Posted on 05/26/2004 6:49:31 AM PDT by TexKat
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The US overseer in Iraq unveiled a 25 million-dollar fund to compensate thousands of Iraqis victimised by Saddam Hussein, which officials said was inadequate for the flood of likely applicants.
"I have created a special task force for compensation of victims of the previous regime. For an initial endowment, I have set aside 25 million dollars," Paul Bremer told a Baghdad news conference.
The money will come from the Development Fund for Iraq that includes the oil revenue and foreign assets, and will be controlled by Baghdad's interim government after the US-led coalition relinquishes sovereignty on June 30.
The physically and mentally tortured, people who had property and money confiscated, the displaced, the exiled and relatives of those who were killed by forces loyal to Saddam, all stand to receive payouts, officials said.
"Thinking of these people is a humanitarian act par excellence," said the head of the Iraqi Bar Association, Malik Dohan al-Hassan, who has been appointed chairman of the special committee.
Hassan, from Iraq's minority Sunni community that was favoured by Saddam at the expense of the majority Shiite population, is to submit a report by August 1 to Iraq's interim government on how the fund is to be managed.
But there was recognition across the board that the fund, equivalent to one dollar per person of Iraq's estimated 25 million population, would never meet the torrent of expected appeals for compensation.
"If we open the doors for everyone, 25 million people are going to have certain claims," said Hassan.
During Saddam's 24 years in power, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed, tortured, raped or sacked from their jobs for any hint of opposition to his ruling Baath party.
The most infamous of all crimes was the gassing in March 1988 of 5,000 Iraqi Kurds, mostly women and children, when aircraft dropped chemical bombs on the northeastern town of Halabja and wounded another 10,000.
"This will certainly not be a sufficient sum to compensate Saddam's victims, but it is a beginning ... No compensation can ever be completely adequate" Bremer added.
For his part, the current president of the US-installed interim Governing Council, Ghazi al-Yawar, vowed that there would be "justice for whoever was the victim".
Human rights groups have slammed the United States over evidence of chronic abuse of Iraqi prisoners and courts martial for a handful of junior soldiers.
"Thousands of people were detained in the context of the US-led war against Iraq and subsequent occupation of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority," the London-based human rights group Amnesty International said.
It followed a March report in which the group said more than 10,000 civilians had been killed since the 2003 US-led invasion to topple Saddam and condemned "flagrant violations" of human rights under the ruling coalition.
Saddam has been in US custody since he was captured last December and is to be tried at an unspecified date along with other members of his toppled regime by an Iraqi special tribunal.
25 mil would come out to about $3 per victim.
This is important to do, but why-oh-why is Paul Bremer making announcements like this??? Couldn't this wait six weeks to be announced by the Iraqis? This Administration does not get it. Bremer needs to STFU until June 30.
Or about 4500 Iraqi Dinar.
This is like the blacks asking for reparations for slavery. Jeeze. Terasa Kerry could get reparations since she's from Mozambique.
To take it to the absurd, since we are all supposed to be from Adam and Eve, ALL of us are entitled to something from everyone.
Karl Marx anyone. /rant
In that culture, guess who is going to get all the bucks?
Those that survived Saddam's prisons will never see a penny.
I'll give it about three weeks and then we'll hear about all the "scandals" (sur-prise, sur-prise).
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