FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, 20 April 2015

NZ’s Coalition Partners Worsening Crisis in Iraq

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – Harmeet Singh Sooden is departing for Iraq at the end of this week to work with the NGO Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). He will be part of a CPT project supporting local and international bodies that are responding to the humanitarian crisis in Iraqi Kurdistan, arising from the large influx of internally displaced persons and Syrian refugees fleeing the current fighting.

Mr Sooden’s specific role will be to analyse and document the growing ethno-sectarian tensions within and near refugee camps resulting from the deteriorating security and economic situation, in order to provide recommendations to aid agencies and local authorities on how to alleviate these tensions.

He says, “One human rights worker described the communal tensions throughout Iraqi Kurdistan as ‘a powder keg’.”

Mr Sooden is also deeply concerned about the Government’s decision to deploy the NZDF to Iraq as part of the US-led coalition fighting ISIS.

He says, “News of the deployment brings to mind stories of my great-grandfather who fought and died for Britain in Mesopotamia during WWI, a century ago.”

Mr Sooden adds, “This time round, Western nations should place the welfare of the Iraqi people as a whole ahead of their own national interests, and not take part in a military campaign that is increasing the level of violence and worsening the humanitarian crisis in the region.”

“What steps is the Government taking to ensure NZ’s coalition partners, including the Iraqi forces to be trained by the NZDF, will stop committing serious human rights violations?” he asks.

Mr Sooden says, “There are no legitimate reasons for states to act in ways that may constitute war crimes in their fight against ISIS.”

Mr Sooden reports, “According to major aid agencies, both the strategy of the US-led coalition and the severe shortfall in funding are compounding the humanitarian crisis in the region. If this trend continues, it might be catastrophic for people across Iraq.”

As a result, Mr Sooden thinks, “As a ‘responsible international citizen’, NZ should work from outside the US-led coalition and push for a UN-mandated mission, while increasing its humanitarian aid contributions.”

Mr Sooden is also appealing to the Government to be more transparent about the other measures it is taking to address the ISIS threat. “We should be informed about the efforts NZ is putting into good faith diplomacy to resolve the conflict,” he says, “and what the Government’s internal risk assessments are of the ISIS threat to the NZ public.”

ENDS

Website: cpt.org/work/iraq

Background Information:

In 2005, while participating in an international CPT delegation, Mr Sooden and three colleagues were kidnapped in Baghdad and held for almost four months. Mr Sooden says the rise of ISIS reminds him of his own ordeal: “Seeing the hostages in orange jumpsuits brings back memories of Tom.” Tom Fox, one of the three held with Mr Sooden, was executed on 9 March 2006. Mr Sooden and the remaining hostages, Canadian James Loney and Briton Norman Kember, were freed two weeks later. According to the US Government, indications are that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the direct forerunner of ISIS, was responsible for the CPT kidnapping.

CPT is an international NGO composed of trained human rights workers who protect human rights and promote conflict resolution in conflict zones around the world. CPT has had a presence in Iraq since October 2002 at the behest of local NGOs – first in Baghdad and then, from 2006, in the Kurdish north. It is a small but important part of a large non-violent movement in Iraq. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who helped to expose the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal in 2004, has acknowledged the work of CPT: “[M]ost of the things that I ended up writing about in Abu Ghraib, most of the general concepts, they knew a great deal about earlier.” CPT’s work with detainees has also been commended by the ICRC and UNAMI.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has stated that US-led “air strikes in Iraq and Syria have compounded the humanitarian consequences of the conflicts in both countries.” Both the ICRC and the UN World Food Programme warn the coalition strategy to retake ISIS-held population centres could greatly worsen the humanitarian crisis. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch continue to implicate the Iraqi Government and government-backed militias in war crimes and exacerbating sectarian tensions. According to the organisation Iraq Body Count (IBC), “[t]he rise of [ISIS] as a major force in the conflict, as well as the military responses by the Iraqi Government and the re-entry of US and Coalition air forces into the conflict, have all contributed to the elevated death tolls”.

The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) has stated “there is ‘general agreement,’ not just in the UN but in Iraq as well, that the security element of dealing with [ISIS] is [just] one part of the solution...to the problems facing the country”, but “an inclusive political process [is] vital to finding comprehensive solutions”.

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