US embassy cable - 03KUWAIT2300

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KUWAIT 002300 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE ALSO PASS USAID/W 
STATE PLEASE REPEAT TO IO COLLECTIVE 
STATE FOR PRM/ANE, EUR/SE, NEA/NGA, IO AND SA/PAB 
NSC FOR EABRAMS, SMCCORMICK, STAHIR-KHELI, JDWORKEN 
USAID FOR USAID/A, DCHA/AA, DCHA/RMT, DCHA/FFP 
USAID FOR DCHA/OTI, DCHA/DG, ANE/AA 
USAID FOR DCHA/OFDA:WGARVELINK, BMCCONNELL, KFARNSWORTH 
USAID FOR ANE/AA:WCHAMBERLIN 
ROME FOR FODAG 
GENEVA FOR RMA AND NKYLOH 
ANKARA FOR AMB WRPEARSON, ECON AJSIROTIC AND DART 
AMMAN FOR USAID AND DART 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAID, PREF, IZ, WFP 
SUBJECT:  DART REPORT: IRANIAN REFUGEES IN IRAQ 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  This is a DART report.  Several thousand Iranian 
refugees are being pressured to leave their homes in Iraq 
and return to Iran, where some fear they will be killed, 
jailed, or face other repressive measures by the Government 
of Iran.  Since the Coalition defeated the former Government 
of Iraq, armed Iraqis in the southern part of the country 
have threatened the refugees, seized their homes and 
farmland, and ordered them out of Iraq.  UNHCR has met with 
Iranian refugee representatives and local Iraqi tribal 
leaders, but there has been no noticeable reduction of 
tensions between the two groups.  End Summary. 
 
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BACKGROUND 
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2.  This is a DART report.  The DART visited the town of 
Dujaila-Al Hindia on 20 May, approximately 40 kilometers 
(km) southeast of the Iraqi city of Al Kut.  The town is a 
baked-brick compound built in the 1980s that currently 
houses approximately 450 Iranian refugee families, or about 
2500 refugees, and a handful of Iraqi squatters.  Some 
Iranian refugees say Iraqi troops captured them during the 
Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and forced them into Iraq.  Some 
Iraqis complain that at least a few Iranians willingly moved 
to Iraq because they were given large parcels of land by the 
former regime. Other Iranians at the compound are 
descendants of the original refugees who settled in the 
area. 
 
3.  The DART discussed the refugees' issues with an 
estimated 60 Iranian sheikhs and heads of households.  The 
refugees acknowledged they were given a total of 17,000 
dunams of land by the former regime (one dunam equals 2500 
square feet) and had been cultivating the land for years 
without interference, growing wheat, melons, cucumbers, and 
tomatoes. 
 
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INTIMIDATION BY LOCAL IRAQIS 
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4.  Since the defeat of the former regime, the refugees said 
gangs of Iraqis, brandishing automatic weapons, rocket- 
propelled grenades, pistols, and hand grenades, have 
threatened them several times and told them they must leave 
Iraq.  One farmer said he had been told he could harvest his 
wheat crop in the coming weeks but after that he would have 
to leave the area.  Another farmer reported that Iraqis 
seized his 75 dunams of land and allowed their cattle, sheep 
and goats to graze on his vegetable crops.  Another farmer 
said an Iraqi man and his seven brothers seized his 35 
dunams of land and brought their wives and children to the 
land to show them their new property. 
 
5.  Because of the threats, approximately 500 Iranians fled 
their homes near Al Kut in early April and established a 
makeshift camp at the heavily-mined Sharhani border crossing 
point, at the Iraq-Iran border, while they waited for Iran's 
permission to enter the country.  The United Nations High 
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) negotiated the 
repatriation on 22 May of 180 of the Iranian refugees from 
the border post, the first such group allowed to return to 
Iran in nearly one year.  Hundreds of other refugees refused 
to cross back into Iran after border authorities told them 
their livestock would not be permitted into the country. 
 
