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News, 16-23/04/03 (4) TURBULENT MULLAHS * In Shiite holy city Kerbala, Iraqis form committee to fill vacuum * Shiite Clerics Face a Time Of Opportunity and Risks MUJAHIDEEN AL-KHALQ * U.S. Takes on Mujahedeen Militia in Iraq * Iranian exiles rally for regime change in their homeland NORTHERN IRAQ/SOUTHERN KURDISTAN * Graveyard where Kurds met their anonymous ends * Kurds, Arabs Try to Keep Peace in Iraq THE TRIALS OF GEORGE GALLOWAY * Galloway was in Saddam's pay, say secret Iraqi documents * The documents: contacts, money, oil and the need for anonymity * Loyal Ba'athist 'supplied Saddam with weapons' * How I found the papers in a looted foreign ministry office TURBULENT MULLAHS http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030417190216.a4qxqg7w.html * IN SHIITE HOLY CITY KERBALA, IRAQIS FORM COMMITTEE TO FILL VACUUM Space War, 17th April KARBALA, Iraq (AFP): In the holy city of Karbala, an Iraqi municipal committee has come together to restore order in cooperation with US forces and former exiles, but first it must prove its legitimacy. These troubles in the heart of Shiite country reflect those found on the national level as Iraq struggles to get on its feet amid conflicts of interest, the claims of religious groups and controversy over the US presence. In the committee, 30 elders have joined together to fill the gap in local authority after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. At its head is a judge, Mohammed Ali Nasrallah, whose family paid a heavy price under Saddam Hussein, explained a doctor, Munir Toamh. "It is the sons of Karbala who are represented," he said. Ayatollah Mohammed al-Tabtabai, imprisoned for 20 years in the notorious Abu Gharib jail near Baghdad for "inciting the population against Saddam Hussein" is also on board. But in holy Karbala, the presence of a former exile, Nizar Haidar, member of the Washington-sponsored Iraqi National Congress, makes some grit their teeth, as well as the presence of the US military on the outskirts of the city. "We are an occupied country; we no longer have a government but a foreign army at our doorstep. The new authority must exist outside any foreign mold," said Mohmmad Hussein, a 61-year-old candy and soap merchant. "We reject these Iraqis who took refuge abroad while we suffered here," said teacher Alla Salhe. "It is easy to stay elsewhere and then return to claim power." Ayatollah Tabtabai remained calm. "The American army is useful to ensure that those loyal to the former regime have left. The key thing is that they be kept at a distance," said the 66-year-old with a gray beard, visibly weakened by his time in prison. In his tiny office filled to the rafters with books, Tabtabai, who has been seen as a local wise man since his release from prison in October, stressed his "immense hope" and the "need for democracy" and laid out the priorities of the committee: security and electricity for hospitals. Karbala, a city of 500,000, saw only a few hours of combat, mostly on the periphery, pitting the Americans against about 100 Fedayeen paramilitary fighters loyal to Saddam alongside foreign volunteers, mainly Syrains, who were elminated or disappeared. The destruction was limited to security buildings and the looting to a few service stations and state-run shops. Residents explained that their imams had urged them to avoid the anarchy that has engulfed Baghdad and some other parts of Iraq. The sense of optimism is not shared by everybody in Karbala. Sheikh Kaazem al-Abahadi al-Nasari denounced the committee. "The people of Karbala need to be consulted," he said. "And Karbala, a Shiite holy city, cannot accept a leader who has come from the United States." "The situation has changed from 100 years ago, under the British mandate. Now most Iraqis can read and think about things. They won't tolerate an occupation," he said. Life, however, is returning to normal. Stores are slowly reopening and the markets are filled with everything from spices to hardware to a wide array of fresh vegetables. Tea merchants are out, and the situation is stable enough that the hospital is taking in patients from Baghdad and Basra, Iraq's second city, said Toamh. Schools are expected to reopen Saturday and technicians are repairing the electricity lines. Police officers wearing short-sleeved white shirts direct traffic in the heart of the city. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58399-2003Apr19.html * SHIITE CLERICS FACE A TIME OF OPPORTUNITY AND RISKS by Anthony Shadid Washington Post, 20th April NAJAF, Iraq: By the standards of Iraq and its Shiite Muslim majority, Sayyid Muqtada Sadr is a blue blood. He wears a black turban, signifying his privileged descent from the prophet Muhammad. For a century, his family has given Iraq its most revered clergy, men whose very word, blessed by God, goes unquestioned by their followers. Like a badge of honor, he bears the deep scars of ousted president Saddam Hussein's government, which assassinated his father and two brothers in 1999 in Najaf, one of the most sacred cities in Shiite Islam. Now, by birth and choice, the 30-year-old Sadr, his hands soft from a life of religious study, has inherited his family's mantle of leadership. In the void left by the precipitous fall of Hussein's government after a U.S.-led invasion, Sadr and his followers have overseen checkpoints to end looting and moved, with the force of arms and power of persuasion, to restore authority in the streets. They have kept a distance from U.S. forces, suspicious of their motives. Sadr and his men are cognizant that their authority derives from their independence. With little hesitation, Sadr has reached out to Iraq's powerful tribes for support and rallied his followers from the pulpit of Friday sermons. In words lacking the usual subtlety of religious discourse, Sadr's message is clear: He is both a political and religious leader, carrying the still-resonant banner of the Sadr name. The future of Iraq, he insists, is in the hands of the Shiite majority he hopes to represent. "I accept the burden and the responsibility," he said in a rare interview this week while in hiding here, fearful of conflicts with others in the Shiite community. "We are with God and God is with us." Sadr and other clerics stand at the center of the most decisive moment for Shiite Muslims in Iraq's modern history. It is a revival from both the streets and the seminaries that will most likely shape the destiny of a postwar Iraq. In the streets, the end of Hussein's rule has unleashed a sweeping and boisterous celebration of faith, from Baghdad to