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Summary

Saddam Hussein's record of brutally suppressing even mild dissent is well-known. When the March 1991 uprising confronted his regime with the most serious internalchallenge it had ever faced, government forces responded with atrocitieson a predictably massive scale. The human rights repercussions continueto be felt throughout the country.

In their attempts to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalistforces killed thousands of unarmed civilians by firing indiscriminately intoresidential areas; executing young people on the streets, in homes and inhospitals; rounding up suspects, especially young men, during house-to-housesearches, and arresting them without charge or shooting themen masse;and using helicopters to attack unarmed civilians as they fled the cities.

One year later, the fate of thousands of Kurds and Shi'a who were seizedduring the suppression of the uprising remains unknown. While many are believedto be in detention, the government has provided little information abouttheir location and legal status.

The rebels also committed gross abuses during the uprising, summarily executingsuspected members of the security forces, including many who were in custody. Middle East Watch also condemns these abuses, though we note that they werenot so systematic and sustained as those committed by the government.

Over 100,000 Kurds and Shi'a who fled cities where the conflicts were particularlyfierce remain displaced inside Iraq, and another 70,000 civilians are inrefugee camps in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran. Despite the harsh life theylead in these camps or as displaced persons in rebel-held northern Iraq or in the southern marshes, they have not gone home because they are afraidor because their homes have been destroyed.

The Shi'a holy cities of Karbala and al-Najaf, from which many of these Iraqisfled, are today under tight military control and largely closed to independentobservers who could monitor rights conditions. Religious life is sharply restricted. Many Shi'a institutions were destroyed or badly damaged duringthe suppression of the uprising, or subsequently demolished on the pretextof "modernizing" the cities. Hundreds of clerics and their aides were arrestedafter the uprisings and have not been released. Religious activities atthe remaining institutions have been curtailed by the state.

Of all the Iraqis who have not returned to their cities since the uprising,the greatest number come from Kirkuk, a major oil-rich city that has beenthe subject of contention between Baghdad and the Kurds. There have been alarming reports that the homes of Kurds who fled the city following the uprisinghave been demolished or given to Arab families, as part of a long-standinggovernment policy of promoting the settlement of Arabs in Kirkuk while reducingits Kurdish population. The extent of these measures has been difficultto confirm, partly because the government has kept the city under particularlytight control. Today, Kirkuk is the only city in Iraq for which Baghdadhas refused a standing U.N. request to establish a humanitarian office, andfew outsiders have been given the sort of access that would enable them toassess developments there.

In the remote marshes along the southern border with Iran, thousands of Shi'awho fled during the uprising lack adequate food, hygiene and medical careand are at risk of Iraqi military operations in the area. Their numbers includeactive rebels, army deserters and displaced persons afraid to go home. Iraqitroops have attempted to surround and impose a blockade on areas where therehas been rebel activity. There were credible reports of intensified militaryactivity in the area as recently as late April; Shi'a opposition sourceshave charged that past army attacks in the marshes, including a campaignduring December and January, involved indiscriminate fire from helicoptergunships and heavy artillery, summary executions, and arrests of indigenousmarsh dwellers suspected of assisting the rebels. Little is known with certaintyabout the numbers or magnitude of the military operations, due in part toIraq's refusal to allow independent observers meaningful access to the area. There has been almost no international pressure for such access; unlike theKurds, the indigenous and displaced population in the marshes has been virtuallyignored by the world community.

The establishment of a rebel-held zone in northeast Iraq under some measureof Allied protection has put most of Iraq's Kurdish population temporarilybeyond the reach of the Baath regime. The population of this zone currentlyincludes at least 100,000 displaced civilians from south of the Iraqi-Kurdishfront line and scores of thousands of Kurds who are rebuilding homes in ancestralvillages that were demolished in the 1970s and 1980s by the Baath regime.

As Kurds celebrated the staging of their first free elections ever on May19, gratification with their newfound political freedom is tempered by thecontinuing humanitarian crisis, sporadic violence, and uncertainty aboutthe future. Shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies as a result ofthe U.N.-mandated embargo of Iraq and Baghdad's refusal to sell oil to purchase humanitarian goods on terms imposed by the U.N.,[1] have been exacerbatedsince October by an embargo imposed by the Iraqi government on the rebel-controlledarea. Many of the displaced persons and returning villagers live in substandard,makeshift shelters, despite a massive effort by the U.N. High Commissionerfor Refugees and relief organizations to house them before last winter. Unmarked minefields continue to claim dozens of victims each month, and thousandsof jittery civilians flee their homes each time Iraqi troops shell an areaor clash with Kurdish rebel forces.

As the expiration dates approach for both the Allied Combined Task Forcein Turkey and the United Nations presence in Iraq, Kurds are watching Iraq'smilitary buildup near the front line with great wariness. The international presence in the area clearly has helped to deter Iraqi attacks on the Kurds. Many Kurds are convinced that if the Allied Combined Task Force withdrawsfrom Turkey, Saddam will launch a major offensive to retake the rebel-heldzone. This would almost surely prompt an exodus of Kurds similar to theone that occurred only one year ago.

Recommendations

In view of the enormous magnitude and continuing nature of human rights abusesin Iraq, Middle East Watch believes that the stationing of human rights monitorsinside Iraq is an essential, though not sufficient, step for safeguardingthe rights of civilians. So long as the government of Iraq obstructs thefree inquiry into human rights conditions by local and foreign organizations,journalists, and others, an alternative means of human rights monitoringis needed.

MEW calls on the international community to demand, and the government ofIraq to accept, a continuing presence of independent human rights observersinside Iraq. MEWendorses the recommendation of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Iraq, AmbassadorMax van der Stoel of the Netherlands, to send "a team of human rights monitorswho would remain in Iraq until the human rights situation had drasticallyimproved and who should be able to: (i.) move freely in any part of Iraq;(ii.) investigate information concerning alleged violations of human rights;(iii.) visit, without prior notification and at the time of their choosing,places where persons are deprived of their liberty; and (iv.) observe trialsand court proceedings."[2]

Regardless of whether such a monitoring system is implemented, the governmentof Iraq must comply with customary international law and the obligationsit has undertaken in ratifying human rights conventions. To demonstrateits commitment to respecting human rights, Iraq should provide a publicaccounting of the location and legal status of every person taken into custodyduring or since the uprising, and allow access by family and counsel to thesepersons. Iraq should also release all those arrested during the uprisingwho, fifteen months later, have not yet been charged, or have been chargedwith nonviolent offenses of a political nature. Iraq should also make public all information at its disposal about the names of persons killed duringthe uprising and the circumstances of their death.

MEW calls on the U.S. to take a leading role in marshalling world supportfor a human rights monitoring system in Iraq, such as the one proposed by theSpecial Rapporteur. The U.S. and the international community should makeclear to the government of Iraq that they will not tolerate further indiscriminateattacks on civilians. MEW notes that a monitoring presence is especiallyneeded in the remote southeastern marshes, a heavily militarized border areawhere there are frequent reports of army actions against suspected rebels,displaced civilians, deserters, and the indigenous residents.

MEW calls on Iraq and members of the U.N. Security Council to step up thesearch for a solution to the impasse over the U.N.-imposed oil-for-food formula. The main victims of this stalemateare the Iraqi people, particularly the poor who cannot afford the high pricesof staples. At the same time, MEW calls on Iraq to end its blockade offood, fuel and other goods going to the rebel-controlled zone in the north,which targets one segment of the Iraqi populace -- predominantly Kurds --for punishment. Customary international law relating to both internationaland non-international armed conflicts, as codified in Protocols I and IIto the 1949 Geneva Conventions (articles 54 and 14 respectively), prohibitsstarvation of civilians as a method of combat, including by attacking orremoving for that purpose objects indispensable to the survival of the civilianpopulation, such as foodstuffs.

MEW also calls on Iraq to extend beyond June 30 the agreement permittingthe U.N. to provide humanitarian aid to displaced persons wherever it isneeded. MEW isconcerned by the reduced presence in Iraq since April of the U.N. High Commissionerfor Refugees, which has an explicit protection mandate. MEW urges theU.N. agencies remaining in Iraq to develop alternative means to provide protectionto vulnerable populations.

Finally, MEW calls on the political leadership of the Kurds to complete thestalled investigation into the October 1991 massacre, allegedly by Kurdishguerrillas, of some 60 Iraqi soldiers in custody in Suleimaniyya, and topunish those found to be responsible. As Kurds enhance the extent oftheir self-rule through parliamentary elections, the good-faith prosecutionof those found responsible for this atrocity, with due-process protectionsfor the accused, would send a strong signal of their leaders' commitmentto a rule of law that is lacking in the rest of Iraq.

Introduction

One year ago, towns and cities across northern and southern Iraq rose upin revolt against the government of President Saddam Hussein. In the weeks that followed, tens of thousands of civilians were killed as security forces crushed the most serious internal threat of Saddam's 12-year rule, and thousandsmore subsequently perished during one of the largest and most precipitousflights of refugees in modern times. This report details human rights abusescommitted during the uprising and the human rights repercussions that continueuntil today.

As the late June deadlines approach for both the Allies' basing agreementin Turkey and the U.N. humanitarian presence in Iraq, the after-shocks ofthe uprising continue to be strongly felt throughout the country. Aboutthree million Iraqis, most of them Kurds, are living in the 16,000 square-milezone of northeastern Iraq that is currently under Kurdish rebel control. While enjoying unprecedented freedom from the Baath regime, many are livingin substandard conditions that are exacerbated by the eight-month-long Iraqiembargo on the rebel-held zone. Hundreds have been maimed or killed afterstepping on mines that Iraqi forces planted in many areas. At least tworecent bomb explosions and the suspected poisoning of two anti-regime activistsindicate that Iraqi infiltrators may be active inside the rebel-held zone.

The population of the rebel-held zone continues to swell by the thousandsevery time government troops shell a town or skirmish with Kurdish rebels. Some 300,000 Kurds abandoned their homes in or near government-controlledareas between October and January, straining humanitarian efforts to shelterthe thousands who had fled immediately after the uprising.[3] An official of the United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told a reporter in January that evena minor attack on a major town would set off another mass exodus. "We arepreparing for 150,000 new refugees at any time but it's quite possible ifthere was another attack we'd have another 500,000 fleeing," he said.[4] As recently as late March,some 40,000 Kurds fled their homes when Iraqi troops shelled towns near theGreat Zab river, west of Irbil.

In the cities that rose up in rebellion last year that are now under governmentcontrol, the repression is now harsher in many respects than before the uprising. In Kirkuk, the one Iraqi city for which a U.N. request to establish an officehas been steadfastly refused since April 1991, the Baath regime seems tobe profiting from the massive flight of refugees to accelerate its long-standingpolicy of reducing the Kurdish percentage of the city's population. Longthe main sticking point in negotiations between Saddam and the Kurds, Kirkukis now separated from the rebel-held zone by the heavily fortified positionsof the Iraqi army. Between 70,000 and 100,000 Kirkukis have not returnedhome, by the UNHCR's count, and remain displaced in Kurdish-controlled townssuch as Suleimaniyya; Kurdistan Democratic Party spokesman Hoshyar Zebarisaid the number was at least 150,000 (see Chapter One). Kurdish neighborhoodsdemolished around the time of the uprising remain in ruins, and Kurds chargethat the government has been giving vacant Kurdish homes to Arab familieswho have moved north.

In the south, the plight of the Shi'a is no less dire, although less well-knownbecause the area remains virtually closed to scrutiny by outside observers. Thousands of Shi'a, including hundreds of clerics, have been imprisoned withoutcharge or have disappeared in state custody since the uprising; many Shi'ashrines and institutions in al-Najaf and Karbala were devastated during therebellion or demolished by government forces in its aftermath.

In southeastern Iraq, thousands of Shi'a civilians, army deserters and rebels,primarily from the cities of Basra, al-Amara and al-Nasiriyya have soughtprecarious shelter in remote areas of the marshes that straddle the Iranianborder. Iraq's security forces, unable to quell the low-level resistance emanating from this region, have reportedly shelled and launched militaryraids in the area in an indiscriminate fashion, wounding and killing unarmed civilians.

Many observers believe that attacks by Baghdad on the Kurdish-held zone havebeen restrained to some extent by Saddam's fear that they would provoke theintervention of Allied forces. Since April 1991, the U.S. has publicly warnedIraqi troops not to fly any aircraft, including helicopters, north of the36th parallel, to keep security forces from entering the Allies' self-declaredsecurity zone, and to refrain from attacking Kurdish civilians. As recentlyas April 14, an Iraqi military buildup near the front line in Kurdistan,including the emplacement of anti-aircraft batteries above the 36th parallel,prompted a warning by the U.S., Great Britain and France to reverse the buildupand to stop violating the rights of the Kurds and Shi'a.[5]

June 28, however, is the expiration date for the Allies' accord with Turkeythat allows the basing of the Combined Task Force in southeastern Turkey. The memorandum of understanding between the U.N. and Iraq is set to expiretwo days later. That agreement allows the U.N. to establish offices insideIraq "wherever such presence may be needed" to provide humanitarian assistanceto displaced persons and assist in their return. The agreement also allowedfor the deployment of 500 lightly armed U.N. guards to protect U.N. installations,programs and personnel. Their presence reassures the populace to some extent,although their mandate does not explicitly include a protective functionvis-à-vis civilians.

Kurds fear that if the credible military threat of the Allies' Combined TaskForce is removed, Iraq will launch an offensive to recapture the areas ofnortheastern Iraq that have been under rebel control since last year, causinga new round of bloodshed and another exodus of refugees.[6] Shi'a opposition sources in exile predict that repression in the south willalso intensify as soon as Saddam feels that international scrutiny has eased.

Obstacles to Monitoring Human Rights in Iraq

This report relies heavily on the testimony of Iraqi refugees outside ofIraq, due to the difficulty of conducting human rights work inside the country. Since Middle East Watch was created in 1989, its requests to visit Iraq wererepeatedly ignored or refused. In late 1991 Baghdad finally gave its approvalin principle, but has not responded since to repeated MEW requests to providea date when it would receive such a mission.

Other international rights groups also face daunting obstacles. Since a visitin 1983, Amnesty International has not received permission to enter Iraq onterms that would enable it to conduct research in a satisfactory manner. MEW knows of no group working in government-controlled parts of Iraq in 1991with an organizational mandate or agenda that includes the systematic documentationof human rights abuses committed by the Iraqi government. Nor are independentindigenous human-rights organizations tolerated in Iraq, and Iraqi dissidentsin exile who have called attention to human rights abuses have risked murderor reprisal at the hands of Iraqi agents.[7] While Iraq permitted access after the war to an unprecedented number of reportersand nongovernmental organizations, their freedom of movement was tightlycontrolled by, among other means, the official "minders" whose constant presencemade frank conversations with ordinary Iraqis all but impossible.

Such obstacles have complicated the task of gathering accurate human rightsinformation. For example, it is not possible to verify estimates of the numbersof persons who were killed, injured or detained during the uprising, howmany were deliberately executed, how many were caught in cross-fire, or how many were unarmed civilians.

There are also many unanswered questions about the methods and arsenal usedby the government troops. Refugees alleged that Iraqi helicopters droppeda variety of ordnance on civilians, including napalm and phosphorus bombs, chemical agents and sulfuric acid. Representatives of human rights and humanitarianorganizations who saw refugees with burn injuries or photographs of suchinjuries were unable to confirm the source of the burns, although doctorswho examined injured Iraqis said that some of the wounds were consistentwith the use of napalm.[8] The Iraqi government, for itspart, denied using napalm, phosphorus or chemical weapons.[9]

Witnesses also gave conflicting information about which security forces wereresponsible for specific operations. They often identified military andsecurity apparatuses, such as the Republican Guard, theIstikhbaraat(military intelligence),[10] or "Ali Hassan al-Majid's specialunits,"[11] in ways that suggested thatthey were unable to distinguish reliably among the myriad military and securitybodies that operate in Iraq.

Witnesses also accused fighters from the Iranian opposition organizationMojahedin-i-Khalq (People's Mojahedin of Iran) and Jordanian, Sudanese, Palestinianand Yemeni mercenaries of helping to suppress the uprising. They claimedto recognize the fighters' nationalities from their appearance or accents. While the testimony collected was persuasive that the Mojahedin-i-Khalq andforeign mercenaries helped Iraqi soldiers to crush the uprising, it was not possible to assess how important a role these various groups played.[12]

In an effort to solicit comment on some of the allegations, MEW sent a letteron May 17, 1991 to Iraqi authorities asking about the types of weapons andordnance used during the uprising, the numbers of civilians killed and woundedby government troops and by rebels, and the number of arrests after the uprising. The letter was not answered. However, statements by Iraqi officials in othercontexts are quoted in this report, where pertinent.

Unearthing Past Abuses

Prior to the uprising, Iraqi state terror and controls on foreign visitorsmade it difficult to investigate human rights violations in Iraq. The uprising and its aftermath opened the floodgates on information about past abuses,and revealed that, if anything, the world community had underestimated theregime's brutality. The legacy of abuse also helped to explain the intensityand mass support of the uprising, as well as the speed and magnitude of theexodus when it collapsed.

