Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 14. Juli 2004 / Time Line July 14, 2004
Version 3.007/14/2004
ARMS EXPO 2004
By Kurt Singer
Have you ever heard of a town in the Ural Mountains called Nizhny
Tagil? It's only 2 driving hours from Yekatrinburg. There you'll in
the weapon proving grounds of the old Soviet Union. Now it tests
new rifle models, grenade launchers and anti tank rockets. Along
the Tagil River you can locate a large industrial development,
which produces the new Russian tanks, which supposedly are superior
to the American counterpart. 200 Russian companies exhibit their
wares while a dozen Secret Service agents watch.
They came from far away as members of delegations from Egypt, Iran,
China, Libya, North Korea and individual buyer's, the merchant of
death traders. A global audience is viewing the new Russian
armament production available for sale to cash buyers.
A government controlled arms export agency is supervising all
export deals. Russia has grown as the second largest arms exporter
after the USA selling tanks, frigates, submarines, helicopters and
jetfighters. Even an old Soviet aircraft carrier has been sold to
India. Both India and Pakistan had observers and buyers at the
Expo, This is the 4th tradeshow, which has grown to be a yearly
event organized by the Rosoboronexport government agency.
Russia exported weapons in the amount of $5.07 Billion in 2003. The
US Congressional Research Service claimed that Russia has conquered
25.5% of the world's armament market. America remains the leading
arms merchant with 41.9% of the world market. It seems that China
and India are Russia's best clients. In the past the Middle East
countries as Syria and Iraq were the leading customers buying
equipment for guerrilla warfare but this has changed in 2004. Mr.
Putin's old KGB comrade’s are now in charge of the armament
export agency. Naval equipment is in demand also radar, radio and
small weapons. Jammers are in demand, which would oppose the
Pentagon's sophisticated high tech weapons. The actual amount of
individual sales are kept confidential and not disclosed if they
were cash deals or barter arrangements for instance with Indonesia
or Vietnam. Both visitors and exhibitors have formed a new
commercial friendship. But the outstanding mood that overshadows
everything in this Ural town is the immense pride that the Russian
show to have entered the global weapons market.
One word was never heard at the Expo 2004: PEACE.
07/14/2004
Butler-rapporten udkommer. Rapporten analyserer kvaliteten af de
oplysninger Storbritanniens efterretningstjenester havde om
irakiske masseødelæggelsesvåben.
07/14/2004
"The Fall [in the sense of the sin at the Garden of
Eden]--Iraq"
TV Program "Report" concerning maltreated children in the
torture-prison
"Report Mainz" vom 5. Juli 2004 - [English translation]
http://www.traprockpeace.org/iraqi_child_prisoners.htm
German news video
http://www.swr.de/report/archiv/sendungen/040705/02/04070502.ram
Moderation Fritz Frey:
Reports from Iraq: the daily attack, Saddam on trial, kidnapped
soldiers, every new headline covers over the preceding one. The
scandal of the torture prison of Abu Gharib, oh yes, that was
indeed one.
REPORT has stuck to this story and has in the process come across a
totally unbelievable suspicion. In Abu Gharib and elsewhere
children and youth have been incarcerated and mistreated. Thomas
Reutter with a difficult search for clues.
Report:
With tanks coming through the gate. U.S. soldiers storm an
apartment building looking for terrorists. Sometimes during such
roundups the soldiers also arrest children. What happens to the
children? About that the military gives no information. We
investigate, as it happens, through informants.
One of them, who is knowledgeable about these things, is Sergeant
Samuel Provance from U.S. Army Intelligence. For half a year he was
stationed in the notorious Abu Ghraib torture-prison. Today, five
months later, we meet with Sergeant Provance in Heidelberg.
His superiors have strictly forbidden him from reporting to
journalists about what he experienced in Abu Ghraib. Yet Provance
wants to talk about it nonetheless. Pangs of conscience plague him.
He tells us about one 16-year-old, whom he himself had to lead
away.
O-Ton, Samuel Provance, US-Sergeant: "He was full of fear, very
alone. He had the thinnest little arms that I have ever seen. His
whole body shook. His wrists were so thin that we could not put
handcuffs on him. As soon as I saw him for the first time and led
him to the interrogation, I felt sorry for him. The interrogation
specialists doused him with water and put him in a truck.
Then they drove with him throughout the night, and at that time it
was very, very cold. Then they smeared him with mud and showed him
to his likewise imprisoned father. With him [the father] they had
tried out other interrogation methods. But they had not succeeded
in making him talk. The interrogation specialists told me that
after the father had seen his son in that condition, it broke his
heart. He wept and promised to tell them what they wanted to
know."
The son however remained in custody, and the 16-year-old was put in
with the adults. Yet Provance reported also about a special
department, expressly for children. A secret children's wing in the
horror prison of Abu Ghraib.
