WORKSHOP ON MISSING PERSONS

Coalition Provisional Authority

Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, July 13, 2003

 

Opening Remarks of Sandra L. Hodgkinson, Director of Human Rights, Coalition Provisional Authority

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Good Morning, and Welcome to this First Iraqi Workshop on Missing Persons.  It is an honor to be seated before such a distinguished group of human rights advocates, experts, members of the community and citizens of this beautiful and resilient country of Iraq.  I am Sandy Hodgkinson, the Director of Human Rights in the CPA’s Office of Human Rights and Transitional Justice.

 

There is no more important job we could tackle today in Iraq than to address the fate of the missing.  For more than 20 years, Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship arrested, detained and “disappeared” hundreds of thousands of persons – of all ethnicities, religion and gender.  To “disappear” someone is to take them away, without providing information on their whereabouts to family members.  Saddam Hussein silenced all political opposition in Iraq - and destroyed the most fundamental freedom - the right to life - by making Iraqi citizens disappear.  He annihilated large sections of the Iraqi population, by detention, torture, execution, demolition of homes, and forced movement of villages.  He quashed freedom of religion by torturing and killing members of religious groups that were not his own.  And he “disappeard” thousands of intellects, students, and professionals because they questioned the brutal policies of his regime, or dared to exercise their freedoms of thought and belief.  So many of the stories that you have provided us begin in the following way:  “There was a knock at the door, and someone from the regime took away my brother, husband, wife, or child.  I haven’t heard from them since”  Widows, parents, sons and daughters all over Iraq have waited – sometimes for years, even decades, to find out what happened after their loved one was taken away.

Today, we are left with hundreds of thousands of missing Iraqis, and families who are eager to finally learn what really happened to their loved ones.  Some families are realizing that their hopes of finding a missing relative in the prisons will not be fulfilled – the prisons were emptied by Saddam, and many of the prisoners executed.

 

There are other ways that Iraqi citizens may be missing.  During Saddam’s regime, there were several international armed conflicts which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers.  We hope that improved diplomatic efforts, now that Saddam’s brutal dictatorship has been removed, can bring to close to many of the cases of war dead.  During these wars, many Iraqis also escaped to refugee camps, and some were able to escape overseas.  Those who did successfully defect from Saddam’s regime were often afraid to contact family members out of fear of retaliation against family and friends.  We have initiated efforts to find out which Iraqis may have disappeared during these conflicts, but registered with international agencies as refugees once they crossed the border.  We hope that these efforts, and a new Iraq which is free of fear, allows us to close some of these cases and reunite family members.

 

During this workshop, our goal is to address ways that together, we will be able to seek answers about where the missing have gone, and to begin to address how we will assist families, communities and Iraq as a whole, to recover from their loss and move forward – so they can build a government which respects and protects human rights and dignity, and the most precious human right of all – the right to life.    Our first panel will address tracing methods that have been used by the ICRC in Iraq and in other countries -  to trace missing persons through reports and information provided by family members of the missing.  We will then discuss how information from documents and mass graves can help to find answers to what happened to these missing individuals.  The second panel will address the Kurdish experience over the past 12 years in addressing their missing from the 1980s, including the Anfal Campaign.  It will also address methods of identification (such as regular investigative techniques and the use of DNA) in past conflicts.  A UN speaker will address family and community needs, which could include counseling and desires for compensation.  And finally we will have a discussion of what accountability  may be necessary to assist Iraqis in moving forward. 

 

After the break, we will separate into four groups – and you can choose which breakout session you choose to attend - where you can discuss and debate these ideas and how you believe they may apply in Iraq.  You will have the opportunity to then select a speaker from each group which will briefly present your group’s conclusions, and recommendations for next steps.  Our goal today is not to answer this extremely important issue – but to launch a public debate which you will be able to lead in your respective organizations.  We hope to reconvene today’s group, or other representatives from your organizations, to continue this discussion in the weeks and months to come.

 

One issue that I would like to raise at this point is the idea of creating a national Iraqi Bureau of Missing Persons.  We will have a break-out group to discuss this idea.  The ICRC and CPA have been working together to initiate steps towards providing your future government - through an Iraqi Bureau of Missing Persons, if it chooses to establish one -  with information about missing persons.  This centralized bureau, if created, could have a listing of all missing Iraqis that can be identified through the ICRC’s tracing methods and procedures, and can be in addition to the many lists that you have also compiled over the years.  This bureau, if created, could also have access to documents and information regarding what happened to these missing persons, which the CPA, and the future Iraqi government, in conjunction with many Iraqi organizations who are currently collecting this information, will attempt to provide from records, mass grave sites and witness testimonies.  It is our goal to assist you in your efforts to match the lists of missing up with details about what happened, and we will support your efforts in creating a nationalized bureau which can carry this work on in the future.    

 

Again, I look forward to this first session as the beginning of our joint efforts on addressing the issue of Missing Persons in Iraq.  Together, we hope to find solutions to the question of missing persons. With that, I would like to open our first panel.