The revelations began during the very first days of the revolt and have continuedsince. When rebels seized government buildings, they freed prisoners andcaptured huge amounts of documentary evidence of past abuses. Later, theflight of refugees beyond the reach of Saddam made it possible for an unprecedentednumber of Iraqis to speak publicly about past abuses. Since then, continuingrebel control over much of northeastern Iraq has enabled Kurds and foreignersto travel extensively through the Kurdish countryside for the first timesince the Baghdad regime depopulated and sealed it off.[13]

Human rights workers are only beginning to sift through the mounds of documents,videotapes and material evidence captured from Iraqi security agencies.[14] Forensic experts are examiningseveral mass graves that may finally provide answers to the fate of tensof thousandsCKurdish sources estimate the number at 182,000Cof Kurds who disappeared during the late 1980s in the so-calledAnfalOperation, Saddam's campaign to depopulate the Kurdish countryside.[15]

The refugees interviewed for this report provided ample testimony about pastabuses. It was difficult to find a Kurd who had not lost one or more relativesduring the Anfal. In the refugee camps in Iran, MEW also encountered survivorsof the 1988 chemical gas attack on the border town of Halabja in which 5,000persons are thought to have died. Many had fled from repression before,and a 35-year-old accountant interviewed by MEW was surely not the only three-timerefugee: he fled in 1975 during clashes between Baghdad and Mullah MustaphaBarzani'spesh merga(Kurdish rebels), in 1988 when Iraqi jets dropped chemical gas on Halabja,and again in 1991 after the defeat of the uprising in Suleimaniyya.

Many Shi'a refugees from southern Iraq testified about the forcible separationof their families during the early years of the Iran-Iraq war, when the Baathregime summarily deported tens of thousands of Shi'a to Iran on the groundsthat they were of "Iranian origin."[16] Both Shi'aand Kurdish refugees, particularly young men, described being arrested inthe past and tortured for suspected opposition activity; some still borescars from ill-treatment.

Prisons, including some whose location and existence had not been disclosedby Baghdad, were thrown open by rebels in both the north and the south. Accountscirculated widely about disoriented and filthy prisoners emerging from yearsin secret dungeons believing that Hassan Ahmad al-Bakr, Saddam's predecessor,was still president.[17]

For many Iraqis who had been spared the harshest forms of repression, thesudden exposure of Saddam's past atrocities was a transformative experience. Even after the wrenching experience of the uprising and the exodus, many refugeeswere most eager to speak about the past that had finally been exposed tothem. A poultry company manager from Suleimaniyya recounted how, shortlyafter the city was captured by rebels, he took his family to tour the once-dreadedsecurity headquarters (Da'irat al-Amn). "We saw cells that were 1by 1.5 meters, cells with hooks high in the wall, for tying prisoners' handsbehind their backs," he said. "What we saw was indescribable."

Meanwhile,Kurds in Irbil were crowding into the Ministry of Culture to view a hastilyassembled exhibit of photographs showing the aftermath of the chemical-weaponsattack on Halabja. The images, well-known in the West, had never been seenbefore in Kurdistan. "It's something horrible, an Iraqi army deserter toldaWall Street Journal reporter. "I
Chapter One

The Continuing Human Rights Repercussions of the Uprising

Detentions and Disappearances during the Uprising

Thousands of Iraqis arrested by Iraqi security forces during the suppressionof the uprising in March and April 1991 have not been released, and relativeshave received little or no news about them. The bulk of the detained populationis from southern Iraq, where a smaller percentage of the population fledtheir homes than in the north.

Iraq claimed last October that security forces had arrested a total of 15,105persons for participating in the disturbances, of whom 14,005 had been amnestiedand 1,100 were to be tried.[18] While many were indeed releasedfrom detention, the numbers are not clear. No one has compiled a comprehensivelist of Iraqis reported missing or detained since the uprising. No independentorganization, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, has hadaccess to Iraqis detained by the government since the uprising.

The partial lists that have been prepared by various groups suggest thatthe number of missing persons exceeds the government's figure of 1,100, althoughno reliable estimate is possible. As Gulf War Victims, a Teheran-based Iraqirelief group, put it, "Everyone will tell you that in each city of the south,thousands of people disappeared after the entry of the army, either duringthe fighting or in the clean-up operations afterwards....But no reputableperson will venture anything more specific than that."

Ambassador Max van der Stoel, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Iraq,[19] submitted to the governmentof Iraq a list of 78 persons reported to have disappeared during the uprisingin the south. In October 1991, the government denied having any informationabout them:

After a careful investigation, the competent authorities have ascertainedthat the persons named in the above-mentioned annex are not currently inIraq and were probably either killed during the disturbances or fled to Iran,Saudi Arabia or other States with those who participated in the disturbances....[20]

TheRapporteur rejected this explanation, saying it was "somewhat difficult tobelieve that those who made these allegations would not be aware of eitherthe death or escape to another country of the persons concerned."[21] The Rapporteur went on topoint out that Iraq has failed to provide information on numerous cases ofdisappearances over the past decade. MEW has also documented a pattern ofevasive or misleading answers by the Iraqi government to such inquiries.[22]

The March 1992 report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur contains the names ofnearly 200 Kurds who are said to have disappeared since being taken intocustody during or shortly after the uprising in the north. Since the publicationof that report, the government of Iraq has issued no response to the listof cases. The office of the Rapporteur submitted details of these persons'identity documents to the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. In its session of May 18-22, 1992 in New York, the Working Group agreed tosubmit these names, along with the names of 7,000 Iraqi Kurds who are saidto have disappeared well before the uprising, to the government of Iraq.

Also missing to this day are an unknown number of Kurdish men who were amongthe several thousand rounded up from Kurdish neighborhoods of Kirkuk daysbefore the outbreak of the uprising (see Chapter Two). While most of those arrested were released within five weeks, some have never reappeared. Baghdadrefused to comment on their fate when the matter was raised by the Kurdishleadership during negotiations with Baghdad, Kurdish political sources said.

The post-uprising roundups were particularly sweeping in the Shi'a holy citiesof Karbala and al-Najaf. Those taken include hundreds of clerics. BetweenMarch 19 and 23, 1991, authorities in al-Najaf arrested the 95-year-old Shi'aspiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Sayyid abu al-Qassem al-Khoei, and 105 personsfrom his family and his associates and their families, according to Yousifal-Khoei of the al-Khoei Foundation, a Shi'a benevolent society based inLondon. Those arrested included the Grand Ayatollah's son, the 89-year-oldAyatollah Murtaza Kazemi Khalkhali, and citizens of Lebanon, India, Pakistan,Afghanistan and Bahrain.

In response to a preliminary inquiry from the U.N. Special Rapporteur about62 of the Grand Ayatollah's associates who were reportedly arrested, thegovernment addressed only four of the cases, claiming that Sayyid MohammadMehdi al-Kharsan, Sayyid Mohammad Ridha al-Kharsan, Sayyid Mohammad Ali Hadial-Kharsan, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Naserawi "were alive and enjoying full freedom." The government said it had no information about the other individuals.[23]

In January 1992, the Special Rapporteur pressed again for information aboutthe detainees, delivering in person to Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz anupdated list of 105 associates of the Grand Ayatollah whom the al-Khoei Foundationsays are detained or have disappeared since the uprising.[24] Five months later, the SpecialRapporteur has received no new information from the government.

Yousif al-Khoei confirmed Iraq's claim that four of the 62 persons namedon the original list were at liberty. However, he said that these nameshad been mistakenly placed on the list and that of the 105 associates of theGrand Ayatollah on the corrected list, only one, a Pakistani national, has been released. Some of the others are believed detained in Redhwaniyya detentioncenter near Baghdad or other detention centers in Baghdad, he said, addingthat their legal status was unknown.

The detained or disappeared associates of the Grand Ayatollah include twoal-Hakims, the prominent Shi'a family that has been a target of severe repressionin the past.[25] The two al-Hakim clerics andeight other male members of the family, aged between 20 and 60, were arrestedduring or shortly after the uprising in al-Najaf, according to Dr. Sahebal-Hakim, a London-based relative.[26] Only one ofthem has so far been released, he said.

Other opposition sources in exile said they believed that large numbers ofthose arrested during the uprising were being held in Redhwaniyya. It is not known what proportion of them has been tried or executed.

Displaced Iraqis at Risk

The suppression of the uprising resulted in the exodus of over ten percentof the country's population. Iran received 1.4 million Iraqis, Turkey 450,000,Saudi Arabia and Kuwait received together some 35,000, while smaller numbersescaped to Syria and Jordan.

Today, fewer than 100,000 of the Iraqis who fled across the borders in Marchand early April 1991 remain abroad. Some 45,000 are in Iran, 22,000 in SaudiArabia, and 8,000 in Turkey, according to the UNHCR. Kurds, who constitutedmore than 90 percent of those who fled, now account for less than a quarterof those remaining abroad. The chief factor in the repatriation of Kurdsis the existence of a zone inside Iraq that is controlled by Kurdish rebelsand enjoys a measure of Allied military protection. Shi'a refugees, lackingany comparable safe haven in the south, are less eager to reenter Iraq.[27]

In the early summer of 1991, the center of the humanitarian crisis shiftedfrom Iran and Turkey back into Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of personsremained displaced in tent camps or in the rubble of demolished villagesin the rebel-held north, and in the marshes along the southeastern border. The number of persons still displaced in northern Iraq as of April 1992 was estimated at 600,000 by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights;[28] that number has fluctuatedas people filter home or flee new outbreaks of fighting or shelling.

Approximately three-quarters of Iraq's Kurds are now living in the rebel-controlledzone. These include Kurds who have gone back to the cities they fled in March,as well as over 100,000 who are from or near the Iraqi-controlled part oftheir traditional homeland who are afraid to return home or whose homes havebeen destroyed.

A somewhat similar situation exists in the south. Although no area is firmlyunder rebel control or watched over by nearby Allied troops, the relativelyinaccessible marshes near the Iranian border have become shelter to thousandsof Shi'a who are afraid to return home. Most of the displaced Shi'a arefrom the three major urban areas in the area, al-Nasiriyya, al-Amara, andBasra. They include some active rebels and army deserters, as well as theirfamilies. Estimates of the number of displaced persons in the marshes runas high as 250,000. However, some observers question whether the inhospitableterrain can support a quarter of a million residents and estimate the populationat well below 50,000.

Baghdad's policies toward the marshes and the rebel-held north have certain similarities. Since the uprising, frequent military incursions in both areashave inflicted civilian casualties and displaced more people. Baghdad, itselfsqueezed by the U.N. embargo, has in turn blockaded deliveries of food, fuel,and other goods to rebel-held Kurdistan since October, while reportedly sealingoff parts of the marshes and blockading food and supplies to its inhabitants.[29] Recent reports of a governmentinitiative to relocate part of the marsh population have prompted comparisonswith Baghdad's depopulation of the Kurdish-inhabited area near the northeasternborder at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.[30]

A factor contributing to the reluctance of refugees and displaced personsto return home is their distrust of the amnesty declared in April 1991 byIraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, pardoning citizens for all offensesexcept premeditated murder, violations of honor and theft. While some ofthose who refuse to return might fear being legitimately charged with suchoffenses, a sizeable percentage of Iraqis have good reason to distrust any offer of amnesty from Baghdad. As the U.N. Special Rapporteur pointed out,"[A]llegations remain that the amnesties are...used as a means for roundingup members of opposition groups, and that the terms of the amnesties arefrequently violated by government agents who arrest certain persons returningout of places of hiding....Several reports allege that persons already detained,as with several of those arrested during (and in violation of) amnesties,rather than being released have actually<disappeared=in the custody of the government." The Special Rapporteur noted significantand repeated allegations regarding Kurds from Irbil who had returned underthe April 1991 amnesty and "were detained...taken to the city stadium, subjectedto punishments or executed, or have subsequently disappeared."[31]

Several refugees interviewed in Iran by MEW said they knew of Kurds who returnedto Iraq in 1988 under an amnesty then in effect and were promptly arrested. A Kurdish schoolteacher from Suleimaniyya described why he did not intendto accept an amnesty this time:

In 1988, I lived in Halabja. During the chemical weapons attacks I hid ina shelter. One hundred and eighty-two of my relatives were killed. Afterward,I fled to Iran and stayed there for six months. When Saddam offered the Kurdsan amnesty during the month of September, I decided to go home. But whenI reached the border, the Iraqi authorities told me that I could not returnto Halabja. They sent me instead to a place named Kurdechal in Irbil province,near the old village of the same name. About 6,000 of the returning Kurdswere taken there. There was no housing for us at Kurdechal. I spent 25days there sleeping under a nylon sheet. I asked to leave, but they refused. Eventually I built a lean-to, then a little house, out of mud. For one yearI could not leave the place. Finally, in the second year, they allowed meto go out, but I needed permission each time.[32] Finally, they said I could move out. I asked if I could go back to Halabja. They said I could go anywhere but Halabja, so in July 1990, I moved to Suleimaniyya.

Thefollowing month Iraq invaded Kuwait, and eight months later the schoolteacherfound himself living again in a tent in a refugee camp in Iran.

Rebel-held Northern Iraq

Kurdish rebels control a 16,000-square-mile area, roughly one-tenth of Iraqand four-fifths of the land claimed by Iraqi Kurds as their ancestral homeland. The zone includes two of Iraq's governorates (Suleimaniyya and Dahuk), andmuch of a third (Irbil). Its current population of about three million inhabitantsis almost entirely Kurdish, with small numbers of Turkmans and Christians(Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Armenians). The area encompasses both the "securityzone" demarcated by the Allies in April 1991 and a far larger area, includingthe cities of Suleimaniyya, Irbil and Dahuk, that extends south and eastfrom the security zone. Until the May 19 elections, the area was governedby the Iraqi Kurdistan Front, a coalition of eight parties formed in 1988.

The current boundaries of the zone have been relatively stable since October,when Iraqi forces established a fortified military line running northwestto southeast through the lowlands. However, incidents of shelling by Iraqitroops since then have sent scores of thousands of refugees living near thefortified line fleeing into the rebel-controlled region.

The population of the rebel-controlled zone falls into four basic categories:

1. persons who remained in or returned to the homes they were inhabitingjust prior to the March 1991 uprising;

2. persons who took advantage of the withdrawal of Iraqi forces in orderto return to villages and towns from which they had been evicted during Saddam'scampaign in the 1970s and 1980s to depopulate the Kurdish countryside;

3. persons who fled from areas that are currently under Iraqi control ornear the front line, and are either prevented from returning, afraid to return,or have little to return to because their homes have been destroyed; and

4. persons -- mostly women and children -- who move between homes in theareas under Iraqi control and temporary quarters inside the rebel-held zone,where they maintain their access to humanitarian assistance, including shelter,in the event that they are displaced again.

Compared to the marshes, inhabitants of the rebel-held north enjoy a relativemeasure of protection, not to mention an unprecedented degree of politicalautonomy. The presence of Allied troops and fighter planes in neighboringTurkey, with their regular overflights of northern Iraq, have helped to reassureKurds by offering the prospect of a swift military response should Saddamlaunch an offensive. The Kurds are also better off than the marsh dwellersin terms of the level of humanitarian assistance they receive and the largerpresence in their midst of staff from the U.N. and relief organizations.

The Kurds still face considerable danger and adversity: harsh winters, unmarkedminefields, Iraqi shelling along the front line, embargo-related shortagesof affordable food, fuel and medicine, and apparent acts of sabotage by Iraqiinfiltrators. None of these hardships, however, looms as large as the Kurds'fear of what Saddam may do if the Allied forces retreat at the end of theircurrent basing agreement with Turkey on June 28.

The group facing the harshest conditions are the more than 100,000 displacedpersons, most of them from Kirkuk, who cannot or will not return to homesin Iraqi-controlled areas, and are now living in tent camps, in abandonedgovernment buildings, in makeshift shelters, or in houses in government-built"model villages" (see below) that were abandoned by Kurds returning to theirvillages.

According to U.N. officials working in the region who asked not to be named,Iraqi checkpoints on the front line are, in general, no longer blocking thereturn of refugees from the rebel-held zone, as they did in the months followingthe March uprising. The obstruction now occurs mainly in the other direction,when civilians crossing into the rebel-held zone are searched for items deemedto violate Iraq's blockade of the zone. Soldiers routinely siphon off "excess"gasoline from civilian cars, and seize goods that appear to be newly bought.

Fear, rather than physical barriers, is the main impediment to the returnhome of Kurds who are displaced from towns inside or near Iraqi-held areas. Those who live near the front line are scared of shelling by Iraqi troopsor skirmishes between Iraqi and Kurdish forces. According to one U.N. official, many of the Kirkukis who are not returning are young men who fear arrestas suspected pesh merga, army deserters, or uprising activists. AnotherU.N. official said Kurds are also deterred from returning by the heavy militarypresence in Kirkuk and other areas under government control, and reportsof problems with local food distribution and harassment of civilians by troops."They just feel safer in the mountainous areas," he said.

