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In reply to Rahul's question, I wrote to Paul McGeough of The Sydney Morning Herald who wrote an informative piece from Tulkarm on this issue in late March. The article is at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/03/25/1017004766319.html His other articles on Palestine, the war on terror etc have been good, so he seems not to be a CNN stooge. Anyway, this is his reply. It seems that Rahul's suspicion could be correct, in contrast to Tariq Aziz's initial declaration (March 11). It shouldn't, I hope, be a surprise - the Government of Iraq has since the early 1970s made its disbursements to Palestinian groups (except their client militia, the Arab Liberation Front) conditional upon exacting a noteworthy death toll. Glen. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 11:40:33 EST Hello Glen, The best evidence I have is what I saw and heard on my visit to Tulkarm. Members of 47 families were present - 45 had lost a member in, if I can use the word, the conventional circumstancs of the Intifada and two had lost membersn who were suicide bombers. The conventional cases were given $US10,000 and it was announced that the families of the suicide bombers were to get $US25,000 and that these were the first families to be getting the special $25,000 payment. When I asked the officials of the of the Arab Liberation Front why they were paying the xtra $US15,000 they told me that it was to encourage more volunteers for the suicide missions. I hope this is useful. It is interesting that when I interviewed the West Bank head of the ALF at his Ramallah office he seemed not to know about the $US25,000 for suicide bombers. He told me that ALL families would get $US10,000, and from this I presumed that there was some quick decision making on the increase and implementing it. I don't have the dates handy, but that meeting took place four days prior to the date of public ation of my Tulkarm piece (which I presume you have). Cheers and thanks for the interest - feel free to come back to me if you need to. Paul McGeough The Sydney Morning Herald _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk