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III. Background: Repression of the 1991 Uprising

Following the 1991 Gulf war, mass uprisings against the Iraqi regime occurred in the Kurdish north and the Shi`a south, at least in part encouraged by then-President George H. Bush’s broadcasted call to the Iraqi people to “take matters into their own hands to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.”3 The uprising began in the southern cities of Zubair and Basra on February 28-March 1 and by the end of the first week of March had spread to all major urban areas in the south. In al-Nasiriyya, for instance, returning soldiers from Kuwait joined up with Shi`a army deserters and rapidly seized the local army garrison.4 In the south the uprising gained support from the largely Shi`a population long repressed by the Sunni-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein. Throughout the south, vengeance killings took place as the population acted out its anger against anyone associated with the Iraqi government, killing hundreds of Ba’th party officials, local bureaucrats, and intelligence agents.5

The U.S. backed away from supporting the uprising, which failed to acquire any momentum in Baghdad or the center of the country. The Iraqi government was able to reorganize loyalists within the army, and with the support of Ba’th Party cadre and supportive tribal allies soon mounted a counter-offensive against the rebels. By the end of March, these loyalist forces had brutally crushed the rebellion in the south. As Human Rights Watch described in a 1992 report:

In their attempt 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.6

Following the defeat of the rebellions in the north and south, the government began indiscriminately arresting tens of thousands of persons on suspicion of supporting the rebellion. Because of the active role played by Shi`a soldiers and deserters in the uprising, they were particularly targeted. In city after southern city, loyalist forces organized checkpoints and went house to house to round up suspects. Their arrest campaign was as indiscriminate as the firepower used to crush the rebellion. Countless civilians, at times entire families, were arrested and “disappeared.”



3 “Excerpts from Statements by Bush on Strategy in Gulf,” New York Times, February 16, 1991.

4 Faleh Abd al-Jabbar, “Why the Uprisings Failed,” Middle East Report #176, May-June 1992, pp. 2-14; Dilip Hiro, Iraq: In the Eye of the Storm (New York: Thurnder’s Mouth Press, 2002), pp. 40-41.

5 Human Rights Watch, Endless Torment: The 1991 Uprising in Iraq and its Aftermath, (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1992), pp. 45-56.

6 Endless Torment, p. 1. This report documented the atrocities perpetrated by Iraqi government forces during these events, and included testimonies from Iraqi refugees who had fled to Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

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May 2003