Civilians in the rebel-held zone who are trying to rebuild their lives indemolished villages face a distinct set of hardships. Of the some 4,000Kurdish villages that Kurds say were demolished by the Baath regime duringthe Anfal (see Introduction), a total of 1,762 are currently under reconstruction, according to Iraqi Kurdistan Front figures. The UNHCR put the figure at1,500 in April 1992.[33]

Many who are returning to ancestral villages are Kurds who had been confinedfor years in "model villages" that were built by the regime to house Kurdsfrom demolished villages. According to a U.S. Senate staff report, thesevillages "were poorly constructed, had minimal sanitation and water, andprovided few employment opportunities for the residents. Some, if not most,were surrounded by barbed wire, and Kurds could enter or leave only with difficulty."[34]

In the rebel-controlled zone, Kurds rebuilding homes in demolished villagesprobably outnumber the displaced population that cannot return to homes inor near Iraqi-controlled territory. While the UNHCR does not classify thereturning villagers as "displaced," they continue to face many refugee-likedifficulties, especially in a period of shortages and embargoes. Le Monde'sFrançoise Chipaux observed during a visit in late May 1992, "In reality,everything remains to be done, from basic restoration to the rebuilding ofschools, clinics, and water and irrigation systems, along with the distributionof seeds and fertilizer to all of these peasants who for so long have beenkept off their lands, which now lie fallow."[35]

Living in tents or flimsy huts on the ruins of demolished homes, many spentthe winter with inadequate heat and plumbing, far from medical care and regularfood supplies. Some sought sturdier shelter in the cities during the winter,and returned to their villages only after the spring thaw.

The returning villagers are among those at highest risk of stepping on mineslaid by Iraq both along the border with Iran as well as deeper inside Iraqto hinder the pesh merga as well as Kurdish civilians who might try to returnto the sites of their razed towns and villages.[36] A representative of MEW was told by a medical staff member at Suleimaniyyahospital on September 11 that since March, the hospital had treated 1,652landmine patients, including 397 who had undergone traumatic or surgicalamputation. ANew York Timesreporter who visited the area in April 1992 wrote:

No figures are available on the total mine casualties in the last year, Kurdish and relief agency medical officials said. But Dr. Delshad Kamal of the SuleimaniyyaTeaching Hospital, one of three surgical hospitals in the Kurdish-controlledarea, said the hospital treated about 15 new mine explosion casualties eachweek.[37]

Despite all of the villagers' day-to-day difficulties, the overriding concernfor many is that government troops will return to the area and demolish theirvillages once again. "[The Iraqi forces] want to come back," one villagertoldThe New York Times. "Everybody is always saying maybe they'll attack today or tomorrow. We're hoping they're afraid to move forward because of the Western coalition forces."[38]

Post-Uprising Order and Disorder

The contours of the post-uprising order in northern Iraq were establishedshortly after the uprising. On April 5, 1991, two days after Iraqi troopsrecaptured the last city under Kurdish control, the U.N. Security Counciladopted Resolution 688, which demanded that Iraq "immediately end" the repressionof its civilian population, and allow "immediate access by internationalhumanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in all partsof Iraq."[39] The same day, President Bushannounced that U.S. Air Force transport planes would begin flying over northernIraq to drop supplies of food, blankets, clothing, tents, and other relief-relateditems near concentrations of displaced persons.

But the surging exodus and Turkey's reluctance to host a massive influx ofKurdish refugees pressured the Allies to act more decisively. On April 16, President Bush announced that a "security zone" would be established nearthe Turkish border and administered by U.S., French and British troops. The area would contain temporary tent camps to lure refugees back from Turkeyand the perilous mountain areas near the border. To further reassure Kurds,President Bush ordered Iraqi troops to evacuate the "security zone" and toretreat at least 25 miles south of the Turkish border, and declared all ofIraq north of the 36th parallel to be off-limits to Iraqi aircraft.

Other developments in April enhanced Kurdish hopes for their future security. First, Kurdish leaders and Baghdad agreed on a tentative cease-fire and resumedlong-stalled negotiations on limited autonomy. Second, Baghdad agreed toan extensive U.N. relief operation inside Iraq. Under the terms of a memorandumof understanding signed on April 18, 1991 by Iraq and Prince Sadruddin AgaKhan, the Secretary General's executive delegate for humanitarian affairsin Iraq, the U.N. was permitted to establish offices inside Iraq "whereversuch presence may be needed" to provide humanitarian assistance to displacedpersons and assist in their return. The memorandum, which has been renewedand now expires on June 30, essentially restates in more consensual languagethe terms of Security Council Resolution 688.

The U.N. rapidly opened humanitarian offices in both government-controlledand Kurdish-controlled areas. It also deployed 500 lightly armed guards whosemandate was to protect U.N. property, services and personnel, but whose presencealso enhanced the sense of security among Iraqi civilians. The majority ofthese guards were stationed in the Kurdish cities of Suleimaniyya, Dahukand Irbil; relatively few were sent to the south of the country.

In June, the Allies began withdrawing from their "security zone" and turningover relief operations to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR). The Allies announced that they would keep a "residual force" inTurkey and a monitoring team in the town of Zakho in the "security zone." The residual force, based with Turkey's approval at Incirlik airbase nearthe city of Adana, included attack planes and battalions of air-transportableinfantry.

According to Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams, the mission of the force atIncirlik was "to stand by in the area in case there were problems in northernIraq that required military action." Though cautioning that the United States"cannot solve long-term...long-standing problems in the region between theKurds and the Iraqis, between the Shi'a and the Iraqis," Williams statedthat there would be "very clear markers laid down to the Iraqis" about theirexpected behavior.[40]

Whatever the markers that the Allies laid down, their military pullback coincidedwith a general deterioration in the security situation, following two monthsof relative calm and the return of over one million refugees from Iran andTurkey. With the negotiations in Baghdad bogging down and Kurds nervous aboutthe Allied withdrawal, tensions began to mount. On June 3, four Kurds andtwo Iraqi officials were killed when a demonstration turned violent in Dahuk,a city outside the security zone.

Major clashes between Iraqi troops and Kurdish rebels erupted six weeks lateraround Suleimaniyya and Irbil. The fighting drove about 30,000 civiliansin the Suleimaniyya region toward the Iranian border, according to the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross, which said on July 22 that it had treated 660wounded persons in area hospitals.

Following the clashes, the army ceded control of Suleimaniyya and Irbil tothe Kurds and pulled its forces back to the cities' outskirts. Both cities have since remained in Kurdish hands.

The July clashes, like the ones that were to follow during the summer andfall, took place well below the Allies' "security zone," and provoked nomilitary response from them.

During the second week of September, several dozen persons were killed orwounded in clashes around the city of Chamchamal, which lies near the frontline between Iraqi and Kurdish forces, halfway between Suleimaniyya and Kirkuk. It is not known what portion of the victims were civilians. Col. RichardNaab, commander of the Allies' Military Coordination Center in Zakho, wasquoted as saying that the clashes were not caused by any Iraqi provocation.[41] However, they erupted in acontext of rising tension, as Iraqis were moving troops into the area andKirkuk residents were demonstrating in Suleimaniyya to demand that Iraq permitthem to return home. The Kirkukis were reportedly preparing to organizea march toward their city, confronting the Iraqi checkpoints along the route.

In October, the front-line towns of Chamchamal, Kifri and Kalar came underIraqi shelling. The operation clarified Baghdad's general strategy in thenorth. Advancing in these locations while retreating in others (such asfrom Suleimaniyya in July), the army was fine-tuning a fortified militaryline to make it strategically strong and effective in sealing off the rebel-controlledarea from the rest of the country. The line bisected Iraqi Kurdistan fromthe Turkish border in the northwest to the Iranian border in the southeast. All of Iraq's known oil fields remained on the Iraqi side of the line, althoughlarge sections of the key oil-export trunkline, from Iraq to Turkey's Mediterraneancoast, are in rebel hands.

The shelling in October and subsequent clashes between Iraqi and Kurdishforces drove at least 200,000 civilians from their homes, according to theUNHCR, straining the agency's efforts to provide winterized shelter for upto 350,000 of those already displaced.[42] The shellingkilled at least 36 persons in the Suleimaniyya area, according to the U.N.[43] Suleimaniyya residents latertold MEW that heavy artillery shells landed mostly in heavily populated areasand did not appear aimed at specific military targets.

TheMassacre of Iraqi Soldiers in Suleimaniyya

On October 7, Kurdish guerrillas engaged in what was easily their worst atrocitysince the uprising, executing at least 60 Iraqi army troops who had beencaptured during hand-to-hand fighting in Suleimaniyya. Reuters correspondentKurt Schork, who witnessed the killings, said the men were shot at point-blankrange while they were kneeling.[44] The KurdistanDemocratic Party, whose fighters were accused by some of responsibility,condemned the incident, announced an investigation, and invited Amnesty Internationalto observe the trials when they took place.

As of May 25, 1992, the Kurdish leadership had conducted three investigations,but not one person had yet been charged or taken into custody in connectionwith the killings, according to KDP spokesman Hoshyar Zebari. Judging by the investigation findings to date, Zebari said, the incident was less clear-cutthan indicated by initial press reports. He said that the killings seemto have occurred only moments after a fierce battle, and not after the victimshad been in custody for any length of time. He said that the investigators'next step would be to locate all the rebels who were present at the buildingswhere the killings had taken place.

Regrettably, the pursuit of justice in the case has fallen victim to foot-draggingand finger-pointing among the Kurdish parties. Whatever the mitigating circumstancesthat may surround the incident, it is evident that an atrocity took placeand that the Kurdish leadership has failed to respond in a manner that sendsa signal that abusive conduct by their fighters will be punished in a timelyfashion. Neither the absence of a fully operational judiciary nor the considerablehardships that the Kurds have faced since the uprising can justify this feebleresponse.

Zebari, speaking to MEW on May 25, expressed optimism that the investigationwould move forward now that the elections have been held. MEW urges the Kurdishleadership to show its commitment to the rule of law by completing its investigationsinto this important case and granting a fair and open trial to those whoare charged with responsibility.

RedCross Visits to Iraqi soldiers captured by Kurdish rebels

The pesh merga have captured large numbers of Iraqi soldiers during the clashesthat have occurred since the uprising. The various Kurdish groups holdingIraqi soldiers have generally permitted the prisoners to be seen regularlyby delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ICRC saidit began visiting imprisoned Iraqi servicemen on July 18, when it had accessto 1,500 prisoners taken during clashes that month. It visited 814 soldierstaken in September, and 4,040 captured between October and December. Visitsare continuing until the present, the ICRC said, adding that the prisonerstend to be released relatively soon after their capture. As of mid-May 1992,fewer than one hundred soldiers, most of them officers, were believed bythe ICRC to be in custody.

Baghdad'sEconomic Blockade of the Rebel-Controlled Zone

In October, Baghdad imposed an embargo on goods entering the rebel-controlledzone, enforcing it at checkpoints along the military line. The government,itself squeezed by continuing U.N. economic sanctions, cut deliveries offood and fuel, including subsidized goods that the government was rationing,and ordered civil servants to relocate to cities under government controlor face dismissal.[45] At checkpoints, soldiers confiscatedfood and fuel from the few cars they let through to the rebel-held zone. The embargo caused prices to soar for food, fuel, and agricultural productssuch as seeds and fertilizer.

The termination of salaries to state employees affected an estimated 200,000heads of households. Most, however, remained at their posts, and schoolscontinued to function as the Kurdish leadership tried to cover salaries byusing the revenues from duties they levied on trucks passing rebel-controlled checkpoints at the Iraqi-Turkish border.

The embargo, which made an unusually cold winter that much worse, continuesto be felt, as aLe Mondecorrespondent observed on a recent visit:

In addition to the cutoff in rations, the embargo imposed by Baghdad is feltmost acutely in terms of fuel, gasoline and gas, which are being deliveredat about one tenth the pre-embargo levels. Gasoline is also available forpurchase, thanks to smuggling, at fifty times the Iraqi price, and naturalgas canisters, which cost less than one dinar in Mosul, sell for 16 dinarsin Irbil.[46]

If the embargo was intended to pressure the Kurds to reach a political settlementwith Baghdad, it did not succeed. In some respects, it had something ofthe opposite effect, forcing the Kurds to take on such attributes of governmentas rationing staples and operating schools and hospitals.

With economic pressure failing to yield quick results, Baghdad stepped upthe military pressure. In late March, the army shelled towns near the GreatZab river, west of Irbil, driving 40,000 villagers from their homes. Mosthave since returned, according to a U.N. official. The army launched anotheroperation near the city of Chamchamal, apparently in order to tighten theembargo by cutting off a rebel-controlled supply route between Irbil andSuleimaniyya.

In early April, a buildup of Iraqi ground forces between Irbil and Mosuland the activation of anti-aircraft batteries north of the 36th parallelprompted stern warnings from the Allies.[47] Iraqis backed down on the anti-aircraft batteries, but an estimated 100,000to 150,000 soldiers remained along the front, backed by tanks and heavy artillery,according to Kurdish military officials.[48]

U.N.'sUncertain Future in Iraq Adds to Kurds' Anxiety

The military buildup is not the only cause of jitteriness one year afterthe failed uprising. The future of the U.N. presence inside Iraq remainsin doubt. With the agreement between Iraq and the U.N. expiring on June30, the government has reportedly increased its harassment of U.N. reliefworkers, imposed new restrictions on the movement of U.N. vehicles deliveringhumanitarian aid, and held up issuing or renewing visas for foreign reliefworkers.[49] An official with the U.N.humanitarian office for Iraq commented that the government dislikes the presenceof so many U.N. and relief workers but feels it must tolerate them if itis to have the U.N.-imposed sanctions removed.

If the U.N. succeeds in extending its memorandum of understanding with Iraq,it remains to be seen whether and how the U.N. will maintain the protectionfunctions that until now the UNHCR has been performing. That agency has beenscaling back its presence in Iraq since April 1, 1992, while the United NationsChildren's Fund (UNICEF) has taken on a supervisory role among U.N. agenciesin the field. This development is troubling from a human-rights standpoint,since UNICEF, in contrast to the UNHCR, has no explicit protection mandate. The UNHCR field staff in Iraq included "protection officers" whose job wasto help displaced persons to return to where they wished to go, and to intervenewith authorities to ensure that conditions of safety and dignity were maintained.

A plan to fill the void is being considered by the U.N.'s inter-agency Departmentof Humanitarian Affairs, directed by Undersecretary General Jan Eliassonof Sweden. Michael Stopford, the New York representative of the department'sIraq program, told MEW on May 13 that the department hoped to assign fieldrepresentatives "to assume some of the coordinating, monitoring, and reportingfunctions that until now have been performed by the UNHCR." He warned, however,that the plan was contingent on fundingCand, of course, on the extension of the U.N. agreement with Iraq to operateinside its territory.

CarBombs, Apparent Poisonings Raise Fears of Infiltrators from Baghdad

Since March 1992, Kurdish fears of saboteurs have been heightened by an apparentpoisoning incident and two fatal car-bomb explosions. In past years, the Saddam regime has been accused of poisoning a number of dissidents both inIraq and abroad; several cases are described in MEW'sHuman Rights inIraq. The two most recent victims were Sunni Muslim members of the Iraqiopposition who had taken sanctuary in the rebel-controlled north. The two, identified by the pseudonyms Abdallah Abdelatif and Abd al-Karim al-Masdiwi, reportedly fell ill after drinking tea at the home of an unidentified Kurdin Shaqlawa on March 24, 1992. According to London-based Iraqi dissidents,the two had received a warning a month earlier from Qusai Hussein, one ofSaddam's sons, to cease their activities and leave Iraq.

After their health deteriorated, the two were moved from Iraq to Damascus. Samples of their blood, hair and urine were sent to a London hospital fortests. On the strength of the test results, visas were secured and the twomen flew to London, where they were treated for thallium poisoning. Both were recovering in May and were expected to survive.[50]

There have been other incidents of sabotage in northern Iraq that cannotbe reliably linked to the regime. Responsibility was neither claimed nor determined for a car bomb that exploded outside a Kurdish political officein central Suleimaniyya on March 6, 1992, killing twelve persons; or foranother bomb that exploded in a market in Irbil on March 16, reportedly killingthree people and injuring some 25. The second blast came after a successionof warnings from officials and media in Baghdad to the opposition Iraqi KurdistanFront not to ally itself with foreign powers.[51] On May 14, 1992, a small car bomb exploded outside a Dahuk hotel frequentedby foreign journalists, who were covering the election campaign in the rebel-controlledzone. Other explosive devices have been discovered and prevented from detonating.

Such incidents heighten the sense of vulnerability among people living inthe rebel-held zone. Iraq's continuing embargo and military buildup, theperiodic shelling and skirmishes along the front line, the uncertain futureof the Allied and U.N. presence, the harassment of U.N. workers and apparentacts by saboteurs have all helped to keep hundreds of thousands of Kurdsready to take flight at a moment's notice.

TheMarshes

Since last June, Iraqi opposition groups abroad have accused the Iraqi armyof launching major offensives in the vast marsh areas located near the confluenceof the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the triangle formed by the citiesof al-Nasiriyya, al-Amara and Basra.[52] The victimsare said to include rebels, displaced families, and the indigenous semi-nomadicmarsh dwellers (sometimes referred to as "Marsh Arabs"). According to thesereports, villages have been demolished and unarmed civilians have been punishedon suspicion of aiding the rebels.

