Ukrainians help create a new Iraq

The Ukrainian peacekeepers in Iraq have finished manning a territorial defense battalion in the province of Wasit, selecting 107 Iraqis they will train under a special program. In addition to purely military functions, the Ukrainian contingent in Iraq is assisting the populace with the setting up of civil authorities.

Major Hennady Rozhkov, judge advocate with the commanding officer of the Fifth Detached Mechanized Brigade, is currently responsible for upholding law and order in the province of Wasit, Republic of Iraq. After being relieved of duty as a judge advocate with a Ukrainian army corps, he was placed in charge of a large area in a remote Islamic country, succeeding a US counterpart, with a population of some 900,000. Now he was to cope with a host of postwar problems and a largely vague domestic situation, currently being exploited by those that used to help Saddam mete out “justice” with regard to the whole nation.

Hennady, did you have any idea about what you would be faced with in Iraq?

Rozhkov: I thought I’d be carrying out my duties as a judge advocate the way I did in Ukraine, monitoring the observance of law and order, seeing that normative documents were complied with, preventing crime, and upholding the legal education of personnel.

Who did you replace in your current rank and position (perhaps best described as county sheriff) in Wasit? How did it happen?

Rozhkov: It happened August 28 and I was appointed to succeed US Navy JAG Captain Edward Dan. The ceremony took place at the office of the Chief Justice of the Appellate Court of the Province of Wasit, in the presence of the Iraqi Minister of Justice and General Collins, Chief Judge Advocate of the Coalition Forces.

What did you have to do in that capacity?

Rozhkov: I was to monitor seven courts of law in the province of Wasit, criminal investigations, holding in custody suspects and the imprisonment of convicts, handling complaints received from the populace, and a great many other things.

Did the JAG captain share his experience with you?

Rozhkov: He told me quite a few things and I was especially impressed to hear that Captain Edward Dan had once stepped into the office of Justice Maahud Sallah to relieve him of duty, on the strength of a duly issued warrant, and present him with corruption charges. The Arab was livid with rage and reached for his gun. The American officer overpowered him and then led him out of the building and sent him on his way, thus placing him in public disgrace.

Have you had any such experience?

Rozhkov : I can remember one case when Justice Faik Hattab Damad arrived from Baghdad, appointed Chief Justice of the Appellate Court by the Iraqi Ministry of Justice. I knew from local judges, lawyers, and prosecutors that he was a friend of Saddam Hussein, that he even had the dictator’s personal card reading he was Saddam’s good friend, thus entitling him to certain privileges.

As soon as he arrived I demanded that he present his credentials. (The province had its Justice Djuahar Maahud, and I had heard of no official causes for his replacement; besides, all cadre replacements had to be agreed upon with the interim coalition government. He had no such credentials, and I immediately notified the coalition forces’ headquarters in Baghdad as well as the CPI officials in the province of Wasit. Faik Hattab Damad left the province two days later.

Did you experience any difficulties when starting on your mission?

Rozhkov : Iraq is an Islamic country, and all walks of life here are inseparably linked with the religion, with many things baffling to Europeans. Can you picture a man killing his adulterous wife and then spending only a year in prison? And the judge being free to reduce the term to nine months? When found in possession of unlawfully acquired weapons, a person faces a month in prison or a fine of $1,000.

We know that practically every Iraqi carries weapons

Rozhkov : Under the rules enforced by the interim administration of Iraq, every family is allowed to keep weapons at home for self-defense against robbers and other criminal elements. Yet only police officers, men of the territorial defense unit, and several other individuals can carry firearms in the street, if so warranted by the governor of the province, in coordination with the military contingent’s command. All others found in possession of weapons are held criminally responsible. Everybody in Iraq knows this, yet our peacekeepers continue detecting and apprehending transgressors.

We also know that the Iraqi population’s buying capacity is markedly low, meaning that the local prisons should be packed. Is this so?

Rozhkov : The thing is that a local judge can rule to lower the fine imposed, and such payments can be deferred. I know of a case when a man arrested for possessing a Makarov pistol was fined $200. He signed a statement, undertaking to pay the fine within a week, and was immediately released.

Does it mean that Iraqi law enforcement authorities rely on what is generally known as a gentleman’s agreement?

Rozhkov: They obviously do, for such is the local tradition. The judge is believed to know better and his decision brooks no doubt.

Their judges appear to have an enviable status.

Rozhkov: Under the law in force, the Chief Justice of the Province of Wasit is in command of the local judges and prosecutors. This is one of the specifics of the Iraqi judicial system. All judges and prosecutors are subordinated to a single person, which makes no sense in Europe. In Ukraine, for example, we have separate judicial and public prosecutor structures. Here everything is different, so we have to keep studying the local judicial structure. With my status as county sheriff — in your words — I have to keep up to date, so as not to look incompetent.

Perhaps this merger of the court and the prosecutor’s office should be regarded as a prerequisite of the expressly corrupt Iraqi judicial system?

Rozhkov: I am in no position to change this system, so I have to accept it and bear it in mind in my daily routine. The interim government of Iraq has pointed out the need to carry out democratic reforms and is in the process of working out a number of elements of law and procedural documents aimed at altering and upgrading the criminal legislation in this Midle Eastern country. Work is also underway to upgrade civil law proceedings.