Basra, as Shiites embrace traditions repressed for decades. In politics, the prominence of clergy -- the major institution to survive the repression of Hussein's powerful Baath Party -- has signaled that in coming years, power may be reflected through a religious prism. And for Shiite populations abroad -- including in Iran -- the community's newfound freedom may reestablish the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala as centers of religion and politics, recasting an arc of Shiite activism that began with the 1979 Iranian Revolution. But the community is already struggling with the challenges that will deepen as a new government is formulated. How will they interact with a United States that has done little to engage them? Will they relinquish the power they have seized to a more representative government, one that also includes Iraq's Sunni Muslims, Christians and Kurds? And how will they reconcile the deepening rivalries of personality and vision within the community that are already tearing away at the unity that the clergy so desire? Some among Iraq's minority Sunni and Christian communities are gloomy, predicting sectarian strife reminiscent of Lebanon's civil war. They predict the United States will never accept a Shiite government, much less a religious one -- a concern shared by Sadr and many Shiite leaders. Others are more optimistic, hopeful that Iraq's diversity will temper the Shiite community's demands and that its moderation, so far, is a signal of intentions. "Iraq could become an inspiration to the Shiite world," said Wamid Nadhme, a political science professor at Baghdad University. Until then, much of Iraq, anxious and uneasy, is watching the writing on the wall -- graffiti that has exploded across Baghdad and other cities. The sentiments in those slogans chart the emergence, concerns and ambitions of the country's resurgent majority. On the walls of Najaf, Karbala and Baghdad, the slogan was simple. The tyrant Saddam. The tyranny has ended. Within hours of Hussein's fall, hundreds of Shiite Muslims poured into the Kadhimiya shrine in Baghdad in demonstrations that ballooned into thousands. In chants and banners, the symbolism was unmistakable -- a reclamation of a 1,300-year-old faith relentlessly repressed by Hussein since the 1970s. "The oppression is gone, however long it took," the crowd chanted, louder as they approached the shrine. "The tyrant is gone." They held the green flags of Imam Ali, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, who Shiites believe was his rightful heir. The 7th century dispute over leadership, deepened by centuries of disenfranchisement and discord, has formed the lasting division of Islam into its Sunni and Shiite branches. Others carried the black banner of Hussein, Ali's son who -- outnumbered, betrayed and deprived of water -- was martyred in a battle in 680 at Karbala, near the Euphrates River. He was decapitated, his head carried away on a stake. Yazid, the caliph blamed for his death, is known to Shiites as the tyrant. The celebrations are building toward a climax on Tuesday in Karbala, where thousands have already begun marching to mark the traditional 40 days' mourning that follows the anniversary of Hussein's death. In a pilgrimage that until weeks ago brought a year in prison, they have come from Baghdad and Najaf, Nasiriyah and Basra. Some walked barefoot, in a symbol of the suffering Hussein endured. Others walked in groups, waving black, green and red flags that speak to their faith. They have crowded the roads, passing the craters and wreckage of war. As they entered Karbala this week, many pounded their chests, a drumbeat of mourning known as lutm. >From the Shiite leadership down, the message has been that these celebrations are religious, not political. In gestures that have won admiration from skeptical Sunnis in Baghdad, clergy have reached out to their counterparts, seeking to portray unity and deflect attention from the internecine strife that many expected would erupt after the government's fall. "No Shiites, no Sunnis, Islamic unity, Islamic unity," read one slogan on a mosque in Baghdad. But others worry what comes next when Shiites seek to claim their political role as the majority. "There are no problems now, but there will be problems between Shiites and Sunnis in the future," said Abu Nouri, a 66-year-old Shiite resident of Baghdad, as he gazed at the slogan. "There will be competition for power." In some cities in Iraq, that competition has already started. Abdel-Mahdi Salami, a Shiite cleric, has risen to power in Karbala. With thick-framed glasses and a beard peppered in gray, Salami led a group of 25 clergymen who have effectively seized control of the city over the last month. They have deployed hundreds of armed men, keeping the streets remarkably quiet and stanching the looting that devastated Baghdad, Basra and other cities. They restarted the civilian administration, after expelling hundreds they deemed too tainted by the Baath Party. With banks under their control and donations they receive, they have paid salaries to Karbala city workers. Their goal, he said, is simple. "We want to make Karbala an example." It is a trait of Shiite clergy, from Lebanon to Iran, to disavow ambition; a lust for power is considered unseemly. Salami, who likes to call himself Karbalai, or "from Karbala," has adopted that modesty. When asked who led the city's new government, run out of a dilapidated hotel for pilgrims, he looked at the ground. "Many of us," he said softly. "You're being modest," his followers cried. "We work sincerely, and we have no ambition for power," Salami answered. "But what we want is an administration for Karbala and the other provinces of Iraq that represents the people and delivers them what they want." Across southern Iraq, Shiite clerics have filled the vacuum left by Hussein's fall. Although they pay allegiance to the pre-eminent seminary in Najaf, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, they speak with their own voices, some more bold in their independence than others. Like Sadr, they claim the birthright of their own families. The father and grandfather of Salami, for instance, were prominent clergy in their own right. Others tout themselves as favorite sons, carving out territory in neighborhoods of Baghdad, or entire cities. In Kut, along the Tigris River, Sayed Abbas, a 52-year-old Shiite cleric, has seized the city hall, surrounded by legions of armed supporters who have promised to block the entrance of U.S. forces that have yet to recognize his right to rule the city. In poor Shiite swaths of Baghdad, Mohammed