Most recently, the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI),a Shi'a opposition group based in Teheran, charged that on April 21 the regimelaunched a tank, artillery, and air assault on three fronts in the marshes,attacking the northern marshes of Basra, the northern marshes of al-Amara,and the eastern al-Nasiriyya marshes. The reports prompted an expressionof concern by the British government on April 24. On May 19, SAIRI issueda statement warning that the army was amassing heavy weaponry in the areafor a new onslaught.[53]

The magnitude of the operations and the extent of casualties have been difficultto confirm, since few independent observers have been permitted to penetratethe marshes from inside Iraq, and few have taken the perilous trip by boatwith rebels infiltrating from Iran.

Nor is the population of the marshes known with any precision. In the 1950s they were home to an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 persons, but many were displacedduring the Iran-Iraq war by drainage projects and military operations. Aidofficials told anIndependentreporter recently that the local population was down to 50,000.[54]

Harsh conditions prevail in the marshes. Water pollution has reduced thesupply of fish, a staple for the indigenous population, and clean water, foodand medical care are scarce. Various mosquito-borne diseases are present.

Because of their terrain and proximity to Iran, the marshes have served fordecades as a sanctuary for criminals and others hiding from the central authorities. Armed bandits continue to rob vehicles on the main roads, making it inadvisableto travel after dark. During the Iran-Iraq war, deserting soldiers fledto the marshes, prompting the army to send in helicopter gunships to hunt them down.

Today, the marshes evidently contain the largest concentration of activeresistance fighters in southern Iraq. Rebel commanders recently claimedto have 10,000 fighters operating in the area,[55] although journalists and aid workers who recently spent time near the marshes said the number seemed inflated, adding that the rebels have mounted little more than sporadic hit-and-run attacks in the area.

One reporter who entered the marshes with the rebels in March found themto be poorly equipped despite Iranian backing:

Provided with sanctuary and support by Iran, the rebels operate out of smallbase camps along the border with Iraq and deep inside the marshes....TheirAK-47 assault rifles are often rusty, few have boots or uniforms, and thereis little medicine to ward off the festering sores, fevers and malaria bredby the swamp. Sick and wounded fighters often die before they can completethe three- or four-day journey to Iran for treatment.[56]

Despite the low level of rebel activity, the government seems determinedto eliminate resistance in the region. In addition to the reported militaryoperations mentioned above, the government appears to be employing a combinationof coercion and incentives to resettle marsh dwellers in more accessiblelocations outside the marshes or on their periphery.[57] Rebels also alleged that the Iraqi army was draining the swamps and building roads through them so that its tanks and heavy artillery could operate more effectively in the area.[58]

Reports by opposition sources abroad about military action in the marsheshave been difficult to substantiate partly because the government has systematicallyobstructed scrutiny of its operations in the marshes. The area is encircled by army troops and dotted with checkpoints.

Last July the government delayed, and then attempted to dupe the U.N. SecretaryGeneral's special delegate, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, when he conductedthe first major attempt by the U.N. to assess humanitarian needs in the marshes. (A U.N. team visiting the area one month earlier had cited a deployment oftroops along roads in parts of the marshes and expressed concern about theestimated 40,000 people who were hiding there.[59]) Upon reaching the Hammar region of the marshes, between al-Nasiriyya andBasra, Sadruddin was told by local residents that troops had just completeda withdrawal from the area, apparently in an effort to deceive the missioninto concluding that there was no military pressure on area residents. Assoon as they departed, the army went back in, prompting a protest from Prince Sadruddin. "....I learned from unimpeachable sources that as soon as ourmission left the area, and in particular on the 12th and 13th of July, aheavy military presence was redeployed to take up the same positions whichhad obviously been vacated mainly for the duration of our visit," he wroteto the Iraqi foreign minister on July 15.[60]

Prince Sadruddin tried to establish a permanent U.N. presence in the area,but his plan was thwarted only days after his departure from the area whenIraqi authorities ordered out U.N. staff who had remained behind. Sincethen only a skeletal U.N. staff has been permitted to work in cities nearthe marshes.

Iraq has also kept the presence of NGOs in the marsh region to a minimum,issuing few travel permits to the area. A representative of the French medicalrelief group Medecins du Monde who was granted access in order to assesshealth needs in late 1991 found her trip tightly controlled by her governmentescorts. MDM proposals for projects in the area subsequently went unansweredby the government.

In late 1991, Iraq authorized a small German nongovernmental organization,Aktion Direkte Hilfe (Action Direct Assistance), to staff a small officein al-Nasiriyya and make daily deliveries under Iraqi Red Crescent supervisionof food and water to the marsh town of Chubaish, 60 miles to the south. This made ADH the only foreign NGO with a base in the south that was distributing goods directly to marsh residents. In April 1992, however, the governmentexpelled ADH from Iraq without providing any official explanation, and alsoasked the U.N.'s World Food Program (WFP) to close its office in al-Nasiriyya.

Since the departure of ADH, the WFP has managed to remain in al-Nasiriyya,and deliveries of food and water to Chubaish have been performed by the Baghdad-basedstaff of the Catholic Relief Services. Nevertheless, the Iraqi governmenthas kept the presence and freedom of movement of U.N. and NGO workers toan absolute minimum in marshes region.

Because of these restrictions, the presence of foreign workers provides thearea's population with virtually no protection from government abuse. An official with the U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs' Iraq program told MEW in May 1992 that U.N. staff travel only on routes between their officesand their distribution points, and have no mandate to perform any other workin the marshes. Asked about reports during mid-April of stepped up militaryoperations in the area, the official replied in a manner indicative of thenear-impossibility of obtaining information: he said he could only confirmthat shelling had been heard in the area, but did not know what towns orsites had been affected.

ADH's coordinator in Iraq, Falah Wajdi, told MEW that the staff of his organizationalso stuck closely to their scheduled rounds and were unable to observe governmentor military policies toward inhabitants of the marshes. He did say, however,that in the area of the marshes between al-Nasiriyya and Chubaish, whereADH staff traveled daily, he saw no signs of intense military activity. "Army checkpoints were manned by three or four soldiers only, with no heavyweapons," he commented. "I did not see any tanks or helicopter gunshipsor heavy artillery." As for the reported army blockade on goods enteringthe marshes, Wajdi said he saw no evidence of an embargo in Chubaish. "Thereis food for sale in the town markets, and the prices are the same as in al-Nasiriyya. The problem is that people can't afford the market prices."

Even if the government of Iraq permits NGOs and the U.N. to maintain theirmodest presence along certain routes in the marsh region, there is an urgentneed to increase monitoring of the highly dispersed local population. Themarshes remain more closed than other parts of Iraq to the outside world,and more vulnerable to government abuses being perpetrated without any scrutiny. MEW urges the international community to highlight this region in its effortto improve human rights monitoring and protection within Iraq.

Cities Targeted for Repression

Kirkuk:Exploiting the Exodus

Kirkuk is an oil-rich city about 160 miles north of Baghdad with an ethnicallymixed population of between 500,000 and one million.[61] It has long been fiercely contested by the Kurds, who demand its incorporationinto the Kurdish Autonomous Region, and the Baathist regime, which has sincethe 1970s sought to solidify its control of the city by colonizing it withArabs from cities to the south.[62]

In the first few months following the uprising, security forces blocked thereturn of Kirkukis who had fled; others were too afraid to return. ANew York Timesreporter who visited the city in early June 1991 observed that few Kurdshad returned.[63] Two months later, aLibérationcorrespondent found much the same thing, noting that in the Kurdish neighborhoodof Teppe only one refugee in two had returned.[64] One U.N. official based in Suleimaniyya, where many of the displaced reside,told MEW in May 1992 that the only Kirkukis he observed shuttling betweenthe two cities were women and children going to visit relatives.

The UNHCR estimated the number of Kirkukis displaced within Iraq at 70,000to 100,000 in May 1992; the same month, Hoshyar Zebari of the KDP told MEWthat the number was at least 150,000.

Although soldiers at checkpoints appear to have since eased the policy ofturning back Kurds who wish to return to Kirkuk, reports of a heavy militarypresence in the city and the repression of the remaining Kurdish populationdeter those who remain displaced. It comes as no surprise that Kirkukis constitutethe lion's share of Kurds who have not returned home since the uprising,given the recent history of the city and its current condition.

The government of Iraq has denied that any of its actions during or sincethe uprising have targeted the Kurds as a people:

No operations were conducted with a view to driving out the Kurds; on the contrary, we note that their departure was influenced by the external intervention. The serious intention of the Iraqi Government to encourage those citizensto return is evident from the signing of the memorandum of understandingwith the United Nations and the promulgation of...general amnesty decrees.[65]

Thegovernment failed to explain, however, why Kirkuk is the only city for whichit has refused a standing request from the U.N. to open a humanitarian office. The presence of such an office would likely encourage the return home ofat least some of the displaced Kirkukis.

Without a U.N. presence in Kirkuk, serious allegations about Iraqi conductthere have been difficult to assess. Kurdish political leaders have chargedthat the government has exploited the exodus of Kurds to accelerate the Arabizationprogram in the city. According to these allegations, Kurdish homes werereportedly either demolished after the uprising or given to Arabs broughtin from cities to the south. Kurdish leaders claimed to be in possessionof a leaked official document dated August 4, 1991 authorizing the distributionof property in Kirkuk to Arab settlers, and ordering the construction ofhouses for 2,726 families.[66] This claim could not be confirmed.

Dr. Najmaldin O. Karim, President of the Kurdish National Congress in theU.S., told MEW that following the uprising, Iraqi troops went into predominantlyKurdish neighborhoods in the city and its northern and eastern suburbs andbulldozed or dynamited 4,000 vacant homes. Patrick Cockburn ofThe Independent,who visited Kirkuk in early May 1992, told MEW that he saw a Kurdish neighborhoodnear the Air Force base that had been systematically demolished. He wasunable to inspect the damage closely because he was accompanied by two governmentofficials.

Suleimaniyya-based U.N. officials who are in daily contact with displacedKirkukis, cautioned that some reports of the destruction of Kurdish Kirkukmay be exaggerated. The true extent and chronology of the damage cannotbe confirmed so long as Iraq bars free access by U.N. officials, journalists,and rights monitors.

Al-Najafand Karbala: Punishing the Shi'a

Post-uprising repression has been particularly harsh in the two holy Shi'aholy cities of al-Najaf and Karbala. Since the uprising, religious institutionsand prominent clerical families have been targeted in a campaign to subdueShi'a opposition, which Saddam is thought to view as the greatest potentialpopular threat to his rule. Unlike the Kurds, whose political aspirationsmainly concern the region in which they are in the majority, the Shi'a oppositionmovements have long sought to install an Islamic government in Baghdad.[67] The Shi'a account for an estimated55 percent of Iraq's population.

Representatives of Iraq's Shi'a community have charged that since the uprisingthe Iraqi regime has targeted Shi'a cultural and nonpolitical institutionsin an attempt to destroy the fabric of Shi'a society. These attacks werepart of what they called a campaign of "revenge on a massive scale" in southernIraq.[68]

Many of the Shi'a shrines, sites and institutions of al-Najaf and Karbalawere damaged by shelling during the uprising. Several were later demolished or closed. A LondonTimes correspondent visiting Karbala in lateApril 1991 found a demolition program in full swing around the shrines ofHussein and Abbas, designed to create "a sanitary zone of concrete" aroundtwo of the holiest shrines of the Shi'a faith:

Entire buildings flanking a central boulevard linking the two mosques hadbeen reduced to mounds of rubble since I had visited ten days earlier....Theofficial explanation is that the area is being upgraded and will be turnedinto a plaza flanked by high-rise buildings and shops.[69]

WhenEl País correspondent Angeles Espinosa toured the ruins aroundthe two shrines one month later, journalists disingenuously asked officialswhether the damage had occurred during the Allied bombing or the uprising:

"No, this zone was dynamited by the government in order to renovate it,"the official accompanying us replied without a trace of shame.

The three official reasons for this massive demolition of buildings is thatthey were very old, they were damaged during the recent revolt, and thereis a plan under way to give the city a facelift. However, when this reportervisited Karbala last year, neither the broad pedestrian mall that connectsthe two shrines, nor what surrounded it, were in ruins.

Nor does it seem that the beautification of the heart of Shi'a Islam wouldbe an urgent necessity at a moment when the country was going through graveeconomic difficulties.

The impression is that...the army has knocked down the buildings to crushthe resistance.[70]

One year later, the damage inflicted during the uprising to the shrines ofAbbas and Hussein has been repaired, but, as Patrick Cockburn wrote duringa recent visit, "the hasty restoration only emphasizes the extent of thedamage." The rubble that surrounded the shrines after the uprising has beencleared away, but the marketplace has not been rebuilt and the shrines standin a vast "waste ground."[71]

Compared to Karbala, the program of demolition in al-Najaf was, accordingto Yousif al-Khoei of the al-Khoei Foundation, "relatively confined to religiouscenters, acres of Shi'a cemeteries in Wadi al-Salaam, and homes of peoplesuspected to have taken part in the uprising." The Imam Ali, Baqee'a, Morad,Sami Kirmasha, Imam Sadiq, and Kuwait mosques are among the religious buildingsin al-Najaf that the government has demolished since the uprising, al-Khoeisaid.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur visited al-Najaf in January 1992 and noted thatin the Wadi al-Salaam cemetery,

where Shi'a pilgrims from as far away as India and Afghanistan have beenburied for over one thousand years,...a highway is being constructed overthe graves in what is alleged to be an act of deliberate desecration; leadersof the community have not been consulted. In addition, the thousand-year-oldHouza, the Shi'a university, was closed along with many other schools, privateas well as religious, at al-Najaf, while libraries with manuscripts thatconstituted part of the Islamic tradition were destroyed.[72]

The Special Rapporteur also stated that

the number of clergy at al-Najaf had been reduced from eight or nine thousand twenty years ago to two thousand 10 years later, and 800 before the uprisings of 1991. It is alleged that virtually all of them are now under arrest or disappeared, as the Baath regime is seeking to destroy Shi'a culture by wiping out its traditional leaders of theulema [learned] class.[73]

Among those reportedly arrested in March during the suppression of the uprisingwere some 105 relatives, staff, religious students and some senior clericsassociated with the Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei. Except for one individualwho was released, their fate remains unknown to this day (see above, firstsection of this chapter).

As in Kirkuk, monitoring the ongoing repression in Karbala or al-Najaf isdifficult. The U.N. has no office in either city, and the few foreignerswho have been able to visit are closely watched by the government and unableto converse freely with local residents.

Chapter Two

The March 1991 Uprisings: Introduction

The 1991 uprising was the most serious internal challenge Saddam Husseinhas had to face during his twelve years in power. Every major city in the north and south of the country except Mosul fell into the hands of rebelsand their sympathizers. Iraqi soldiers, confronted with a popular uprisingimmediately after being routed in the Gulf war, deserted or defected by thethousands. The survival of the regime was very much in doubt for about twoweeks until loyalist troops, led by the elite Republican Guard, began finallyto extinguish the insurrection city by city. By the time it was over, thousandsof civilians and government forces had been killed[74]and countless atrocities had been committed by both sides.

Three northern and three southern cities that rose up in rebellion are thefocus of this report. Testimony gathered from residents of other citiessuggests that the abuses documented here are representative of what took placeelsewhere, although the magnitude of the abuses and the level of casualtiesvaried considerably. Among the cities covered in this report, al-Najaf,Karbala, and Kirkuk were particularly devastated by the uprising and governmentcounter-offensive.

The turmoil began in Basra on March 1, one day after the Gulf war cease-fire,and spread within days to Karbala, Najaf, Hilla, al-Nasiriyya, al-Amara,Samawa, Kut, and DiwaniyyaCthat is, to all of the largest cities of southern Iraq. Smaller cities,such as Suq al-Shuyoukh near al-Nasiriyya, and al-Zubayr near Basra, werealso swept up in the revolt.

The rebellion in the north erupted on or about March 4 in the town of Rania,northwest of Suleimaniyya. Within ten days, the Kurds controlled every cityin the north except Kirkuk and Mosul. Their greatest triumphCthe capture of KirkukCcame on about April 20.

The Kurdish uprising collapsed even more quickly than it began. After oustingthe pesh merga from Kirkuk on March 28 and 29, the Iraqi army rolled intoDahuk and Irbil on March 30, Zakho on April 1, and Suleimaniyya, the last important town held by the rebels, over the next two days.

In the south, the government had quelled all but scattered resistance bythe end of March. On April 5, Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council(RCC) announced "the complete crushing of acts of sedition, sabotage, andrioting in all towns of Iraq."

