From: assaad eskander [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 21 June 2008 06:57
To: Natalia Rodriguez-Martin; Nayab Al-Dabbagh; Paola Gasparoli; Patricia
Sleeman; Perrine Canavaggio
Subject: An Open Letter to the Director of Hoover Institute


An Open Letter to the Director of Hoover Institute

 

I have read Mr. Sousa's letter to Mr. Mark Greene, President of the Society
of American Archivists (dated 06-06-08), Mr. Al-Jaberi's statement (dated
27-04-08) and the article published by Stanford University's official site
regarding the illegally seized documents of the former Iraqi state and the
archive of the Ba'ath Party (dated 18-06-08). 

 

 As the national archivist of Iraq, I would like to clarify several points
regarding the issue of the illegally seized documents of the former Iraqi
state and the archive of the Ba'ath Party.

1. Mr. al-Jaberi does not represent the Ministry of Culture, let alone the
current Iraqi government, insofar as the issue of the seized documents is
concerned. The statement is written by Mustafa al-Kadhemi, who is the
director of IMF and Mr. Makkiya's right-hand man. Al-Kadhemi exploited the
good intention of al-Jaberi and persuaded him to sign a statement about a
sensitive issue he knows literally nothing about and has no authority to
talk about or to deal with.

 

 2. Regarding the retrieval of the seized documents, I have been
coordinating my efforts with the Acting Minister of Culture, his deputy Mr.
Taher al-Hmud, advisors of the Vice-President, and other important figures
inside the Iraqi government as well as a number of Parliamentarians.

 

 3. The Iraqis inside and outside the country have supported my position and
disapproved of Makkiya, al-Kadhemi and the IMF's activities, which are
considered to be morally wrong and manifest violations of Iraq's sovereignty. 

 

 4. Some parts of al-Jaberi's statement contradict the IMF's claims, not
mine, regarding the fact that the National Board of Accountability and
Justice (NBAJ) will establish an archive for the records of the Ba'ath
Party. I informed al-Kadhemi about this in order to tell him that IMF has no
right whatsoever to keep these records abroad. Moreover, the INLA is in
constant contact with Dr. Ahmed al-Chalabi, who presides over NBAJ, which
replaced the former De-Ba'athification National Board. Dr. Chalabi has
expressed his support for INLA's campaign to retrieve all the seized
documents, including the Ba'ath Party ones. The two sides (INLA and (NBAJ)
hope to work together to return all the seized records. 

 

 5. I tried through direct negotiations with IMF's representatives including
Mr. Makkiya to reach a satisfactory settlement regarding the issue of the
seized documents. Unfortunately the IMF's representatives were not
interested in making any compromise that would have put an end to the
dispute. For instance, I asked IMF to enlarge its agreement with Hoover so
that INLA would be included as the representative of the Iraqi state and people.

 

 6. I would like to draw your attention to Iraqi legislation no. 111 for the
year 1969. This legislation imposes severe punishment on those who destroys,
hides, steal, forge, publish or remove official Iraqi documents. The
legislation also imposes severe punishment (10 year-imprisonment) on those
individuals who collaborate with and provide foreign states with Iraqi
documents. Therefore, the IMF's confiscation, purchases, scanning,
declassification and publication of the Ba'ath documents are
incontrovertibly illegal. It also means that the IMF has violated the same
Iraqi legislation when it decided to provide the American government with
copies of its illegally seized records. In light of that one can say that
the letters of clearance IMF received from one or two Iraqi high-ranking
officials carry no weight because they went against the above mentioned
Iraqi legislation.

 

7. The IMF has not been authorized by the Iraqi government to ask the
Pentagon and the CIA to transfer tens of millions of Iraqi documents they
both seized to it. The IMF's action goes clearly against current Iraqi
legislations. We all know that IMF has no storage rooms inside or outside
Iraq. This means that the IMF will keep tens of millions of Iraqi documents
in America by making deals similar to the one it made with Hoover. Thus, the
Iraqis, including the scholars and the victims of the former regime will be
given no access to their own documents, while the Americans (the occupiers)
will continue to enjoy such a privilege.  .  

 

 8. Makiya's claim that his deal with Hoover is legal because he got the
approval of the Iraqi government contradicts his refusal to return the
documents to Iraq because he says that he does not trust the intention of my
'bosses' as he puts it. Are not my bosses the same people from whom Makiya
has claimed to have obtained approval for the shipment of the records to the
US and for the deal he made with Hoover? This is pure hypocrisy.

 

9. The INLA has never claimed that it should alone decide the fate of the
seized documents. On the contrary, its director has demanded from the very
beginning the establishment of National Archival Committee to include
members from the three branches of government (executive, legislative and
judiciary). The Committee will be entrusted with the task of making new
legislation for all the records of the former regime including the Ba'ath
party.  

 

 10. The INLA and other governmental agencies have been gathering
information on the activities of the IMF since April 2003. Rest assured that
this Foundation has violated Iraqi laws and regulations all the way. It
violated the principle of the rule of law and the priority of state-based
institutions.

 

 11. I would also like to remind you that the IMF came into being within the
framework of the American occupation of Iraq, and thus was an integral part
of a grand imperial vision for the New Iraq. This explains why IMF has not
been accountable politically, administratively, legally, financially or
morally to any Iraqi authority since its formation.

 

 12.  The IMF's purchases of illegally seized documents from individuals and
private organizations has considerably encouraged the black-market
phenomenon, and discouraged local Iraqis from handing over seized documents
to the proper authorities.

 

 13. The Ba'ath documents are the property of the Iraqis and the
institutions that represent them, and so it is arrogant and unethical for
one person (an émigré) to decide the destiny of millions of sensitive
official documents that have had and will continue to have considerable
impact on the private lives of millions of Iraqi citizens. It is not in the
interests of Iraqi victims and academic investigation for the IMF to have
been using the documents for propaganda, self-aggrandizement and obtaining
funding. The Iraqis desperately want to know and confront the realities of
their recent past. They need to recognize the suffering of the victims and
to identify those who committed crimes, before bringing them to justice. The
Iraqis are well aware that any national reconciliation project cannot be
successfully implemented without making the seized documents available for
both scholars and the public mediated by a responsible agency representative
of them..

 

Last but not least, it should be noted that the Iraqi public, Iraqi
intellectuals, and Iraqi media all support the INLA's cause. We also rely on
the support of our colleagues abroad, especially in Northern America.

 

Dr. Saad Eskander,

Director General,

Iraq National Library & Archives