Fartousi, a cleric dispatched by the seminary in Najaf, has claimed authority over an unruly collection of Shiite preachers, some of whom have installed groups of armed men at their mosques. In Najaf, the seminary under Sistani and the followers of Sadr have each moved to administer a city whose very name speaks to centuries of Shiite religious authority. Outside their offices, powerful tribes and local leaders have flocked to pledge their allegiance -- and seek their support. "Most of the people listen to the clergy," said Hassan Mushin Hassan, a 53-year-old cement trader in Najaf. "They have great influence over the people, and they will support the clergy to be the government. Why not?" Among Shiites like Hassan, the symbol of religious authority in Iraq is the Hawza, a seminary established more than 1,300 years ago in Najaf and long the pre-eminent center of religious learning. Until recently, clergy fluent in Persian and Arabic -- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini among them -- studied theology, law and logic there with its greatest living thinkers. It then became a backwater, repressed by the secularist Baath Party and overshadowed by the prominence given to the seminary in the Iranian city of Qom after the revolution Khomeini led. But now, just weeks after the government's fall, the Hawza has again begun to flex its muscle, inspiring hope among some that its diversity of views will bring a new vibrancy to Shiite thought long dominated by Iran. Housing 3,000 students, the Hawza sprawls around the shrine of Ali here, a collection of low-slung, brown-brick buildings. During the war, Sistani, a cleric of Iranian origin regarded as leader of the Hawza, urged Shiites to neither support nor oppose the U.S. invasion. In the chaos that ensued, he delivered religious judgments forbidding looting. Now, with U.S. forces on the outskirts of Najaf and Karbala, the seminary has begun saying that it does not view the American presence as welcome. "The presence of foreigners in the country is rejected," said his son, Mohammed Ridda Sistani, who acts as his spokesman. It is a refrain echoed by cleric after cleric. Many have boycotted any dealings with U.S. officials. Some of the clerics are still bitter over what they view as the failure of U.S. forces to support a Shiite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War and blame the U.S. troops for the recent looting and lawlessness. Many remain suspicious of U.S. intentions and, in more private moments, suspect it will hand-pick a government that will deprive them of power. But there is sharp disagreement about the tactics to organize their opposition, a dispute at the heart of the growing differences among rival wings of Shiite leadership. In a debate that has raged for decades, the clerics in Najaf say the seminary is deeply split between a traditional wing and an activist wing. They are divided over whether clerics have a role solely in the spiritual sphere or in secular affairs. The controversy generates such great sensitivity that senior leaders refuse to even discuss it. By all accounts, Sistani subscribes to the traditional wing that shuns politics, viewing it as beneath his religious calling. "My father does not request authority and he's not concerned with politics in any form," said Mohammed Ridda, sitting in an office near the shrine of Ali with two simple wooden tables and thin mattresses laid across the floor. Others, like Sadr, see the clergy as a force for change, their calling intertwined with politics. As Sadr put it, "One hand with the Hawza, one hand with the people." He is sharp in his criticism of Sistani's reserve. "From Saddam until now, he has not intervened in anything," said Sadr, who requested and was refused a meeting with Sistani. The split between Sadr and Sistani is only one among a slew of rivalries and allegiances that many expect to grow amid the competition for power and influence. By tradition, all Shiites look to a senior cleric -- marja al-taqlid -- endowed with the ability to arrive at original decisions on theology and law. Sistani is among those. But he is not the only one. Sadr, dismissed by some for his age and lack of religious learning, looks to Kadhim Husseini Haeri, an exiled religious leader considered a successor to his father. Some pledge loyalty to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, although some also question his scholarly credentials. Others, like factions of the shadowy Dawa Party, look to Lebanon's Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, once a spiritual guide of Hezbollah. Those rivalries were blamed in part for the killing of two clerics at the shrine in Najaf on April 10. Since then, Sistani and Sadr have gone into hiding, fearful of more violence, and some have suggested Sadr was behind a move to exile Sistani. Sadr, sitting under a clock bearing a portrait of his assassinated father, makes clear his seclusion is temporary. He insisted he would follow the orders of his marja. "But if he gave me a choice to have a political role, I would accept it," he said, surrounded by a coterie of young advisers. "I'm ready if I receive permission." In recent weeks, his leaflets, speaking in the name of his father and competing with Sistani's own, have gone up in Karbala. Next to them are statements from Haeri, urging Shiites to follow the teaching of Sadr's family. His followers have taken to calling the Baghdad slum of Saddam City after his father. Saddam Hospital in Najaf, where his father's body was taken, has been renamed Sadr Hospital. Across a portrait of Saddam in the capital reads the slogan, "The blood of Sadr will not go in vain." In the interview, his son delivered his view of ties with the United States. "I advise the Americans to ally with the Shiites, not to oppose them," he said. He recalled what Shiites view as centuries of oppression and suffering. Added to that, he said, was the national character of Iraq -- of rebellion and dissent. "You can read history," he said The Shiites "will reject any government brought by America, any leader, any state. They have rebellion in their hearts." MUJAHIDEEN AL-KHALQ http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2003/apr/19/041909956.html * U.S. TAKES ON MUJAHEDEEN MILITIA IN IRAQ by Borzou Daragahi Las Vegas Sun, 19th April NEAR CAMP ASHRAF, Iraq (AP) - Charred military trucks, exploded tanks and crushed pieces of artillery line the highway where the American bombs struck. A twisted chassis juts from the asphalt. A huge crater in the roadway illustrates the U.S. military's determination to stop the vehicles belonging to the Mujahedeen Khalq - the People's Mujahedeen - an Iraq-based militia fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran next door. Though they share the United States' opposition to Iran's leadership, the U.S. State Department and the European Union classify the Mujahedeen as a terrorist group. "We had nothing to do with the American war against Saddam Hussein," says Ramezan Payegar, a 42-year-old fighter for the Iranian opposition group. "Our whole purpose for staying here is for war against the clerical regime" of Iran. Several days of bombing killed at least seven fighters, destroyed 15 to 20 tanks, numerous vehicles, equipment and a barracks in the center of Camp Ashraf, Mujahedeen officials said. "There's work that's ongoing right now to try to secure some sort of agreement that would be a cease-fire and capitulation" of the Mujahedeen, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks of the U.S. Central Command said Thursday. The fall of the Baghdad government, which hosted the Mujahedeen for 17 years, also has raised questions about the future of the heavily armed, well-organized Iranian opposition militia, now that the U.S.-led coalition has taken control of Iraq. The war forced the group to evacuate its camps in southern Iraq and near Baghdad. Those sites have reportedly been looted in the chaos following the collapse of a central Iraqi authority. Group leaders also allege Iranian military and intelligence operatives have made repeated incursions into Iraqi territory since the start of the war to attack its outposts, killing up to 28 members. "This is not the best time in the world for us," said Massoud Farschi, a Mujahedeen guerrilla. After participating in the 1979 ouster of the former shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the group had a falling out with the clerical government and launched a campaign of assassinations and bombings. Kurdish officials in northern Iraq have accused the Mujahedeen of being an arm of the Baath Party's military and intelligence apparatus, which took part in the 1991 suppression of the Kurdish uprising that followed the U.S.-led Gulf War. Hussein Madani, a Mujahedeen spokesman, denied the allegations, calling them propaganda produced by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. Throughout the Mujahedeen's 17-year stay in Iraq, Madani said, the group has had contacts only with Iraq's Foreign Ministry. He said its bases were considered "foreign soil" where Iraqi officials were not permitted to enter, and the group had never endorsed any of the Iraqi government's policies, Through a Paris-based organization, which acts as its political wing in the west, the group has tried to bolster its image, convincing 150 U.S. congressman recently to sign a petition calling on Washington to remove the group from the list of terrorist organizations. But years of lobbying U.S. officials, placing advertisements in English-language publications and holding demonstrations in American cities did not save the Iranian opposition group from American air attack. The group's military activities have calmed in recent years. Madani said his militia has not conducted any recent offensive operations against the Islamic Republic. Iran has officially announced an amnesty for the rank-and-file members of the group, which numbers up to 15,000. "We announce explicitly that the Iranian government is ready to accept these individuals into the country and rid them from all the afflictions they are having now," government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh told reporters in Tehran last week. But Madani said he hoped his group could remain a force in post-Saddam Iraq and carry on its fight against Tehran. They would not retaliate against America, and would even be open to "military cooperation" with the United States against Tehran, he said. "If there is a wise policy that would consider the realities of this part of the world, they would recognize the Mujahedeen as a democratic force that belongs in the region," Madani said. "We were not born in Iraq. And we are not going to end in Iraq. Our roots lie deep in Iranian society and history." http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/110/nation/Iranian_exiles_rally_for_regime _change_in_their_homeland+.shtml * IRANIAN EXILES RALLY FOR REGIME CHANGE IN THEIR HOMELAND by Bryan Bender Boston Globe, 20th April WASHINGTON -- Chanting ''down with the mullahs,'' thousands of Iranian exiles demonstrated yesterday against the Islamic government in Tehran, calling attention to the regime's reported attacks against opposition fighters along the Iraq-Iran border and attempts by ruling clerics and security services to meddle in Iraq's internal affairs and foment fundamentalist religious opposition to the US military presence. Several thousand supporters of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran gathered on the National Mall, as other Iranian exiles took to the streets in Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Madrid, Toronto, Vancouver, British Columbia, and other cities. Waving Iranian flags, they protested what they say have been Iranian Revolutionary Guard attacks on the organization's military wing, the National Liberation Army of Iran -- also known as the People's Mujahideen Organization, which operates in Iraq. Twenty-eight resistance fighters have been killed in the attacks. Opposition leaders also said the Iranian government, which President Bush called an ''axis of evil'' for its support of terrorism and development of weapons of mass destruction, is trying to undermine Iraq's nascent attempts at representative government. ''We are here to show solidarity and try to inform world public opinion that the biggest challenge and threat to US forces, Iraqi Kurds, and the Iranian resistance is one thing, and that is the Iranian regime,'' said Alireza Jafarzadeh, US representative for the council, which is part of a 560-member Iranian Parliament in exile. The United States, however, considers the group's military wing to be a terrorist organization that drew support from Saddam Hussein's secular regime, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s against Iran. US forces in Iraq have targeted some of the resistance forces in recent days, but US central Command officials said last week they expected a cease-fire or surrender by them soon. For their part, the group's leaders say the resistance fighters -- estimated to number in the tens of thousands -- are independent and receive financial support from exiles worldwide. They seek a new democratic Iranian government, they say, that respects all faiths and guarantees women's