AMBASSADOR TARASOV: UNAMI TO FUND EXPANDED SEARCH

C O N F I D E N T I A L KUWAIT 000190 SIPDIS NEA/ARP, NEA/I E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2018 TAGS: PREL PHUM UN KU SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR TARASOV: UNAMI TO FUND EXPANDED SEARCH FOR GOK ARCHIVES; BENCHMARKS NEEDED REF: A. 2008 KUWAIT 1160 ¶B. KUWAIT 177 Classified By: Political Counselor Pete O'Donohue for reasons 1.4 b and d ¶1. (C) During a March 1 call on the Ambassador, Gennady Tarasov, the UN High-level Coordinator for the repatriation or return of all Kuwaiti and third-country nationals or their remains and the return of all Kuwaiti property, including archives, seized by Iraq during the 1990 invasion, said that the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) has provided funds to the Iraq Ministry of Human Rights (MOHR) to train a larger staff in the hopes increasing its capacity to search for the missing GOK archives and the mortal remains of the 350 Kuwaitis who are still unaccounted for. Ambassador Tarasov,s annual report on the progress of the hunt for the missing persons and material is due in April, and in preparation for the report he is visiting Iraq's neighbors on a fact-finding mission. ¶2. (C) Tarasov expressed frustration with the open ended nature of previous proposals by the various technical subcommittees and suggested his report would seek to establish benchmarks against which to measure progress. Of particular interest, he suggested, would be a benchmark goal to allow the entry into Iraq of the Technical Subcommittee which heads the search from the Kuwaiti end. Regarding the hunt for the Kuwait archives, Tarasov said the Iraqis have made little progress over the past year, with the exception of a truckload of radio and television tapes to be returned to the GOK's Interior Ministry in a ceremony on March 2. Concerning the missing human remains, Tarasov's accompanying political assistant speculated that the 350 missing Kuwaitis had been sent to Basra and then dispersed to numerous towns across Iraq where local authorities may have executed them and then buried them in unmarked trenches. -------------- -------------- CHALLENGES AND UPCOMING GOI-GOK MEETING ABOUT SEARCH -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) As Tarasov has indicated in previous meetings (ref A), Iraqi efforts have been hindered by inadequate MOHR staff, insufficient MOHR clout within the Iraqi government, GOI preoccupation with its own thousands of missing persons, and the lack of a GOK inventory or description of what the missing archives look like. Offering his perception that relations may have improved between Kuwait and Iraq, especially following the recent visit to Iraq of Kuwait's Foreign Minister (ref B),Tarasov concurred with Ambassador's suggestion that perhaps the MOHR should launch a public awareness campaign and offer awards to Iraqis for anonymous tips concerning the whereabouts of the missing Kuwaiti bodies and archives, or at the very least discourage them from soliciting bribes in return for leading investigators to alleged sites, as has been reported. Tarasov and the Ambassador agreed that the Technical Subcommittee,s idea of publishing a list of the names and photos of the missing could be productive. ¶4. (C) Tarasov further reported that the Kuwaiti Technical Subcommittee had been scheduled to meet a visiting Iraqi delegation on March 3, but the Iraqi delegation had postponed the meeting unexpectedly. Tarasov requested that post keep him informed of any developments that emerge from a meeting, if and when it occurs. ********************************************* ********* For more reporting from Embassy Kuwait, visit: visit Kuwait's Classified Website at: http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Kuwa it ********************************************* ********* JONES