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 internal challenge it had ever faced, government forces responded with atrocities on a predictably massive scale. The human rights repercussions continue to be felt throughout the country.

In their attempts to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalist forces killed thousands of unarmed civilians by firing indiscriminately into residential areas; executing young people on the streets, in homes and in hospitals; rounding up suspects, especially young men, during house-to-house searches, and arresting them without charge or shooting them en 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 seized during the suppression of the uprising remains unknown. While many are believed to be in detention, the government has provided little information about their location and legal status.

The rebels also committed gross abuses during the uprising, summarily executing suspected members of the security forces, including many who were in custody. Middle East Watch also condemns these abuses, though we note that they were not so systematic and sustained as those committed by the government.

Over 100,000 Kurds and Shi'a who fled cities where the conflicts were particularly fierce remain displaced inside Iraq, and another 70,000 civilians are in refugee camps in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran. Despite the harsh life they lead 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 afraid or because their homes have been destroyed.

The Shi'a holy cities of Karbala and al-Najaf, from which many of these Iraqis fled, are today under tight military control and largely closed to independent observers who could monitor rights conditions. Religious life is sharply restricted. Many Shi'a institutions were destroyed or badly damaged during the suppression of the uprising, or subsequently demolished on the pretext of "modernizing" the cities. Hundreds of clerics and their aides were arrested after the uprisings and have not been released. Religious activities at the 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 been the subject of contention between Baghdad and the Kurds. There have been alarming reports that the homes of Kurds who fled the city following the uprising have been demolished or given to Arab families, as part of a long-standing government policy of promoting the settlement of Arabs in Kirkuk while reducing its Kurdish population. The extent of these measures has been difficult to confirm, partly because the government has kept the city under particularly tight control. Today, Kirkuk is the only city in Iraq for which Baghdad has refused a standing U.N. request to establish a humanitarian office, and few outsiders have been given the sort of access that would enable them to assess developments there.

In the remote marshes along the southern border with Iran, thousands of Shi'a who fled during the uprising lack adequate food, hygiene and medical care and are at risk of Iraqi military operations in the area. Their numbers include active rebels, army deserters and displaced persons afraid to go home. Iraqi troops have attempted to surround and impose a blockade on areas where there has been rebel activity. There were credible reports of intensified military activity in the area as recently as late April; Shi'a opposition sources have charged that past army attacks in the marshes, including a campaign during December and January, involved indiscriminate fire from helicopter gunships and heavy artillery, summary executions, and arrests of indigenous marsh dwellers suspected of assisting the rebels. Little is known with certainty about the numbers or magnitude of the military operations, due in part to Iraq's refusal to allow independent observers meaningful access to the area. There has been almost no international pressure for such access; unlike the Kurds, the indigenous and displaced population in the marshes has been virtually ignored by the world community.

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

As Kurds celebrated the staging of their first free elections ever on May 19, gratification with their newfound political freedom is tempered by the continuing humanitarian crisis, sporadic violence, and uncertainty about the future. Shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies as a result of the 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 exacerbated since October by an embargo imposed by the Iraqi government on the rebel-controlled area. Many of the displaced persons and returning villagers live in substandard, makeshift shelters, despite a massive effort by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and relief organizations to house them before last winter. Unmarked minefields continue to claim dozens of victims each month, and thousands of jittery civilians flee their homes each time Iraqi troops shell an area or clash with Kurdish rebel forces.

As the expiration dates approach for both the Allied Combined Task Force in Turkey and the United Nations presence in Iraq, Kurds are watching Iraq's military 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 withdraws from Turkey, Saddam will launch a major offensive to retake the rebel-held zone. This would almost surely prompt an exodus of Kurds similar to the one that occurred only one year ago.

Recommendations

In view of the enormous magnitude and continuing nature of human rights abuses in Iraq, Middle East Watch believes that the stationing of human rights monitors inside Iraq is an essential, though not sufficient, step for safeguarding the rights of civilians. So long as the government of Iraq obstructs the free inquiry into human rights conditions by local and foreign organizations, journalists, and others, an alternative means of human rights monitoring is needed.

