300,000 believed to be buried in Iraqi mass graves
Reuters news agency | 10.11.2003 16:24
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi and U.S. rights investigators said Saturday they suspected Iraq had up to 260 mass graves containing the bodies of at least 300,000 people murdered by the former regime of Saddam Hussein. They told a conference that the task of identifying bodies and preparing evidence for tribunals could take years and millions of dollars, but the long process would be worth it to heal the wounds of three decades of brutal Baath Party rule.
"We have reports of 260 mass graves and we have confirmed approximately 40 of them," said Sandra Hodgkinson, director of the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA) mass grave action plan'. "We believe, based on what Iraqis have reported to us, that there are 300,000 dead and that's the lower end of the estimates.
"In Bosnia it's now eight or nine years since similar atrocities and only 8,000 bodies out of 30,000 have been uncovered. Here in Iraq it's 300,000," said Hodgkinson, a human rights lawyer brought in by the CPA after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam in April. More sites could still be found. The three-day conference aims to prepare Iraqi rights workers and officials of the Iraqi human rights ministry for the process of disinterring graves and convincing families that they should wait rather than rush to dig up bodies themselves.
Hodgkinson said only 11 of the 260 sites had been disturbed since the graves were first discovered in May, when distraught families frantically dug around for the remains of loved ones. Iraqi officials, who will gradually take over control of the investigations, also called for patience.
"Iraq doesn't have the capability at present to do the work of investigation. The main task for the moment is how to protect the sites which have been opened," Human Rights Minister Abdel-Basset Turki told the meeting. The U.S. military has footed the bill for satellite imaging to identify sites, but Turki said more money would be needed.
Iraq's Governing Council asked an international donor conference in Madrid last month for $100 million to be spent on equipment and manpower over the next five years, but Turki said little has been forthcoming yet. A team of forensic experts will arrive in Iraq in January to begin work on up to 20 sites around the country where evidence will be collected for future trials of regime figures. Work to identify bodies has begun at the other 200-odd sites.
Investigators have identified six major crime periods: 1983 attacks on Kurds, a 1988 campaign against Kurds, chemical weapons attacks on Kurds 1986-88, the 1991 crushing of a southern Shi'ite revolt, 1991 crushing of Kurdish insurrection, and crimes against all sectors of the population during the entire period of Baath rule.
Rafid al-Husseiny, a doctor who has led disinterring work at the Mahaweel site near Hilla south of Baghdad, is leading efforts to train Iraqis in the gravedigging process. "Since May we have investigated a mass grave there of 3,115 people. We identified 2,115 bodies, which were reburied by their families," he said, stressing reconciliation among Iraqis.
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pub&dt=031108&cat=news&st=newsiraqgravesdc
"In Bosnia it's now eight or nine years since similar atrocities and only 8,000 bodies out of 30,000 have been uncovered. Here in Iraq it's 300,000," said Hodgkinson, a human rights lawyer brought in by the CPA after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam in April. More sites could still be found. The three-day conference aims to prepare Iraqi rights workers and officials of the Iraqi human rights ministry for the process of disinterring graves and convincing families that they should wait rather than rush to dig up bodies themselves.
Hodgkinson said only 11 of the 260 sites had been disturbed since the graves were first discovered in May, when distraught families frantically dug around for the remains of loved ones. Iraqi officials, who will gradually take over control of the investigations, also called for patience.
"Iraq doesn't have the capability at present to do the work of investigation. The main task for the moment is how to protect the sites which have been opened," Human Rights Minister Abdel-Basset Turki told the meeting. The U.S. military has footed the bill for satellite imaging to identify sites, but Turki said more money would be needed.
Iraq's Governing Council asked an international donor conference in Madrid last month for $100 million to be spent on equipment and manpower over the next five years, but Turki said little has been forthcoming yet. A team of forensic experts will arrive in Iraq in January to begin work on up to 20 sites around the country where evidence will be collected for future trials of regime figures. Work to identify bodies has begun at the other 200-odd sites.
Investigators have identified six major crime periods: 1983 attacks on Kurds, a 1988 campaign against Kurds, chemical weapons attacks on Kurds 1986-88, the 1991 crushing of a southern Shi'ite revolt, 1991 crushing of Kurdish insurrection, and crimes against all sectors of the population during the entire period of Baath rule.
