DOCSLIB.ORG

The Mass Graves of Al-Mahawil: the Truth Uncovered

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Mass Graves of Al-Mahawil: the Truth Uncovered IRAQ 350 Fifth Ave 34 th Floor New York, N.Y. 10118-3299 http://www.hrw.org Vol. 15, No. 5 (E) – May 2003 (212) 290-4700 The chaotic and unprofessional manner in which the mass graves around al- Hilla and al-Mahawil were unearthed made it impossible for many of the relatives of missing persons to identify positively many of the remains, or even to keep the human remains intact and separate. In the absence of international assistance, Iraqis used a backhoe to dig up the mass grave, literally slicing through countless bodies and mixing up remains in the process. At the end of the process, more than one thousand remains at the al-Mahawil grave sites were again reburied without being identified. In addition, because no forensic presence existed at the site, crucial evidence necessary for future trials of the persons responsible for the mass executions was never collected, and indeed may have Relatives of the missing search through bags containing corpses recovered from a been irreparably destroyed. mass grave near Hilla. © 2003 Peter Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch THE MASS GRAVES OF AL-MAHAWIL: THE TRUTH UNCOVERED 1630 Connecticut Ave, N.W., Suite 500 2nd Floor, 2-12 Pentonville Road 15 Rue Van Campenhout Washington, DC 20009 London N1 9HF, UK 1000 Brussels, Belgium TEL (202) 612-4321 TEL: (44 20) 7713 1995 TEL (32 2) 732-2009 FAX (202) 612-4333 FAX: (44 20) 7713 1800 FAX (32 2) 732-0471 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] May 2003 Vol.15, No.5 (E) IRAQ THE MASS GRAVES OF AL-MAHAWIL: THE TRUTH UNCOVERED Table of Contents I. Summary ....................................................................................................................................................1 II. Recommendations .....................................................................................................................................2 To political, religious, and other community leaders in Iraq...........................................................................2 To the U.S. Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance................................................................3 To U.S. and coalition forces.........................................................................................................................3 To donors, nongovernmental and governmental agencies, and U.N. agencies..................................................4 To the U.N. Security Council.......................................................................................................................4 To the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general............................................................................4 III. Background: Repression of the 1991 Uprising.............................................................................................5 IV. Discovery of the Mass Graves at Al-Mahawil .............................................................................................5 V. Failure of the U.S. and Coalition Forces to Support Exhumations ..................................................................6 VI. Consequences of the Failure to Provide Forensic Assistance........................................................................7 VII. The Victims ............................................................................................................................................7 VIII. A Survivor ...........................................................................................................................................10 IX. Witnesses to the Al-Mahawil Arrests and Detentions ................................................................................11 X. Witnesses to the Executions ......................................................................................................................13 XI. Establishing Accountability for the Mass Murder......................................................................................14 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................................15 I. SUMMARY On March 4, 1991, thirteen-year-old Khalid Khudair and his thirty-three-year-old cousin Fuad Kadhim, a former Iraqi soldier, left their village of Albu `Alwan to walk to the southern Iraqi city of al-Hilla looking to buy food. They were never seen alive again: like tens of thousands of other Iraqis in the predominantly Shi`a South, they were arrested and “disappeared” in Iraqi government custody. More than twelve years later, on May 16, 2003, their families’ search finally ended when their identification documents were found on decomposed remains at an exhumation of a mass grave located in an open field. Two significant mass graves have been discovered near the al-Mahawil military base, located some twenty kilometers north of al-Hilla —one located in an open field and containing the bodies of more than two thousand persons (“the al-Mahawil mass grave”) and a second located some five kilometers away behind an abandoned brick factory containing the bodies of several hundred persons (“the al-Mahawil brick factory mass grave”). A third mass grave is suspected to exist on the premises of the military base itself. At least one other mass grave, just south of al-Hilla in the village of Imam Bakr, contained an additional forty bodies from the same period. In all these sites the