The Pattern of the Uprisings

The uprisings in the north and south of Iraq are often labelled respectivelyas Kurdish and Shi'a uprisings. While the north is mostly Kurdish and the south is mostly Shi'a, the uprisings' participants included small numbersof other groups. Available data on Iraq's ethnic makeup is neither detailednor highly reliable, especially with regard to cities like Kirkuk that arethe subject of political contention. The predominantly Kurdish cities ofthe north are also home to minorities of Chaldean, Armenian, and Assyrian Christians, Arab Muslims, and Turkmans (Turkic Muslims). In the South canbe found minorities of Christians and Sunni Muslims, particularly in Basraand its environs. Also scattered throughout Iraq at the time were workersfrom Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab countries.

The revolts of March 1991 followed a general pattern. On the day that acity rebelled, masses of unarmed or lightly armed civilians and small contingentsof rebels converged in the streets. Shouting anti-regime slogans, they descendedon government buildings, especially offices of the security forces. Thesewere then attacked, usually with considerable bloodshed on both sides. Governmentforces fought back, but then were either killed or captured, or allowed toflee. Once in control, the rebels flung open the regime's prisons and interrogationcenters, and seized small caches of weapons.

The outpouring of popular support for the uprising was largely spontaneous,although some long-term planning had taken place, particularly in the north. The revolt was fueled by a perception that Iraqi security forces were uniquelyvulnerable at the time, and by long-smoldering anger at government repressionand the devastation wrought by two wars in a decade.

When asked by MEW to describe the uprising, Kurdish refugees often beganby recounting past government persecution: arbitrary arrest and torture,disappearances, eviction from the countryside, the destruction of villages,and the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians in 1987 and 1988. The Shi'a of the south also spoke of arbitrary arrests, torture and disappearances,and about the expulsion of thousands of Shi'a to Iran in the early yearsof the Iran-Iraq war.

Once under way, the March 1991 uprising gathered momentum as soldiers eitherswitched sides or deserted. The army, which is said to have grown from 140,000in 1977 to around 1 million at the time of the invasion of Kuwait, containedsubstantial anti-government elements; Shi'a Arabs accounted for 80 percentof the fighting ranks and about 20 percent of the officers.[75] In the north, the defectionof much of the government-recruited Kurdish militia, who vastly outnumberedthe pesh merga, gave considerable force to the revolt. Journalists reportedthat their defection was the fruit of months of planning and psychologicalwarfare by Kurdish rebel leaders.[76]

Unlike the pesh merga, the Shi'a resistance lacked an organized fightingforce, although it maintained cells and had carried out armed operationson occasion. The Shi'a opposition has long enjoyed sanctuary and supportfrom the Iranian regime, although Teheran does not appear to have furnishedsignificant material or logistical assistance during the March 1991 uprising.[77]

Once the loyalist troops regrouped and mounted their counteroffensive, onlymassive foreign assistance or intervention could have saved the ill-equippedand inexperienced rebels. With little more than Kalashnikovs, machine guns,rocket-propelled grenades, and a few captured tanks and artillery pieces, the Shi'a and Kurdish rebels were almost defenseless against helicopter gunshipsand indiscriminate mortar and artillery barrages. They had few anti-tankweapons and even fewer surface-to-air missiles.

The civilian toll was high throughout the country. Thousands of unarmedcivilians were killed by indiscriminate fire from loyalist tanks, artillerycannons and helicopters; and later, when security forces rolled into a cityand executed persons on the streets, in homes and in hospitals. The violencewas heaviest in the south, where a smaller portion of the local populationhad fled than in Kurdish areas, owing partly to the danger of escaping throughthe south's flat, exposed terrain. Those who remained in the south wereat the mercy of advancing government troops, who went through neighborhoods,summarily executing hundreds of young men and rounding up thousands of others.[78]

There were variations to this general pattern. Basra was the scene of chaotic,pitched battles for several days, but never fell completely into rebel hands.In other cities, the rebels ousted the security forces with little difficulty.The army later recaptured some cities, such as Karbala and al-Najaf, onlyafter bitter fighting, but swept into others, such as Suleimaniyya, withlittle resistance.

Just as the experience of years of repression fed the fury of the uprising,it fueled the terrified exodus as soon as the rebellion began to falter. During March and early April, nearly two million Iraqis escaped from strife-torncities to the mountains along the northern borders, into the southern marshes,and into Turkey and Iran. Their exodus was sudden and chaotic, with thousandsfleeing on foot, on donkeys, or crammed onto open-backed trucks and tractors. In the south, many fled into or through the maze of marshes that straddlethe Iranian border. Thousands, many of them children, are thought to havedied or suffered injury along the way, primarily from adverse weather, unhygienicconditions and insufficient food and medical care. Some were killed by armyhelicopters, which deliberately strafed columns of fleeing civilians in anumber of incidents in both the north and south. Others were injured whenthey stepped on mines planted by Iraqi troops near the eastern border duringthe war with Iran. The environmental organization Greenpeace has estimatedthat the death rate among Kurdish and Shi'a refugees and displaced personsaveraged 1,000 daily during April, May and June 1991.[79]

The Legal Context of the Uprising

The international law applicable to the conduct of both government and rebelforces during the Iraqi uprising depends on the way that the conflict ischaracterized, a question that is open to some debate. Nevertheless, the applicable legal restraints on conduct are largely the same.

In MEW's view, the uprising may plausibly be considered either a Geneva ConventionCommon Article 3 situation, i.e. armed conflict of a non-international characteroccurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties; or a situationof "internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadicacts of violence and other acts of a similar nature,"[80] to which general human rights provisions apply. The uprising does not meetthe criteria of an international conflict, despite Iraqi efforts to blameforeign elements for fomenting and supporting it.[81]

MEW endorses the finding of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Iraq that theconflict reached the threshold of applicability of Common Article 3.

The provisions of Common Article 3 are binding upon the government of Iraq,which has ratified the 1949 Geneva Conventions. It requires both parties to an internal conflict to treat humanely all noncombatants, "including membersof armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placedhors de combatby sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause." Common Article 3 prohibits both parties to the conflict from subjecting noncombatants to:

(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) taking of hostages;

(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicialguarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

In addition to Common Article 3, the Second Additional Protocol of 1977 ("ProtocolII") to the 1949 Geneva Conventions codifies a series of principles for thetreatment of civilians in noninternational armed conflicts. Although Iraqhas not ratified Protocol II, many of its provisions are binding as a matterof customary international law. These include:

Attacks on medical facilities and personnel are prohibited. (Articles 9 to11.)

"The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations." (Article 13(1).)

"The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shallnot be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purposeof which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited."(Article 13(2).)

By inference, the civilian population is also protected from indiscriminateor disproportionate attacks, such as:

attacks not directed at a specific military objective;

attacks employing a method or means of combat that cannot be directed ata specific military objective;

attacks that treat as a single military objective a number of clearly separateand distinct military objectives in an area populated by civilians;

attacks that may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injuryto civilians, damage to civilian objects, or any combination thereof, whichwould be excessive in relation to the concrete military advantage anticipated.

As this report makes clear, these humanitarian precepts were violated bygovernment forces during the uprising in a systematic and wholesale manner. In putting down the insurrection, troops fired indiscriminately at civiliansand often targeted them for attack. They summarily executed suspected rebelsand others, invading hospitals and attacking both medical personnel and thewounded. Civilians were taken hostage on several occasions to shield advancingtroops from attack.

Less evidence was collected about abuses by the rebels (see below), but itis clear that in many cities they executed suspected members of the securityforces and the Baath party in their custody, after improper trials or notrials whatsoever, in violation of Common Article 3 and customary internationallaw.[82]

In this regard it is important to stress that each party to a conflict hasan independent obligation to comply with the rules of armed conflict. Neitherside's abuses may be used to justify abuses by the other side.

In defense of its handling of the uprising, the Iraqi government has stressedthat the uprising was an "armed rebellion" that could "under no circumstancesbe regarded as anintifada, the Arabic term for uprising most oftenassociated with the Palestinian revolt in the Israeli-occupied territories.[83] Replying to the U.N. HumanRights Committee, the government characterized the Iraqi uprising as a stateof insurrection and extreme lawlessness, to which it had responded legitimatelyand proportionately. The "rioters," the government charged,

completed the destruction of those targets which had not been destroyed bycoalition air raids. The rioters committed mass murder and rape, lootingand burning schools, hospitals, shops, Government buildings, banks and courts. They stole public and private property, and fomented ethnic and sectarianconflict. All these acts are punishable by law. In spite of the extremelydifficult conditions and the interruption of communications as a result ofdeliberate air raids, the State authorities, represented by the armed forces,did their duty and restored State control, putting an end to the riots andat last restoring peace on 5 April 1991.

When the State restored its authority in the governorates where riots hadoccurred, the rioters fled the country and induced groups of the populationto go with them to neighbouring countries, particularly Turkey and Iran,by spreading untrue allegations about the action which the Government ofIraq might take against them. The idea was to use them as a human shieldand for propaganda purposes holding them in the areas occupied by foreigntroops and preventing them from returning home....

[M]ilitary operations by the Iraqi armed forces to restore State controlin the governorates where riots occurred led to the deaths of rioters andmembers of the Iraqi armed forces alike in the exchanges of fire betweenthe two sides. Such deaths could not be avoided in the circumstances.[84]

The state's response to the mayhem and disorder caused by the rebels andtheir supporters was brutal in the extreme. It exceeded all bounds of proportionalityand violated elemental rights, both of civilians and suspected rebels, thatmust be respected at all times as part of the customary law of human rights. These include protection against the arbitrary deprivation of life, protectionfrom torture and mutilation, and protection against summary punishment.

Human Rights Abuses by the Rebels

Rebels and their sympathizers in both the north and south of Iraq openlytook credit for executing personnel of the security forces and intelligenceagencies during the uprising. While many were killed in the heat of battle,hundreds, and perhaps thousands, were executed while in custody or aftersummary trials. MEW is not in a position to determine the scale of theseabuses, although they were clearly widespread. The environmental organizationGreenpeace estimated that 5,000 members of the security forces were killedas a result of the clashes and executions.[85]

According to the Iraqi government,

gangs of subversives and perfidious traitors, instigated by hostile politicalbodies which took their orders from leaders outside the country, turned religious centres into bases for resistance against the government authorities. Thesebases were also used for purposes of torture, trials and executions by thosesame gangs. The Government has all the evidence needed to prove this.[86]

Baghdad claims that the rebels carried out more than 2,500 summary executions,but the government has not made available the evidence in a manner that wouldallow independent observers to judge the accuracy of its allegations. Itclaims to have discovered mass graves of victims of the rebels, includingin Suleimaniyya (bodies of 370 "citizens"), Kut Sawadi (150 bodies of "personswho had been killed by the groups participating in the disturbances") andKushk al-Basri (fifty bodies).[87] In most cases,outside observers have not visited these alleged gravesites; in one casewhere access was granted, a journalist reported that it had been impossibleto verify the Iraqi military's account of how the victims had died (see ChapterThree, section on Basra).

Verifying accounts of abuses by the rebels and their sympathizers was difficult,in light of the denial to MEW of access to Iraq. Testimony collected fromKurdish and Shi'a refugees tended to be somewhat unreliable: many seemed toembellish their accounts of the vengeance taken on security force officials, while others appeared to minimize them, claiming that suspected agents ofthe security forces were well-treated, urged to repent, or punished onlyafter a fair trial.

This report includes only those accounts of abuses by rebels and their sympathizersthat appeared credible and were consistent with other testimony collected. It is also worth noting that abuses by rebel forces did not end with thesuppression of the uprising. The gravest atrocity perpetrated by the peshmerga since the end of the uprising, a massacre of soldiers in their custody,is described in Chapter One.

Looting by Both Sides

Iraqi authorities have long encouraged soldiers to keep goods they seizeduring their operations. Officers tell their subordinates, "The heads ofthe people are for me, their property, for you," ("Ru'ous al-nas ilayya,wa'amwaalihum ilayka") according to a 22-year-old Kurd from Sayyid Saddiq. Whether apocryphal or not, this motto seemed to have inspired soldiers inmuch of post-uprising Iraq. Their plundering of stores and homes was likenedby several refugees to the looting of Kuwaiti private property by Iraqi soldiersduring the early days of the occupation of that country.[88]

Both Kurds and Shi'a knew what to expect. The confiscation of the propertyof uprooted Kurdish villagers was an integral part of the Anfal campaign(see Introduction). This has been confirmed by the testimony of Kurds whosurvived the Anfal, as well as by official documents relating to the Anfalthat fell into the hands of Kurdish rebels. In the south, the summary expulsionin the early 1980s of Iraqi Shi'a accused of being "of Persian ancestry"was also accompanied by the confiscation of their personal property and homes.[89]

It is not possible, however, to ascertain the extent of the looting duringthe uprising, or who were the principal perpetrators or victims. Whilemany refugees who fled late in the exodus or who later returned to theirhomes reported seeing evidence of widespread looting, few had actually witnessedthe looting in progress. One who did was Idris Haadi, a Kurdish engineerfrom Irbil who is active in the newly formed Kurdistan Human Rights Organization. Hadi remained in the city after an accident prevented him from escaping withthe rest of the city's population. He described to MEW the looting carriedout by the Republican Guards that retook the city:

At first, the soldiers broke into houses for the purpose of finding food;they had just come from fighting the Shi'a in southern Iraq and were ravenous....They also stole property, mostly small items of value such as gold, jewelry, videos, cameras, and so on, and expensive cars that people had left behind in the flight. From my house they took whiskey, cameras, a tape recorder, a smallcamera, and other items. They opened the family photo album and tore upeverything in the house.

Both Shi'a and Kurdish refugees blamed the looting most often on loyalisttroops. Kurds from Kirkuk also accused Iraqi Arab civilians who they said had driven to Kirkuk in order to steal from abandoned Kurdish homes. MEWalso received credible reports of looting by rebels and civilians in Basraand other cities. Iraqi authorities charged that the rebels did not sparemuseums, claiming that objects were stolen, broken or defaced in museumsin Basra, Kirkuk, Kufa, Suleimaniyya, and other cities.[90]

Food stores and warehouses seem to have been prey to solders, rebels, andordinary civilians alike. All were evidently in a panic over shortages afterthe country's food- rationing system broke down at the start of the groundoffensive.

U.S. Policy: "You Broke Saddam's Leg and Told Us To Break His Head"[91]

With bewilderment and bitterness, many of the refugees asked MEW interviewerswhy the U.S. administration failed to support the uprising after having incitedIraqis to rise up against Saddam. The answer remains a matter of speculation. The contradictions of U.S. policy may have reflected a lack of sufficientconcern for the consequences of the call to rebel; it may have been due tomiscalculation; or it may be attributable to a preoccupation with politicalconsiderations unrelated to the well-being of the residents of Iraq. Whateverthe reasons, the Bush Administration contributed to the making of a tragedythat left thousands of civilians massacred by Saddam's troops and nearlytwo million forced to flee their homes.

The strongest signal of U.S. support for a popular rebellion came towardthe end of the air war, when President Bush declared on February 15; "[T]here'sanother way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi militaryand the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands to force SaddamHussein, the dictator, to step aside."[92] This remarkwas heard by Iraqis on the Voice of America.[93]

Soon after the uprising began, however, fears of a disintegrating Iraq ledthe Administration to distance itself from the insurgents. Officials downplayedthe significance of the revolts and spelled out a policy of noninterventionin Iraq's internal affairs. On March 5, Rear Admiral Mike McConnell, directorof intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that "chaoticand spontaneous" uprisings were under way in thirteen Iraqi cities, but statedthe Pentagon's view that Saddam would prevail because of the rebels' "lackof organization and leadership."[94] White Housespokesman Marlin Fitzwater appeared to discount the insurgents when he statedthe same day, "It's not clear to us what the purpose or extent of the fightingis."[95]

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said on March 5 that "it would be very difficultfor us to hold the coalition together for any particular course of actiondealing with internal Iraqi politics, and I don't think, at this point, ourwrit extends to trying to move inside Iraq."[96] Marine Major General Martin Brandtner, deputy director of operations forthe Joint Chiefs of Staff, added the same day, "There is no move on the [partof] U.S. forces...to let any weapons slip through [to the rebels], or toplay any role whatsoever in fomenting or assisting any side."[97] State Department spokesmanRichard Boucher explained on March 6: "We don't think that outside powersshould be interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq."

On March 7, when the rebels in the south were in control of several citiesand the revolt in the north was gathering momentum, Secretary of State JamesBaker was asked if the United States preferred continued Baath Party ruleto an Islamic revolution in Iraq. Baker replied: "I'm not going to makea choice because I'm not sure that's what the choices are necessarily. Iwill say thisCwe do not want to see any changes in the territorial integrity of Iraq andwe do not want to see other countries actively making efforts to encouragechanges."

Consequently, U.S. occupation forces who were stationed only a few milesfrom al-Nasiriyya, Samawa and Basra did nothing to help the rebels who roseup in these cities. Soldiers watched helplessly as Iraqi troops devastatedthe cities, and wounded civilians fled on foot to U.S. bases nearby tellingof the atrocities that were taking place. Thomas Isom, a U.S. Army lieutenant,described what he saw from his post at the edge of Samawa:

They fired at the hospital twice. We were watching them shell the trainstation and other small houses. This was simply designed to kill civilians or terrorize them, which it did. It did not have a military purpose, justartillery impacts on large concentrations of civilians.