rights. The group contends that as many as 3,000 Iranian government forces, backed by armored vehicles and rocket-propelled grenades, crossed into Iraq last week, and that religious leaders are trying to foment opposition to US reconstruction efforts within the Shia Muslim majority of Iraq and export their brand of militant Islam. They blame the Iranian government for involvement in the killing in Najaf by a mob on April 10 of Shia cleric Abdul Majid al Khoei, a prominent Hussein opponent who had earlier urged cooperation with US forces. Members of the group consider themselves a liberal democratic alternative to the religious rulers of Iran. Ali Parsa is a history professor at California State University at Fullerton, who traveled to Washington yesterday for the rally. ''As an Iranian, along with thousands of Iranians around the world, I am here to show our support and concern that Iran, using the vacuum in Iraq, has infiltrated and occupied Iraq with its forces to destroy the resistance. The world should not ignore the biggest Islamic fundamentalist threat.'' NORTHERN IRAQ/SOUTHERN KURDISTAN http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/18/1050172758428.html * GRAVEYARD WHERE KURDS MET THEIR ANONYMOUS ENDS by Ed O'Loughlin Sydney Morning Herald, 19th April A sprawling unmarked burial ground on the southern edge of Kirkuk contains the bodies of hundreds of Kurds and dissidents murdered by Saddam Hussein's regime in the late 1980s, locals say. The graveyard, at the edge of an Iraqi military base, contains several hundred neatly placed unmarked burial mounds. A local Arab farmer whose land adjoins the site, Khalil Jassim, said that the graves were dug in 1988 and 1989 and filled with coffins carried to the scene in military trucks. He said that several months after the gravedigging ceased, he and other Arab villagers dug up several shallow graves to see what they contained. They found the decomposed remains of people in military and civilian clothes, many of them buried two or three to a grave. A number of Kurdish people were visiting the site on Friday in the hope of finding the graves of missing or executed relatives. Kamar Khan said that two of his sons and three of his brothers had been buried at the site after they were executed in a nearby security base in 1988. Mr Khan said that as head of his family he had surrendered the five to Cassim Aga, a Kurdish militia leader loyal to Saddam, in the belief that they would be able to avoid Iraqi military service by serving with Cassim Aga's militia. Instead, the militia leader had betrayed the five to the Baath party, saying they were peshmerga Kurdish rebels, in order to curry favour with the Saddam regime. Mr Khan said relatives working in the nearby Iraqi Public Army base told him the five were held there along with other Kurdish captives for about two weeks before they were executed and buried at the site. He said Iraqi security police told him that if he attempted to visit the graves he would be shot as well. Staring out over row upon row of unmarked graves Mr Khan broke down in tears. Raising his eyes to the sky, he shouted: "My God, where is my vengeance?" Another Kurd present, Abbas Faraj, said a friend in the Iraqi security services had told him that his peshmerga cousin had been buried there after he was killed in an attack on an Iraqi position in 1988. He said that he, too, had heard that many of those buried at the site had been executed in the nearby camp. One grave opened on Friday had two coffins inside. One contained a skeleton in civilian clothes with long hair, suggesting it was that of a woman. The Patriotic Union for Kurdistan (PUK) party, which seized control of Kirkuk last week, also asserts that the site is for victims of Saddam's anti-Kurd campaign in 1988, which Kurds refer to as Anfal and which includes the infamous chemical gas attack on Halabja. PUK authorities were led to the site by local people. It is about 12 kilometres on the road towards Saddam's former power base of Tikrit, in the heart of an industrial zone, and right behind a military camp accessed by a bumpy road. The road to the camp is littered with burnt tanks and destroyed military vehicles, a reminder of the punishing US air strikes unleashed on the Iraqi regime since the start of the war on March 20. Kurds, who live mostly in northern Iraq, estimate that about 180,000 people were killed and 4500 villages destroyed during Saddam's Kurdish purge. Kirkuk has particularly suffered from the regime's forced Arabisation drive. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2003/apr/21/042102529.html * KURDS, ARABS TRY TO KEEP PEACE IN IRAQ by Scheherezade Faramarzi Las Vegas Sun, 21st April RUMMANA, Iraq (AP): With the iron law-and-order of Saddam Hussein gone, the Kurds in the northern city of Irbil and Arab tribes nearby reached an agreement: If Arab or Kurd trespassed in the other's village, he would be killed. The harsh accord came the same day Saddam's government collapsed in Baghdad. That night, it was broken and blood was spilled. Kurdish fighters entered this Arab village to take some Iraqi military cars, spurring a shootout that killed two villagers and three Kurds. Deep differences in these northern towns are a picture in miniature of Iraq and the rivalries between its ethnic, religious and political groups. The power struggle in the north also could aggravate long-standing animosity between the Kurds and Turkey. After that first night's violence here, a Kurdish gesture of conciliation was welcomed by some Arabs. Hope seemed to flicker to life. Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which governs the western sector of the Kurdish autonomous region, condemned the Kurdish militiamen who went to Rummana and said they would be prosecuted. "Everyone was relieved after hearing Barzani," said Mazhar Khalifa Zaydan, a farmer in Haji Ali, a village near Rummana some 50 miles southwest of Irbil. But he was clear about the villagers' rights. "We have the right to kill any Kurd who comes here to attack our village or people and women with our personal weapons," Zaydan said. "We will kill him on the spot." In Rummana, the large al-Jbour tribe, which was feared even by Saddam, says it is peaceful - but only if left alone. Since the shootout, Sheik Abdel-Rahman Tabour, the 55-year-old head of the Jbour tribe, and leaders of nearby villages have forbidden male villagers from leaving the wider area to reduce tensions between Arabs and Kurds. Fearful of Kurdish acts of vengeance, Iraqi Arabs, especially tribesmen, say their lives are in danger. "We are afraid of chaos," said Tabour. Arab-Kurd animosities