions which would have led to the lifting of sanctions, "Iraq decided to rely only on domestic production to meet the humanitarian needs of its people -- preferring to let innocent people suffer while the government maneuvered to get sanctions lifted." The most alarming aspect of the food situation is its impact on children, the report says. Beggars, street children and undernourished children in hospitals have been widely seen throughout the country. "Had the government of Iraq not waited five years to decide to accept the oil-for-food agreement ... millions of innocent people would have avoided serious and prolonged suffering," the report says. (For more information on this subject, contact our special Iraq website at: http://www.usia.gov/iraq)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
