September/October 2005 Featured Story Missing:
By E.A. Khammas One of the major problems of Iraqi families after two years of occupation, a problem that is rarely if ever mentioned in the media, is the status of those who are called “security inmates” in American-controlled prisons. These are people who disappeared during the American invasion in 2003 or just after, about whom the American authorities refuse to give any information because they are considered dangerous. All the NGOs who have worked in Iraq are familiar with the reply of US military bases and information centers. Ask about a detainee who was arrested or disappeared in the period March 20 to May 1, 2003, and you will hear, “No information about those missing before May 1.” No compensation, no complaints heard, nothing. On May 1, 2003, President Bush announced the end of mil-itary operations in Iraq. According to Chuck Ryan, the Ameri-can officer who was responsible for the Iraq prisons late in 2003, it is impossible to know anything about security inmates because they are the responsibility of the US Army. The disappeared may be military men, fedayeen (those who sacrifice themselves for their country), or civilians who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—although all Iraq was a wrong place during the invasion. But according to international law (Protocol Additional to Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949), even those who were involved in military operations retain their human rights whether they are arrested, disappeared, wounded, or killed. And so do their families. For two years, these families have been the victims of blackmail, anx-iety, and suspicion. They search relentlessly in the American in-formation centers, human rights (HR) organizations, and Iraqi ministries, looking for any glimpse of hope, yearning to know anything about their loved ones. Talking to these families is diving into a sea of tears. Moth-ers, wives, and children repeat, “We just want to know. They [the Americans] can keep our sons as long as they want, but just tell us if they are alive, and where they are.” You hear this sentence from almost everybody who is looking for one of the disappeared. Rafid, 19, left his grandfather’s house at 8:20 in the morning, after the curfew was lifted. He had to cross the Suspended Bridge that leads to the Republican Palace (the Green Zone now). An hour later his family heard that the palace had been raided. His father ran to the bridge, looking for him. He could not go through because of the heavy bombing, the many burning vehicles. “Let’s pray that Rafid didn’t go onto the bridge,” he told his wife. The next day he took a blanket (in case he found his son’s body) and went on foot. He asked an American woman offi-cer to let him look for his son; she did. He searched all the bodies on the ground, in the cars and buses that were destroyed or burned on the bridge, in the streets and squares on the other side, but there was no trace of Rafid. They looked for days in the hospitals, the cold boxes, the graves, the police offices, the American bases, the Civilian Information Military Centers, and the prisons. They developed files in all the human rights orga-nizations, the HR Ministry, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent. They put an announcement in the newspapers and on TV. No trace of Rafid. Seven months later, in November 2003, a lawyer who was helping told them that he had found Rafid’s name. Rafid had been held in the airport and was transported to Camp Bucca on May 16. When the father went down to that prison, he was told that Rafid’s name was not there. The lawyer told them that he had gotten the information from a Major Coleman in the Iraqi Assistance Center. They went to see Coleman, who looked in the computer lists, found the name, and told them to come back in a week. They did. This time he sent them away saying that he was going to call them back. He did not. They went back again all the same. He told them that Rafid’s name was not there. A released prisoner from Abu Ghraib has told the family that Rafid was with him until February 2004. (Many prisoners told us that they were transported from Bucca to Abu Ghraib and back at the beginning of 2004). Another witness is a woman, a neighbor, who thinks that she saw Rafid in Kut police station. She said that his hands were tied and that he tried to talk to her silently, he even tried to throw his body on her many times, but the American soldier beat him. Another witness, a prison-er, told the family that Rafid is confined in a cellar and that there are strict American guards on that prison. He said that Rafid’s leg is injured. In one of the American Information Centers in Baghdad (Jadriya), his mother was told that maybe Rafid was fedayeen, “I told them that he was not. And even if he were, does this mean that the fedayeen are not going to be released?” They said yes. And also for two other young men. One is called Firas Sami Gatti’e, born in 1982; he sent a message to his mother on a cigarette box. There is also Seif, who sent a message on his shorts. During our interview, Rafid’s mother never stops crying. “I talk to the pavement on the street,” she says, “asking it, ‘Did Rafid walk here?’ Please help me. His father is dying.” Adel Abbass Lieby, 30, was an administrative army officer. On April 3, 2003, he was delivering salaries for a military unit in Yosifiya. He was shot on the way by American troops, and injured. His friend Hasan saw him taken to Yarmook Hospital. Hasan got all Adel’s papers and documents and gave them to his family when he went to tell them about Adel. Then Adel dis-appeared. “I asked in a police station. The American officer told me to come in a few days. I went back after three days; he told me that my son was in the airport prison,” Adel’s mother tells us. “We knew a translator in the airport,” she continues. “We asked him about Adel. After a few days he said that he had seen him, and that he was injured. He was sleeping on a hospital bed, with many medical tubes attached to his body. Another person called and said he had seen Adel, who gave him our number to call. “A young man called Ala’a came to our house and asked for ten million dinars to release Adel. He said that Adel was accused of being of in Saddam’s Mukhabarat [intelligence service]. However, my son-in-law believed that Ala’a was a swindler. In the end, a doctor in the Red Cross asked for three million dinars and gave us a document from the American troops saying that they had found Adel: he has the number 905853. He told us about his exact address in Bucca prison and urged us to demand Adel’s release, because he was innocent.” But no matter how many times they go there, the family gets no positive reply. Once an American soldier threatened to arrest Adel’s mother and put the black sack on her head if she did not go away. He said that his mother had not seen him for six months, either. Again the family sought help in all the ministries and HR organizations. “I want to see my son, that’s all,” his old mother says, crying. “His daughter and wife want to see him.” A Deserted Car Dhia Mahdi Ali Baqir Al-Sindy, born 1945, was a retired brigadier general in the Iraqi Army, working in the veterans’ office. “Are you talking about a mass grave?” we ask Dhia’s wife. “Yes. A bus full of bodies buried on the side road. And there were many temporary graves with signs on or near them like a tree branch or a piece of cloth. But the people who had buried these bodies were very keen on collecting details of the dead, so that they could be easily recognized later. They had not seen Dhia. “Finally Shaykh M. from the Independent Tribal Shaykhs’ Association told me that they had found his name, but he could not tell me where he is. In February 2004, a POW lieu-tenant said that high-ranking officers had been held in Kuwait. They were gathered in Camp Bucca in November 2004, pre-sumably to be released. Then the Falluja attack began and everything was stopped.” A prisoner said that Dhia is in Bucca; that he had been wounded in his abdomen; that he is well now. He described Dhia very precisely and gave the family detailed information about him, things that no one else would know. "We were even given a number, 116224. But when we checked it was not him." "This is what I want to say," his wife, a retired employee in the Planning Ministry, explains. "His body was not found. He is held by the Americans. I demand that the American authorities give us his number. If there is any charge against him, we are ready for any legal procedure. If he is proved to be guilty of any charge, he can be sentenced. But if he is innocent, he should be released immediately." Only Doing his Job Abdul Qadir Mohsin Mehdi, born 1948, was a chief engineer in the Ministry of Oil. On April 7, 2003, he went to work early in the morning; he had been told to distribute fuel on the Baghdad stations. He never returned. Eyewitnesses said that he went to Daura refinery that morning and left around noon for Shalchiya station. There was heavy bombing, so he left the car and hid in the nearest fuel station with two other men, an employee in the station and another man who was caught in the bombing. Ten minutes later the two men left. According to the second of them, Abdul Qadir was shot, then carried away by two American soldiers in an armored vehicle. The family looked everywhere, inquired at all the relevant ministries and organizations. The ministries of Oil, Justice, and Human Rights asked the American authorities about him, but got the same reply: “No information about those missing before May 1.” “If he is dead, we want his body. If he is alive, we want to know, that is all,” his wife says. “Last Christmas a priest was talk-ing on the BBC. He said, ‘We are celebrating, while there are many prisoners in Iraq whose families do not know about them.’ There is much talk about mass graves for the dead. But these prisoners are buried in life; these prisons are mass graves for the living! We had to wait for twenty-three years to find the bones in Saddam’s mass graves. We do not want to wait so long to find the new mass graves. We want the bones now! We are believers, we know that everyone is going to die, but we need to know. He had nothing to do with politics, never joined a par-ty, never had a pistol. He was only doing his job.” An eyewitness saw Abdul Qadir in Camp Bucca, Tent Nine, Camp Nine. There were 650 prisoners in that tent. The witness told Abdul Qadir’s wife that until July 2003 they were both in the airport prison, and that at least until March 2004 her husband had been okay. The family asked at Camp Bucca, but got no positive reply. The family formed a team of relatives to look for Abdul Qadir. They looked everywhere in Baghdad for two weeks af-ter his disappearance. They searched in the hospitals, in the new graves that were dug on the streets’ sides at that time. Abdul Qadir’s son talks about the hills of men’s, women’s, and children’s Abdul Qadir’s wife went to see Nebil Khoori, a representative of the US State Department, in October 2003, after Khoori appeared on TV receiving people’s calls. She presented all the information to Khoori’s office. They promised to call her, along with many other families. They never have. “Even some fedayeen are released,” says Abdul Qadir’s wife. “Why don’t they release him?” No other problem is a priority, she says. Water, electricity, government—all could be borne. But if a family is waiting for news from a father or a son, that is a priority. Sometimes disappearance is worse than death. I speak based on what I saw with these families. You cannot possibly imagine the suffering these families are going through, especially mothers.
Eman A. Khammas is a freelance journalist. She lives in Baghdad.
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