Gorilla’s Guides

BAGHDAD, 29 July 2008 (IRIN) - Iraqi government institutions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international bodies must focus more on devising programmes for juveniles to prevent them from being co-opted by militants for criminal acts, a government spokesman said on 28 July.

“We have evidence that the phenomenon of criminal gangs and terrorist groups recruiting juveniles - either by threatening them or luring them with money - has increased recently,” said Hamza Kamil, spokesman of the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry.

“We urge the government, NGOs and international organisations working in Iraq to run comprehensive programmes for these children to distance them from any militant influence,” Kamil told IRIN.

Kamil said his ministry had conducted a series of interviews recently with over 1,000 juveniles in the custody of Iraqi government and US forces, and found that family neglect frequently lay behind their involvement with militant groups.

“Most of these juveniles [currently held in prisons] were being used [by the militants] either for transporting bombs to areas the militants can’t enter due to security cordons, or to daub walls with anti-government graffiti,” he said.

As of July there were 338 juveniles in prisons run by US forces, and 669 in Iraqi-run prisons, most of whom had been convicted of “terrorist” or criminal acts, he said.

Child detention rates rising

BAGHDAD, Jul 23 (IPS) - Welcomed at first after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, most NGOs have run into scepticism and mistrust. Few remain to help.

Hundreds of local and foreign NGOs became active in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, after decades of restrictions under the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

“The former Iraqi regime did not trust NGOs, and always thought them to be spies,” Muath A’raji of the National Societal Organisation, a human rights NGO based in Baghdad told IPS. “Iraqis used to think the regime was wrong, but now they have changed their minds because of the many false foreign NGOs that look more like contracting companies than humanitarian and human rights organisations.”

Iraqis expected NGOs to ease the agonies caused by both the U.S. occupation and corruption of the Iraqi government. But now most appear to believe that NGOs work for money and personal interests, if not for intelligence and missionary purposes.

Talk of NGOs now often inspires fear rather than hope. “I was terrified when I heard of French organisations smuggling children from Chad to sell in Europe,” says Um Yassen, whose six-year-old son was injured by a U.S. bomb in Fallujah. “I have applied for many NGOs to take him for treatment abroad. We do not know who to trust any more.”

But there is still the occasional NGO genuinely assisting Iraqis in need.

FALLUJAH, Jul 16 (IPS) - Security has collapsed again in Fallujah, despite U.S. military claims.

Local militias supported by U.S. forces claim to have “cleansed” the city, 70 km to the west of Baghdad, of all insurgency. But the sudden resignation of the city’s chief of police, Colonel Fayssal al-Zoba’i, has appeared as one recent sign of growing unrest.

Authorities may have controlled the media better than the violence.

“Assassinations never stopped in Fallujah, but the media seems unwilling to cover the actual situation here,” a human rights activist in Fallujah, speaking on terms of anonymity given the tense situation, told IPS. “The two bomb blasts that killed six policemen earlier this month and another two that killed three on the weekend seem to have terminated the silence.”

People in Fallujah say they still suffer despite the relative improvement in the security situation. ‘Relative’ is the key word here, because the improvement is measured against two massive U.S. military operations in 2004 that killed thousands in the city, and displaced hundreds of thousands.

“Fallujah was slaughtered by the Americans when her people decided to fight, and then were suffocated when they decided to reduce the fighting against the occupiers,” former intelligence officer Major Ahmed al-Alwani told IPS. “There was strong resistance against American occupation forces since May 2003, but it was the Americans who pointed their guns at the innocent civilians and their houses.

“When the American military plans failed, they decided to hire local tribal militias to do the job for them,” Alwani said, referring to the ‘Awakening Group’ militia created by the U.S. military. “Those also failed, despite the executions and the crimes they committed against people.”

Many people throughout Iraq complain of the brutality and unlawful behaviour of these Awakening Groups. Members of these groups are paid 300 dollars per month by the U.S. military.

No one expected the British to be worse than Saddam Hussein.

Just days after the MoD has to pay out millions to the father of a man UK soldiers beat to death, fresh claims of abuse emerge

British soldiers forced a boy of 14 to carry out an act of oral sex on a fellow male prisoner in Iraq, according to shocking new allegations made about the behaviour of British troops.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed yesterday that the Royal Military Police (RMP) have launched an investigation. If the allegations are proved, it would mark a sordid low in the behaviour of British troops in Iraq, and damage further the reputation of Britain in the Middle East.

The victim, now 19, whom The Independent on Sunday has agreed to identify only as Hassan, says he was rounded up with a friend while trying to steal milk cartons from a food distribution centre. He was whipped, beaten and forced to strip naked.

“They made us sit on each other’s laps,” he said. “They were enjoying humiliating and abusing us, I wished I was dead at this moment. Then they made me sit with Tariq… where I was forced to put Tariq’s penis in my mouth. The other two were made to do the same.”

Court action is ongoing over a series of allegations surrounding the British base Camp Breadbasket and incidents that took place there in May 2003. There have been allegations of simulated sexual abuse of Iraqis by British troops, but this, if true, would be the first example of actual sexual abuse.

Soldiers rounding up looters as part of an operation codenamed Ali Baba took photographs of prisoners suspended in nets from forklift trucks and others forced to strip naked and adopt simulated sex positions.

The photographs caused outrage around the world when they were published, after a British soldier took them to be developed at a high-street shop. An RMP investigation led to just four soldiers being jailed for up to two years in 2005. A number of the alleged victims, including Hassan, are suing the MoD for damages.

Settlement has been reached this afternoon for the sum of £2.83 million in relation to the Iraqi claims by the family of Baha Mousa who was murdered by British troops in September 2003 in Basra and in relation to the torture and abuse of nine other Iraqis.

The Ministry of Defence has agreed to pay almost £3 million to the family of an Iraqi who died while being detained by UK troops and nine other men who were allegedly mistreated, their solicitors said today.

The family of Baha Mousa and the nine other men will share £2.83 million in compensation from the MoD, law firm Leigh Day & Co said.

Mr Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist, died while he was being detained by soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment in Basra in 2003.

Mr Mousa sustained 93 separate injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose.

During the mediation session General Freddie Viggers also apologised to the families for “the appalling behaviour of British soldiers” which had left the Army “disgusted”, the law firm said in a statement.

It read: “Settlement has been reached this afternoon for the sum of £2.83 million in relation to the Iraqi claims by the family of Baha Mousa who was murdered by British troops in September 2003 in Basra and in relation to the torture and abuse of nine other Iraqis.