August 2, 1990, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait, will go down in
the annals of Kuwaiti history as a black day. It was a day that
shattered lives and the nation. It marked the beginning of over
seven-month long occupation during which survival itself became
a nightmarish ordeal.
International telephone lines were snapped. Local television
and radio stations were taken over. Attempts to make contacts
abroad involved the risk of capture and execution. Most information
about conditions inside Kuwait came from those who had managed
to flee the country and find refuge elsewhere. Their reports were
chilling.
reedom', 'Civil Rights', 'Human Rights' -- were words that had
lost their meaning. While waking up alive was reason enough to
give thanks, it also meant not knowing what new horrors the day
might bring. Those who left home did so with the knowledge that
they might never return -- the entire city was crawling with snipers
and landmines. Not that home provided a haven of safety and security.
The Iraqi forces had the free run of the country. They barged
into private homes to loot, plunder, torture, rape and execute
at will. Any resistance was met with a merciless display of strength
of superior numbers and weapons.
Water desalination and purification plants were destroyed. Food
and water supplies to the Kuwaiti people were cut off as Saddam
Hussein diverted them to his own armies. The ever-present possibility
of chemical weapons attacks meant having to sew home-made gas
masks.
As in any war, the children were the worst victims. Their world
had changed overnight. The invasion and subsequent occupation
of their tiny nation came as a bolt from the blue. Before the
invasion, Kuwait's crime rate ranked among the lowest in the world.
Now they were surrounded by images of death and destruction. Even
the sun didn't seem to shine as before. The oil wells set afire
by the Iraqis belched thick black smoke that clouded their lives
like a bad dream they couldn't seem to wake up from. Sleep provided
no respite, not with the constant raging of machine guns and tanks
so perilously close.
The invaders gutted all that they could not kill or take with
them. Parliamentary institutions, government buildings, the airport,
major hotels, clubs, playgrounds and recreation centres were ransacked
and destroyed. The beaches were used as arsenals for Iraqi arms.
Some of the most fashionable residential suburbs were taken over
by the Iraqi troops. Those that did not suit their purposes were
torched. Even mosques and places of worship were not spared.
The atrocities did not begin and end with the local populace.
Foreigners living in Kuwait were forced into hiding when the Iraqis
began using them as human shields. The penalty for aiding a foreigner
was death by hanging. The Kuwaiti people immediately issued a
statement through the Kuwaiti Resistance: under no circumstances
would they turn in a single foreigner. On the contrary, they would
do everything in their power to help them.
The Kuwaitis devised an intricate system of supplying foreigners
with food and basic necessities. Many expatriates were moved to
safe houses in different Kuwaiti suburbs. The Resistance did this
despite the tremendous risks involved, and some of its members
paid with their lives.
As the weeks dragged into months of carnage and plunder, it seemed
as though the war would never end. But the aggressors had reckoned
without the reaction of the international community. The initial
shock gave way to outrage and disgust. Kuwait would not fight
alone. It would not lie ravaged and forgotten. The world was on
Kuwait's side, and the end of the torture much nearer than anyone
would expect.
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