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Report From Kuwait

Report From Kuwait image
Parent Issue
Month
August
Year
1991
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
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Agenda Publications
OCR Text

"We just want them [the Palestinians] gone. We will bring n other nationalities. We don't trust them. They have done to us the same thing they have done in Lebanon and Jordan. They have to go back. They should just take their things and go. Just go." -Fadeelah El Sabah, a woman attorney and member of the Kuwaiti royal family, expressing her family's official policy toward Kuwait's Palestinian community to human rights delegation.

I visited Kuwait between July 9-16, as part of an eight-lawyer human rights delegation sponsored by the Palestine Aid Society, the National Lawyers Guild and the National Conference of Black Lawyers. Our task was to observe and document martial law trials and human rights violations against non-Kuwaitis, particularly Palestinians.

The trials of dozens of alleged collaborators, which I observed, violated international law, particularly the standards for a fair trial codified in Article 75 of the First Additional Protocol of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 1 949. People were convicted on the basis of hearsay, without witnesses or exhibits to prove their guilL Confessions extracted by torture were routinely used, for example, to rebut defendants' claims that they were coerced into cooperating with the Iraqis.

For some of those charged, there was no prior notice of which conduct was illegal. People faced vague charges of "harming the independence of the country and the unity or territorial sovereignty ." Many were charged as collaborators for acts such as repairing Iraqi vehicles, cutting Iraqi soldiers' hair, or maintaining Iraqi newspaper printing facilities. One woman, a Jordanian principal of a girl's high school , was sentenced to die (later commuted to life in prison) for holding classes during the occupation despite a general boycott.

The courts did not consider the various loyalties of different nationalities. Non-Kuwaitis cannot own property, vote, or become Kuwaiti citizens. Despite this, the courts imposed the same standards of loyalty that apply to Kuwaiti citizens.

There was no real right to consult with counsel. Lawyers were appointed at the time people were brought before the court. There were trials in absentia. And there were no appeals.

There were six or seven acquittals in the martial law trials. However, because they were Palestinian, innocent defendants were returned to prison. It is Kuwaiti government policy to imprison these people until they and their families are deponed. Those found guilty, including those now serving life sentences, will all eventually be deported, rather than serve their sentences in Kuwaiti prisons at Kuwaiti expense. The ultímate irony is that there is no real difference being found guilty and not guilty. All Palestinians who are tried are deported, regardless of the verdict.

Before the August 2, 1990 occupation of Kuwait by Iraq, there were over 400,000 Palestinians in Kuwait. During the Iraqi occupation, almost 250,000 Palestinians fled the country. The Kuwaiti government has forbidden them to return to Kuwait even to collect property. Since the Iraqis, were expelled in February, the remaining Palestinian population has been reduced to just over 100,000.

All Palestinian government employees (that is, most Palestinian workers) have been fired. Palestinian children have been barred from public schools. The government is giving returning Kuwaitis $15,000 per person. Palestinians get nothing but job termination notices and requests to leave the country.

Most remaining Palestinians are waiting until August, when they hope to get severance pay that will allow them to leave. It is expected that by August, Kuwait's Palestinian community will be reduced to under 50,000.

Many Palestinians have nowhere to go. Some 27,000 Palestinians from Gaza in Kuwait have Egyptian travel documents. Egypt will not allow them to enter their country. The Israelis won't let them go to Gaza. Jordan is an economic disaster area because of the war, and consequently Palestinians with Jordanian passports may be unable to find work in Jordan.

Palestinian families have been divided when spouses have passports from different countries. We met a family in which the husband has a Lebanese passport, and the wife a Jordanian passport. The children can only go to the country of the father' s passport, where the mother can 't go.

The Kuwaiti government takes no responsibility for its policy of mass deportation. They told us that it is up to the Palestinians to figure out what to do. We were told that the U.S. or the United Nations should take care of them. Many deportees are just driven to the border and dumped in Iraq where they are taken in by International Red Cross refugee camps. Kuwait's Ambassador to Washington recently offered to airlift 200,000 Palestinians to the U.S.

When we discussed this inhuman deportation policy with the Chief Political Officer at the U.S . Embassy , he told us that "Kuwait has the sovereign right to adjust the balance of ethnic groups." He admitted that "there are significant human rights abuses, and they are well documented, but the role of the United States government is merely that of reminding the Kuwaiti government of its responsibility." Our pleas for a more active U.S. role to get Kuwait to comply with international human rights standards were rejected. Efforts by other human rights groups, such as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Physicians for Human Rights, have met with similar rebuffs by our government. We went away regretting that our government's military strength is coupled with unfortunate moral weakness.

by Kurt Berggren

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