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Expatriates -- Palestinians particularly -- are subjected to time-consuming searches. In the Hawalli area, where many Palestinians live, Kuwaiti troops roam the streets, instructing the population, "Turn in your weapons, Palestinian people. This is for your own security." The latest graffito reads, DEATH TO PALESTINIAN TRAITORS. WE DON'T WANT THEM. "They are hypocrites!" screams Massmoa Hassan, a Kuwaiti woman passing by. "We went to school with you. We helped you. The P.L.O. donation boxes were filled by us. And you are traitors. Get out!"
Hawalli residents tell of suspected collaborators being taken roughly away. Sarah Hamdan Salman says her three sons were blindfolded, handcuffed, beaten with machine guns and shoved into the trunks of cars by civilians who the Palestinians are convinced are resistance members. When she went to the local precinct to inquire about her children, she was told, "You're a Palestinian" -- and then she was spat upon. Did it happen? "I don't doubt it," says a U.S. Army major assigned as an adviser to the Kuwaitis. "All I can say is that we're trying to hold it down."
All residents, even Kuwaitis, are subjected to the three-month martial law decree and its 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew. "It's not fake," says Colonel Jesse Johnson, the commander of U.S. special-operations forces in Kuwait City. There have been several nighttime incidents "where people drive up to the checkpoints and open fire" on the Kuwaiti soldiers, says Johnson. The troops assume their attackers are Palestinians. The clash between those who remained and those who left is everywhere. Some Kuwaitis who stayed behind surrendered their automobile license plates for Iraqi tags. At a checkpoint last week, a Kuwaiti without plates was harassed. "So you changed your plates," shouted a Kuwaiti soldier. "And you fled, you coward," the driver yelled back.
Some Kuwaitis have taken to visiting the house where the Iraqis constructed an elaborate torture chamber. Electric-shock devices are the most prominent features, and pinups of scantily clad women adorn the walls. The government is thinking of turning the place into a museum. "We should preserve this so we remember," says Minister of State al-Awadi, whose indoor swimming pool the Iraqis used to extract information. Victims would be dunked into the water while they were tied to ropes hung from the ceiling. A poignant scene plays out almost daily when Kuwaitis visit the Riqqa cemetery, searching for the remains of loved ones. Kuwaiti authorities say 2,792 bodies of people who died unnatural deaths since Aug. 2 are buried there. Another site of interest is the ice rink, which served as a makeshift morgue for Kuwaiti dead. There are no bodies there now -- only some dried blood and a persistent stench.