However, most of the laws enacted even before Saddam came to power are still in effect. And the criminal and enforcement procedures are so mixed up that I suspect that few local lawyers can actually figure them out. I was told that justice is exercised in Iraq in two ways, official and unofficial. That this justice rests on three pillars: Islam, law, and tradition. Thus the law is worked out with an eye to the canons of Islam. Tradition, however, is a very special thing. There are different traditions in different provinces. For example, tradition forbids a widow or a surviving daughter to claim the family legacy, yet the law rooted in religious canons allows her to do just that. Such unhappy women have to abide by tradition, otherwise they will become outcasts, in which case they will not be entitled to the family legacy. What I mean is that even if they went by the book and took possession of that legacy, their lives would be made impossible by outraged relatives — and they would not be able to find any legal protection.

Marriages are traditionally consummated if blessed by the man at the head of the family or by the elder of the family clan (usually numbering up to fifty persons). Men and women representing different Islamic confessions (Shiites and Sunnites) are not allowed to join in marriage. Should a girl marry contrary to her father’s will, any of her relatives is entitled to kill her, although the law reads that she is free to marry and that such marriage will be legally sealed at any court of law, without reservation.

Personally I think that Iraqi traditions are strong mostly because the population is largely illiterate and have only a vague idea about the law. For them the law is what the local imam has to say on a given subject.

There are also the rules of the shari’ah [Islamic law]; these are not stipulated by the laws currently in force but must be strictly observed. For example, if a person sells stolen property and the transaction becomes known in the neighborhood, that person will never be able to sell anything to anyone. Any such transgressions of the shari’ah are instantly reported, as a Moslem is expressly forbidden to deal in stolen property, meaning that whoever buys it will suffer a very sad lot, will actually become an outcast which is the same as physical death in the Islamic world.

As county sheriff, what kind of crimes do you think are most widespread in your territory?

Rozhkov: The crime rate in Wasit is characteristic of the rest of Iraq. Most such offences address domestic crimes. In Ukraine, most such crimes are caused by drinking too much. In Iraq, it’s their fiery temperament and the lynching instinct. You should see them in the courtroom, with blazing eyes and waving hands, arguing they had the right to do what they did. A thunderbolt hurled by Zeus fades by comparison.

On one occasion I had to call a local police precinct, screaming at the top of my lungs that I needed their men with guns ready immediately. I was attending a court hearing of a criminal case and then the courtroom was flooded by the defendant’s relatives obviously determined to do away with the plaintiff right there and then.

You mean you actually had to cock your Kalashnikov and organize something akin to an all-round defense?

Rozhkov: Yes, it turned out to be a real emergency situation. The local police succeeded in surrounding the court premises and preventing unlawful acts, considering that such violent acts are something most people have learned to commit since childhood. I do think that their religion and traditions stand much above the law. In my case we had no time to ponder the specifics. We did our best and prevented bloodshed. The matter was solved in keeping with the law.

What about your daily schedule?

Rozhkov: I usually report for work at 8:30 and start by receiving visitors at the court building. I record their complaints and requests, and then visit the Chief Justice of the Appellate Court of the Province of Wasit. After that I work with judges handling specific criminal cases. Here my principal task is monitoring their proceedings, forensic examinations, keeping set timeframes. Sometimes I have to act as a defense counsel. Why? Because people are often brought in on anonymous denunciations. You can trust me that being thrown behind bars in Iraq — even if locked in detention cell — is an extremely unpleasant experience. I visited a place like that shortly after being appointed and quickly realized why people were afraid to go there.

The penitentiary was dirty and stinking in the first place. Any sanitary notions seemed to have been absent since laying the cornerstone. Second, the attitude toward the inmates was inhuman. On my first visit I had to summon the chief warden and order him to have some of the prisoners tended by the staff physician. Many of the inmates apparently had to be immediately hospitalized. For the prison guards the situation looked perfectly normal, so the general attitude toward the staff physician was one best described as an apostle descending from the heavens.

We recently watched a local television channel presenting a lengthy feature showing how Ukrainian peacekeepers were helping an appellate court in Iraq. Were you involved in any way?

Rozhkov: I was. In and with, and I might say I put my heart into the job. When I first stepped onto what was supposed to be the chief judicial premises of the whole province and saw what was there, I decided to do some replanning and equipment upgrading. People daily visiting the court had to wait in narrow corridors, sitting on old chairs ready to collapse any moment. And many would sit on the floor — men, women, and children. No air-conditioning, no electric fans, only one dirty and stinking toilet. And a suffocating odorous atmosphere hung over the premises. There was nothing to inspire any hope for unbiased justice.

Fortunately, I could use a special humanitarian aid fund meant for the province. I managed to get funds to renovate the court premises. I then organized a tender for a developer. After the successful bidder was named, I outlined the work schedules and checked their performance daily; I also arranged for purchases of office furniture and equipment. Very little compared to the province and its scope of problems, of course, but we all know that well begun is half done. I plan to start doing the same at other courts of law in this region.

Thanks for your time, Major Rozhkov. Good luck.

Rozhkov: I’ll need it, thank you.