See men shreaded

2 Pages·2021·0.07 MB·English

See men shredded, then say
you don't back war

BY ANN CLWYD

“There was a machine designed for shredding
plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again
made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first
and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first
and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people
die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic
bags and we were told they would be used as fish
food . . . on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President
Saddam Hussein’s youngest son] personally
supervise these murders.”

This is one of the many witness statements that were
taken by researchers from Indict — the organisation I
chair — to provide evidence for legal cases against
specific Iraqi individuals for war crimes, crimes
against humanity and genocide. This account was
taken in the past two weeks.

Another witness told us about practices of the
security services towards women: “Women were
suspended by their hair as their families watched;
men were forced to watch as their wives were
raped . . . women were suspended by their legs while
they were menstruating until their periods were over,
a procedure designed to cause humiliation.”

The accounts Indict has heard over the past six
years are disgusting and horrifying. Our task is not
merely passively to record what we are told but to
challenge it as well, so that the evidence we produce
is of the highest quality. All witnesses swear that
their statements are true and sign them.

For these humanitarian reasons alone, it is essential
to liberate the people of Iraq from the regime of
Saddam. The 17 UN resolutions passed since 1991
on Iraq include Resolution 688, which calls for an
end to repression of Iraqi civilians. It has been
ignored. Torture, execution and ethnic-cleansing are
everyday life in Saddam’s Iraq.

Were it not for the no-fly zones in the south and north
of Iraq — which some people still claim are illegal —
the Kurds and the Shia would no doubt still be
attacked by Iraqi helicopter gunships.

For more than 20 years, senior Iraqi officials have
committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against
humanity. This list includes far more than the gassing
of 5,000 in Halabja and other villages in 1988. It
includes serial war crimes during the Iran-Iraq war;
the genocidal Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds
in 1987-88; the invasion of Kuwait and the killing of
more than 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians; the violent

suppression, which I witnessed, of the 1991 Kurdish
uprising that led to 30,000 or more civilian deaths;
the draining of the Southern Marshes during the
1990s, which ethnically cleansed thousands of
Shias; and the summary executions of thousands of
political opponents.

Many Iraqis wonder why the world applauded the
military intervention that eventually rescued the
Cambodians from Pol Pot and the Ugandans from Idi
Amin when these took place without UN help. They
ask why the world has ignored the crimes against
them?

All these crimes have been recorded in detail by the
UN, the US, Kuwaiti, British, Iranian and other
Governments and groups such as Human Rights
Watch, Amnesty and Indict. Yet the Security Council
has failed to set up a war crimes tribunal on Iraq
because of opposition from France, China and
Russia. As a result, no Iraqi official has ever been
indicted for some of the worst crimes of the 20th
century. I have said incessantly that I would have
preferred such a tribunal to war. But the time for
offering Saddam incentives and more time is over.

I do not have a monopoly on wisdom or morality. But
I know one thing. This evil, fascist regime must come
to an end. With or without the help of the Security
Council, and with or without the backing of the
Labour Party in the House of Commons tonight