bodies were buried en masse, in contact with one another, rather than in individual plots. Mass graves in this sense are unusual, and almost always signify that the deaths were the result of mass atrocities or natural disasters. The chaotic and unprofessional manner in which the mass graves around al-Hilla and al-Mahawil were unearthed made it impossible for many of the relatives of missing persons to identify positively many of the remains, or even to keep the human remains intact and separate. In the absence of international assistance, Iraqis used a backhoe to dig up the mass grave, literally slicing through countless bodies and mixing up remains in the process. At the end of the process, more than one thousand remains at the al-Mahawil grave sites were again reburied without being identified. In addition, because no forensic presence existed at the site, crucial evidence necessary for future trials of the persons responsible for the mass executions was never collected, and indeed may have been irreparably destroyed. This report attempts to tell the story of the mass graves around al-Hilla. It identifies the victims, the circumstances of their arrest, and their ultimate execution and mass burial. The conclusion is inescapable: those whose bodies were recovered from these mass graves were the victims of a coordinated campaign of repression, arrests, and executions carried out by the Iraqi government in the aftermath of the failed Shi`a uprising in 1991. The report demonstrates the importance of the evidence that can be gathered from the mass graves that are being discovered all around Iraq—all of which have their own individual history, but which together testify to decades of mass murder by the Iraqi government. Human Rights Watch researchers spent five days at the three mass grave sites near al-Mahawil and al- Hilla, collecting as much testimony as possible before the relatives of the missing returned to their homes. By interviewing the relatives who said they had identified victims in the mass graves through identity documents, items of clothing, medications, and the like, Human Rights Watch was able to establish who many of the persons in the grave were, and when and how they disappeared. Farmers living in the proximity of the mass grave were able to speak out for the first time about the daily executions and burials they had witnessed in 1991. A survivor of the executions at the al-Mahawil brick factory—he was dumped in the mass grave with his mother and two relatives, but miraculously was not shot and managed to escape alive—told his remarkable story to Human Rights Watch, thereby making the crucial link between the arrests of thousands in the al-Hilla area in March 1991, their detention at the nearby al-Mahawil base, and their ultimate execution and burial in the mass graves discovered around al-Hilla and al-Mahawil in May 2003. This report also documents the failure of the occupying powers to assist Iraqis at this time of great need. Human Rights Watch estimates that as many as 290,000 Iraqis have been “disappeared” by the Iraqi government over the past two decades. Many of these “disappeared” are those whose remains are now being unearthed in mass graves all over Iraq. For the moment, the Iraqi people are being left to their own very limited resources in Human Rights Watch 1 May 2003, Vol. 15,No.5 (E) attempting to exhume and identify those remains. Iraqis are in desperate need of expert assistance, and there is an urgent need for the occupying powers, with the assistance of the international community, to put in place a process of assistance for the recognition of the “disappeared,” the exhumation of mass graves, the identification of those buried in them, and the collection of important forensic evidence. U.S. forces have explained this failure by asserting that any efforts to halt diggings at mass graves of victims of massacres would thwart the understandable determination of desperate relatives to confirm the fate of missing loved ones, and would thereby risk causing serious disturbances. Yet, despite the fact that U.S. authorities had
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Human Rights Violations Under Saddam Hussein: Victims Speak Out
    HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS UNDER SADDAM HUSSEIN: VICTIMS SPEAK OUT HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION NOVEMBER 20, 2003 Serial No. 108–64 Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 91–184PDF WASHINGTON : 2004 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Mar 21 2002 16:30 Jan 15, 2004 Jkt 081184 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 F:\WORK\MECA\112003\91184 HINTREL1 PsN: SHIRL COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa TOM LANTOS, California DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska HOWARD L. BERMAN, California CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York Vice Chairman ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American DAN BURTON, Indiana Samoa ELTON GALLEGLY, California DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina SHERROD BROWN, Ohio DANA ROHRABACHER, California BRAD SHERMAN, California EDWARD R. ROYCE, California ROBERT WEXLER, Florida PETER T. KING, New York ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York STEVE CHABOT, Ohio WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts AMO HOUGHTON, New York GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York BARBARA LEE, California THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York RON PAUL, Texas JOSEPH M.
