Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 5, 1991 TAG: 9103050392
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DENIS D. GRAY ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: KUWAIT CITY LENGTH: Medium
"I want to cry for these people - blood, not tears," said Hisham Al-Nisef, one of many medical workers who have been left with the legacy of Iraq's reign of terror.
More than 300 corpses, many mutilated, were dumped by Iraq's executioners at the casualty entrance to Al-Sabah Hospital during the seven months of occupation. A final spasm of killing came in the days before Baghdad's army scurried from the city.
With hands gloved in cellophane, the doctor pulled out the body of a handsome young man, mustache neatly trimmed and hair carefully parted. His broad chest had been scarred deep red by a hot iron and whipped with wires.
Another victim, whose identity was unknown, Hisham said, had lain in the morgue since Nov. 1, the Iraqis having forbidden his burial. The man's hands were bound in front of him. Cigarette burns had welted one arm. Toenails were ripped off. A bullet had neatly punctured the right side of his neck.
How and why such atrocities were committed are the daily talk of Kuwait's survivors, still stunned by the ferocity of their Arab neighbors.
Abdul Rahman Al-Awadi, minister of state for Cabinet affairs, estimated Saturday that more than 33,000 Kuwaitis were killed or missing over the seven months. These included some 8,000 herded away by the retreating Iraqis as the allied armies surged toward the capital.
Officials interviewed at the city's three largest hospitals said more than 800 slain Kuwaitis had been brought in during the occupation period, indicating a death toll smaller than the minister's estimate.
But at Mubarak Hospital, Dr. Abdul Behbehani said thousands of others were left in the desert or dumped in the gulf. Some communal graves have been identified and there are rumors of mass burial sites.
Suspected Kuwaiti resistance fighters appear to have been the prime targets of Iraq's bureaucracy of death.
Jasim Al-Matawa, a 24-year-old father of four, was one such suspect taken away for interrogation. According to a close friend, the Iraqis called his family, saying he would be returned in two days.
Soldiers came in the early morning, fired into the air to gather neighbors, and then shot Jasim in front of his family in the cruel pattern of execution cited by many. "Early visitors," Kuwaitis dubbed the death squads who dumped bodies on the front lawns of homes or carried out killings before families.
Dr. Saad Al-Hashil, a former dean at Kuwait University, told of another victim who is becoming a heroine of the underground.
Asrar Al-Ghabandi, described as a tough and brave woman in her 20s, served as a courier to bring funds and information from Kuwait's government-in-exile in Saudi Arabia. Iraqi intelligence is believed to have traced her telephone calls and trailed her movements, then axed her to death.
In interviews with citizens since the city was liberated last Tuesday, people have spoken of torture by crucifixion, electric shocks, severe beatings and the macabre draining of blood from captives.
Dr. Sabah Al-Hadeedi, a prominent surgeon at the Amiri Hospital, to which 38 of the executed were brought, said torturers would sometimes fire bullets into their victims' kneecaps or shoulders to inflict excruciating pain but not death.
Rapes and mutilations of women were frequently recounted.
Children were not spared. Hisham said he knew of several who were killed for scribbling "Kuwait is Free" on city walls. The youngest was 9 years old.
Random killings also were reported. However, most of the atrocities seem to have been well-orchestrated, with torture and execution centers spread throughout the city in schools, residential buildings, high-rises and the Khadma Stadium, a large sports complex said to have had "specialty rooms" for various forms of torture.
The man widely accused of being the architect of the terror is Ali Hassan Majeed, governor of Kuwait for most of the occupation and, like many in Baghdad's highest echelons of power, a relative of President Saddam Hussein.
The governor's key hatchet man, many Kuwaitis say, was Sawabi Ibrahim Al-Takriti, Saddam Hussein's brother and chief of Iraqi intelligence in Kuwait.
Hospital records and interviews clearly show that rooting out opposition among Kuwaiti nationals, who comprised just 30 percent of the country's 1.7 million people, was the highest priority. Egyptians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Yemenis, Asians and other foreigners by most accounts were treated far better by the occupiers, who regarded some as allies.
by CNB