Human Rights in Iraq: Middle East Watch

In this book, diplomat David A.Korn discusses the situation in Iraq since the Ba'ath Socialist Party came to power in 1968 and looks at the violation of human rights in that country. He describes how the Ba'ath regime subjects Iraqi citizens to forced relocation and deportation, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, "disappearance", and summary political execution. He reveals the methods used by the Iraqi government to impose its rule - its monolithic party organization, persuasive system of informants, and secret police agencies that are empowered to arrest, detain without trial, torture and kill. He also examines the government's treatment of Iraq's Kurdish minority, relating that, after using chemical weapons to crush a Kurdish insurgency in 1987 and 1988, the government is now engaged in a forced relocation programme of such proportions that it threatens Kurdish ethnic identity and cultural survival. The author documents measures taken by the Iraqi government to prevent word of its abysmal human rights record from spreading to the international community. Iraqi citizens who speak out on human rights are severely punished, and even Iraqi emigres fear violence at the hands of Iraq's overseas security operatives. No international human rights organization has been allowed into Iraq to examine reports of abuses. Nevertheless, Middle East Watch has mounted an investigation by interviewing emigres and Western diplomats, journalists and scholars and by gaining access to written documentation, including Iraqi government texts.