|
|
 |
Gallows before the Elections
// Saddam Hussein Sacrificed to George Bush
On Sunday the Higher Tribunal in Iraq sentenced former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to death for the 1982 mass slaughter of Shiites in the town of Ad-Dujail. Though the tribunal was entrusted with bringing closure to the "Saddam era," the Iraqi Nuremburg provoked a new schism in Iraqi society instead of opening a path to reconciliation. The sentence handed down against Saddam Hussein has also split the international community into those who welcomed the tribunal's verdict and those who discerned a political order fulfilled in anticipation of the November congressional elections in the United States.
Saddam's Last Battle
The death sentence against Saddam Hussein put the final seal on the first case against the former president of Iraq. The case was opened in October 2005, and hearings closed last July. The basis of the case, in which Saddam Hussein was joined in the dock by seven members of the Iraqi government, was the matter of the murder of 148 Shiites in the town of Ad-Dujail, which is about 60 km from Baghdad. The order to make an example of the town was given after members of the Shiite Daava party made an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein in the early years of his reign.
Another case, in which Saddam Hussein is accused of the genocide of the Kurds (the "Anfal"), is also going on in Baghdad. The initial Ad-Dujail case has recently been overshadowed by this second case, which promised to be a much noisier affair than the first. Some even speculated that the second case was opened specifically to guarantee that Saddam would be sentenced to death even if he escaped the death penalty in the Al-Dujail case.
However, the final session of the court in the matter of Al-Dujail showed that the Iraqi authorities do not intend to "delay the pleasure" of imposing the maximum penalty on Saddam Hussein and his era. After forty minutes of reading from the 200-page sentence in the Al-Dujail case, Raouf Rashid Abdelrahman pronounced the sacramental phrase: "The court sentences Saddam Hussein to death by hanging." The court passed the same sentence against the former head of the Iraqi intelligence services, Barzan Ibrahim at-Tikriti, and the head of the Revolutionary Council, Awad Hamed al-Bandar. Former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan, for whom prosecutors had also asked for the death penalty, was sentenced to life in prison. Three other defendants received sentences of 15 years in prison. One of the accused was acquitted for lack of evidence and released from custody in the courtroom.
A thin and exhausted-looking Saddam Hussein, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt open at the collar, turned his last day in court into a final battle against his enemies. Clutching a worn green Koran, he first refused to stand to hear the sentence pronounced, and when he was forced to his feet, he attempted to drown out the reading of the sentence with shouts of "Allah is great!" and "long live the Iraqi people and death to their enemies!" "Remember that Saddam Hussein is a general, and he can only be shot, not hung like a common criminal," cried the former Iraqi leader, who ruled the country for 24 years. Upon hearing the sentence, the accused turned to Judge Abdelrahman with the words, "a curse on you and your court!"
Some of the Iraqis who were following the pronouncement of the sentence on television watched the show with pride in "the triumph of justice"; some wiped away tears and clenched their fists, promising to avenge their president and general.
Punishment with no Mercy?
The reaction to the death sentence passed against Saddam Hussein showed that not only would the court's verdict not be a moment of national reconciliation, but that it would cause yet another schism in the fragmented society of Iraq. The news that the court had sent the "torturer of the Shiites" to the gallows was greeted by the country's Shiites as a holiday. Despite a curfew imposed by the authorities, thousands of residents of Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad and other towns with Shiite majorities – Kerbala, Najaf, Nasirii – spilled onto the streets, shooting automatic weapons into the air and chanting, "glory to Allah!" and "death to the tyrant!" Saddam Hussein's sentence was cause for mass celebrations in the town of Ad-Dujail itself, whose residents had paid for the unsuccessful assassination attempt against the president. Joy reigned in the north of the country as well, which is inhabited by Kurds.
In the Sunni parts of Baghdad, however, another mood prevailed. In the Adhamiya neighborhood, shots were exchanged between security forces and Sunni gunmen. There was also no rejoicing in another center of the so-called Sunni triangle (Tikrit-Baghdad-Ramadi): Tikrit is Saddam Hussein's hometown. Despite the curfew, more than a thousand of Saddam's fellow Tikritis massed on the street, carrying signs with his picture on them. Swearing loyalty to their leader, they cried, "we will bring you the sacrifice of our souls and our blood, Saddam!" The demonstrators in Tikrit condemned the court's verdict, calling it the result of efforts by the "American occupiers."
The pronouncement of the death penalty for Saddam Hussein does not mean that the sentence will be carried out. Formally, the accused has a month to protest the verdict, and members of the defense said immediately after the sentence was read that they would appeal the sentence. In the opinion of observers, the question of whether Saddam Hussein will be punished and, if so, how it will come about will depend on a bitter domestic political struggle surrounding the sentence that will soon unfold in Iraq. On the one hand, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is a Shiite, and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd and who has the right to grant clemency, would like see the sentence carried out as quickly as possible. However, two circumstances could affect their plans. First, the situation in Iraq itself, and second, the situation in the United States, which had a direct hand in designing the Iraqi version of the Nuremburg trials.