    [Show full text]
  • The Special Studies Series Foreign Nations
    This item is a finding aid to a ProQuest Research Collection in Microform. To learn more visit: www.proquest.com or call (800) 521-0600 This product is no longer affiliated or otherwise associated with any LexisNexis® company. Please contact ProQuest® with any questions or comments related to this product. About ProQuest: ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company has forged a 70-year reputation as a gateway to the world’s knowledge – from dissertations to governmental and cultural archives to news, in all its forms. Its role is essential to libraries and other organizations whose missions depend on the delivery of complete, trustworthy information. 789 E. Eisenhower Parkway ￭ P.O Box 1346 ￭ Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 ￭ USA ￭ Tel: 734.461.4700 ￭ Toll-free 800-521-0600 ￭ www.proquest.com A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of THE SPECIAL STUDIES SERIES FOREIGN NATIONS The Middle East War in Iraq 2003–2006 A UPA Collection from Cover: Neighborhood children follow U.S. army personnel conducting a patrol in Tikrit, Iraq, on December 27, 2006. Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Defense Visual Information Center (http://www.dodmedia.osd.mil/). The Special Studies Series Foreign Nations The Middle East War in Iraq 2003–2006 Guide by Jeffrey T. Coster A UPA Collection from 7500 Old Georgetown Road Bethesda, MD 20814-6126 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Middle East war in Iraq, 2003–2006 [microform] / project editors, Christian James and Daniel Lewis. microfilm reels ; 35 mm. – (Special studies series, foreign nations) Summary: Reproduces reports issued by U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • The Other Face of Fanaticism
    February 2, 2003 The Other Face of Fanaticism By PANKAJ MISHRA New York Times Magazine On the evening of Jan. 30, 1948, five months after the independence and partition of India, Mohandas Gandhi was walking to a prayer meeting on the grounds of his temporary home in New Delhi when he was shot three times in the chest and abdomen. Gandhi was then 78 and a forlorn figure. He had been unable to prevent the bloody creation of Pakistan as a separate homeland for Indian Muslims. The violent uprooting of millions of Hindus and Muslims across the hastily drawn borders of India and Pakistan had tainted the freedom from colonial rule that he had so arduously worked toward. The fasts he had undertaken in order to stop Hindus and Muslims from killing one another had weakened him, and when the bullets from an automatic pistol hit his frail body at point-blank range, he collapsed and died instantly. His assassin made no attempt to escape and, as he himself would later admit, even shouted for the police. Millions of shocked Indians waited for more news that night. They feared unspeakable violence if Gandhi's murderer turned out to be a Muslim. There was much relief, also some puzzlement, when the assassin was revealed as Nathuram Godse, a Hindu Brahmin from western India, a region relatively untouched by the brutal passions of the partition. Godse had been an activist in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteers Association, or R.S.S.), which was founded in the central Indian city of Nagpur in 1925 and was devoted to the creation of a militant Hindu state.
    [Show full text]
  • USAF Counterproliferation Center CPC Outreach Journal #288
    USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL Maxwell AFB, Alabama Issue No. 288, 16 September 2003 Articles & Other Documents: Alabama: Army Linked To Environmental Violations Halt In Work Seen At N. Korea Nuclear Site ABC Ships Uranium Overseas For Story Border Breach? N. Korea Working On Missile Accuracy Iranian Envoy Blames U.S. For Nation's Reticence On Nuclear Plans The Terrorist Threat That Gets Shortchanged Shelby Seeks Anniston Monitors Mystery Deaths Fuel Vaccine Anxieties The Pursuit Of Steven Hatfill Shutdown Of Nuclear Complex Deepens North Korean Powell Says Gas Attack On Kurds Justified War Mystery Powell Visit Honors Victims Of Hussein Attack On Kurds Senior U.S. Official To Level Weapons Charges Against Syria Unease In Congress Over Nuclear Shift Welcome to the CPC Outreach Journal. As part of USAF Counterproliferation Center’s mission to counter weapons of mass destruction through education and research, we’re providing our government and civilian community a source for timely counterproliferation information. This information includes articles, papers and other documents addressing issues pertinent to US military response options for dealing with nuclear, biological and chemical threats and attacks. It’s our hope this information resource will help enhance your counterproliferation issue awareness. Established here at the Air War College in 1998, the USAF/CPC provides education and research to present and future leaders of the Air Force, as well as to members of other branches of the armed services and Department of Defense. Our purpose is to help those agencies better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of mass destruction. Please feel free to visit our web site at www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-cps.htm for in-depth information and specific points of contact.
