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British television to broadcast 'Saddam's
Road to Hell'
4.9.2006
Feature for More4 by Simon Smythe
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The documentary 'Saddam's
Road to Hell' will be broadcast on British
television for the first time, on channel More4 on
Tuesday 5th September 2006 at 9pm.
Filmmaker Gwynne Roberts joins Dr Mohammed Ihsan on
a dangerous journey through Iraq to find the bodies
of 8,000 Kurds allegedly murdered by Saddam Hussein
in 1983.
The evidence will be a vital part of the indictment
against Saddam, but because the Iraqi dictator's
palaces and intelligence headquarters were ransacked
at the end of the war and their documents looted,
Ihsan must track down people with information, some
of them former members of the Iraqi secret police,
and just hope they are willing to talk.
The investigation takes the team via Baghdad to the
southern deserts bordering Saudi Arabia (the
'triangle of death') where Kurdish human rights
minister Ihsan believes the bodies are buried. Here
it becomes literally a do or die effort.
The threat of attack by Al Qaida terrorists is
extremely high. And if they don't kill them, the
lack of food and water is certain to, if they spend
too long out in the desert hunting for the mass
graves...
In 1983, 8,000 Kurdish men and boys disappeared. All
of them were members of a powerful Kurdish clan, the
Barzanis. Their abduction marked the point where
Saddam moved from isolated acts of brutality to mass
murder.
The film opens with Ihsan meeting a former Iraqi
secret policeman at the roadside in the middle of
the night. Here, in northern Iraq near the oil city
of Kirkuk the threat of insurgent attack is real. As
Ihsan, an educated, quietly spoken man with
excellent English, reaches into the other man s car
to collect a handful of documents from him, an
automatic weapon hangs from a strap around his neck,
just below the level of the car window. |
Witness Ali Mustafa Hama (L) testifies in the
"Anfal" genocide against the Kurds on Tuesday.
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (R).
Photo : AFP| Reuters
Photos: KURDNET Archive |
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Ihsan travels to meet the relatives of the Barzani
Kurdish men and boys who disappeared. All dressed in
black, many of the women still believe that their
loved ones will return one day. They hold up old
photographs and tell stories of good, kind,
religious family men. The suffering of the women is
the driving force behind Ihsan's investigation.
The journey proper starts from Erbil, a Kurdish city
in northern Iraq. The violence is horrific there,
just like everywhere else. While the filmmakers are
in Arbil a suicide bomber kills 70 in a queue of
young Kurds waiting to join the police. The road is
awash with blood.
From Erbil Ihsan's team sets off south to Baghdad
along roads where Sunni insurgents often attack
vehicles. As they enter the outskirts of the city
four hours later it all looks quite normal. But a
car bomb has already killed 17 that day.
In Baghdad the aim is to track down shops in the
suburbs, which are no-go areas for foreigners,
selling secret documents (including sound recordings
and video tape - once belonging to Saddam's regime).
These were looted after his downfall and now all are
for sale.
Ihsan says he has paid a lot of money. "We should
tell the truth. This is what Iraqis did," he
explains.
http://www.channel4.com/more4/
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