An officer at the same post said of Iraq's Soviet-made H-18 helicopters thatwere firing rockets at Samawa residents: "We could have used our own helicoptersto take them out. We could hear them come over our heads."[98]

The Administration did sternly warn Iraqi authorities on March 7 againstthe use of chemical weapons during the unrest,[99] but equivocated about Iraq's use of helicopter gunships against civilians. President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker stated in mid-March thathelicopter gunships should not be used, but other Administration officialsgave conflicting signals. In the end, the aircraft were employed with impunityto attack rebels and civilians alike, and proved instrumental in quellingthe insurrection. Inquiries to Administration spokespersons about why thewarnings had not been enforced met with equivocation.

The decision to permit Iraq to use helicopters in suppressing the revolthas been the subject of lively debate. Some believe that the rebels wouldhave triumphed had helicopters been included in the Allies' cease-fire banon flights by Iraqi aircraft. Others believe that a ban on helicopters wouldhave merely prolonged the bloodshed without altering the outcome.

The question of helicopters was ignored in the March 3 cease-fire agreement,which clearly prohibited Iraq's use of fixed-wing aircraft. According toThe Washington Post, "officials had said [on March 14] that, so faras they knew, there was nothing in the provisional cease-fire that explicitlyprevents Iraq from using its helicopters in combat against rebellious forces."ThePost reported:

[White House spokesman Marlin] Fitzwater said the use of helicopters wasnot specifically addressed in the written agreement secured by Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf....According to Fitzwater, Schwarzkopf, when he met with Iraqi military leaders March 3, did discuss informally their intentions to use helicoptersfor transportation purposes. That was before the large-scale uprisings throughoutIraq had begun. Fitzwater characterized those discussions as outside thewritten agreement governing the provisional cease-fire and said the reasonthat U.S. officials concerned themselves at all with Iraqi aircraft was toprotect U.S. troops.[100]

The administration commented disapprovingly on the use of helicopters butrefused to issue stern warnings. President Bush said on March 13 that Iraqihelicopter gunships "should not be used for combat purposes inside Iraq."[101] On March 17, Secretary Bakerdiscussed an allied meeting with ten Iraqi officers in Safwan that day: "We'vealso said that helicopters should be used for logistical purposes, not forthe purpose of shooting and dropping bombs on your own people."[102] According to a Pentagon official,Major General Robert Johnston, General Schwarzkopf's chief of staff, hadwarned at the meeting in Safwan that the use of helicopters against the rebelswas a "threat to coalition forces" and could lead to U.S. military action against the helicopters.[103]

But on March 21, Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams acknowledged that U.S.policy regarding the use of helicopters was not clear. While admitting that "dozens" of helicopters were being used against the rebels, Williams declinedto say whether U.S. forces would fire at these aircraft. He answered affirmativelywhen asked: "Is our policy somewhat ambiguous?"

In justifying its distinction between helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft,the administration cited the differing threats they posed to U.S. forces,ignoring the use of helicopters to perpetrate atrocities against civilians. White House spokesman Fitzwater explained that "the planes pose a far moreserious threat to U.S. personnel because they fly faster and higher."[104] Fitzwater also stated on March26: "We made it clear that we do not believe that they should be flying helicoptersor fixed-wing aircraft over the country, that we intended to shoot down fixed-wingaircraft because of the direct threat that they posed to our forces."[105]

Deputy White House spokesman Roman Popadiuk, when asked on March 29 aboutKurdish requests for U.S. attacks on the helicopters, responded as if thematter concerned only which side prevailed in the conflict, not whether thematter was one of preventing gross human rights abuses: "The issue of internal unrest in Iraq is an issue that has to be settled between the governmentand the people of Iraq. It's a decision for the people of Iraq to make."[106]

After Iraqi military forces crushed the uprising, the U.S. continued to stressthe limits of its role in Iraq.[107] SecretaryBaker, on April 7 in Turkey, condemned Saddam's "crimes against the Iraqipeople," but stated "We are not prepared to go down the slippery slope ofbeing sucked into a civil war [sic]. We cannot police what goes on insideIraq, and we cannot be the arbiters of who shall govern Iraq....We repeatedlysaid that could only be done by the Iraqi people."

On April 13, when more than one Iraqi in ten had fled his or her home, PresidentBush pledged relief and denounced "in the strongest terms continued attacksby Iraqi government forces against defenseless Kurdish and other Iraqi civilians."But he reiterated the policy of noninterference:

Internal conflicts have been raging in Iraq for many years, and we're helpingout, and we're going to continue to help these refugees. But I do not wantone single soldier or airman shoved into a civil war in Iraq that's beengoing on for ages....We will not interfere in Iraq's civil war. The Iraqipeople must decide their own political future.

While eschewing military intervention, the U.S. and its allies respondedquickly to the desperate plight of hundreds of thousands of fleeing Kurds. In April 1991, the Allies conducted a massive airlift to deliver food, tentsand blankets to families on snow-covered mountains and in refugee camps, andestablished a 3,600-square-mile "safe haven" in northern Iraq to encouragethe Kurds to come down from the mountains to obtain shelter, food and medicalcare. To persuade Kurds of their security, the Allies also forbad Iraq tofly any aircraftCincluding helicoptersCnorth of the thirty-sixth parallel, a ban that continues to the present day.

Meanwhile, the administration moved to counter the accusation that it hadencouraged the uprising that led to the humanitarian disaster. In a carefully crafted statement, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said onApril 2 that the Bush Administration had "never, ever stated as either a militaryor a political goal...the removal of Saddam Hussein." She said that althoughthe United States had said that normal relations with Iraq were "next toimpossible" while Saddam Hussein was in power, it did not "cal[l] on [the]Iraqi people to put their lives on the line to overthrow the current leadership."

President Bush insisted three days later,

I have not misled anybody about the intentions of the United States of America.I don't think the Shiites in the south, those who are unhappy with SaddamHussein in Baghdad or the Kurds in the north, ever felt that the United Stateswould come to their assistance to overthrow this man.

Thepresident also claimed, "I made clear from the very beginning that it wasnot an objective of the coalition or the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein."

These protestations rang hollow to many of the Shi'a and Kurds interviewedby MEW after the uprising who had clearly expected to receive U.S. help oncethey rose up against Saddam. A young Kurdish refugee in Iran told MEW, "You[the U.S.] broke Saddam's leg, and told us to break his head. And then?" He stretched out his hands and raised his eyebrows, as if to answer his ownquestion.

Chapter Three

Uprisings in the South

Basra

On March 1, one day after the cease-fire was declared in the Gulf war, theIraqi uprising broke out in Basra. The city, Iraq's second-largest,[108] had been especially hard-hitduring the eight-year war with Iran and the Allied air bombardment, was ripefor rebellion.

Angry soldiers arriving from the front started the revolt. According to apopular account that cannot be confirmed, the opening salvo was a shell that a tank driver fired at a giant public portrait of Saddam Hussein. This actis said to have ignited soldiers, civilians and the underground Shi'a opposition."The streets were full of people, many of them soldiers," recalled an exiledIraqi businessman who had entered Basra from Iran shortly after the uprisingbegan. "They were shouting slogans or writing them on the wall, destroyingSaddam's pictures and monuments, executing members of the Baath party."

Some uprising participants said they had expected support from nearby Americantroops, especially after President Bush's call on Iraqis to rise up and oustSaddam (see section on U.S. policy in Chapter Two). The Allied army at the time was occupying one-sixth of Iraq, and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) of the U.S. Army was stationed only several miles from Basra.

Unlike most Iraqi cities that rose up in rebellion, Basra never fell completelyto the rebels. Some six thousand loyalists from the Republican Guard heldout against five thousand defectors from the regular army, according to Westernintelligence officials.[109] Chaos reigned in many neighborhoodsas the loyalist forces battled bands of rebels and army deserters, in thestreets and from the rooftops. Much of the fighting took place at closequarters, in contrast to other cities in the north and south, where the oustedsecurity forces first counter-attacked by firing into the city using tanksand helicopters based outside the city.

The rebels wasted no time in slaughtering suspected government officials,Baath Party members and secret police. The number of victims is not known,but the accounts are graphic. On or about March 2, "The people went to theheadquarters of the military intelligence (Istikhbaraat) and shotand killed Iraqi soldiers," a machine operator from Basra told MEW in a refugeecamp in Iran. A British journalist in the region described seeing the skeweredcorpse of a Baath political officer along a city quay, "his neck fastenedto [a] pole, bootless, his thorax pierced with a spike."[110]

After about three days, the better-armed loyalist troops began to get theupper hand. Their counter-offensive was brutal. Tanks rolled through residential neighborhoods, firing at residential buildings and at civilians. RepublicanGuard tanks moved through the city "destroying everything in front of them,"and knocking down buildings because people had shouted from them, accordingto Mahar Hakawati, a Jordanian photographer who reached Kuwait from Basraon March 4.[111]

Journalists and refugees described streets littered with bodies, and massexecutions in public squares of persons who had been rounded up by the securityforces. Hussein Ali Kazem, 22, toldThe Washington Post that he hadwitnessed the execution of some 400 people in central Basra before he fled the city on March 6. "Their hands were tied, then they tied them to tanks and shot them," he related in Safwan. "The bodies are still there."[112]

The exiled businessman from Basra told MEW that Republican Guards

shot a lot of women and children who went down to the river to get water. They had soldiers on the roofs of high buildings who would shoot. I sawmany bodies by the river, and they shot people who tried to take the bodiesback too. But still women would go to the river -- there was no other choice.

The businessman also described the scene inside a house in the Jumhouriyyaneighborhood immediately after loyalist forces occupied the area:

We went into a house, near al-Watani Street. I was looking for my own family. In the living room, there were the bodies of two young girls, completely naked,hung from the fan that was suspended from the ceiling....In another room wasthe rest of the familyCat least eight bodies, including a child under the age of two. The bodieswere bloatedCit had been at least two days. The streets of the neighborhood were fullof bodies, lying in heaps. I saw whole families cut to piecesCarms, hands, legs.

A 25-year-old self-described insurgent leader recounted to MEW his treatmentat the hands of loyalist forces. "Abu Iman" said he had been a sergeantin the army before deserting in 1988 and going into hiding. On March 6,he recalled, Republican Guards arrested him at his home, and accused himof being a rebel. They put him in a military truck along with about fiftyother suspects. Next, he recalled,

they took us to a security headquarters in the city. I spent one day there,with about 90 other men and women. Both the men and the women were beatenwith cables and the butts of guns. They did not interrogate us.

The next day, they took us to an Army security office (Amn al-Failaq al-Thaalith) which the army command was using as its headquarters in Basra. They interrogatedus about who had participated in the intifada. The interrogators beat uswith cables. They also used electric shock on me, powered by a 60-watt hand-operatedelectric generator, with wires attached to my genitals. I was interrogatedlike this over the next seven days.[113]

During this time, they executed 12 from our group. Their names are: MaythamYaqout Tamar, Nouri Sabri Huriej, Safa Kazem Jabr, Khaled Nasr Musa, MuhammadNasr Musa, Sittar Amran Musa, Karim Ahmed, Amar Abd al-Jalil, Ali Atwan,Falih abd al-Sadeh Manath, Salih Sahib Choulan, Nathem Salem.

Abu Iman said that on March 17 he managed to escape from the detention facilityand fled to the home of a relative. From there he went to the marshes andmade his way on foot to Iran.

Security forces in Basra used human shields to protect their tanks, eithertying women and children to the tanks or forcing them to walk in front ofthem, according to several independent reports. A former resident of Baghdad who now lives in London and who entered Basra on March 7 in a convoy of relief goods, described watching with binoculars a column of 20 tanks proceedingfrom the al-Ashar district toward the city center on March 8:

I saw that the tank that was leading had three children tied to its front. They did it because four hours earlier they had tried to attack in the sameway, and a 14-year-old girl with explosives had jumped on the front of thefirst tank and exploded it, forcing the whole column to withdraw.

Despite the consolidation of control by the army, scattered resistance continuedin Basra until April. The New York Timesreported on March 10 that Basra "remains a battleground and troops are hesitantto enter sections of the city where small groups of rebels are hiding....Thecrash of artillery shells and the rap of automatic weapons go on day andnight."[114] In late April, young Shi'amen in refugee camps across the border in Iran boasted to MEW of infiltratingthe Basra area and attacking loyalist troops on the roads at night.[115]

The resistance continued throughout March in some of the suburbs and villageson the eastern shore of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, thanks in part to theabsence of intact bridges, which hindered the deployment of troops. In Tanuma,rebels held on until mid-April. When the security forces finally directedtheir attention to this area, the results were characteristically brutal. Eyewitnesses described troops firing indiscriminately at civilians and drowningothers in the Shatt al-Arab. A 40-year-old man from Basra in a refugee campin Iran told MEW:

On March 29, I saw Republican Guards capture 50 unarmed people in Tanumaand take them to the Shatt al-Arab. I was near Khaled Bridge. The Guardhad come with tanks. There were 200-300 soldiers. They tied their victims'hands behind their backs and tied their feet with cloth, to which they attachedheavy rocks. They then took them out to the middle of the Shatt al-Araband threw them in the water, where they drowned.

A23-year-old Basra University student recalled:

I was living in al-Feha on the east side of the Shatt al-Arab. On March17, Saddam's soldiers came and opened fire on people, hitting many childrenand old men. We ran away when we saw what was happening. There were sixof us fleeing together: me, my father, my uncles and a friend. The soldierswere members of military intelligence (Istikhbaraat)....They caughtus.

We had seen other groups of civilians that had been taken by Saddam's troops. They were treated harshly, without trying to find any crime or to investigate. They tied their hands and feet, attached stones, and threw them into theShatt al-Arab. I personally saw 15 persons thrown into the water this way.

The soldiers ordered us to leave, and we reached the al-Azreiji region. There we saw soldiers open fire on civilians without issuing any warningor attempting any investigation. When the soldiers saw that two of my friends were wearing beards they thought they were mujahideen [Iraqi rebel fighters] and shot them dead.

I also saw soldiers attach women and children to tanks to prevent the mujahideen from attacking. This happened in the area of Kibassi on March 17.

The crackdown in Basra continued long after the uprising. In May, Basra residentsreaching the U.S.-controlled town of Safwan in southern Iraq told of executions. The Washington Post reported that, according to refugees, "Iraqi troopsare still seizing rebels, and civilians with any rebel links, after extractingconfessions from friends and neighbors."[116] A teacher toldThe Post: "They shoot them and throw their bodies inthe street to make people scared of doing anything." A truck driver claimed:"They used an execution squad right in the main square. They would blindfoldtheir victims and then shoot them, just leaving the bodies there."[117]

Both the rebels and the army engaged in looting in Basra. A student in Basra toldThe Guardian of London,

At first, the rebels were shooting into the air, saying, "Saddam is finished." Then yes, they did start taking from the shops. Everybody was doing that. We were starvingCthe food was expensive, even more than in Baghdad; no one could afford theblack-market prices and they were looting the shops and all the governmentofficials' houses.[118]

Security forces also helped themselves to the contents of residents' homesafter they regained control of the city. "My uncle stayed in his house whenthe soldiers entered," a 45-year-old refinery worker told MEW at a refugeecamp just across the border in Iran. "He saw them take the television, fans,a full bedroom set, and food to an army vehicle. They beat him and toldhim to leave." Similar incidents were described by refugees who had fledother cities.

Iraqi authorities were to claim later that the rebels had engaged in atrocitiesand wanton destruction. Basra Governor Abdallah Taleb Azjan was quoted bythe Iraqi News Agency as saying on March 19 that the "criminals" targetedpublic utilities, schools, and citizens' property, which they burned andransacked, not even sparing the homes of elders, the Institute of the Deafand Mute, and commercial shops. He accused them of stealing food and robbing homes, committing rape, killing innocent victims as well as party and governmentofficials, and mutilating bodies.[119]

In May, authorities escorted foreign reporters to a site 18 miles northeastof Basra, in order to display what they described as the bodies of about100 men who had been killed after being held by Iranian and Shi'a rebels. An Associated Press correspondent reported that "it was impossible to verify the Iraqi military's account of how the men had died."[120] The official explanation is likely to remain unconfirmed so long as Iraqdoes not permit independent investigators to conduct proper exhumations ofmass graves in Iraq.

Al-Najaf

The demonstrations in al-Najaf began on March 3 and gathered steam the followingday as the streets filled with people, some of them lightly armed. Defectingsoldiers played less of a role in igniting the rebellion than they had playedtwo days earlier in Basra, 275 miles to the southeast.

One Najaf resident interviewed by MEW in Qom, Iran described the events ofthe 4th to MEW:

At about 3pm a popular demonstration began. Men, women and children marchedon the main street shouting slogans against Saddam....There were no morethan 500 demonstrators at the beginning, but their numbers grew as the marchproceeded, and they began pouring into adjacent streets as well.

Demonstrators and rebels then besieged government offices, seizing additionalweapons as they penetrated the buildings.