are nothing new. In 1975, following the collapse of a Kurdish revolt led by Mulla Mustafa Barzani - the father of Massoud Barzani - the Iraqi government embarked on an extensive "Arabization" program of the northern Kurdish provinces, expelling tens of thousands of Kurds, Turkmen and Assyrian Christians and replacing them with Arab families from southern Iraq. Tabour insisted there was no outstanding conflict between his tribe and the Kurds. The agreement to kill one another in case of trespassing is to stem looting and chaos, he said. "Since the fall of the regime, thank God, we don't have any enemies and seek no revenge," he said. "There is no blood that we demand from others nor do they demand of us." Saddam was said to have feared the Jbour tribe because it was seen as a rival to his own Tikriti clan. Tabour said al-Jbour tribesmen were not allowed to serve in Saddam's trusted Republican Guards. Tabour's younger brother, Khairi, an officer in the Iraqi army, spent two years in prison after Saddam's convoy, which he was guarding, came under attack in 1993. Eight of the officers who were executed for the assassination attempt were from the al-Jbour tribe. In Tabour's village of Rummana, barefoot children play in garbage-littered dirt streets while a pale green river of sewage floats by. His tribe of Sunni Muslims, 6 million strong, stretches from Najaf and Karbala in the south, to Baghdad and on to Mosul and Irbil in the north. "We support any government that comes into place," said Mohammed Saleh, 30, from Haji Ali village. "But if any of us gets killed, we will fight." The Kurds, too, fear for their safety. Mahmoud Rashid Hussein, now 32, was 11 when his family was forced from their home in another village. But the family cannot go back because it is one of 4,000 to 5,000 villages that Saddam destroyed. Ethnic conflict is also a real danger in the two largest cities in the north, Mosul and Kirkuk. Mosul has a largely Arab population; Kirkuk is traditionally Kurdish, but Saddam moved thousands of Kurds out and replaced them with Arab families. New York-based Human Rights Watch, which calls Kirkuk a "tinderbox," reported dozens of people have been killed in Kirkuk since Baghdad's collapse. It urged U.S. forces to halt the violence, and Kurdish leaders to stop expulsions. Americans run the Kirkuk area with cooperation from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Barzani's group, the two main factions governing the autonomous region. Retired Gen. Bruce Moore, the top U.S. official in northern Iraq, said Sunday that reversing the Arabization policy must be done legally - not by force. "The United States government feels very strongly" that people should get "back what is legally theirs," Moore said. Homes forcibly taken from Kurds and others must be returned to their owners, he said. "It's a difficult issue. It's not our responsibility to do this but that of the Iraqi people." THE TRIALS OF GEORGE GALLOWAY http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$BW0QT4WEONXOJQFIQMFCFF 4AVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2003/04/22/ngall22.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/04/22/ixport altop.html * GALLOWAY WAS IN SADDAM'S PAY, SAY SECRET IRAQI DOCUMENTS by David Blair in Baghdad Daily Telegraph, 22nd April George Galloway, the Labour backbencher, received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, taking a slice of oil earnings worth at least £375,000 a year, according to Iraqi intelligence documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad. A confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his spy chief said that Mr Galloway asked an agent of the Mukhabarat secret service for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil for food programme. He also said that Mr Galloway was profiting from food contracts and sought "exceptional" business deals. Mr Galloway has always denied receiving any financial assistance from Baghdad. Asked to explain the document, he said yesterday: "Maybe it is the product of the same forgers who forged so many other things in this whole Iraq picture. Maybe The Daily Telegraph forged it. Who knows?" When the letter from the head of the Iraqi intelligence service was read to him, he said: "The truth is I have never met, to the best of my knowledge, any member of Iraqi intelligence. I have never in my life seen a barrel of oil, let alone owned, bought or sold one." In the papers, which were found in the looted foreign ministry, Iraqi intelligence continually stresses the need for secrecy about Mr Galloway's alleged business links with the regime. One memo says that payments to him must be made under "commercial cover". For more than a decade, Mr Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, has been the leading critic of Anglo-American policy towards Iraq, campaigning against sanctions and the war that toppled Saddam. He led the Mariam Appeal, named after an Iraqi child he flew to Britain for leukaemia treatment. The campaign was the supposed beneficiary of his fund-raising. But the papers say that, behind the scenes, Mr Galloway was conducting a relationship with Iraqi intelligence. Among documents found in the foreign ministry was a memorandum from the chief of the Mukhabarat to Saddam's office on Jan 3, 2000, marked "Confidential and Personal". It purported to outline talks between Mr Galloway and an Iraqi spy. During the meeting on Boxing Day 1999, Mr Galloway detailed his campaign plans for the year ahead. The spy chief wrote that Mr Galloway told the Mukhabarat agent: "He [Galloway] needs continuous financial support from Iraq. He obtained through Mr Tariq Aziz [deputy prime minister] three million barrels of oil every six months, according to the oil for food programme. His share would be only between 10 and 15 cents per barrel." Iraq's oil sales, administered by the United Nations, were intended to pay for only essential humanitarian supplies. If the memo was accurate, Mr Galloway's share would have amounted to about £375,000 per year. The documents say that Mr Galloway entered into partnership with a named Iraqi oil broker to sell the oil on the international market. The memorandum continues: "He [Galloway] also obtained a limited number of food contracts with the ministry of trade. The percentage of its profits does not go above one per cent." The Iraqi spy chief, whose illegible signature appears at the bottom of the memorandum, says that Mr Galloway asked for more money. "He suggested to us the following: first, increase his share of oil; second, grant him exceptional commercial and contractual facilities." The spy