Palestinians in Kuwait Say 100 Have Vanished

At least 100 Palestinians have disappeared in the two weeks since allied forces recovered Kuwait, and many others who have been arrested report being beaten and tortured by Kuwaiti military and police officers, Palestinian community leaders and human rights workers said Wednesday.

The total number of Palestinians detained at checkpoints exceeds 3,500, according to reports collected by the Palestine Liberation Organization office, and U.S. and British officials investigating the reports said there is evidence that at least some of them are accurate.

“Some people in uniform may be doing it,” a senior Western official said. “We continue to get a lot of reports. I think there’s probably some credibility in some of them. There’s too many of them not to be.”

Bush Administration officials said Wednesday that revenge attacks by Kuwaiti soldiers and resistance fighters on Palestinians have become “a big concern” as Washington works to help restore order in Kuwait.

Kuwaiti government officials, determined to bring accused Palestinian collaborators to fair trials, have issued written orders and called in senior army officials, sternly warning them that any abuses must stop. A Kuwaiti Cabinet minister last week, spying some officers at a checkpoint roughing up a Palestinian, jumped out of his car and gave the men a tongue-lashing.

But officials here say they fear that the lack of telephones and other means of communication may have prevented the word from filtering down to army and police officers in the field.

“They’re very frustrated that they hear these things and they thought they just had a meeting the night before to take care of it, and here’s another incident,” said a senior Western diplomat. “There are plenty of individuals who are really angry, upset and emotional about this, but so far the government has kept these emotions in control, and I give them credit for that.”

Salman Abdul-Razek Mutawa, Kuwait’s minister of planning, said the government is determined to prevent violence against innocent Palestinians but cannot control individual acts of retribution.

“If there is any misbehavior, I think it is individual--definitely it is not government policy,” he said. “Those who have residential permits, those who did not collaborate with the Iraqis, should have no fear whatsoever. The government is back, and the law is not in the hands of individuals. But if there is some alleyway in some of these Palestinian neighborhoods where something happens, I don’t think really the government can be anywhere, everywhere, at any time.”

Mutawa said he was “shocked” at reports that hundreds of Palestinians, Jordanians and North Africans have been unloaded by uniformed Kuwaiti soldiers at the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border, some complaining of beatings and torture. He said he will have his Cabinet ministers investigate the reports.

No additional buses or trucks arrived at the border to deport such people Wednesday, U.S. military police said in Safwan, Iraq.

Palestinian community leaders say there are several reports of Palestinians being detained at checkpoints, taken to police stations or schools and beaten or tortured before being released or killed.

These leaders, who would not allow their names to be disclosed, say they have evidence that 21 Palestinians ranging in age from 15 to 26 were recently detained for several days in the Farwaniyah neighborhood, and others released from the jail said three of the 21 had been tortured or shot to death. All 21, they said, were Palestinians from Iraq who had come to Kuwait to assist the Iraqi army. There was no independent confirmation of these reports.

The Kuwaiti army officer in charge of Farwaniyah flatly denied Wednesday that his troops had arrested, detained or beaten any Palestinians or other non-Kuwaitis. He said that others may be masquerading as Kuwaiti soldiers, however.

“There are Palestinians and Iraqis who are armed and may be using Kuwaiti uniforms,” he said. “Rest assured, 100%, that no Kuwaiti soldiers have done anything like this. We came as liberators, not seekers of vengeance,” he added.

In interviews, however, several Palestinians in the impoverished district said they are terrified of being arrested.

Sameer Abnar, 31, said his friend, Abu Hassan, 40, a Jordanian who worked as a newspaper typesetter under the Iraqi occupation, disappeared a week ago. Another man said he saw two Palestinians tied to a car by Kuwaiti civilians shortly after the Feb. 25 liberation.

“They tied them to the boot of the car and dragged them for two kilometers,” he said. “Then they were beaten.”

In one case investigated by a British physician, an 18-year-old Palestinian said he was walking in the Rawda neighborhood with a friend when two soldiers, a Kuwaiti and a Saudi, accosted him and ordered him to accompany them to the police station.

There, he was confronted by a man in traditional Kuwaiti dress, whom the other men addressed as “Colonel.”

“From your appearance, I can see you have done many wrong things,” the colonel told the man, according to the physician’s report.

The two soldiers took the man into another room, where one of them hit him with an iron bar and the other struck him in the face with a pistol. One said to the other, “Prepare the room and keep the light off.”

The colonel came into the room, and one of the soldiers asked their teen-age prisoner if he knew any Palestinians. “We’ve got martial law now. One bullet in your head, and nobody will know what happened to you,” the soldier reportedly said.

The young man said he was placed in a room with four other Palestinians, an Egyptian and seven Iraqis. One of the Iraqis, he said, had been badly beaten, but the others were told not to try to help him “or it would happen to them.”

The next morning, the prisoners were assigned various work tasks around the police station, had breakfast, and the man was taken back into the interrogation room, where officers made him and two other prisoners chew and eat a cigarette and some Iraqi currency. When he became ill, the man said, he was forced to vomit on one of the Iraqi prisoners.

A man in an exercise suit took his cigarette and stubbed it out on his left arm and grabbed his hair, asking him how many years of school he had completed. When he responded that he had completed four, the man said, “Four!” and banged his head into the wall four times.

Red Cross officials say they have investigated charges of abuse of Palestinians but cannot discuss their findings because of confidentiality requirements.

“Without going into the numbers, we’re aware of certain incidents,” said Walter Stocker, head of the International Red Cross delegation in Kuwait city. “We’re getting a very positive response from the government,” he added. “They’re aware that they’re not yet fully in control of the situation, and they have every interest in seeing that the situation normalizes as soon as possible.”

U.S. Army Col. Ralph Young, head of human services in the Kuwait Task Force, which is overseeing restoration of emergency services, said he is concerned that the Kuwaiti government is facing an “explosive situation” with armed and angry Palestinians.

“If there’s going to be peace and tranquillity in Kuwait, the government of Kuwait has got to be more sensitive to the needs of the Palestinians than it has in the past,” he said.

He said many Palestinians had requested that a multinational military force stay in Kuwait.