"The most difficult and dangerous task I have undertaken"

Helena Ranta's team examined mass-graves in Iraq

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By Kaija Virta
     
      "This was the most difficult and dangerous task I have ever undertaken", said forensic dentist Helena Ranta of her work as the leader of a team examining mass-graves in Iraq from the regime of Saddam Hussein. "Then again, I do not regret for one moment that we went out there."
      Ranta and her four Finnish colleagues returned home last week, two weeks ahead of schedule. Their early departure was prompted by the worsening security situation on the ground in Iraq. The five experts, who had set off on March 10th, nevertheless managed to go over sites in the Baghdad area "with a fairly fine toothcomb", Ranta reported at a press conference last Thursday. The team carried out nine major digs and some smaller excavations.
     
This was not a matter of disinterring the bodies of victims and examining them. The task of the team was to estimate the size of the mass-graves and the possible numbers of victims contained in them. The remains of those killed, for example bone fragments, were examined only if they happened to be lying on the surface.
      All the material they gathered, for instance layout plans and drawings and soil analyses, was handed over to the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, and Ranta is not at liberty to publish the details of their results.
      The CPA must decide which grave-sites are the most sensible to be taken first for closer inspection, in order that evidence can be collected for the war crimes trials of the former Iraqi leadership. "We have not been collecting evidence", stressed Ranta. There have been no requests of Finland for expert help in further research.
     
Because of the recent clashes and the highly volatile conditions in Iraq, it is hard to predict how the examination of the graves will proceed, said Ranta. She pointed out that they were not going anywhere and could wait for a more peaceful juncture.
      According to Ranta, approximately 250 mass-graves have been located in Iraq, containing between 180,000 and a quarter of a million bodies, and these are conservative estimates. The graves were dug over a period of some ten years. Saddam's troops came down particularly harshly on Iraqi Kurds and Shiites.
     
The small Finnish team took with them a good deal of technical equipment, even tractor-diggers, which caused some problems with transport. Antenna strings for ground-penetrating radar, investigating the conductivity of the earth around grave sites, were spread out to a length of 14 kilometres.
      "I think the specific contribution of the Finns was that we also tested for future purposes what sort of research methods would be sensible to use, when you are talking about 250 mass-graves and hundreds of thousands of bodies", said Ranta.
      Under test in particular were non-invasive estimation techniques that would not disturb the ground unduly and therefore make the subsequent collection of evidence more difficult.
     
"The conditions under which we worked were extremely difficult, for a whole variety of reasons", observed Ranta. Security precautions required that the team-members had to wear helmets and Kevlar body armour while working at the sites. Daytime temperatures were close to 40°C. The ever-present sand flew everywhere, and disturbed sensitive measuring devices.
      The movement in the desert of the five-person team required the constant presence of a squad of 30 to 40 soldiers. Security scares and other measures meant that the team's schedule was frequently altered at short notice, sometimes at two-hour intervals.
      Ranta observed that things might have gone more smoothly if the party had had a Finnish military liaison officer along with them, with a background in intelligence work.
     
The group lived in Central Baghdad in the so-called Green Zone, the heavily fortified and hermetically-sealed headquarters of the occupation authority in the capital. Information on any attacks on the Allied enclave is classified, says Ranta.
      "As far as I know, we did not come under any threat of attack while we were outside the Green Zone", she said. The team were taken from place to place in armoured vehicles, which did not give the passengers much opportunity to survey their surroundings en route.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 9.4.2004


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helena Ranta to Iraq to lead group investigating graves of Saddam victims (8.3.2004)
  Helena Ranta testifies at Milosevic trial in The Hague (13.3.2003)
  Finnish field study indicates Racak Massacre was atrocity (12.2.2001)

KAIJA VIRTA / Helsingin Sanomat
kaija.virta@hs.fi