    [Show full text]
  • Sarah Haley, No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity (University of North Carolina Press, 2016)
    No Mercy Here 181 BOOK REVIEW Sarah Haley, No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity (University of North Carolina Press, 2016) Viviane Saleh-Hanna* arah Haley’s NO MERCY HERE: GENDER, PUNIShmENT, AND THE MAKIng of Jim Crow Modernity is a beautifully written, empirical yet nuanced account of imprisoned and paroled Black women’s lives, deaths, and Sstruggles under convict leasing, chain gang, and parole regimes in Georgia at the turn of the twentieth century. Although the majority of Haley’s book focuses on Black women, she notes that 18 percent of Black female prison- ers were not yet 17 years old (42). One prisoner was 11 years old (96) at the time of her sentencing. The majority were young adults, many in their early twenties, some remaining imprisoned for decades. All, regardless of age, were sentenced to hard labor. Haley ties together wide-ranging archival data gathered from criminal justice agency reports and proceedings, government-sponsored commissions to examine prison and labor conditions, petitions and clemency applica- tions, letters, newspaper articles, era-specific research, Black women’s blues, historic speeches, and other social movement materials. This breadth of data coupled with Haley’s Black feminist analysis and methodology unearths the issues of Black women’s imprisonment, abuse, rape, and forced labor under Jim Crow’s carceral push into modernity. Haley also presents records of white women’s imprisonment, as well as their living and labor conditions, and discusses the responses these elicited from politicians, criminal justice agents, social organizations, and media outlets. Though the number of white women ensnared within Georgia’s * Viviane Saleh-Hanna is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Crime and Justice Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
    [Show full text]
  • Death Don't Have No Mercy: a Memoir of a Mother's
    To view this document as two-page spreads, go to the View menu in Acrobat Reader and select “Page Layout” and “Facing” Death Don’t Have No Mercy A Memoir of a Mother’s Death BY MARIANA CAPLAN Well Death will go in any family in this land Well Death will go in every family in this land Well he’ll come to your house and he won’t stay long Well you’ll look in the bed and one of your family will be gone Death will go in any family in this land FROM “DEATH DON’T HAVE NO MERCY,” BY REV. GARY DAVIS NOT MANY OF US have seen another person receive a death sentence. Fewer still have been present to watch their own mother be given the final verdict. I had returned just days before from Asia. Ironically, the intention of the trip was to sit at the famous cremation grounds of Varanasi in India and in Pashpatinath in Nepal, where funeral pyres have burned for thousands of years. I was trying to face death as intimately as possible, to take the next step in a lifetime struggle to come to terms with my ultimate fate. A Jew by birth, I had been practicing for a decade under the guidance of Lee Lozowick in the Western Baul tradition, a rare synthesis that combines Vajrayana Buddhism with the devotional ecstasy of Vaisnava Hinduism, adapted to the needs of the contemporary Western practitioner. I engaged my experiment well, bearing witness to the death and decomposition of the body.
    [Show full text]
  • God's Mercy and Justice in the Context of the Cosmic Conflict
    Andrews University Digital Commons @ Andrews University Master's Theses Graduate Research 2019 God's Mercy and Justice in the Context of the Cosmic Conflict Romero Luiz Da Silva Andrews University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/theses Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Da Silva, Romero Luiz, "God's Mercy and Justice in the Context of the Cosmic Conflict" (2019). Master's Theses. 135. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/theses/135 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Research at Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT GOD'S MERCY AND JUSTICE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COSMIC CONFLICT by Romero Luiz Da Silva Adviser: Jo Ann Davidson ABSTRACT OF GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH Thesis Andrews University Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary Title: GOD'S MERCY AND JUSTICE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COSMIC CONFLICT Name of researcher: Romero Luiz Da Silva Name and degree of faculty adviser: Jo Ann Davidson, PhD Date completed: July 2019 Problem When it comes to the right balance concerning God’s character of mercy and justice in relation to His dealings with sin in its different manifestations, a number of theologians, as well as Christians in general, have struggled to harmonize the existence of these two attributes in all God’s actions toward sinners. This difficulty has led many to think of divine mercy and justice as attributes that cannot fit together in what is called the cosmic conflict between good and evil.