MEW calls on the international community to demand, and the government of Iraq to accept, a continuing presence of independent human rights observers inside Iraq. MEW endorses the recommendation of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Iraq, Ambassador Max van der Stoel of the Netherlands, to send "a team of human rights monitors who would remain in Iraq until the human rights situation had drastically improved 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 trials and court proceedings."[2]

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

MEW calls on the U.S. to take a leading role in marshalling world support for a human rights monitoring system in Iraq, such as the one proposed by the Special Rapporteur. The U.S. and the international community should make clear to the government of Iraq that they will not tolerate further indiscriminate attacks on civilians. MEW notes that a monitoring presence is especially needed in the remote southeastern marshes, a heavily militarized border area where 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 the search for a solution to the impasse over the U.N.-imposed oil-for-food formula. The main victims of this stalemate are the Iraqi people, particularly the poor who cannot afford the high prices of staples. At the same time, MEW calls on Iraq to end its blockade of food, 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 international and non-international armed conflicts, as codified in Protocols I and II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (articles 54 and 14 respectively), prohibits starvation of civilians as a method of combat, including by attacking or removing for that purpose objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs.

MEW also calls on Iraq to extend beyond June 30 the agreement permitting the U.N. to provide humanitarian aid to displaced persons wherever it is needed. MEW is concerned by the reduced presence in Iraq since April of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which has an explicit protection mandate. MEW urges the U.N. agencies remaining in Iraq to develop alternative means to provide protection to vulnerable populations.

Finally, MEW calls on the political leadership of the Kurds to complete the stalled investigation into the October 1991 massacre, allegedly by Kurdish guerrillas, of some 60 Iraqi soldiers in custody in Suleimaniyya, and to punish those found to be responsible. As Kurds enhance the extent of their self-rule through parliamentary elections, the good-faith prosecution of those found responsible for this atrocity, with due-process protections for the accused, would send a strong signal of their leaders' commitment to 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 up in 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 thousands more subsequently perished during one of the largest and most precipitous flights of refugees in modern times. This report details human rights abuses committed during the uprising and the human rights repercussions that continue until today.

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

The population of the rebel-held zone continues to swell by the thousands every time government troops shell a town or skirmish with Kurdish rebels. Some 300,000 Kurds abandoned their homes in or near government-controlled areas between October and January, straining humanitarian efforts to shelter the thousands who had fled immediately after the uprising.[3] An official of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told a reporter in January that even a minor attack on a major town would set off another mass exodus. "We are preparing for 150,000 new refugees at any time but it's quite possible if there 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 the Great Zab river, west of Irbil.

In the cities that rose up in rebellion last year that are now under government control, 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 office has been steadfastly refused since April 1991, the Baath regime seems to be profiting from the massive flight of refugees to accelerate its long-standing policy of reducing the Kurdish percentage of the city's population. Long the main sticking point in negotiations between Saddam and the Kurds, Kirkuk is now separated from the rebel-held zone by the heavily fortified positions of the Iraqi army. Between 70,000 and 100,000 Kirkukis have not returned home, by the UNHCR's count, and remain displaced in Kurdish-controlled towns such as Suleimaniyya; Kurdistan Democratic Party spokesman Hoshyar Zebari said the number was at least 150,000 (see Chapter One). Kurdish neighborhoods demolished around the time of the uprising remain in ruins, and Kurds charge that the government has been giving vacant Kurdish homes to Arab families who have moved north.

In the south, the plight of the Shi'a is no less dire, although less well-known because the area remains virtually closed to scrutiny by outside observers. Thousands of Shi'a, including hundreds of clerics, have been imprisoned without charge or have disappeared in state custody since the uprising; many Shi'a shrines and institutions in al-Najaf and Karbala were devastated during the rebellion 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 sought precarious shelter in remote areas of the marshes that straddle the Iranian border. Iraq's security forces, unable to quell the low-level resistance emanating from this region, have reportedly shelled and launched military raids in the area in an indiscriminate fashion, wounding and killing unarmed civilians.

Many observers believe that attacks by Baghdad on the Kurdish-held zone have been restrained to some extent by Saddam's fear that they would provoke the intervention of Allied forces. Since April 1991, the U.S. has publicly warned Iraqi troops not to fly any aircraft, including helicopters, north of the 36th parallel, to keep security forces from entering the Allies' self-declared security zone, and to refrain from attacking Kurdish civilians. As recently as 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 buildup and to stop violating the rights of the Kurds and Shi'a.[5]

June 28, however, is the expiration date for the Allies' accord with Turkey that allows the basing of the Combined Task Force in southeastern Turkey. The memorandum of understanding between the U.N. and Iraq is set to expire two days later. That agreement allows the U.N. to establish offices inside Iraq "wherever such presence may be needed" to provide humanitarian assistance to displaced persons and assist in their return. The agreement also allowed for 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 function vis-à-vis civilians.

Kurds fear that if the credible military threat of the Allies' Combined Task Force is removed, Iraq will launch an offensive to recapture the areas of northeastern Iraq that have been under rebel control since last year, causing a new round of bloodshed and another exodus of refugees.[6] Shi'a opposition sources in exile predict that repression in the south will also 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 of Iraq, 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 were repeatedly ignored or refused. In late 1991 Baghdad finally gave its approval in principle, but has not responded since to repeated MEW requests to provide a date when it would receive such a mission.

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

Such obstacles have complicated the task of gathering accurate human rights information. For example, it is not possible to verify estimates of the numbers of persons who were killed, injured or detained during the uprising, how many 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 used by the government troops. Refugees alleged that Iraqi helicopters dropped a variety of ordnance on civilians, including napalm and phosphorus bombs, chemical agents and sulfuric acid. Representatives of human rights and humanitarian organizations who saw refugees with burn injuries or photographs of such injuries were unable to confirm the source of the burns, although doctors who examined injured Iraqis said that some of the wounds were consistent with the use of napalm.[8] The Iraqi government, for its part, denied using napalm, phosphorus or chemical weapons.[9]

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

Witnesses also accused fighters from the Iranian opposition organization Mojahedin-i-Khalq (People's Mojahedin of Iran) and Jordanian, Sudanese, Palestinian and Yemeni mercenaries of helping to suppress the uprising. They claimed to recognize the fighters' nationalities from their appearance or accents. While the testimony collected was persuasive that the Mojahedin-i-Khalq and foreign 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 letter on May 17, 1991 to Iraqi authorities asking about the types of weapons and ordnance used during the uprising, the numbers of civilians killed and wounded by government troops and by rebels, and the number of arrests after the uprising. The letter was not answered. However, statements by Iraqi officials in other contexts are quoted in this report, where pertinent.

Unearthing Past Abuses

Prior to the uprising, Iraqi state terror and controls on foreign visitors made 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 the regime's brutality. The legacy of abuse also helped to explain the intensity and mass support of the uprising, as well as the speed and magnitude of the exodus when it collapsed.

The revelations began during the very first days of the revolt and have continued since. When rebels seized government buildings, they freed prisoners and captured huge amounts of documentary evidence of past abuses. Later, the flight of refugees beyond the reach of Saddam made it possible for an unprecedented number of Iraqis to speak publicly about past abuses. Since then, continuing rebel control over much of northeastern Iraq has enabled Kurds and foreigners to travel extensively through the Kurdish countryside for the first time since 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 examining several mass graves that may finally provide answers to the fate of tens of thousands C Kurdish sources estimate the number at 182,000 C of Kurds who disappeared during the late 1980s in the so-called Anfal Operation, Saddam's campaign to depopulate the Kurdish countryside.[15]

The refugees interviewed for this report provided ample testimony about past abuses. It was difficult to find a Kurd who had not lost one or more relatives during the Anfal. In the refugee camps in Iran, MEW also encountered survivors of the 1988 chemical gas attack on the border town of Halabja in which 5,000 persons 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-time refugee: he fled in 1975 during clashes between Baghdad and Mullah Mustapha Barzani's pesh 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 separation of their families during the early years of the Iran-Iraq war, when the Baath regime summarily deported tens of thousands of Shi'a to Iran on the grounds that they were of "Iranian origin."[16] Both Shi'a and Kurdish refugees, particularly young men, described being arrested in the past and tortured for suspected opposition activity; some still bore scars from ill-treatment.

Prisons, including some whose location and existence had not been disclosed by Baghdad, were thrown open by rebels in both the north and the south. Accounts circulated widely about disoriented and filthy prisoners emerging from years in 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, the sudden exposure of Saddam's past atrocities was a transformative experience. Even after the wrenching experience of the uprising and the exodus, many refugees were most eager to speak about the past that had finally been exposed to them. A poultry company manager from Suleimaniyya recounted how, shortly after the city was captured by rebels, he took his family to tour the once-dreaded security headquarters (Da'irat al-Amn). "We saw cells that were 1 by 1.5 meters, cells with hooks high in the wall, for tying prisoners' hands behind their backs," he said. "What we saw was indescribable."

