Some 1155 Iraqi missing in Kuwait
Iraq-Kuwait, Politics, 7/11/2000

The opposition Iraqi national congress on Monday announced that it had formed a new leadership following the criticism addressed to this group for lacking enough representation.

Meantime an Iraqi committee circulated the names of 1155 Iraqi who were considered among the missing in Kuwait since the Gulf war in 1991.

The congress' central council which met in London on Saturday and Sunday appointed a new general secretariat composed of five members for the main groups and two members representing the Shiite sects. The general secretariat includes one representative for each of the Turkman, the Assyrians, the Kurds and the Syriacs.

The spokesman for the congress Muwafak al-Rabee said that this new formula tries to settle the reasons of concern expressed by the " national reconciliation movement" which said last week it has withdrawn from the congress. It is not known whether the reconciliation movement will stay outside the congress.

Al-Rabee, said the concern of the " reconciliation movement, found response among the five representatives who took part in the meetings out of the 65 officials who made of the council.

The reconciliation movement had protested against the weakness of the representation base in the circles of Islamists and Arab nationals and also criticized the close cooperation between the congress and the US.

It has also faced earlier attempts made by the congress to raise the level of its opposition to the rule of President Saddam Hussein by ideological and sectarian divisions. It is presumed, however, that the new general secretariat will work with the leadership elected by the congress last year.

Meantime, the "People's commission of the Iraqi missing in Kuwait" had circulated lists in the names of 1155 Iraqi whose traces were lost in Kuwait following the military operation in March of 1991 with the objective of having information that would help to know what happened to them.

The chairman of the commission Hisham Tawfiq has held the Kuwaiti authorities " the responsibility to find out the fate of those people not only from the humanitarian point of view, but also from the legal point of view and according to international norms and regulations.

In a press conference Tawfiq added " those people are not registered at the Red Crescent or the Red Cross or official sides and it is our humanitarian duty to search for them."

He added " These 1155 men were in Kuwait when allied forces' ( aggression) took place and no information was mentioned about them only in the page of missing."

On March 14, Kuwait minister of state for foreign affairs said that his country holds 49 Iraqis who were convicted of committing crimes against Kuwait.

Previous Stories:
  24 billion dinars is cost of reconstructing Kuwait after Iraqi invasion   (6/7/2000)
  Kuwaiti- Iraqi relations debated in a conference   (5/15/2000)
  Iraq protests at the UN against Kuwait   (5/9/2000)

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