    [Show full text]
  • British Bulldogs, Behind SIGNATURE MOVE: F5 Rolled Into One Mass of Humanity
    MEMBERS: David Heath (formerly known as Gangrel) BRODUS THE BROOD Edge & Christian, Matt & Jeff Hardy B BRITISH CLAY In 1998, a mystical force appeared in World Wrestling B HT: 6’7” WT: 375 lbs. Entertainment. Led by the David Heath, known in FROM: Planet Funk WWE as Gangrel, Edge & Christian BULLDOGS SIGNATURE MOVE: What the Funk? often entered into WWE events rising from underground surrounded by a circle of ames. They 1960 MEMBERS: Davey Boy Smith, Dynamite Kid As the only living, breathing, rompin’, crept to the ring as their leader sipped blood from his - COMBINED WT: 471 lbs. FROM: England stompin’, Funkasaurus in captivity, chalice and spit it out at the crowd. They often Brodus Clay brings a dangerous participated in bizarre rituals, intimidating and combination of domination and funk -69 frightening the weak. 2010 TITLE HISTORY with him each time he enters the ring. WORLD TAG TEAM Defeated Brutus Beefcake & Greg With the beautiful Naomi and Cameron Opponents were viewed as enemies from another CHAMPIONS Valentine on April 7, 1986 dancing at the big man’s side, it’s nearly world and often victims to their bloodbaths, which impossible not to smile when Clay occurred when the lights in the arena went out and a ▲ ▲ Behind the perfect combination of speed and power, the British makes his way to the ring. red light appeared. When the light came back the Bulldogs became one of the most popular tag teams of their time. victim was laying in the ring covered in blood. In early Clay’s opponents, however, have very Originally competing in promotions throughout Canada and Japan, 1999, they joined Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness.
    [Show full text]
  • HIST 5310.W01: Race, Sex, & Power
    HIST 5310.W01: Race, Sex, & Power: America, 1519-1919 PROFESSOR: DR. WILLIAMSON OFFICE: LH 211 EMAIL: [email protected] OFFICE HOURS: TR 12:20-2pm, or by appointment CLASS: Web ROOM: LH 201 Course Description: How do those in power construct race, sex, and sexuality? Through analysis of key historical events and movements, this course demonstrates that concepts of race, sex, and sexuality, rather than attributes fixed in nature, are both fluid and socially and historically constructed. We will attempt to understand historical changes in conceptions of “normal” as it pertains to race, sex, and sexual orientations, and we will ask why various ideas about sexual behavior and power developed alongside religious, political, and cultural belief systems. We will also examine the ways that race and sex have been regulated through various legal, social, and political means, as well as through racial and sexual violence, and the ways these topics were represented in the media. Overall, the class will challenge the notion that American history has moved from the repressive world of the Puritans to the more liberated, modern ideals of the twenty-first century. In terms of content, we will learn how race and sex have structured and been structured by laws concerning cultural contact, marriage, slavery, immigration, and public space. We will also learn how science and medicine have been enlisted in the service of granting legitimacy and a sense of permanence to transitory ideas of race, sex, and sexual orientation. Finally, we will obtain familiarity with key watershed events in American history from the sixteenth through the early twentieth centuries, including Spanish contact with Native Americans, the evolution of racial slavery, the framing of the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • [ 2003 ] Part 1 Chapter 4 Asia and the Pacific
    288 Political and security questions Chapter IV Political and security questions Asia and the Pacific The year 2003 was a challenging one for the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for United Nations in the Asia and Pacific region as Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, continued to co- the war in Iraq severely tested the principle of ordinate UN activities in the country. collective security and the resilience of the Or- The war in Iraq, which began on 20 March, se- ganization. verely tested the cohesiveness and purpose of In Afghanistan, the security situation contin- the United Nations. Rarely in its 58-year history ued to endanger the peace process. Increased had such dire forecasts been made about the Or- terrorist activity, factional fighting and activities ganization. On 19 August, the UN headquarters associated with the illegal narcotics trade posed in Baghdad was subjected to a deliberate and vi- the greatest challenges to stability and socio- cious terrorist attack. The Secretary-General’s economic development. Lack of security in cer- Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de tain parts of the country forced the United Mello, and 21other persons were killed and many Nations to suspend its mission support in four others were wounded. The attack dealt a severe southern provinces. Despite those setbacks, pro- blow to the ability of the United Nations to assist gress continued to be made in implementing the Iraq in the post-war phase. Prior to the com- 2001 Bonn Agreement. Constructive events in- mencement of military action, the United cluded the beginning of the demobilization, dis- Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection armament and reintegration programme, the Commission and the International Atomic En- drafting of a constitution, the commencement of ergy Agency carried out extensive inspection ac- the electoral registration process and the conven- tivities in Iraq and provided the Security Council ing of a nationwide constitutional assembly, or with periodic updates on their findings.
