By Lidia Qattan

While laboring for the rehabilitation of his country from the disastrous consequences of the Iraqi invasion, the Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad sent delegations around the world, carrying letters of thanks from the government and people of Kuwait to all friendly countries that stood in support of its cause. He himself went on an extensive tour of those countries, conveying thanks, strengthening diplomatic and bilateral relations, and urging support for the release of all Kuwait POWs, an issue the Iraqi regime was refusing to recognize.

To put an end to this human tragedy and to the agonizing suspense it created for the families waiting for the release of their loved one, HH Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad took along the children, whose father or mother were taken hostages to Iraq. Presenting their cause before the UN General Assembly, held on the 26th of September 1991, he urged the support of all the nations in ending this human tragedy.

At the same time and on his suggestion, a special bureau was set up in August 1991 to look after the families of the martyrs and POWs, giving them financial and moral support and anything else they needed. The Deputy Prime Minister, Sheikh Salem Sabah Al Salem Al Sabah took charge of the center, organizing and attending meetings and symposiums in and out of the country, to raise the concern of the world in gaining their support in solving this humanitarian problem.

The perpetuation of this tragedy was causing intense suffering not only to the families concerned, but also to HH Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad and to every Kuwaiti. Their combined endeavor in trying to put an end to the agonizing suspense of their families, moved the compassion of the world, but could never move Saddam Hussein, a man capable of the most vicious crimes against humanity, even against his own people; he exterminated a whole Kurdish village to test the power of his mass destruction chemical weapons!

Victory

Lidia Qattan

The Gulf War, which Saddam Hussein, sure of victory defiantly called “The Mother of all Battles”, left Iraq at the rock-bottom of its economy. When he

Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah

invaded Kuwait, he calculated that he would have made Iraq the most powerful of the Arab countries, but the consequences of the international boycotts during the invasion and the Gulf War of liberation reduced it to a midget of a state.

Iraq was shredded; its economy dismantled; its oil revenues mortgaged to pay billions of dollars to compensate for the damages done to Kuwait and to other states and the cost of reconstruction, besides paying off its debts and returning all that it had stolen from Kuwait. The billions of dollars the Iraqi regime spent in arms to build its military machine was a colossal waste, for what was not destroyed during the war, had to be demilitarized in the aftermath as part of the armistice agreement, which demanded the dismantling of Iraqi weapons.

Iraq had also to recognize and respect the KuwaitIraq border as established by the UN Security Council. Priority among all the resolutions passed by the Security Council was the immediate release of all POWs, but this issue and other agreements, signed by the Iraq regime for an armistice were simply ignored.

Defiant of all international laws, stubbornly refusing to abide to any of the Security Council’s resolutions Saddam Hussein was again faced with a new international boycotting, to force him to comply with international laws, but that only made him more arrogant.

In retaliation, he began threatening Kuwait through propaganda and direct attack on the border on the 6th of October 1994, while denying the existence of Kuwaiti POWs, or any Kuwaiti detainees in his land. The perpetuation of this human tragedy