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See men shredded, then say you don't back war
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Alpha-Omega
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Jul 30, 2003 17:06 PDT
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March 18, 2003
See men shredded, then say you don't back war
By Ann Clwyd
The (London) Times
“There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped
into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head
first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died
screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains
would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as
fish food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein’s
youngest son] personally supervise these murders.”
This is one of the many witness statements that were taken by
researchers from Indict — the organisation I chair — to provide evidence
for legal cases against specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes,
crimes against humanity and genocide. This account was taken in the past
two weeks.
Another witness told us about practices of the security services towards
women: “Women were suspended by their hair as their families watched;
men were forced to watch as their wives were raped . . . women were
suspended by their legs while they were menstruating until their periods
were over, a procedure designed to cause humiliation.”
The accounts Indict has heard over the past six years are disgusting and
horrifying. Our task is not merely passively to record what we are told
but to challenge it as well, so that the evidence we produce is of the
highest quality. All witnesses swear that their statements are true and
sign them.
For these humanitarian reasons alone, it is essential to liberate the
people of Iraq from the regime of Saddam. The 17 UN resolutions passed
since 1991 on Iraq include Resolution 688, which calls for an end to
repression of Iraqi civilians. It has been ignored. Torture, execution
and ethnic-cleansing are everyday life in Saddam’s Iraq.
Were it not for the no-fly zones in the south and north of Iraq — which
some people still claim are illegal — the Kurds and the Shia would no
doubt still be attacked by Iraqi helicopter gunships.
For more than 20 years, senior Iraqi officials have committed genocide,
war crimes and crimes against humanity. This list includes far more than
the gassing of 5,000 in Halabja and other villages in 1988. It includes
serial war crimes during the Iran-Iraq war; the genocidal Anfal campaign
against the Iraqi Kurds in 1987-88; the invasion of Kuwait and the
killing of more than 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians; the violent suppression,
which I witnessed, of the 1991 Kurdish uprising that led to 30,000 or
more civilian deaths; the draining of the Southern Marshes during the
1990s, which ethnically cleansed thousands of Shias; and the summary
executions of thousands of political opponents.
Many Iraqis wonder why the world applauded the military intervention
that eventually rescued the Cambodians from Pol Pot and the Ugandans
from Idi Amin when these took place without UN help. They ask why the
world has ignored the crimes against them?
All these crimes have been recorded in detail by the UN, the US,
Kuwaiti, British, Iranian and other Governments and groups such as Human
Rights Watch, Amnesty and Indict. Yet the Security Council has failed to
set up a war crimes tribunal on Iraq because of opposition from France,
China and Russia. As a result, no Iraqi official has ever been indicted
for some of the worst crimes of the 20th century. I have said
incessantly that I would have preferred such a tribunal to war. But the
time for offering Saddam incentives and more time is over.
I do not have a monopoly on wisdom or morality. But I know one thing.
This evil, fascist regime must come to an end. With or without the help
of the Security Council, and with or without the backing of the Labour
Party in the House of Commons tonight.
The author is Labour MP for Cynon Valley.
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