chief, who is not named, recommends acceptance of the proposals. Mr Galloway's intermediary in Iraq was Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian. In a letter found in one foreign ministry file, Mr Galloway wrote: "This is to certify that Mr Fawaz A Zureikat is my representative in Baghdad on all matters concerning my work with the Mariam Appeal or the Emergency Committee in Iraq." The intelligence chief's memorandum describes a meeting with Mr Zureikat in which he said that Mr Galloway's campaigning on behalf of Iraq was putting "his future as a British MP in a circle surrounded by many question marks and doubts". Mr Zureikat is then quoted as saying: "His projects and future plans for the benefit of the country need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work and, because of the sensitivity of getting money directly from Iraq, it is necessary to grant him oil contracts and special and exceptional commercial opportunities to provide him with an income under commercial cover, without being connected to him directly." Mr Zureikat is said to have emphasised that the "name of Mr Galloway or his wife should not be mentioned". http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/22/ndocs22.xml * THE DOCUMENTS: CONTACTS, MONEY, OIL AND THE NEED FOR ANONYMITY Daily Telegraph, 22nd April Letter from Iraqi intelligence chief, 3 January 2000 The following documents were found in the Iraqi foreign ministry by David Blair of The Daily Telegraph. The first, from the head of the intelligence service to Saddam Hussein, contains what it says are details of George Galloway MP's financial dealings with the regime and his contacts with Iraqi agents. The second, written a month later by the then foreign minister Tariq Aziz, circulates Mr Galloway's "work programme" for 2000. The "programme" was not among the documents found. In the Name of Allah the Compassionate and Merciful Republic of Iraq President's Office Iraqi Intelligence Service Confidential and Personal Letter no. 140/4/5, 3/1/2000 To: The President's Office - Secretariat Subject: Mariam Campaign 1. We have been informed by our Jordanian friend Mr Fawaz Abdullah Zureikat (full information about him attached appendix no. 1), who is an envoy of Mr George Galloway because he participated with him in all the Mariam Campaign's activities in Jordan and Iraq, the following: (a) The mentioned campaign has achieved its goals on different levels, Arabic, international and local, but it is clear that by conducting this campaign and everything involved in it, he puts his future as a British member of parliament in a circle surrounded by many question marks and doubts. As much as he gained many supporters and friends, he made many enemies at the same time. (b) His projects and future plans for the benefit of the country need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work. And because of the sensitivity of getting money directly from Iraq, it is necessary to grant him oil contracts and special and exception commercial opportunities to provide him with a financial income under commercial cover without being connected to him directly. To implement this Mr Galloway gave him an authorisation (attached) in which he pointed out that his only representative on all matters related to the Mariam Campaign and any other matters related to him is Mr Fawaz Abdullah Zureikat, and the two partners have agreed that financial and commercial matters should be done by the last [Zureikat] and his company in co-operation with Mr Galloway's wife, Dr Amina Abu Zaid, with emphasis that the name of Mr Galloway or his wife should not be mentioned later. 2. On 26/12/1999 the friend Fawaz arranged a meeting between one of our officers and Mr Galloway in which he expressed his willingness to ensure confidentiality in his financial and commercial relations with the country and reassure his personal security. The most important things Mr Galloway explained were: (a) He stressed that Mr Fawaz Zureikat is his only representative in all matters concerning the Mariam Campaign and to take care of his future projects for the benefit of Iraq and the commercial contracts with Iraqi companies for the benefit of these projects. But he did not refer to the commercial side of the authorisation he granted to Mr Fawaz for reasons concerning his personal security and political future and not to give an opportunity to enemies of Iraq to obstruct the future projects he intended to carry out. (b) He is planning to arrange visits for Iraqi sports and arts delegations to Britain and to start broadcasting programmes for the benefit of Iraq and to locate Iraq On Line for the benefit of Iraq on the internet and mobilise British personalities to support the Iraqi position. That needs great financial support because the financial support given by [a named Arab sheikh] is limited and volatile because it depends on his personal temper and the economic and political changes. Therefore he needs continuous financial support from Iraq. He obtained through Mr Tariq Aziz three million barrels of oil every six months, according to the oil-for-food programme. His share would be only between 10 and 15 cents per barrel. He also obtained a limited number of food contracts with the Ministry of Trade. The percentage of its profits does not go above one per cent. He suggested to us the following: First, increase his share of oil. Second, grant him exceptional commercial and contractual facilities, according to the conditions and suitable qualities for the concerned Iraqi sides, with the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the Ministry of Industry and the Electricity Commission. (c) Mr Galloway entered into partnership with [a named Iraqi oil trader] (available information in appendix 2) to sign for his specific oil contracts in accordance with his representative Fawaz, benefiting from the great experience of the first in oil trading and his passion for Iraq and financial contribution to campaigns that were organised in Britain for the benefit of the country, in addition to his recommendation by Mr Mudhafar al-Amin, the head of the Iraqi Interests Section in London. 3. We showed him we are ready to give help and support to him to finish all his future projects for the benefit of the country and we will work with our resources to achieve this. But we should not be isolated from Mr Tariq Aziz supervising the project in its different aspects. We are going to make arrangements with him to unite the positions and co-operate to make the work succeed. 