President Bush's Beaten King
It is telling that the pronouncement of the sentence against Saddam Hussein was originally expected on October 16. The fact that news of the trial's conclusion came only two days before the congressional elections in the US, which have enormous significance for the Bush administration, has convinced observers that the Iraqi court's verdict was reached "for the American elections." And that has led many to float the idea of "justices without borders," allowing the team of lawyers representing Saddam Hussein to make an issue of the "political order" from Washington. "I make the connection between the sentence being read on November 5th and the congressional elections in the US being on November 7th. American President George Bush wants to use this in the interests of the pre-election campaign," said Bushr Halil, a representative of the international team of lawyers for the former Iraqi president. Paying no regard to this or similar accusations, US President George Bush, who received the news from Baghdad during a pre-election trip to Nebraska and Kansas, tried to play the "Saddam card" to maximum effect. "The trial of Saddam Hussein has been crucial to the efforts of the Iraqi people to replace the rule of tyranny with the rule of law," declared Mr. Bush in a speech in Grand Island, Nebraska that was met with applause by several thousands of his supporters.
However, in the opinion of observers, the death sentence for Saddam Hussein is not likely to bring about a fundamental turnaround in the pre-election mood among Americans, the majority of whom are against the war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, who had become President Bush's final trump card in his Iraqi campaign, will not be able to prolong the rule of the Republicans, as he did in the 2004 presidential elections.
Saddam Hussein's sentence has provoked various reactions not only in Iraq but around the world. Objections have been voiced in one form or another not only by those countries whose leaders are among the most stalwart anti-Americans, but also by many European allies of the United States, as well as Russia. The Vatican and international human rights watchdogs have spoken out about against the death penalty. This will mean that the sentence for Saddam Hussein will not be a victory but yet another diplomatic defeat for the current administration, one that will work against it in the 2008 presidential elections as well.
&
Reactions from around the world to the sentence against Saddam Hussein
Statement from the Finnish government (the current chair of the EU): "Finland, as the country chairing the European Union, reminds everyone that the EU is against the death penalty. The EU opposes the death penalty in all cases and under all circumstances, and it should not be carried out in this case either."
US President George Bush: "It's a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law – it's a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government… Today, the victims of this regime have received a measure of the justice which many thought would never come. This day will go down in history as a major achievement on the road to a free, just, and unified society."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel: "Although the European Union has a scepticism and a rejection on principle of the death penalty, the verdict was a sound decision… Saddam Hussein should fully bear the consequences of his acts like any other Iraqi citizen."
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi: "The sentence to death by hanging that was handed down to the former Iraqi president reflects condemnation of him by the international community, but Italy is against the death penalty even in such a dramatic case as Saddam Hussein, and we still think the death penalty must not be put into action."
UK Foreign Affairs Minister Margaret Beckett: "Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. It is right that those accused of such crimes against the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice… Today's verdict and sentences by the Iraqi Higher Tribunal come at the end of a trial during which evidence has been offered and challenged in the full glare of media scrutiny."
Australian Prime Minister John Howard: "The most important thing is that the trial of Saddam Hussein was fair and transparent. I believe that the world should accept the trial of Hussein as a sign of hope for democratic evolution in Iraq. There is something heroic about a country like Iraq, which even through hardship and pain is trying to give this monster a fair trial. That country is deserving of support. This is the new Iraq."
Venezuelan Vice President Vincent Rangel: "And when will a trial be convened for George Bush? According to reports from North American universities, he is guilty of the deaths of 700,000 Iraqis and more than 3,000 American soldiers. This gentleman deserves to be put on trial for genocide and crimes against humanity."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini: "Although Saddam and his allies carried out those crimes, it should not be forgotten that Saddam's Western supporters also paved the way for him to carry out those oppressive acts and crimes."
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum: "The trial was a message to the entire Arab and Muslim world of the fate of those who do not obey the orders of the United States [and] who clearly support the Palestinian people… We support everyone who helps our people, and Saddam Hussein was one of those."
Malcolm Smart, director of the Middle East and North Africa program of Amnesty International: "Every accused has a right to a fair trial, whatever the magnitude of the charge against them. This plain fact was routinely ignored through the decades of Saddam Hussein's tyranny. His overthrow opened the opportunity to restore this basic right and, at the same time, to ensure, fairly, accountability for the crimes of the past. It is an opportunity missed, and made worse by the imposition of the death penalty."
Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 07, 2006
|
|
|
