November 1991, Page 58

Human Rights

By Carol A. Macha

Middle East Watch Alleges Kuwaiti Abuses

In the continuing outcry over Kuwaiti human rights violations, Middle East Watch (MEW), a New York-based independent human rights monitoring organization, released its September 1991 report documenting ongoing and repeated violations of human rights by the Kuwaiti government and people.

The 64-page report, entitled "A Victory Turned Sour: Human Rights in Kuwait Since Liberation, " documents the systematic abuse committed by agents of the Kuwaiti government against non-Kuwaiti residents, mostly Palestinians, Iraqi refugees, and the stateless "bedoon" ("withouts," meaning without passports from any country). The report especially notes the alleged participation of Kuwaiti government officials in the acts of arrest, torture, detentions, deportations and killings.

In the period immediately following the liberation of Kuwait, human rights abuses were exceptionally violent. Kuwaiti citizens, many of whom were said to have returned to Kuwait from safe havens in Europe, Saudi Arabia and the US, answered the violence inflicted upon their country by Iraqis with their own revengeful violence on the non-citizens of Kuwait, some of whom had been active in the resistance to the Iraqi occupation. Hundreds of Palestinians and Iraqi refugees were subject to illegal detention, neglect and abuse, lack of due process, and vigilante-style execution.

The report goes on to condemn the Kuwaiti government itself, claiming it is complicit in the violence. Although collaborators with Iraqi occupiers have been vigorously pursued by the Kuwaiti government, no Kuwaiti government official has been punished for the illegal abuses against non-citizens.

While the Kuwaiti government has issued statements claiming the rampant acts of violence and abuse were caused by individuals, MEW asserts that they were actually committed by official security forces and returning exiles working in conjunction with the army. In his first address to his nation after returning from exile, Kuwait's ruler, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed At-Sabah, warned his countrymen that " . . . we cannot be sure that [Saddam Hussain] is not relying on a fifth column of his cohorts among us to shake our security and stability. I do not believe that Kuwait has been cleansed of them yet."

Numerous other statements by government officials, coupled with a lack of government action to stop repeated abuses, amounts to tacit governmental approval of the human rights violations, MEW charged.

The report also criticizes the reluctance of the US government to stop the ongoing abuses. Although the US, as leader of the anti-Iraq coalition, used Iraqi human rights violations as a rallying cry to win support for the alliance, it has been slow to condemn Kuwait for the same crimes.

While the MEW report portrays a dismal human rights situation in Kuwait, the Kuwaiti government has subsequently taken some corrective steps. The International Committee of the Red Cross now has access to all remaining detainees—numbering approximately 1,500. The government has ceased secret deportations to Iraq and the kidnapping and abuses of non-Kuwaiti residents.

US Ambassador to Kuwait Edward Gnehm is credited by other human rights monitoring groups as having been very active in protesting the Kuwaiti government abuses. His role and critical reports like that of Middle East Watch may have persuaded the government of Kuwait to curb human rights abuses by its citizens in an attempt to maintain Western support. Such support is critical to its own campaign to pressure the government of Iraq to release 2,200 Kuwaitis believed by the government of Kuwait to be imprisoned in Iraq.

Moroccan Political Prisoner Freed

On September 13, 1991, Morocco ended one of the longest prison terms served by a political prisoner on the African continent, exceeded, perhaps, only by the term served by Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

After 17 years in Morocco's Kenitra Prison, Abraham Serfaty was released and sent into exile in France. As leader of the Moroccan Progressive Front, a left-wing political group, Mr. Serfaty was jailed both for his political activity and for his refusal to recognize Morocco's claim of sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

There is no guarantee that Mr. Serfaty will be free to express his political views while in France. Another Moroccan exile, Abdelmoumen Diouri, was expelled from France to Gabon after he criticized the Moroccan government.

Serfaty's release came prior to King Hassan II's September visit to Washington, DC to meet with US President George Bush. Recently, the Moroccan government has exhibited increased sensitivity to international criticism of its poor human rights record.

Many of the political prisoners sentenced during the same period as Abraham Serfaty still are being held. As in his case, their sentences resulted from trials not meeting international standards, according to the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights. Detainees held since aborted coup attempts in 1971 and 1972 have been held in complete isolation since 1973. According to the Committee on Human Rights, they are subject to inhumane conditions, insufficient nutrition, and persistent torture. Of the 60 men serving terms related to the coup attempts, 29 have died in prison.

Carol A. Macha, business manager of the American Educational Trust, is human rights editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.