One person, who has seen the children's wing with his own eyes, is
the journalist Suhaib Badr-Addin Al-Baz. Our correspondent met him
some week ago in Baghdad. The Iraqi TV reporter related how he
himself was arrested arbitrarily by the Americans while shooting
film and spent 74 days in Abu Ghraib.
O-Ton, Suhaib Badr-Addin Al-Baz, Fernsehreporter: "There I saw a
camp for children. Young, under the age of puberty. In this camp
were certainly hundreds of children. Some of them have been
released, others are definitely still in there."
From his solitary cell in the adults' wing, Suhaib heard a perhaps
12-year-old girl weeping. Later he learned that her brother was on
the third floor of the prison. One or two times, says Suhaib, he
saw her himself.
In the night, according to Suhaib, they were with her in her cell.
The girl shreeked out to the other prisoners and called out to her
brother.
O-Ton, Suhaib Badr-Addin Al-Baz, Fernsehreporter:
"She was beaten. I heard her call: 'They have undressed me. They
have poured water over me."
Daily, says Suhaib, one heard her crying and wimpering. Many of the
prisoners wept when they heard her. Suhaib reported also about a
sick 15-year-old youth. [They chased him up and down the corridor
with heavy water cannisters. translation uncertain] For so long
until he collapsed from exhaustion, says Suhaib. Then they brought
in his father, also a prisoner. He had a hood over his head. From
shock the youth collapsed once again.
In the so-called "War on Terrorism," the Americans storm Iraqi
houses. According to Suhaib, they sometimes in the process seize
whole families who appear suspicious to them. Statements from
individual witnesses, difficult to confirm.
In the report it reads:
Citation:
"Children, who had been seized in Basra and Kerbala, were routinely
put over into an internment facility in Um Qasr.
Internment camp Um Qasr. Footage/photos from 2003. Today it is too
dangerous for reporters to travel to Um Qasr. The camp, a prison
for terrorists and criminals. Precisely here should Americans
therefore hold children interned as prisoners of war.
"The classification of these children as "internees" is alarming,
since it contains them for an indefinite time in prison, without
contact with their families or expectation of legal proceedings or
trial."
Over this up to now unpublished report UNICEF does not yet want to
say anything. [Their reason is that] Their own workers in Iraq
should not be put in danger. Seeking more information, we turned to
the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose helpers
inspected Um Qasr, Abu Ghraib and other places of detention. And
after intensive conversations came a further confirmation and even
statistics.
O-Ton, Florian Westphal, Internationales Komitee vom Roten
Kreuz:
"We have recorded a total of 107 children between January and May
of this year in the course of 19 visits to 6 different detention
places. And it must be emphasized that these are detention places
that are controlled by coalition troops."
In the internment camp Um Qasr and also in Abu Ghraib the Red Cross
recorded minors as prisoners. Two international organizations
confirmed to us independently of each other that the occupation
troops are holding Iraqi children prisoner. Yet we have not
received any information directly from the prisons. Even UNICEF was
not allowed to visit the child prison in Baghdad.
Zitat:
"In July 2003 UNICEF applied for a visit to this detention
facility, but access was refused."
Since December, according to UNICEF, there have been no independent
observers in the children's prison. To be sure, the U.S. Army
opened the scandal-prison Abu Ghraib for a tour for journalists.
Yet the reporters were presented with a for-show facility. Child
prisoners were not shown to the press.
We hold fast to this: four sources confirm independently of one
another, that occupation troops are holding children as prisoners.
Two witnesses even report instances of maltreatment. The human
rights organization Amnesty International is outraged over the
reports of Iraqi child prisoners. Barbara Lochbihler of Amnesty
International, Germany, calls for follow-up action.
O-Ton, Barbara Lochbihler, Generalsekretärin Amnesty
International:
"The U.S. government has to respond to this report, it must give
concrete information about how old the children are, the grounds on
which they have been detained, and under what circumstances they
were incarcerated. And here we do not know the names of the
children or how many children are there. That is scandalous."
Concluding moderation by Fritz Frey:
Self-evidently, we have confronted the responsible authorities with
our research. The British Defense Ministry responded: Children and
youth are not being held prisoner by British troops. We are still
waiting for an answer from the American Pentagon.
Links
www2.amnesty.de
www.icrc.org
www.unicef.de
Berichte der Menschenrechtsorganisation Amnesty International zu
Irak
http://www2.amnesty.de
Report of the Human Rights Organization Amnesty Internation in
Iraq.
Internationales Komitee vom Roten Kreuz
http://www.icrc.org
International Committee of the Red Cross.
Das Kinderhilfswerk der Vereinten Nationen UNICEF
http://www.unicef.de
Children's Relief Organization of the United Nations UNICEF
Exclusive translation for Traprock Peace Center by Richard
Gawthrop.
Thanks to Paul Amrod, who saw this on German TV and brought it to
our attention.
Traprock Peace Center http://www.traprockpeace.org
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
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