"The security forces withdrew, shooting as they went from houses and alleys. They held out in pockets of resistance," the Najaf resident in Qom recalled. The siege of government buildings continued into the evening. A women fromal-Najaf told MEW:

Saddamites who resisted were killed. Those who did not resist were takenprisoner, and then killed when the army attacked. About 500 security people[were] killed in al-Najaf....Many [were] killed by knives by people who wereavenging killed relatives.

In contrast with Basra, al-Najaf experienced several days of calm beforethe government counteroffensive. During that period, the rebels flung open the gates of prisons, including hitherto secret prisons that they locatedwith the help of tips from captured members of the Baath party and security forces. Among those freed were Kuwaitis who had been brought to Iraq duringthe occupation of their country.

Witnesses differ over the date that the army began its attack. Accordingto one rebel leader interviewed by MEW,

a few tanks and armored vehicles managed to infiltrate into the city [onMarch 12], but were forced to retreat....Then, at 8:15 in the evening, thearmy began bombarding the city heavily. Mostly hurt were the residentialareas and not the rebel concentrations, since the idea was to scare people. This went on through the night and until the next evening." [On March 13,]tanks again infiltrated the city, and infiltrated more and more over thenext few days.

The army's tactics resembled those employed against other rebel-held cities:an initial phase of indiscriminately firing ground-to-ground missiles andhelicopter-launched rockets at the city, easing the way for the penetrationof ground troops. Their recapture of al-Najaf was accompanied by the useof civilians as human shields, house-to-house arrests, the slaughter of hospitalstaff and patients, the public execution of suspected rebels, and a round-upof Shi'a clerics.

A 23-year-old mechanic who fled al-Najaf to Iran told MEW: "On March 15,when the army reentered the city, I saw soldiers forcing women and childrento walk in front of tanks. The women were carrying their babies." Anotheryoung man described to MEW watching as soldiers went through a group of youngmen in their custody outside the former al-Salaam Hotel, separating thosesuspected of participating in the uprising and executing them. He fled thescene after seeing four men shot dead in the garden of the hotel. "I sawlots of bodies in the area. Those who were not executed were transported to Baghdad," he said.

An Iraqi military officer who deserted toldThe Washington Post ofa massacre in al-Najaf by loyalist troops: "When the Iraqi army entered...thefamilies that had fled the fighting returned with their children. They linedthem up and executed them." Among the victims were his wife and three children.[121]

One young self-described rebel from al-Najaf told MEW, "If any resistanceemanated from a house, that house was demolished." Punitive house demolitionswere also described by refugees from Karbala and Kirkuk. The practice isapparently nothing new, as suggested by government documents dating to 1987and 1989 that are reproduced in English translation in the March 1992 reportof the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Iraq (see pp. 76-79).

A doctor interviewed in Rafha refugee camp in Saudi Arabia told MEW thathe had fled the hospital he worked in on the day al-Najaf was invaded bysecurity forces. He said there had been about 50 patients in the hospitalat the time, including women, children and mujahideen. As he fled, he sawtroops executing both patients and doctors. Another doctor from al-NajaftoldThe New York Times that doctors and patients in Saddam Hospitalwere killed by soldiers. "The doctors were executed by knife, not even bygun. The women doctors, they ripped their clothes and cut them," he said.[122]

Refugees who tried to escape al-Najaf found no refuge in the exposed terrainsurrounding the city. The Najaf resident interviewed in Qom, Iran said thaton March 17,

People were told on the loudspeakers to evacuate the city within 24 hoursfor their own safety and head north, in the direction of Karbala. When thousandsof people had gathered in the northern outskirts of the cityCit was afternoon already, around 3 o'clock, and they were mostly women andchildrenChelicopters opened fire from machine guns at them. Between 250 and 300 werekilled.

Thisattack was also described by other refugees, although it was not possibleto confirm the casualty figures.

Al-Najaf's holy shrines suffered considerable damage during the uprising,although not as much as those in Karbala. Much of the security forces' firein al-Najaf was directed at the Tomb of the Imam Ali, a greatly revered Shi'apilgrimage site. During the uprising the rebels had used the shrine as abase, perhaps surmising that the security forces would not dare to attackit. In fact, loyalist troops pounded the shrine with mortar fire and then stormed it firing at both the rebels and their sympathizers who were barricaded inside. According to the Najaf resident interviewed in Qom, about 50 ofthose in the shrine managed to escape, while the other 450 to 500 were eitherkilled or wounded.

In consolidating its control over the city the security forces rounded upscores of Shi'a clerics, including on March 19 the Grand Ayatollah Sayyidabu al-Qassem al-Khoei, the revered ninety-five-year-old spiritual leaderwith a worldwide following. The Najaf resident interviewed in Qom describedthe arrest of the Grand Ayatollah:

I watched from a nearby house as some soldiers captured the Imam, four membersof the leadership, and some of the rebels. They forced the Imam, who isover 90 years old, to walk without assistance, and since he cannot he fellto the ground. Then his son helped him up and all were taken away.

The army started sealing up area after area, and looking for men. Everyonethey foundCyouths, men foreignersCthey took to the sports stadiums, and from there, in large convoys, to Baghdad. These operations went on until I left [on April 10]....We don't know whathas happened to them since.

The day after his arrest, Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei appeared with Saddam onBaghdad television and denounced the violence that was taking place.[123] He was then brought backto al-Najaf, where he was placed under a form of house arrest.

During the uprising, the Grand Ayatollah had issued two communiqués. Thefirst, dated March 5, urged Muslims to "guard the territory of Islam," to"look after the holy places," and to guard the honor and the property ofthe people and preserve the public institutions of Iraq. As the rebels appeared increasingly likely to consolidate their victory, he issued a statement establishinga "Supreme Committee" under whose leadership the Shi'a would preserve Iraq'ssecurity and stabilize public, religious and social affairs. That secondcommuniqué, with its implication of a rival governing body, may have contributedto the decision by Saddam to force him to make the statement on nationaltelevision.

Some 105 persons affiliated with the Grand Ayatollah, including relatives,staff, religious students and some senior clerics, were arrested in al-Najafbetween March 19 and March 23, according to Yousif al-Khoei, of the London-basedal-Khoei Foundation.[124] Since then, al-Khoei said,only one, a Pakistani national, has been released (see Chapter One).

Karbala

Karbala, located about 50 miles north of al-Najaf, was probably the majorcity that suffered the heaviest damage during and after the uprising. Someof Shi'a Islam's holiest shrines were devastated and thousands of rebelsand their supporters are said to have died from the artillery and rocket fireand the gunfire of troops on the streets.

The rebellion began on March 5 when lightly armed rebels, joined by thousandsof civilians and deserting soldiers, attacked government buildings.[125] "Abu Muqdad," a young lawyerfrom Karbala, recalled how it began:

The intifada began at 2:30pm. Earlier that day soldiers had arrived in Karbala,and it felt as if the city suddenly had been occupied. Some of the opposition groups distributed pamphlets. We were expecting it to erupt from hour tohour. It all broke out when youths fanned out throughout the city, firingthe fifteen or so Kalashnikovs they had. Then people began coming out intothe streets of the city to do battle with "white weapons" [knives] againstthe Saddamites.

The first assault took place at the office of the Holy Endowments Administration(al-Awqaf)and spread to other government buildings, one refugee from Karbala told MEWin Qom, Iran. By the morning of March 6, the rebels fully controlled thecity, their meager supply of weapons supplemented by what they had capturedfrom surrendering forces and from army depots. Soldiers and officers whodid not flee or surrender were often brutally killed, according to a RepublicanGuard officer from the unit that later recaptured the city. The officertoldThe Washington Post in April that dozens of senior officials,including the chief of police, top security agents, the deputy governor andhigh-ranking members of the Baath Party, were killed in an outpouring ofvengeful fury. He said that many of the victims had their throats cut andbodies burned by the insurgents.[126]

A young merchant and rebel, interviewed by MEW in Iran, acknowledged thatthe shrine of Hussein had been used by the rebels to hold some of their prisoners,mainly army officers. Regular soldiers were generally not held, he claimed. Imprisoned Baath party officials and members of the security agencies werekept elsewhere. About 50 were executed, he said, after "trials."

Unlike in al-Najaf, government forces fought back almost immediately in Karbala. One day after their ouster, security forces began shelling the city and attackingsuspected rebel concentrations from helicopter gunships. The shrine of Hussein,which served as a rebel base, and the nearby shrine of Abbas, were heavilydamaged by artillery fire and by rockets fired from helicopters between March7 and 11, as were adjacent buildings. Further damage was sustained whenIraqi troops burst into the shrines and fired at the rebels and civiliansympathizers who were inside.

The government later blamed the damage to the shrines in both Karbala andal-Najaf on the rebels:

The saboteurs occupied those shrines, in which they erected gallows and whichthey converted into centres for the murder, torture and rape of innocent persons. When they realized that their occupation would be short-lived, they wreckedthe premises and plundered the contents of these shrines. In this connection,it is noteworthy that preliminary estimates of the damage caused by thosesaboteurs amount to 20 million Iraqi dinars, quite apart from other damagewhich cannot be estimated due to the historical and artistic importance andvalue of the items concerned.[127]

The rebels did use certain Shi'a shrines as their bases, and also as civilianshelters and makeshift clinics. But most of the damage suffered by thesemonuments was due not to vandalism committed by the rebels but by the mortarand tank fire of loyalist forces.

Journalists who toured the shrine of Hussein in May said it had been riddledwith bullets and its dome was damaged. The buildings lining the plaza betweenthe two shrines(shari' al-Haramiin)were "completely smashed,"Independent reporter Patrick Cockburn toldMEW. Milton Viorst wrote inThe New Yorker that both the plaza andadjacent marketplace had been

reduced to dust....Fifty-millimetre machine-gun shells littered the ground....Thewall surrounding the Shrine of Hussein looked as if it had been struck byan earthquake. The colorful mosaic tiles, the granite facing, and the ceramicgrilles that covered the windows were scattered all over the pavement. The dome, leafed in gold at great cost during the Iran-Iraq war as an offeringfrom Saddam Hussein to the Shiites, had been punctured by cannon fire...[128]

Al-Husseini hospital was also battered early in the government counteroffensive,but continued to function. When the army reentered the city the hospitalwas the scene of pitched battles. The young merchant and rebel told MEW:

[The hospital] was run by the rebels. Doctors there treated the wounded,people donated blood and whatever medicine they had at home. When the armyattacked, it concentrated its artillery fire on the hospital. The rebelsput up strong resistance in defending it. When the army invaded, they roundedup doctors and nurses, tied their hands and blindfolded them. They were later released, only to be rounded up again later and killed.

"Abu Muqdad," the young lawyer, told MEW he saw soldiers throwing a patientout of a fourth-floor window of al-Husseini hospital. He also said he sawa bulldozer burying some 60 bodies on the hospital grounds.

When security forces re-established daytime control over Karbala on aboutMarch 19, they took vengeance on both rebels and civilians who had not fled. Moving from district to district, they rounded up young men suspected of beingrebels, transported them to stadiums where some were executed and others werereportedly sent to Redhwaniyya, a large detention facility outside Baghdad. In Karbala, as in al-Najaf, there were reports that Shi'a clerics found walkingon the streets were rounded up and never seen again.

A refugee from Karbala in Qom, Iran told MEW:

Once in control of the city, the army encircled each district looking foryoung men (shebab). At first they shot whomever they saw. Aftera day or so, they arrested every male over 15. They took themCthere were thousands by the time I left to Baghdad and nobody knows whathas happened to them. The soldiers were looting the shops all over the city. When they caught a youth under suspicionCthey had informers who pointed them outCthey would take all that was in his house in army trucks, then they'd blowup the house. I know of tens of houses demolished in this way.

The BBC's John Simpson, reporting from Karbala in April 1991, found the city'scenter deserted: "Thousands of Shi'a clerics have been rounded up in al-Najafand Karbala and disappeared," he wrote. "Normally the streets would be fullof them. Not now."[129]

Journalist Milton Viorst described the devastation in Karbala as

comparable to the levelling of cities in the Second World War, and the damageto the shrines [of Hussein and Abbas] was more serious than that which hadbeen done to many European cathedrals....It seemed that no neighborhood hadbeen spared. Big holes in walls indicated tank fire; smaller holes, andchunks taken out of concrete, were the signature of lighter automatic weapons. The wreckage suggested block-by-block, if not house-by-house, resistance,and many casualties.[130]

The demolitions were continuing three months later, asLe Monde'sFrançoise Chipaux observed:

[B]ulldozers are continuing to "clean up" the ruins around the mosques, proofof the extreme violence of the clashes that caused by all accounts thousandsof deaths on both sides. All the adjacent streets, formerly jammed and linedwith souvenir booths, have been demolished, and a vast flat zone now surroundsthe sanctuaries of Hussein and Abbas...

The number of arrests, like that of casualties, will undoubtedly remain forever unknown, and Karbala will remain one of the blackest pages in the annalsof the repression of Iraq's Shi'a.[131]

Chapter Four

Uprisings in the North

Suleimaniyya

Suleimaniyya, a nearly all-Kurdish city with a population estimated between500,000 and 1,000,000, was the first major city to be captured by Kurdishrebels and the last one to fall.

The ouster of government forces in Suleimaniyya came on March 7 and 8 ina popular uprising led by a small contingent of pesh merga. It followedthree days of skirmishes to the north of the city and reports that the Kurdishrebels had captured villages and suburbs near Suleimaniyya and Irbil.

As in Karbala and al-Najaf, the uprising culminated in a massive assaulton government buildings. Lightly armed rebels and civilians overtook theSecurity Directorate (Mudiriyat al-Amn), freeing prisoners and summarilyexecuting members of the security forces who had sought refuge in the building. A Kurdish instructor of English described the bloodbath, saying the peshmerga and their supporters

took three hundred Baathist prisoners....We punished those who had martyredour brothers and looted our homes. We killed them without trial....Duringthe first days after the pesh merga took over, some escaped. We caught manyand killed them by shooting them and with axes. The mothers of martyrs killedtwenty-one escaping soldiers with axes and stones.

ASunni Arab dentist from Baghdad who was in Suleimaniyya at the time describedsimilar acts in a letter dated April 21, 1991 that he wrote to his brotherin the U.S.:

The bodies of security agents and Baathists were torn apart, and revengewas wrought for the Saddamist butchery that happened in Halabja and elsewhere....Themain battle was fought against the Security Directorate, which put up stiffresistance for 48 hours. It was well-fortified, like a citadel. Many seniorofficials were in there. In the end, the fortification was pierced, andthe masses entered in order to smash and kill everything before them.

The torture chambers were like nothing I had ever seen or heard of in mylife. We walked on top of the bodies of those who had been burned and killed:700 from the Security Service, both officials and agents....Their sentenceswere carried out by the people with iron saws and knives, while [their victims]were screaming and crying.

For the most part, rebels in Suleimaniyya seem to have refrained from takingvengeance on ordinary soldiers. On March 11, Kurdistan Democratic Partychief Massoud Barzani declared an amnesty for government soldiers. Thosewho surrendered were issued safe-conduct passes to traverse Kurdish-heldterritory on their way home.[132]

For the last three weeks of March, Suleimaniyya remained under pesh mergacontrol. Its population actually swelled as Kurdish refugees sought refuge from government counteroffensives elsewhere.

The army's assault on Suleimaniyya began around March 31, with rockets andartillery shells raining on residential neighborhoods from helicopters andtank positions west of the city. A 45-year-old Kurd who manages a poultrycompany told MEW, "The fighting began at 10am with bombs, artillery, andhelicopter. The neighborhoods of Bakhtiari and Rizjari were attacked. Thearmy attacks were 100 percent arbitrary." A young university graduate recalled,"The helicopters came from the direction of Kirkuk, one behind the other. One would fire a rocket, go back, and then circle around."

By this time, loyalists had retaken all of the other cities of the north. With no hope of victory, rebel leaders urged Suleimaniyya residents to escapebefore the army entered the city. Residents took flight on April 2 and 3,and loyalist troops moved in with little resistance.

While damaged less than other cities during the army counteroffensive, Suleimaniyyawas racked by looting after the refugee flight, according to residents whoreturned from refugee camps to check on their homes and shops. For the most part, they blamed the pillage on Iraqi troops, although few had witnessedacts of looting.

Three months after the suppression of the uprising, Suleimaniyya revertedto Kurdish control following fierce clashes between the pesh merga and governmentforces (see Chapter One).

Tuz Khurmatu

Tuz Khurmatu, known also as Tuz, was one of the most southerly cities tofall under pesh merga control. An agricultural center about 50 miles south of Kirkuk and 125 miles north of Baghdad, Tuz has a population estimated between100,000 and 200,000, consisting mostly of Kurds and Turkmans.

The uprising in Tuz broke out sometime between March 10 and 12. Accordingto a detailed account provided by a hardware-store owner, the rebellion wascoordinated by pesh merga outside the city who maintained close contactswith sympathetic residents. At an appointed time, residents poured intothe streets in a massive demonstration. They were joined two hours laterby the more heavily armed pesh merga, and given a great boost by the defectionof Kurdish militia-men.