Meanwhile, Kurds in Irbil were crowding into the Ministry of Culture to view a hastily assembled exhibit of photographs showing the aftermath of the chemical-weapons attack on Halabja. The images, well-known in the West, had never been seen before in Kurdistan. "It's something horrible, an Iraqi army deserter told a Wall 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 suppression of the uprising in March and April 1991 have not been released, and relatives have received little or no news about them. The bulk of the detained population is from southern Iraq, where a smaller percentage of the population fled their homes than in the north.

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

The partial lists that have been prepared by various groups suggest that the number of missing persons exceeds the government's figure of 1,100, although no reliable estimate is possible. As Gulf War Victims, a Teheran-based Iraqi relief 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 during the fighting or in the clean-up operations afterwards....But no reputable person will venture anything more specific than that."

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

After a careful investigation, the competent authorities have ascertained that the persons named in the above-mentioned annex are not currently in Iraq 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]

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

The March 1992 report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur contains the names of nearly 200 Kurds who are said to have disappeared since being taken into custody during or shortly after the uprising in the north. Since the publication of that report, the government of Iraq has issued no response to the list of 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 to submit these names, along with the names of 7,000 Iraqi Kurds who are said to 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 among the several thousand rounded up from Kurdish neighborhoods of Kirkuk days before the outbreak of the uprising (see Chapter Two). While most of those arrested were released within five weeks, some have never reappeared. Baghdad refused to comment on their fate when the matter was raised by the Kurdish leadership during negotiations with Baghdad, Kurdish political sources said.

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

In response to a preliminary inquiry from the U.N. Special Rapporteur about 62 of the Grand Ayatollah's associates who were reportedly arrested, the government addressed only four of the cases, claiming that Sayyid Mohammad Mehdi al-Kharsan, Sayyid Mohammad Ridha al-Kharsan, Sayyid Mohammad Ali Hadi al-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 about the detainees, delivering in person to Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz an updated list of 105 associates of the Grand Ayatollah whom the al-Khoei Foundation says are detained or have disappeared since the uprising.[24] Five months later, the Special Rapporteur has received no new information from the government.

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

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

Other opposition sources in exile said they believed that large numbers of those 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 percent of the country's population. Iran received 1.4 million Iraqis, Turkey 450,000, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait received together some 35,000, while smaller numbers escaped to Syria and Jordan.

Today, fewer than 100,000 of the Iraqis who fled across the borders in March and early April 1991 remain abroad. Some 45,000 are in Iran, 22,000 in Saudi Arabia, and 8,000 in Turkey, according to the UNHCR. Kurds, who constituted more than 90 percent of those who fled, now account for less than a quarter of those remaining abroad. The chief factor in the repatriation of Kurds is the existence of a zone inside Iraq that is controlled by Kurdish rebels and enjoys a measure of Allied military protection. Shi'a refugees, lacking any 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 shifted from Iran and Turkey back into Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of persons remained displaced in tent camps or in the rubble of demolished villages in 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 fluctuated as people filter home or flee new outbreaks of fighting or shelling.

Approximately three-quarters of Iraq's Kurds are now living in the rebel-controlled zone. 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 of their traditional homeland who are afraid to return home or whose homes have been destroyed.

A somewhat similar situation exists in the south. Although no area is firmly under rebel control or watched over by nearby Allied troops, the relatively inaccessible marshes near the Iranian border have become shelter to thousands of Shi'a who are afraid to return home. Most of the displaced Shi'a are from the three major urban areas in the area, al-Nasiriyya, al-Amara, and Basra. They include some active rebels and army deserters, as well as their families. Estimates of the number of displaced persons in the marshes run as high as 250,000. However, some observers question whether the inhospitable terrain can support a quarter of a million residents and estimate the population at 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 areas have inflicted civilian casualties and displaced more people. Baghdad, itself squeezed by the U.N. embargo, has in turn blockaded deliveries of food, fuel, and other goods to rebel-held Kurdistan since October, while reportedly sealing off parts of the marshes and blockading food and supplies to its inhabitants.[29] Recent reports of a government initiative to relocate part of the marsh population have prompted comparisons with Baghdad's depopulation of the Kurdish-inhabited area near the northeastern border at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.[30]