4. In accordance with what we have said, we suggest the following: (a) Agreement on his suggestion explained in article 2 b. (b) Arranging with Tariq Aziz about implementing these suggestions and taking care of the projects and Mr Galloway's other activities. Please tell me what actions should be taken. With regards, (signature illegible) Chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service Letter from Tariq Aziz Confidential and personal In the Name of Allah the Compassionate and Merciful Ministry of Foreign Affairs Minister's Office Letter no. 1/9/197 5 February 2000 Confidential and urgent To: Mr Health Minister, Mr Information and Culture Minister, Mr Transport and Communications Minister, Mr the Head of the Friendship, Peace and Solidarity Organisation Subject: Work programme We send you attached a translation of the work programme for the year 2000 which was submitted by Member of Parliament George Galloway and cleared by the President's office in its letter C/16/1/3562 on 31 January 2000. Please read it and adopt suitable procedures to implement its phases under discussion according to your specialisations. With high regards, Tariq Aziz Deputy Prime Minister Acting Foreign Minister February 2000 Copies should be sent to: Mr Chief of Intelligence Service with a copy of the programme to be read please. With high regards. Mr Deputy Prime Minister's office with a copy of the programme. The First Political Unit to take care of please. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/22/ninter22.xml * LOYAL BA'ATHIST 'SUPPLIED SADDAM WITH WEAPONS' by David Blair in Baghdad Daily Telegraph, 22nd April George Galloway's Jordanian intermediary has a family history of loyalty to Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, according to his Iraqi intelligence profile. Fawaz Abdullah Zureikat, 53, would clearly be an ideal choice to conduct any business dealings with the Iraqi regime. His "Mukhabarat" profile, attached to the intelligence chief's memorandum to Saddam's office on Mr Galloway, refers to him warmly as a "sympathiser with Iraq". It recorded that he came from a "Ba'athist" family - his brother was once jailed for his political beliefs in Syria - and commended him for having supplied the Iraqi government with "developed civil and military equipment". But the profile gives no details of any weapons sales and does not state whether they occurred before or after the international arms embargo was imposed on Iraq after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Mr Zureikat was born in Jordan but educated at Basra University in southern Iraq, where he gained a degree in engineering. Afterwards, he worked in the Iraqi oil ministry and spent the 1970s with oil exploration companies in different regions of Iraq. When he served as Mr Galloway's representative in 2000, Mr Zureikat was running a semi conductors company with its head office in Amman, the Jordanian capital. The company is specifically mentioned in the intelligence chief's memorandum as a front for Mr Galloway's own business dealings in Iraq. Throughout the main report, Mr Zureikat is referred to as "our friend" and as an "envoy" of Mr Galloway. He is also said to have attended the alleged Boxing Day meeting at which the MP is reported to have spelled out his demands. Last month Mr Zureikat was arrested in Jordan during a sweep of pro-Saddam activists. It is not known whether he is still being held by the authorities. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/22/ngall122.xml * HOW I FOUND THE PAPERS IN A LOOTED FOREIGN MINISTRY OFFICE by David Blair in Baghdad Daily Telegraph, 22nd April Standing on a heap of grubby box files piled on the floor in the office of Iraq's foreign minister, I dropped to my knees and started rummaging through a secret archive of correspondence. Documents stamped "Confidential and Personal" emerged from overflowing pale blue folders, all carrying the Iraqi eagle, the symbol of the state. Letters signed by famous names in Iraqi politics such as Tariq Aziz, once deputy prime minister, and Naji Sabri, the former foreign minister, were suddenly cascading on to the floor. As looters scurried through the corridors of the foreign ministry, hammering on one of the few remaining light fittings, I set to work with my Iraqi translator. We reached down into the pile of folders and dragged them out, one by one. Some carried ambiguous Arabic labels translating as "political records". Others had long ago lost their labels. Some were blackened and torn. All were covered with a thick coat of ash and soot. Within minutes, both of us had sweaty black sleeves. Working only by the light of one small window, we took to sinking shafts in piles of folders, extracting one heavy, brown object at a time. The air was thick with choking clouds of dust and the looters were hammering and shouting in the rooms and corridors around us. Then my translator happened upon an orange box file with the Arabic label "Britain". Its interior was lined with tigerskin wallpaper. Four blue folders, each stamped with the Iraqi eagle, lay inside. Opening the first, I happened upon George Galloway's letter nominating Fawaz Zureikat as his representative in Baghdad. Another folder contained a letter from Sir Edward Heath thanking the Iraqi representative in London for attending a luncheon in Salisbury. Two more box files were labelled "Britain". Others were labelled "United States", "Security Council" and "France". Each appeared to contain all the appropriate documents that had crossed the desk of an Iraqi foreign minister. They were piled inside a tiny room ajoining the foreign minister's office on the first floor. Nearby was a large room that must once have been the ministry's main archive. The metal frames of row upon row of folders still survive. Everything else has been burnt to a cinder and the paper contents of the folders have been reduced to white ash. Why the contents of the room with the box files survived is a mystery. Its walls are blackened by fire, yet most of the folders are intact. The looters who ransacked the ministry clearly had no interest in them. They were perhaps torn down from their shelves because the pillagers were searching for hidden safes on the walls behind. Like every government building in Baghdad, the foreign ministry has been pillaged to destruction. It also suffered an American cruise missile strike in the second week of the war. Almost every room has been stripped bare and bands of looters still roam its corridors. Documents are strewn across the floor of every storey. Here, blowing in the wind are the crucial documents of a regime that was once among the most secretive in the world. _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk