Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post
Newsgroups: americast.wpost
From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com
Organization: American Cybercasting
Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com
Subject: Iraqi Exiles Allege New Brutality in South; Shiite Rebels Say Repression Is
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 07:35:20 EST
Message-ID: <25.1992Nov21.073520@AmeriCast.com>

Iraqi Exiles Allege New Brutality in South; Shiite Rebels Say
Repression Is Heavier Despite U.S.-Led Ban on Flights by
Baghdad<By Caryle Murphy=Washington Post Foreign Service=

CAIRO, Nov. 20 - The main opposition group in southern Iraq says
the government in Baghdad has stepped up repression of Shiite
Muslim civilians in the south, and that the U.S.-led ban on Iraqi
flights in the region is not preventing it.

The Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a
Shiite group with its roots in the south and an exile headquar-
ters in neighboring Iran, has said that - since the Aug. 27 ban
on Iraqi flights below the 32nd parallel - government forces have
retaliated by detaining Shiite youths, executing prisoners and
manipulating food rations.  Iraq says it is fighting Shiite re-
bels in the region but denies repressing civilians. However,
Baghdad also bars international observers from the region and
permits journalists only on tightly managed official trips, mak-
ing it impossible to confirm or refute the opposition claims.

The United Nations monitor for human rights in Iraq, former Dutch
foreign minister Max van der Stoel, said he had "heard a lot of
alarming stories" from the Shiite opposition about conditions in
southern Iraq, but had no independent confirmation of them.

Recently, Ali Adhadh, a Geneva-based official of the Tehran-based
Shiite opposition council, said he had traveled from Iran into
Iraq for three days, gathering reports of repression and observ-
ing that a government dam project has lowered water levels in the
marshes that harbor Shiite rebels. The drainage project is ap-
parently aimed at giving the Iraqi military better access to the
rebels and civilians who support them.

Adhadh said he interviewed two men in the south who told him of
having been held at Radwaniyah Prison in Baghdad until their fam-
ilies bribed officials for their release two months ago. Adhadh
said the men told of hearing from prisoners and guards that
16,000 Shiites had been arrested as of last February and that
there had been regular executions of detainees. Adhadh said the
men described having been forced to clean up a prison execution
ground in August that was littered with 50 to 60 bodies.

Adhadh's opposition group has said executions are continuing.

Western governments for years faced the task of evaluating such
unconfirmable accounts from Iraqi Kurds, who said President Sad-
dam Hussein's government was systematically depopulating their
region in the north, killing large numbers of civilians, in some
case by means of chemical weapons. One Western diplomat now wres-
tling with the claims about southern Iraq noted that the West was
skeptical in the absence of confirmation for the Kurdish reports
- but when Kurdistan was opened to outside access following the
1991 Persian Gulf War, physical and documentary evidence backed
up the claims of brutality.

Adhadh, interviewed by telephone, said Shiites in southern Iraq
complained that the allied "no-fly" zone there has made their
lives more difficult. "They say, 'We don't want this no-fly zone.
It's bad for us. It gave Saddam another reason to kill us. Our
situation is worse than before. Before, the airplanes came and
bombarded us, but now there are mass arrests. . . . There is mass
killing. What did the no-fly zone do for us? . .

Echoing other Iraqi exiled dissidents, Adhadh criticized the U.N.
Security Council for not pressing Iraq to accept human rights
monitors, while insisting that it admit teams to destroy Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction. "The international community sends
teams to look for missiles," Adhadh said, but "they couldn't ob-
lige Saddam Hussein to (accept) a group freely to see the situa-
tion in the south?"

President Bush declared the "no-fly" zone in August with much
fanfare at a time when his administration was seeking to send a
strong signal to Saddam to cease obstructing U.N. weapons inves-
tigators. But Bush justified the air ban, which Britain and
France also endorsed, by saying that it was to protect Iraqi Shi-
ites from government repression.

A spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which is enforcing the
air ban, said that monitoring the U.N.  prohibition on Iraqi
repression of civilians was part of its task and said he was
"confident that (U.S. pilots) are flying low enough to carry out
the mission." By stopping Iraqi aerial bombing, he said, "our
presence does give some protection for the people."<02:18 11-
21C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)