A factor contributing to the reluctance of refugees and displaced persons to return home is their distrust of the amnesty declared in April 1991 by Iraq's ruling Revolutionary Command Council, pardoning citizens for all offenses except premeditated murder, violations of honor and theft. While some of those who refuse to return might fear being legitimately charged with such offenses, 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 rounding up members of opposition groups, and that the terms of the amnesties are frequently violated by government agents who arrest certain persons returning out 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 significant and repeated allegations regarding Kurds from Irbil who had returned under the April 1991 amnesty and "were detained...taken to the city stadium, subjected to punishments or executed, or have subsequently disappeared."[31]

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

In 1988, I lived in Halabja. During the chemical weapons attacks I hid in a 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 Kurds an amnesty during the month of September, I decided to go home. But when I reached the border, the Iraqi authorities told me that I could not return to 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 Kurds were taken there. There was no housing for us at Kurdechal. I spent 25 days 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 year I could not leave the place. Finally, in the second year, they allowed me to 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.

The following month Iraq invaded Kuwait, and eight months later the schoolteacher found 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 Iraq and four-fifths of the land claimed by Iraqi Kurds as their ancestral homeland. The zone includes two of Iraq's governorates (Suleimaniyya and Dahuk), and much of a third (Irbil). Its current population of about three million inhabitants is almost entirely Kurdish, with small numbers of Turkmans and Christians (Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Armenians). The area encompasses both the "security zone" demarcated by the Allies in April 1991 and a far larger area, including the cities of Suleimaniyya, Irbil and Dahuk, that extends south and east from the security zone. Until the May 19 elections, the area was governed by 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 northwest to southeast through the lowlands. However, incidents of shelling by Iraqi troops since then have sent scores of thousands of refugees living near the fortified 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 inhabiting just prior to the March 1991 uprising;

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

3. persons who fled from areas that are currently under Iraqi control or near 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 the areas 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 relative measure of protection, not to mention an unprecedented degree of political autonomy. The presence of Allied troops and fighter planes in neighboring Turkey, with their regular overflights of northern Iraq, have helped to reassure Kurds by offering the prospect of a swift military response should Saddam launch an offensive. The Kurds are also better off than the marsh dwellers in terms of the level of humanitarian assistance they receive and the larger presence in their midst of staff from the U.N. and relief organizations.

The Kurds still face considerable danger and adversity: harsh winters, unmarked minefields, Iraqi shelling along the front line, embargo-related shortages of affordable food, fuel and medicine, and apparent acts of sabotage by Iraqi infiltrators. 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 their current basing agreement with Turkey on June 28.

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

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 the return of refugees from the rebel-held zone, as they did in the months following the March uprising. The obstruction now occurs mainly in the other direction, when civilians crossing into the rebel-held zone are searched for items deemed to 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 return home 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 troops or 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 arrest as suspected pesh merga, army deserters, or uprising activists. Another U.N. official said Kurds are also deterred from returning by the heavy military presence in Kirkuk and other areas under government control, and reports of 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 in demolished villages face a distinct set of hardships. Of the some 4,000 Kurdish villages that Kurds say were demolished by the Baath regime during the Anfal (see Introduction), a total of 1,762 are currently under reconstruction, according to Iraqi Kurdistan Front figures. The UNHCR put the figure at 1,500 in April 1992.[33]

Many who are returning to ancestral villages are Kurds who had been confined for years in "model villages" that were built by the regime to house Kurds from demolished villages. According to a U.S. Senate staff report, these villages "were poorly constructed, had minimal sanitation and water, and provided 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 villages probably outnumber the displaced population that cannot return to homes in or near Iraqi-controlled territory. While the UNHCR does not classify the returning villagers as "displaced," they continue to face many refugee-like difficulties, especially in a period of shortages and embargoes. Le Monde's Françoise Chipaux observed during a visit in late May 1992, "In reality, everything remains to be done, from basic restoration to the rebuilding of schools, clinics, and water and irrigation systems, along with the distribution of seeds and fertilizer to all of these peasants who for so long have been kept off their lands, which now lie fallow."[35]

Living in tents or flimsy huts on the ruins of demolished homes, many spent the winter with inadequate heat and plumbing, far from medical care and regular food 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 mines laid by Iraq both along the border with Iran as well as deeper inside Iraq to hinder the pesh merga as well as Kurdish civilians who might try to return to the sites of their razed towns and villages.[36] A representative of MEW was told by a medical staff member at Suleimaniyya hospital on September 11 that since March, the hospital had treated 1,652 landmine patients, including 397 who had undergone traumatic or surgical amputation. A New York Times reporter 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 Suleimaniyya Teaching Hospital, one of three surgical hospitals in the Kurdish-controlled area, said the hospital treated about 15 new mine explosion casualties each week.[37]

