B4-0426/95

Resolution on the worsening situation in Iraq

The European Parliament,

A.shocked by the explosion of a bomb in a crowded market at Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan on 28 February which killed over 70 people and injured many others,

B.deploring the fighting between supporters of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) which has been going on since December 1994,

C.deploring the grave violations of human rights by both the KDP and the PUK and also by the Islamic Movement in Iraqi Kurdistan which, according to Amnesty International, have been numerous,

D.appalled by the report of the Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Commission in Iraq published on 15 February 1995,

E.pointing out that, although UN observers have denied that fighting between Iraqi and PUK forces has taken place, both the PUK and Baghdad claim that the other started an offensive which led to serious fighting,

1.Calls on the KDP and the PUK to stop fighting, since that can only increase the danger of all Kurds living in Northern Iraq being subjected to Saddam Hussein;

2.Calls on the KDP and the PUK to abandon forthwith the use of terror tactics, assassinations, torture of prisoners, detention or other punishment without trial and warns that the continuation of such practices is bound to make opinion in the EU and other democracies less sympathetic to the cause of the Iraqi Kurds;

3.Condemns the Iraqi regime for establishing a system in which the Revolutionary Command Council, which is controlled by Saddam Hussein, gives sweeping powers of prosecution, trial and punishment to local sections of the Arab Baath Socialist Party and 'people's councils';

4.Expresses its horror that, according to the UN's Special Rapporteur, there were, on 31 January 1995, 15 781 cases of people who have disappeared waiting to be resolved, including over 600 Kuwaitis and other foreigners who vanished at the time of the invasion of Kuwait, while hundreds more people who have disappeared are waiting to be listed;

5.Expresses its horror that, among the many decrees of the Revolutionary Command Council ordering capital punishment or mutilation, such provisions occur as one postponing an amputation for a pregnant woman until four months after the birth of her baby;

6.Expresses its horror at the evidence of people tortured to death - their bodies sometimes returned to their families with their eyes pulled out - and at numerous executions and the continued attacks on the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq and the destruction of their habitat;

7.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Members of the Security Council, the leadership of the KDP and the PUK, the UN Human Rights Commission and President Saddam Hussein.