Kuwait Ignores West, Continues Deportations

Ignoring Western warnings that it may be violating the Geneva Conventions, Kuwait is quietly continuing to deport foreigners to Iraq, Western diplomats said Saturday.

Since June 9, more than 400 unwanted residents have been bused to the no-man’s-land on Kuwait’s northern border and then marched into Safwan, Iraq, according to witnesses and diplomats. At least 200 have been deported within the past four days, they said.

International law does not bar countries from expelling foreigners at their discretion. But the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits forced repatriation of “protected” civilians who have reason to fear persecution because of their political or religious beliefs, diplomats said.

The deportees are said to include Iraqis, some of them born in Kuwait, others accused of entering the country illegally during the occupation; Palestinians arrested at their homes or rounded up at checkpoints, and citizens of nations that sided with Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, including women and children.

Since postwar Kuwait has no diplomatic relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Iraq and the other governments involved, the civilians would be deemed protected under the Geneva accords, a Western diplomat said. In addition, Kuwait signed an international accord in March in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, pledging that neither prisoners of war nor civilian detainees would be repatriated against their will.

Despite repeated requests, the Kuwaiti government has not permitted the International Committee of the Red Cross to interview the detainees to determine whether they are, as the government has insisted, leaving voluntarily, the diplomat said.

One Iraqi man, among a group of deportees June 11, told reporters from the window of a bus: “If I go to Baghdad, they will kill me.”

Reports of those deportations sparked international concern. The State Department asked the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait to investigate but stopped short of declaring the deportations a violation of international law.

Journalists have since been prevented from entering the government’s immigration detention center, where an estimated 600 people are awaiting deportation, and one journalist was reportedly turned back when attempting to reach the border where the deportations have taken place.

“They have the impression that the world is against them to stop them from implementing this policy,” the Western diplomat said of the Kuwaitis.

At least one Palestinian, reportedly bused to Iraq on Thursday, was said to be leaving voluntarily. Mufid Oudah Abuseibaa, 26, was arrested Feb. 28 and severely beaten in police custody, though he was never charged with any crime, according to relatives. After nearly four months in jail, he agreed to deportation to Iraq and plans to make his way from there to Jordan, they said.

But by Saturday, the family had been unable to confirm Abuseibaa’s deportation or to visit him in jail.

“Somebody told us he already left by bus to Safwan, but we don’t know, we are not sure,” said his sister, Fatim Abuseibaa, who returned to Kuwait from Daly City, Calif., during the Iraqi occupation. “If he is out, I am very happy. I just want to hear his voice to know he is OK.”

Two other Abuseibaa brothers are awaiting trial on charges of collaborating with the Iraqi occupiers, and both say they have been tortured in police custody. Like many other Palestinians, the Abuseibaas are desperate just to leave Kuwait with their family intact.

“If they set our sons free, all the Palestinians will be gone in two days,” said their mother, Fatima Awad Ali.

Although torture and beatings of Palestinians appear to be waning, arbitrary arrests continue, according to a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official interviewed Saturday. Western sources estimate that at least 2,000 non-Kuwaitis are in detention, many of them not charged with any crime; the PLO official said at least 1,500 are Palestinians.

Moreover, the official said, a semi-official Kuwaiti government campaign aimed at pressuring the Palestinians into leaving the country has been stepped up.

“They are treating us just like a plague,” said the official, who asked to be called Abu Salim.

About 150,000 of the prewar 400,000 Palestinians remain in Kuwait. Between 3,000 and 5,000 have departed in the last two weeks, Abu Salim said.

Those who remain are growing increasingly fearful and desperate.

Most Palestinians who held public-sector jobs have not been called back to work, and many in the private sector remain unemployed. But their Kuwaiti landlords are pressing them for back payment of rents, which were not collected during the occupation.

Palestinian students will not be admitted to Kuwait University this fall. And Kuwaiti officials have said that children who attended classes during the occupation--many of them Palestinians--will not be permitted to enter public schools.

In the latest development, the Kuwaiti traffic department announced in a government-controlled newspaper Friday that non-Kuwaitis convicted of serious traffic violations will be deported.

“They are in these matters more harsh than the Iraqis,” Abu Salim said. “It’s as if we are Saddam Hussein and we invaded Kuwait and we are the core of the problem. . . .

“Most of the people say, ‘I am going to leave the country because I can’t live here with my dignity.’ ”

Every member of the Abuseibaa family is unemployed. They have already sold their television, videocassette recorder and washing machine. And their mother has taken to sewing dresses for neighbors to try to earn money to pay the lawyer who is defending her sons.

“He’s a good lawyer, but he says it’s a difficult case, and he needs another 2,000 dinar (about $6,600),” Fatim Abuseibaa said. “I don’t know where we will get it. We already paid 2,000. . . .

“We will just ask someone if we can borrow. But nobody has money to lend, and we haven’t any more money in the bank.”

If the two brothers are acquitted, the family hopes to regroup in Jordan and eventually emigrate to California to join a brother who has become a U.S. citizen. If they are convicted, their mother, a 56-year-old widow who has lived in Kuwait since she was 14, will take the younger children to Jordan, where at least they can attend school. Fatim plans to stay behind to care for the brothers in jail.

“We really hope (President) Bush and the United States and all the countries that helped Kuwait be free will help us Palestinians be free,” their mother said.