Despite all of the villagers' day-to-day difficulties, the overriding concern for many is that government troops will return to the area and demolish their villages once again. "[The Iraqi forces] want to come back," one villager told The 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 established shortly after the uprising. On April 5, 1991, two days after Iraqi troops recaptured the last city under Kurdish control, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 688, which demanded that Iraq "immediately end" the repression of its civilian population, and allow "immediate access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq."[39] The same day, President Bush announced that U.S. Air Force transport planes would begin flying over northern Iraq to drop supplies of food, blankets, clothing, tents, and other relief-related items near concentrations of displaced persons.

But the surging exodus and Turkey's reluctance to host a massive influx of Kurdish refugees pressured the Allies to act more decisively. On April 16, President Bush announced that a "security zone" would be established near the Turkish border and administered by U.S., French and British troops. The area would contain temporary tent camps to lure refugees back from Turkey and the perilous mountain areas near the border. To further reassure Kurds, President Bush ordered Iraqi troops to evacuate the "security zone" and to retreat at least 25 miles south of the Turkish border, and declared all of Iraq 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 resumed long-stalled negotiations on limited autonomy. Second, Baghdad agreed to an extensive U.N. relief operation inside Iraq. Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding signed on April 18, 1991 by Iraq and Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the Secretary General's executive delegate for humanitarian affairs in Iraq, the U.N. was permitted to establish offices inside Iraq "wherever such presence may be needed" to provide humanitarian assistance to displaced persons and assist in their return. The memorandum, which has been renewed and now expires on June 30, essentially restates in more consensual language the terms of Security Council Resolution 688.

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

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

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

Whatever the markers that the Allies laid down, their military pullback coincided with a general deterioration in the security situation, following two months of relative calm and the return of over one million refugees from Iran and Turkey. With the negotiations in Baghdad bogging down and Kurds nervous about the Allied withdrawal, tensions began to mount. On June 3, four Kurds and two 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 later around Suleimaniyya and Irbil. The fighting drove about 30,000 civilians in the Suleimaniyya region toward the Iranian border, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which said on July 22 that it had treated 660 wounded persons in area hospitals.

Following the clashes, the army ceded control of Suleimaniyya and Irbil to the 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 and fall, took place well below the Allies' "security zone," and provoked no military response from them.

During the second week of September, several dozen persons were killed or wounded in clashes around the city of Chamchamal, which lies near the front line between Iraqi and Kurdish forces, halfway between Suleimaniyya and Kirkuk. It is not known what portion of the victims were civilians. Col. Richard Naab, commander of the Allies' Military Coordination Center in Zakho, was quoted as saying that the clashes were not caused by any Iraqi provocation.[41] However, they erupted in a context of rising tension, as Iraqis were moving troops into the area and Kirkuk residents were demonstrating in Suleimaniyya to demand that Iraq permit them to return home. The Kirkukis were reportedly preparing to organize a march toward their city, confronting the Iraqi checkpoints along the route.

In October, the front-line towns of Chamchamal, Kifri and Kalar came under Iraqi shelling. The operation clarified Baghdad's general strategy in the north. Advancing in these locations while retreating in others (such as from Suleimaniyya in July), the army was fine-tuning a fortified military line to make it strategically strong and effective in sealing off the rebel-controlled area from the rest of the country. The line bisected Iraqi Kurdistan from the 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, although large sections of the key oil-export trunkline, from Iraq to Turkey's Mediterranean coast, are in rebel hands.

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

The Massacre of Iraqi Soldiers in Suleimaniyya

On October 7, Kurdish guerrillas engaged in what was easily their worst atrocity since the uprising, executing at least 60 Iraqi army troops who had been captured during hand-to-hand fighting in Suleimaniyya. Reuters correspondent Kurt Schork, who witnessed the killings, said the men were shot at point-blank range while they were kneeling.[44] The Kurdistan Democratic Party, whose fighters were accused by some of responsibility, condemned the incident, announced an investigation, and invited Amnesty International to 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 connection with the killings, according to KDP spokesman Hoshyar Zebari. Judging by the investigation findings to date, Zebari said, the incident was less clear-cut than indicated by initial press reports. He said that the killings seem to have occurred only moments after a fierce battle, and not after the victims had 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 buildings where the killings had taken place.

