Al-Badoun threat to fight for returning back to Kuwait
Kuwait, Politics, 10/5/2000

A group of al-Badoun who are in a sit-in in the Iraqi side of the Iraqi- Kuwaiti borders calling to return back to Kuwait on Wednesday by dropping " the olive branch" and carrying the gun for achieving that.

The spokesman for the participants in the sit-in Sheikh Nayef al-Ghanem in the sandy area which is only few meters from the border with Kuwait and which is close from the Iraqi city of Safwan, said they will not leave the place before their demands are achieved. He added that a delegation representing the participants in the sit-in handed the UN team in charge of monitoring the Iraqi- Kuwaiti border a message addressed to the UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

He explained that the message called on human rights advocates not to force al-Badoun to drop the " olive branch" and that they had contacts with the UN but it is futile. He said that this camp ( that they made) is but a cry to the human's conscience to sympathize with their cause.

A spokesman for the UN said that the situation is very calm and that the number of the participants in the sit-in is 100.

The spokesman added that they crossed the border demarcation markers and then retreated, adding that this constitutes a violation from the technical view point but they retreated when they were told of this violation.

The Kuwaiti minister of the Interior, on the other hand Sheikh Muhammad Khaled al-Sabah said during an inspection visit he held to the northern borders of Kuwait for the third running days that what is taking place is a media propaganda, noting that nobody will be permitted to enter Kuwait. He stressed that tents installed by al-badoun in the Iraqi side of the border are tents for the Iraqi army.

He added that those " the al-Badoun" were brought to the border by vehicles for the Iraqi government and that they are not civilians, rather Iraqi military men in civilian uniform.

Kuwait had dispatched units of the special forces in its army and deployed its police in the northern part of the country in a state of alert. Some 40 tents were installed in the place where the participants in the sit-in launched balloons they said " carrying messages to their relatives who stayed in Kuwait."

Previous Stories:
  State of alert announced by the Kuwaiti military forces, police   (10/4/2000)
  Kuwait says it supports lifting of sanctions against Iraq   (10/3/2000)
  Iranian minister of the interior in Kuwait   (10/2/2000)

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