Posted on 12/23/2002 1:58:36 AM PST by hoosierskypilot
KUWAIT CITY – Ashwaq Abdel-Rida has never known her father. She was born eight months after he was captured by Iraqi soldiers while shopping for his pregnant wife in August 1990. Musa Abdel-Rida, a sergeant in the Kuwaiti police, hasn't been seen since.
Twelve years after Iraq's occupation of its southern neighbor, 605 Kuwaitis are still missing. Their fate remains a highly emotional issue in this country of only 860,000, and has helped sustain a deep animosity for Saddam Hussein and his regime.
Iraq says all Kuwaiti prisoners were released and denies holding any more. But last week, Iraq announced it would hold talks with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia next month in the Jordanian capital, Amman, to determine the whereabouts of the missing.
A few days earlier, Baghdad also lifted a ban on a United Nations envoy charged with resolving disputes between Iraq and Kuwait.
In a letter to the UN, Iraq invited Yuli Vorontsov to Baghdad for the first time since UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed him in February 2000 to persuade Iraq to return stolen property, including Kuwait's national archives, and to account for the missing.
With the prospect of a US-led war against Iraq looming large, Baghdad's offer is seen as the latest attempt to curry favor with Kuwait. Two weeks ago, Mr Hussein made an unprecedented, albeit grudging, apology for invading Kuwait in 1990. In October, Iraq returned to Kuwait part of the state archives.
But Kuwaitis remain unimpressed.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
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