Rafid al-Husseiny, a doctor who has led disinterring work at the Mahaweel site near Hilla south of Baghdad, is leading efforts to train Iraqis in the gravedigging process. "Since May we have investigated a mass grave there of 3,115 people. We identified 2,115 bodies, which were reburied by their families," he said, stressing reconciliation among Iraqis.
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pub&dt=031108&cat=news&st=newsiraqgravesdc
Reuters news agency
Comments
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duh!
11.11.2003 11:38
kurious
Disinter them all!
11.11.2003 14:55
I couldn't agree more! On the same premise I would also seek the disinterment of the millions killed in Indochina during the sixties and seventies; those murdered in El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua, etc. during the dirty war; the tens of thousands who lost their lives in Gulf Wars one and two; the Afghans, Albanians and Serbs who spilt their blood to pave the way for US-owned oil and natural gas pipelines to drive through their 'liberated' countries; the hundreds of thousands who died needlessly at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and last but not least the tens of people dying daily at the hands of military and death squad in three favoured client states: Israel, Colombia and Turkey.
We could then make a stinking great pile of the whole sad lot and add it to those killed by Saddam's regime in Iraq - many of whom doubtless met their ends while the US were the patrons of the Ba'athists, its media were denying the horrors perpetrated by their new pet and Rummy was getting cuddly with Saddam - count them, and make a fitting though unpleasant memorial to the folly of those who oppose too little, and the vileness of those who kill in whosoever's name, at whatsoever time. Perhaps on the lawn on the White House, for want of a better location.
Nothing like a cadaver to put you off your hamburger, is there?
Bendeus
Don't blame the Messenger
12.11.2003 03:06
In seems that Bendeus thinks this is the case...
Why should a straight-foward report by Reuters claiming that "Iraq had up to 260 mass graves containing the bodies of at least 300,000 people murdered by the former regime of Saddam Hussein" provoke such a hostile attack on the US?
Why is no other nation, culture, or religion ever held responsible for their own actions - but somehow always excused as the victims of Western/American influence and intimidation?
Even if the US was a 'patron of the Ba'athists' - they didn't instruct or encourage Saddam to slaughter and bury hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Nor did they continue to supply him with military weapons and material aid in the way that France and Germany did.
It's funny that while Bendeus sarcastically raises the call to 'Disinter them all', and then proceeds to list other examples of intentional mass murder - he only cites examples that involve - however tangentially - America.
Of course there's no mention of the Iraq-Iran war that killed at least one million people. No mention of Rwanda where rougly the same number were slaughtered. But
somehow Bendeus manages to list'the Serbs' as victims of American aggression who "spilt their blood to pave the way for US-owned oil and natural gas pipelines to drive through their 'liberated' countries".
The Serbs?
The only reason the US attacked the Serbs (while the European Union and the UN stood by condeming the Serbs but doing nothing), was to stop the Serbian led ethnic cleansing of the local Muslim population. How can you compare this action to Saddam dropping chemical weapons on the Iraqi Kurds?
And could you please provide me with more info about the US 'oil pipeline' running through Serbian territory - because that's certainly news to me.
Ultimately Bendeus suffers from the fatal flaw of so many of the self-loathing liberal left; the naive belief that if you're White, Western, and Wealthy, your motives and your morals are suspect, and you're basically responsible for causing and solving all of the world's problems. Everybody else is inherently innocent, and if they do anything wrong, it's only because you forced them to.
If only it were that easy....
buzzbee
buzzbee
History
12.11.2003 14:37
I posited my post on my belief that America has consistently been the most naked aggressor or fomentor of aggression in the latter part of the last century and the entirity of this one. I will not rescind that belief, and furthermore am of the opinion that the discovery of mass graves will be used not as a point of reflection and mourning on what has become of Iraq but instead as a handy adjunct to the last justification that the Bush Blair axis has for the slaughter in the Gulf.
I would point you to a number of articles that back up my beliefs regarding Serbia, and also, just for the record, to counter your assumption that the Iraq/Iran war was somehow separate from American doninated geopolitics.
Try:
For oil pipelines:
Finally, for Iran/Iraq have a look at:
Anything further to add, Buzzbee?
Bendeus