Regrettably, the pursuit of justice in the case has fallen victim to foot-dragging and finger-pointing among the Kurdish parties. Whatever the mitigating circumstances that may surround the incident, it is evident that an atrocity took place and that the Kurdish leadership has failed to respond in a manner that sends a signal that abusive conduct by their fighters will be punished in a timely fashion. Neither the absence of a fully operational judiciary nor the considerable hardships that the Kurds have faced since the uprising can justify this feeble response.

Zebari, speaking to MEW on May 25, expressed optimism that the investigation would move forward now that the elections have been held. MEW urges the Kurdish leadership to show its commitment to the rule of law by completing its investigations into this important case and granting a fair and open trial to those who are charged with responsibility.

Red Cross Visits to Iraqi soldiers captured by Kurdish rebels

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

Baghdad's Economic Blockade of the Rebel-Controlled Zone

In October, Baghdad imposed an embargo on goods entering the rebel-controlled zone, enforcing it at checkpoints along the military line. The government, itself squeezed by continuing U.N. economic sanctions, cut deliveries of food and fuel, including subsidized goods that the government was rationing, and ordered civil servants to relocate to cities under government control or face dismissal.[45] At checkpoints, soldiers confiscated food 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 products such as seeds and fertilizer.

The termination of salaries to state employees affected an estimated 200,000 heads of households. Most, however, remained at their posts, and schools continued to function as the Kurdish leadership tried to cover salaries by using 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, continues to be felt, as a Le Monde correspondent observed on a recent visit:

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

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

With economic pressure failing to yield quick results, Baghdad stepped up the military pressure. In late March, the army shelled towns near the Great Zab river, west of Irbil, driving 40,000 villagers from their homes. Most have since returned, according to a U.N. official. The army launched another operation near the city of Chamchamal, apparently in order to tighten the embargo by cutting off a rebel-controlled supply route between Irbil and Suleimaniyya.

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

U.N.'s Uncertain Future in Iraq Adds to Kurds' Anxiety

The military buildup is not the only cause of jitteriness one year after the failed uprising. The future of the U.N. presence inside Iraq remains in doubt. With the agreement between Iraq and the U.N. expiring on June 30, the government has reportedly increased its harassment of U.N. relief workers, imposed new restrictions on the movement of U.N. vehicles delivering humanitarian aid, and held up issuing or renewing visas for foreign relief workers.[49] An official with the U.N. humanitarian office for Iraq commented that the government dislikes the presence of so many U.N. and relief workers but feels it must tolerate them if it is 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 protection functions that until now the UNHCR has been performing. That agency has been scaling back its presence in Iraq since April 1, 1992, while the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has taken on a supervisory role among U.N. agencies in 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 was to help displaced persons to return to where they wished to go, and to intervene with 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 Department of Humanitarian Affairs, directed by Undersecretary General Jan Eliasson of Sweden. Michael Stopford, the New York representative of the department's Iraq program, told MEW on May 13 that the department hoped to assign field representatives "to assume some of the coordinating, monitoring, and reporting functions that until now have been performed by the UNHCR." He warned, however, that the plan was contingent on funding C and, of course, on the extension of the U.N. agreement with Iraq to operate inside its territory.

Car Bombs, Apparent Poisonings Raise Fears of Infiltrators from Baghdad

Since March 1992, Kurdish fears of saboteurs have been heightened by an apparent poisoning incident and two fatal car-bomb explosions. In past years, the Saddam regime has been accused of poisoning a number of dissidents both in Iraq and abroad; several cases are described in MEW's Human Rights in Iraq. The two most recent victims were Sunni Muslim members of the Iraqi opposition 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 Kurd in Shaqlawa on March 24, 1992. According to London-based Iraqi dissidents, the two had received a warning a month earlier from Qusai Hussein, one of Saddam'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 for tests. On the strength of the test results, visas were secured and the two men 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 cannot be reliably linked to the regime. Responsibility was neither claimed nor determined for a car bomb that exploded outside a Kurdish political office in central Suleimaniyya on March 6, 1992, killing twelve persons; or for another bomb that exploded in a market in Irbil on March 16, reportedly killing three people and injuring some 25. The second blast came after a succession of warnings from officials and media in Baghdad to the opposition Iraqi Kurdistan Front not to ally itself with foreign powers.