Accounts from Tuz suggest that government forces mostly fled the onslaughtwithout offering much resistance. A number of Baathists and policemen werekilled, however, in the attack on Baath Party headquarters.

A retired civil servant from Tuz told MEW that after the ouster of securityforces,

There was peace and quiet for three days, then the army came, approachingfrom three directions. The Iraqis attacked the city from a distance of aboutone kilometer. The pesh merga replied with mortars and rocket-propelledgrenades....The Iraqi helicopters dropped napalm and phosphorus....For twoweeks, the city was attacked with artillery, helicopter, and missiles, 105,130 and 155 millimeters. During this time the army did not enter the city,but a lot of people were killed. Eventually, the pesh merga ran out of supplies.

The hardware-store owner recalled that:

The rebels fired back at the tank fire using mortars. They also had fivetanks they had captured from the government. The principal problem was thehelicopters that began flying over the city on the fourth or fifth day...droppingnapalm bombs and destroying homes....The resistance tried to hit the helicopters,and the pesh merga surrounding the city kept the army at bay [but] stillthe principal problem was the helicopters.

On the final day of the assault, the government used the Republican Guardand special units. They fired missiles, five or six per minute, from thedirection of Tikrit. The attacks were arbitrary. One quarter of the houseswere hit.

The pesh merga defended Tuz Khurmatu fiercely. They were well aware of its strategic importance on the Baghdad-Kirkuk road, at a moment when Kurds were eagerly anticipating the uprising in Kirkuk.

Most civilians in Tuz held fast during the bombardment. When the outgunnedpesh merga finally urged them to leave, the time had past for a relativelyorderly departure. Instead, most fleden massein the middle of the night on about March 17. According to the hardware-storeowner:

85 or 90 percent of the population took the road into the mountains. Theyhad to cross a river near Tuz, which cars cannot cross. The river is 20to 25 meters wide. They took this route because the Iraqis were in controlof the bridge and the road to Kifri, and the main road was under the controlof the Mojahedin-i-Khalq [the Iranian opposition group that was assistingthe Iraqi loyalist forces]. A couple of children drowned crossing the river.

Wounded persons remained in their homes. People couldn't take them alongwhen they fled. Later, the Saddamites gathered up 500 of the old peoplewho had remained and kicked them out, telling them, "Go to Jalal Talabani." Some people hid in the city and then escaped one by one. Some were caughtand arrested....

A young doctor's assistant told MEW in Iran that he had hid in a shelterin Tuz Khurmatu after most of the residents fled. From his hiding place heheard explosions he took to be dynamite, and when he came up to flee he saw destroyed houses in the Jumhouriyya neighborhood, a pesh merga stronghold. It looked as though half the houses had been destroyed by TNT, he said.

Today, Tuz remains under government control, not far from the military demarcationline.

Kirkuk

The key battle in the north was fought over Kirkuk, the last major city tobe captured by the Kurdish rebels. Their victory in Kirkuk was the highpoint of the Kurdish insurrection; their defeat spelled its end.

Shortly after the unrest began in the north, Saddam put his forces in Kirkukon alert. A curfew was imposed on the city's predominantly Kurdish neighborhoodson March 10, and patrols were increased. Saddam also dispatched reinforcementsto Kirkuk as the revolts in the south were subsiding, and, according to Kurds, gave responsibility for the city's security to the dreaded Minister of Interior,Ali Hassan al-Majid, who as chief of security in the north had allegedlymaster-minded the dropping of chemical weapons on Kurdish villages.

With the curfew in effect in Kurdish neighborhoods, the security forces begantheir crackdown. Going door-to-door, they rounded up several thousand men,ranging in age from their early teens to their fifties. Most of those interviewedsaid more than 5,000 men were arrested in this way, although the exact numberis not known.

MEW interviewed in Iran more than twenty Kurdish men who were detained inthis operation and later released. The vast majority of those taken were Kurds. One of the Kurds told MEW that the hall where he was detained inal-Ramadi contained 509 Kurds and twelve Turkmans from Kirkuk who had beenarrested in the sweep.

The men interviewed by MEW gave consistent accounts of their experience. All were transported to vast compounds outside the city, where they were heldwithout charge or trial. They said conditions were harsh, and a few prisonerswere beaten with cables. None reported being interrogated or told of thereasons for his arrest. Some speculated that authorities had acted on theassumption that the Kurds of Kirkuk were preparing to revolt the moment thatthe pesh merga gave the signal. Others called the roundup an act of hostage-takingintended to deter Kurdish attacks on the security forces.

Most of the men detained were released in mid-April and told by the authoritiesthat they would not be permitted to return to Kirkuk. Many made their wayinstead to Kurdish-controlled areas or to refugee camps in Turkey and Iran.

A 23-year-old barber who had earlier served in the government's Kurdish militiagave a typical account of the roundup:

On March 11, after the pesh merga began attacking Kirkuk from the north,the army seized as hostages Kurdish boys and men aged 14 and older, fromthe neighborhoods of Shurjeh, Imam Qasim, Tepee, Iskan Jedid, Rahimawa, Almasand Huriyya.

A curfew had been imposed on the 10th. I was arrested by five uniformedmen, all wearing redkafiyyehs(headdress). They told me they were going to take me for five minutes andthen bring me back. They did not explain why. They brought me to Salahal-Din primary school, which they had turned into their base. Other Kurdishmen had been brought there. Then they transported us in civilian trucksto Tubzawa [a military base some twelve miles outside the city].

At Tubzawa, there were about 1,000 to 1,500 detainees. We were placed inrooms about 25 meters square. Everyone had to sit with his knees together. There were guards outside the rooms. We spent the first night without foodor water.

The next day, they took us to an infantry training camp on the Tikrit-Beiji road. We spent the next 15 days there, in one large hall. There were 1,220of us, all from Kirkuk. I know the number because they counted us. Thehall had been used during the Iran-Iraq war for Iranian prisoners.

No interrogations were carried out. For one week, we did not receive anyblankets. We slept two to a mattress. There were no toilets. For two weekswe had to relieve ourselves in the corner. The guards told us to go smellthe shit. They were from Baghdad and Tikrit. We got hard rolls and a littlerice to eat; to drink, a little water.

From this place we were transported by a covered truck to a place in al-Ramadithat had also been used previously for Iranian prisoners. During the longtrip we received no water or food.

The treatment at al-Ramadi was the same as at Tikrit. We were locked 60in a room, all of us Kurds. The staff was all military officers, Iraqis. There was no water for washing, and there was lice from the filth.

After nearly five weeks at al-Ramadi, most of us were released. However,those Kurds who had been serving in the army were not released. One day beforeletting us go, a major came to us and said we had to choose between Suleimaniyyaand Irbil. When we asked why, he answered simply, "no one is going to Kirkuk."

We were transported back to Tubzawa in trucks. At Tubzawa, they separatedthose who had chosen Suleimaniyya and those who had chosen Irbil. Thosewho chose Irbil were transported to Altun Kupri [a town between Kirkuk andIrbil]. Those who chose Suleimaniyya were held one night longer and thentrucked to Chamchamal [a town between Kirkuk and Suleimaniyya]. We did notget any food or water during that night.

In Chamchamal we were prevented from returning to Kirkuk. I found my sisters,who fed me a feast. I learned that my family had made it to Iran, so I camehere [to a refugee camp in Kurdestan province, Iran].

Several of those interviewed in late April 1991 by MEW noted that when theywere released from al-Ramadi, a group of Kurds continued to be held. MEWhas been unable to confirm whether all of those taken during the rounduphave been released. According to Kurdish political sources, some of theKurds arrested in the March round-up have never been accounted for, and theirfamilies fear that some may have been executed. The status of this groupof detainees who are presumed missing was raised by the Kurdish negotiatorsmeeting with representatives of the regime in Baghdad, according to KDP spokesmanHoshyar Zebari, but the authorities provided no concrete information.

Following the massive arrests prior to the uprising, Iraqi troops in Kirkukdemolished dozens of houses in Kurdish neighborhoods, using dynamite andbulldozers. In testimony corroborated by others, a woman university studenttold MEW:

Troops came to Arassa, a neighborhood that is strongly pro-pesh merga. Theytook the women to Kara Angir [a town north of Kirkuk], and told them, "Goto the pesh merga." The next morning, the forces demolished the houses. Arassais totally destroyed, all the houses have been destroyed.

A medical student told MEW, "One day before the Kurds took Kirkuk, authoritiesdemolished houses in the Tepee neighborhood because [Interior Minister] AliHassan al-Majid accused people of firing at helicopters from there." Thewoman university student added that during the round-up of men in the city,security forces killed a man in the Iskan neighborhood and demolished hishouse after he drew a weapon and attempted to resist arrest. (As mentionedin the section on the uprising in al-Najaf, Iraq has a long-standing practiceof demolishing the homes of suspected rebels.) She said army patrols hadbeen calling out over megaphones, "O heroic masses of Kirkuk, whoever ownsa weapon in his home, let him surrender it to the Baath organization. Hewho does not surrender his weapon will be held responsible."

Acts of repression such as these did not prevent Kirkuk from rising up inrebellion on about March 18 or 19 (the date varies among the many accounts). One by one, neighborhoods in Kirkuk with substantial Kurdish populations fellto the rebels, and by March 19 or 20, the city was fully under their control.

The revolt was brief but bloody. British journalist Gwynne Roberts, whoreached the city shortly after its capture by the rebels, described the carnage:

Kurdish rebels were using bulldozers to clear the streets of Kirkuk of Iraqi corpses....I saw several bodies of security officials sprawled in the mud,one of them with live rounds of ammunition jammed into his mouth. A localKurd said: "That bastard was a torturer, and God knows how many men, womenand children he persecuted. He deserved what he got."[133]

MEW interviewed a Turkman driver for a petroleum company who said the peshmerga lined up government officials against a wall and machine-gunned them:

I saw ten officers of the security police executed in this way. We did nothave time to hang them. Many of the officers ran away, but all who stayedwere punished. But the pesh merga did not kill any regular soldiers becausewe knew they had been forced to serve in the army.

Ahmed Bamarni of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan claimed that the rebelshad captured 12,000 Iraqi prisoners in the battle for Kirkuk.[134] Most were apparently releasedunder an amnesty offered by Kurdish leadership for any soldier who surrendered.

Among civilians, the bulk of casualties came not during the uprising butduring the counter-offensive. Unlike in Suleimaniyya, security forces foughtback almost immediately. As early as March 21, tanks stationed outside thecity began pounding residential areas with artillery rounds day and night,while helicopter gunships flew overhead by day firing rockets.

"Saddam started attacking the city from the southwest with long-range heavyartillery, 130 and 150 millimeters, hitting homes with thousands of shells,"recalled a Kurd who told MEW that he had returned from military service inKuwait and joined the pesh merga in liberating Kirkuk. "The army was firingmissiles from Sukhoi helicopters. Two to three hundred were being killed daily. Residents were afraid and were fleeing each day during this period,"he said.

A doctor at Saddam Hussein hospital in Kirkuk told aLibération reporterthat between March 20 and 26, more than 500 wounded were admitted to thehospital.[135] A 26-year-old mother of seveninterviewed by MEW in Iran pointed to the burns on her three-year-old sonKhalid's face and explained:

This happened to my child the first day the pesh merga came to Kirkuk, March20 or 21. Our home is in the Shurjeh district of Kirkuk. It was 8 or 10in the morning. Helicopters and bombs were used. The earth was burning. I saw five napalm bombs fall at once. Our house was old and all the wallsfell in. The whole family ran outside.

Khalid'sface had been burned in the attack. The woman added that her husband hadbeen arrested during the roundup of Kurdish men in Kirkuk six weeks earlier,and she did not know where he was.

Guardianreporter Martin Woollacott, who was in Kirkuk later in March, told MEW:

[both Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu had been] under frequent shelling and rocketing,as well as bombing from helicopters. In many cases, I couldn't see why theseplaces were shelled, as they had no military value. The Kurdish part of Kirkuk,for instance, was frequently shelled, though there was only a small headquartersof a Kurdish militia there. During the last few days I was there, doctorstold me there were about 40 [or] 50 dead a day, mostly civilians. On March26, the hospital was hit by shells, and the outpatient clinic was effectivelywritten off.

A young woman pesh merga recounted to MEW in Iran the attacks on one of thecity's hospitals:

On March 22, I went to Jumhouri Hospital to help out....Many of the patientswere injured pesh merga. Doctors in the hospital were also pesh merga.

On March 24, Saddam's forces bombed the second floor of the hospital. Wecontinued to work. Bombs hit near the hospital several times. Tanks firedfrom five kilometers away, hitting all around the hospital....Eventuallythey hit the second floor. On March 27, shots were fired into the windows,probably by Mojahedin-i-Khalq. I left the hospital, ducking the bullets,and ran away.

The bombardment of Kirkuk went on for an entire week, causing a continuousstream of refugees north and east in the directions of Irbil and Suleimaniyya,and driving the rebels back from their forward positions. During these attacks,according to American journalist Frank Smyth, who was in Kirkuk during thesiege, Republican Guard assault units, paratroopers and special forces were preparing for a major offensive. When they made their move, the resultswere decisive. Loyalist troops entered the city with tanks on March 27 andwere in control by the following day.[136]

In one of their first acts after reentering the city, loyalist troops invadedSaddam Hussein hospital, which was filled with both rebels and civilianswho had been injured during the fighting. The troops opened fire on patientsand medical staff, slashing patients with knives and throwing people outof windows. A primary school teacher told MEW:

When the tanks entered Kirkuk on March 27, they went to Saddam Hussein Hospital.My house is very near the hospital. About 150 meters away from me, I sawtroops enter the hospital and then I saw pesh merga being thrown out of thewindows. After they threw them on the ground, they shot those who were notdead from the fall.

A lab assistant at the hospital added:

Iraqi soldiers opened fire from tanks and helicopters on the hospital. Whenthey reached the hospital they entered and went upstairs, where they killedall of the patients, about 30 children, 50 women, and 20 young men. I sawthem slit the throats of patients with knives and throw some of the patientsoff the roof or out of windows on the top floor. I personally saw five personsthrown out of windows.

Western journalists who visited Kirkuk under government escort two days laterfound the loyalists firmly in charge. They saw deserted neighborhoods, buildingsdamaged by artillery, and several bodies lying in the streets.

Consolidating their control over the city, troops ordered the remaining Kurdishpopulation of Kirkuk, predominantly women and children, to leave town. Thosewho fled at this late stage reported widespread looting of homes, which theyblamed on government troops and Arabs who had driven north from central Iraq. A young man who managed to enter to Kirkuk after being detained at al-Ramadifound his family gone and his house burglarized. He told MEW that the neighborhoodsof Imam Qassim and Shurjeh had been badly damaged during the uprising, andhomes had been dynamited. Kurds who were leaving the city told him thatsecurity forces were going door-to-door telling families they had only 24hours to leave. He decided not to remain, and headed for Iran to searchfor his family.

Kurds who attempted to return to the city in April were turned back at armycheckpoints that had been set up outside the city. The army later easedthis policy, but today, scores of thousands of Kirkukis are still displacedin the rebel-controlled zone, unable to return home because they either areafraid or because their homes have been destroyed (see Chapter One).

Kurdistan: Attacks on fleeing refugees

Like Shi'a from al-Najaf and Karbala, many of the refugees from Kirkuk andother northern cities told MEW they had witnessed attacks by Iraqi helicopterson the columns of fleeing Kurdish civilians, or reported passing refugeesalong the escape routes who had been wounded or killed in such attacks. Takentogether, the testimonies suggested that they were not isolated events.[137] There were also reports ofattacks on refugees by tank fire.

Most of the refugees said that these attacks were launched against fleeingcivilians who were offering no resistance, although some said that armedpesh merga were helping to coordinate the evacuation.

A man who fled his home in Irbil after the Iraqi military had begun to attackthat city told MEW:

As we were leaving, helicopters attacked the road we were on, the Irbil-Kuysanjaq road. I saw 25 bodies on the road. People [were] trying to leave Irbil,but no one could help the wounded. They used napalm. I know this becauseof the brown burns on the bodies. Some of the 25 had burns. I also sawhands and legs separated from bodies.

A poultry company manager from Suleimaniyya who was interviewed in Iran recalled,"On the road between Suleimaniyya and Chuarta [to the northeast], I saw ahelicopter come and shoot at the pedestrian traffic, immediately killinga woman and her two boys," Another man interviewed in Iran said that hiswife and two young children were killed when two helicopters "and many tanks"attacked fleeing refugees on Mount Azmar, near Suleimaniyya, in early April. Some 100 persons were wounded and had to be left behind, he said.

An elderly man from Chamchamal said he had seen people dying on the roadbetween Chamchamal and Suleimaniyya after they had been attacked by firefrom four helicopters. "They were all unarmed and fleeing," he told MEW. Another man who fled his home in a "model village" (mujamma'Csee Chapter One) near Chamchamal in early April said he had seen severalhelicopter attacks on refugees between Chamchamal and Taynal. Just outsideChamchamal, he said, he saw about 20 persons who had been killed in helicopterattacks. "There was no resistance at the time they were killed. The landwas flat, and the pesh merga cannot fight on the plains."