6.  UNHCR has been working with the Iranian government to 
organize the refugees' return, which was stopped by the 
Iraqi government shortly before the war.  Before the program 
was suspended, UNHCR had assisted in the return of 1,050 
Iranian refugees from Iraq. 
 
7.  The refugees in Dujaila- Al Hindia met recently with a 
representative of UNHCR from Basrah to express their 
concerns over the Iraqis' intimidation campaign, and they 
said the UNHCR official also met with Iraqi tribal leaders. 
But they said there has been no discernible decrease of 
tension within the community. 
 
8.  The tense atmosphere in the Dujaila-Al Hindia community 
was underscored during the DART meeting with the 
collective's Iranian leaders by the appearance outside the 
meeting room of an Iraqi man, armed with an AK-47 automatic 
weapon, who jumped into a waiting vehicle and sped off, and 
the sound of a gunshot shortly thereafter.  The meeting 
broke up, and two Iranian men, nervously speaking under 
their breath, warned the DART that the shot was a 
`provocation' and that it would be better if the DART left 
the area immediately, which it did. 
 
9.  According to refugees at Dujaila-Al Hindia, ten refugees 
were killed and seven injured when a missile exploded ten 
days ago at an Iranian refugee encampment at the Iran-Iraq 
border crossing point 90 km northeast of Al Amarah.  The 
encampment, with approximately 500 Iranian refugees, is in a 
desert area surrounded by mines and unexploded ordnance left 
over from the Iran-Iraq war. 
 
10.  Two of the refugee men at the 20 May meeting, both 
farmers, traveled to Basrah and waited for three days to 
meet again with the DART to seek help in securing refuge in 
a country other than Iraq or Iran. 
 
11.  One of the men said he sold his wedding ring to raise 
the 50,000 Iraqi dinars needed to make the roundtrip from 
Dujaila-Al Hindia.  He said it was a small sacrifice if it 
meant that he could appeal to the DART again to urge that he 
and other families be resettled in a safer country, where 
their children could grow up without having to face the 
repression known by their parents. 
 
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THREATS BY IRANIAN AGENTS 
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12.  One man told the DART that after the war began on 20 
March, the Iranian government sent five Iranian `agents' to 
the compound.  He said the men threatened the refugees and 
their families, telling them that if they cooperated with 
U.S. authorities or talked to any international agencies 
about their situation they would be killed.  He said the 
`agents' have since left the compound and returned to Iran. 
But he added that some refugees in Dujaila-Al Hindia 
cooperate with Iranian authorities for fear they or their 
families will be punished once they are repatriated.  The 
man asked the DART several times to keep his identity 
confidential and said, "If Iran knows we met you, we won't 
 
SIPDIS 
see our families again." 
 
13.  The same man said that the majority of refugees at the 
collective originally opposed the idea of going back to Iran 
but changed their minds after the Iraqi threats and 
intimidation. 
 
14.  The refugee said that 25 Iranian refugee families, or 
approximately 150 people, living in the Dujaila collective 
and in Diwaniyah continue to oppose the idea of returning 
because of potential persecution by the Iranian government. 
It is not a fear without foundation.  He and the other 
farmer who met with the DART in Basrah returned to Iran 
during the 1990s, and both were jailed for more than a year, 
accused of being opponents of the Iranian government. 
 
15.  He said his neighbors are pleading with him to change 
the names of his three children before they are repatriated 
to Iran because their names are of Arab origin and not 
Shiite.  He said he will refuse to do so, and will continue 
to resist repatriation to Iran.   He said he is so opposed 
to returning to Iran that he would willingly give up his 
Shiite Muslim religion and resettle in Israel if permitted 
to do so. 
 
16.  Those Iranian refugees who oppose repatriation say they 
hope the United States can help arrange a safe haven for 
them, away from the threats and harassment they now face in 
Iraq and possibly in the future, if they are returned to 
Iran. 
 
JONES