    [Show full text]
  • Security Council Distr.: General 13 August 2003
    United Nations S/2'003/813 Security Council Distr.: General 13 August 2003 Original: English Thirteenth report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 14 of resolution 1284 (1999) I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted pursuant to paragraph 14 of Security Council resolution 1284 (1999), in which the Council requested me to report every four months on the compliance by Iraq with its obligations regarding the repatriation or return of all Kuwaiti and third-country nationals or their remains. The present report provides a brief account of the relevant developments, including the activities of the High-level Coordinator, Yuli M. Vorontsov, since my last report on this subject (S/2003/419), submitted on 11 April 2003. II. Background 2. On 11 April, the Information Minister of Kuwait, Sheikh Ahmed Fahed al-Sabah, announced to the Kuwait News Agency that a reward would be paid to anyone who disclosed information on the fate of Kuwaiti prisoners of war captured by Iraq during the first Gulf war in 1991. 3. On 19 April, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, Sheikh Mohammed al-Khaled al-Sabah, stated that a team of Kuwaiti security officers was coordinating with coalition forces to search for Kuwaiti prisoners. Speaking at a press briefing on 9 May, General Tommy R. Franks, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Central Command, announced that coalition forces would continue to work tirelessly with the international community, Kuwait in particular, to locate missing personnel and citizens missing in Iraq since 1991. 4. On 17 May, The New York Times reported the discovery of a mass grave thought to contain the remains of Kuwaiti prisoners of war, unearthed in the Iraqi city of Habbaniyah, west of Baghdad.
    [Show full text]
  • How Women Fans of World Wrestling Entertainment Perceive Women Wrestlers Melissa Jacobs Clemson University, [email protected]
    Clemson University TigerPrints All Theses Theses 5-2017 "They've Come to Draw Blood" - How Women Fans of World Wrestling Entertainment Perceive Women Wrestlers Melissa Jacobs Clemson University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses Recommended Citation Jacobs, Melissa, ""They've Come to Draw Blood" - How Women Fans of World Wrestling Entertainment Perceive Women Wrestlers" (2017). All Theses. 2638. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/2638 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses by an authorized administrator of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “THEY’VE COME TO DRAW BLOOD” – HOW WOMEN FANS OF WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT PERCEIVE WOMEN WRESTLERS A Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of Clemson University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Communication, Technology, and Society by Melissa Jacobs May 2017 Accepted by: Dr. D. Travers Scott, Committee Chair Dr. Erin Ash Dr. Darren Linvill ABSTRACT For a long time, professional wrestling has existed on the outskirts of society, with the idea that it was just for college-aged men. With the rise of the popularity of the World Wrestling Entertainment promotion, professional wrestling entered the mainstream. Celebrities often appear at wrestling shows, and the WWE often hires mainstream musical artists to perform at their biggest shows, WrestleMania and Summer Slam. Despite this still-growing popularity, there still exists a gap between men’s wrestling and women’s wrestling. Often the women aren’t allowed long match times, and for the longest time sometimes weren’t even on the main shows.
    [Show full text]