KUWAIT CITY, 9 January 2003 — Relatives of people missing since Iraq’s 1990 occupation of Kuwait fought back skepticism yesterday, hoping Baghdad will finally surprise them by delivering on new pledges to disclose the fate of their loved ones.
A first test of these pledges, they said, would come as Iraq and Kuwait resumed talks in Jordan yesterday, their first in four years, on what happened to 605 Kuwaitis and others posted as missing.
"You never know. They (Iraqis) can surprise everybody," especially as they are now cornered, said Abdul Hameed Al-Attar, a member of the National Committee for Missing and POW affairs whose son was taken prisoner by the Iraqis. "We still have hope."
Iraq agreed last month to resume technical talks on the missing sponsored by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), weeks after it re-admitted UN arms inspectors under US and British threats of a war to disarm Baghdad of its alleged weapons of mass destruction.
An ICRC spokesman said Iraqi and Kuwaiti officials had held "constructive" talks and agreed to meet again in Amman on Jan. 22. A Saudi delegation, headed by Saudi Ambassador to Jordan Abdul Rahman ibn Nasser Al-Ohali, attended the five-hour meeting.
Baghdad had boycotted meetings on the POWs since a US-British blitz on Iraq in December 1998, demanding the withdrawal of US, British and French representatives.
But Attar also acknowledged that he was not only tired of what he sees as Iraq’s history of stonewalling but "skeptical" whether it would ever deliver on its new pledges to cooperate on the missing.
Other relatives and committee members shared his view, he added.
"What kind of cooperation? Nobody knows," said Attar, wearing the traditional white robes and headdress of the Gulf as a photograph of his son stared down at him from among hundreds on a wall inside POW committee headquarters outside Kuwait City.
In a bid to encourage the Iraqis to be more forthcoming, Attar said committee members, government officials, and MPs have over the past year started to accept publicly the possibility that some of the missing may have died.
"We’re ready to accept that some of them are dead," but not that the Iraqis still have no information on their fate, said Attar, a POW committee member responsible for public relations and the international media. "We need some substantial evidence that so and so is dead."
Attar said he personally fears that not only may some have died as a result of old age or poor health, but also from torture or execution, and that he himself had "very faint hopes" that his son, accused of plotting bombings against the Iraqis, was still alive.
While making it somewhat easier for Baghdad also to admit some of the missing had died, the Iraqis may fear that such an admission would burden them with even greater claims of financial compensation, Attar said. "Even if they are alive, they also have to pay huge amounts of money."
Khaldoun Abdullatif Al-Sane, whose brother, uncle, and two cousins are among the missing, said his hopes of Iraqi disclosures were higher now than during previous meetings of the committee on the missing.
"It (the chance of resolving the issue) should be higher than the previous ones," said Sane.
Not only have talks resumed with new pledges of cooperation, Sane said, Baghdad has agreed to host the UN envoy in charge of the missing, Yuli Vorontsov, who has not visited Iraq since he was appointed to the job in 2000. "If we close one case, that will increase the hope of solving the other cases," Sane said.
Relatives were now ready to "go all the way" in helping resolve the fate of their loved ones, including providing samples for DNA testing, Sane said.
Khaldoun’s uncle, Faisal Abdullatif Al-Sane, was a longstanding friend of President Saddam Hussein as a former Kuwaiti leader of the Baath Party that rules Iraq, but he was arrested during the 1990-1991 occupation for refusing requests by Saddam’s envoys to help form a puppet government.
"I strongly believe he’s still alive," Khaldoun said. (AFP)
