arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Het is zelfs zover gekomen dat, als je m.b.t. Irak een aantal mythen durft in vraag stellen en/of te ontkrachten, je onmiddellijk wordt gecatalogeerd als Saddam-adept. Dat is me zelfs in deze kolommen overkomen.
Mensen worden blind voor de feiten. Wat dat betreft zijn er duidelijke parallen tussen de anti-AEL campagne en de anti-Irak/Saddam campagne.

Laten we eens een recente mythe onder de loupe nemen. Het Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken heeft een "Human-Rights"-rapport gepubliceerd, één en ander uiteraard omdat Bush & Blair niet langer kunnen wachten om hun oorlog te voeren. Elke dag uitstel kost hen tonnen geld.

We mogen niet vergeten dat in Irak de vrouwen duizendmaal meer rechten hebben dan in de omringende landen samen. Dat is ook waarom de Iraakse vrouwen tot de grootste fans van Saddam kunnen worden gerekend. Hij heeft hen hun waardigheid teruggegeven.

Ik kopieer de artikels en reacties van CASI, 's werelds meest gerenomeerde en best gedocumenteerde anti-sanctiessite. Lees even mee in verwondering:

The FCO today published a report entitled: "SADDAM HUSSEIN: crimes and human rights abuses. A report on the human cost of Saddam's policies by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office"

Strangely, it does not seem to be available on the FCO website, but it can be obtained from the US State Department's website:
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/hrdossier.pdf (197K)

There is one item I would like to ask about:

"Under Saddam Hussein's regime women lack even the basic right to life. A 1990 decree allows male relatives to kill a female relative in the name of honour without any punishment." (p. 8)

Does anyone have further information about this?

Antwoord a):

As Amnesty have suggested, the British are being highly selective in this dossier which is just an attempt to demonise SH to help justify the genocide of sanctions and the future war, occupation and installation of a puppet regime in Iraq.

I'm not sure that one wants to follow this distraction but we all know how the US/UK wishes to give the impression that all is fine in Iraqi Kurdistan away from the influence of SH (just like they did when SH was fighting our proxy war with Iran). eg
1) Turkey invading Iraq to kill Kurds
2) sanctions also damaging the Kurds
3) preventing either of the main Kurdish parties coming to an autonomy agreement with the Iraqi government
4) The British first legalised 'honour killings' in Iraq in 1918
5) The 1998 law was repealed two years later
6) The number of honour killings in the Kurdish controlled area increased significantly since the no fly zones were started
7) Compared to many other countries in the region, women were better off in Iraq

Of course, the way things are stacked, to try and say any of the above you get branded as an apologist for SH!

Answer b)van Hassan Zeini, Irakees, wonend in Europa:
Dear List,

I am afraid the original article is completely misleading.

The lady was seemingly explaining her situation and that of women in the Kurdish areas of North Iraq, as the article later reveals. What is happening there has nothing to do with the central government nor with Saddam Husseein...

Iraq does not have honor killings nor has there ever been any stoning of adulterers. This is practiced in Saudi Arabia (the US strong ally) and Iran (the base for Baqir al-Hakim's SCIRI).. There was a time when honor killings were
allowed, but that law was repealed shortly afterwards.
Women in Iraq are among the most emancipated in the area and the highest educated. A woman receives the same salary as her male colleague for doing the same job, a thing which is still a luxury in Europe and the US...
Iraq was among the first countries to grant a woman a full year maternity leave fully paid. Iraq had a female minister in 1959, when women in Switzerland were not even allowed to vote... Women entered the military already in the 1970s, long before some western countries...

It should be mentioned here that Islam is very clear and strict about adultery and does not tolerate killings except in self defense. Thus to prove adultery, four honest men should see the actual act and testify to that. Otherwise, there is no case. Even if there is such eye-witness testimony, the punishment is flogging for both the man and women.
Stoning is NOT part of Islam nor has it ever been. It used to be an old Jewish punishment before Islam which Islam rejected, but which was brought back into use by the second Caliph, Omar, and continued to be used, by both Shi'i and Sunni Muslims. But very few Muslim states have incorporated it in their laws, because it is not explicitly or implicitly stated in the Holy Qura'n.

When the central administration in Iraq withdrew from the Kurdish north after the establishment of the flight exclusion zones, the area fell into lawlessness because of the traditional tribal conflicts and fighting over revenues and control. The North of Iraq is ruled by two big tribes (Talebani and Barzani), the communist pary, and some extremsit religious groups (Shi'i and Sunni). This
encouraged the return to the old tribal systems long abolished, one of which seemingly is honor killings...

I would like those members of this list (especially Kurds and supporters of al-Hakim and the bombing of Iraq) and who so often preach democracy and human rights in Iraq to tell us their views on the issue of the stoning of women, and
how they intend to treat it in a "new liberated Iraq"...

Antwoord c):

Mark is right this is the logic of : man beats wife so nuke them all to save her. I smell Hill and Knowlton and the Rendon Group behind yet another magic dossier - could be wrong, but it has that incubator baby feeling again

Dat was het.
Groeten.
Dirk.