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BRITISH PRESS REVIEW
By PAUL WOLF*
There hasn't been a culture or civilization in history that has not bestowed its highest accolade on those men and women who faced death unflinchingly, with courage and dignity. When they knew they had to die, these heroes did not rage against it. They conquered death by their total concurrence in it, robbing it of its power to sting and thus gaining true immortality. Philip Kapleau. The wheel of life and death: a practical and spiritual guide. London, 1990
In comments written on March 27th and April 11th 2006 (in The Jurist - editor), I argued at some length that Saddam Hussein should be viewed first and foremost as a TRAGIC HERO. His courage and dignity on the scaffold, taunts ringing in his ears, confirms this assessment. His bearing in his final moments on earth filled even his most unrelenting detractors with grudging admiration. * * * PRESS REVIEW Saddam Hussein had three years to reflect on his likely execution at the hands of the people he once ruled. After his trial on specimen charges of murder and crimes against humanity, his appeal was rejected last Tuesday in only 15 minutes. There can have been little doubt in his mind that he was what the Americans call a dead man walking and that punishment would swiftly follow.
Over the past five days, languishing in his military prison cell, watched constantly through video cameras by his American guards, Saddam was apparently able to summon impregnable reserves of courage and acceptance.
"He said it would be interpreted as his seeking mercy from the United States, and he would never permit it," said Clark. Tony Allen-Mills, The Sunday Times, December 31, 2006 * * * Stop all the clocks. He is dead. Saddam Hussein had rather a good death, and dictators shouldn't have good deaths. He went to the gallows with dignity, holding the Koran, urging reconciliation, his head uncovered among his captors' balaclavas. Iain Macwhirter. The Sunday Herald. December 31, 2006 * * * Saddam Hussein met his death on the scaffold in Baghdad yesterday with fortitude and calm Having reported on Saddam for more than 25 years, I last saw him on the day he was sentenced to death. He had been expecting it, of course, and he played the scene with great toughness and spirit, condemning the American invasion and challenging the Iraqi government and the judges. At the end, as he was taken out of the courtroom, he passed within a couple of feet of me. I could see a little smile of triumph on his lips. He must have known then that he had begun to create the legend of Saddam the martyr. His last moments, face to face with death, were part of that same strategy. He knew Iraqis very well, and he knew what they liked in their leaders. The Saddam legend is only just beginning. John Simpson, The Sunday Times, December 31, 2006 * * *
Sam Leith. The Daily Telegraph, January 1, 2007 * * * Was Saddam's death dignified? On the surface, of course not. An ageing man with a grey beard stands, looking bemused, beneath a makeshift gibbet while his enemies taunt him. As he is saying a final prayer, the trapdoor is suddenly released and he plunges to his death, a brief expression of surprise registering on his face as the floor gives way. All this is filmed. Twice. Once as an official video that ends just before the door is opened. But also in a clandestine, unexpurgated videophone version now doing the rounds on the internet. YouTube has it, of course, and in many respects it is desperately depressing
Thus are famous last words born. This could be his epitaph, exemplifying his defiance and condemning his lynching party, only one of whom has the decency to call for silence. "Please stop, the man is being executed, please stop." The man. Not the monster, the butcher, the tyrant. Saddam's killers have achieved the impossible: they have made us feel sympathy for him, for his grace under pressure. There may not have been dignity in the dying, but there was courage. A five-star death. Stephen Moss. The Guardian, January 2, 2007 * * *
Haifa Zangana (Iraqi exile and former political prisoner), The Guardian, January 4, 2007 * * *
Editorial. The Daily Telegraph, January 2, 2007 * * * So why should we mind about Saddam - even if we are opposed to capital punishment - any more than our grandparents worried about Ribbentrop or our parents about Eichmann? Perhaps my uneasiness is a matter of aesthetics. Why, after all, are some people quite happy for others to be executed, but revolted by the act taking place in public? Was it the men in the death-squad gear with their leather jackets and balaclavas? The seeming shambles of the event, so symbolic of what has gone wrong in Iraq since the invasion? It could be the unsatisfactory nature - in dramatic terms - of this ending. The bad guy is never killed, when helpless, by a group of avengers, but in single combat with the hero. Macbeth could not have breathed his last on the scaffold with an interrupted prayer. It makes a hero of the villain. David Aaronovitch. The Times, January 1, 2007 * * *
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. The Independent, January 1, 2007 * * * From the moment Saddam Hussein was captured in his dirt hole our perception of him changed. What we saw was suddenly not what we had seen before. First, the beard. Wild, matted, shot with grey - a tramp's or hermit's beard. The hair, too, overgrown and frantic. And the black, distracted eyebrows. We cannot help ourselves - we attach the idea of sorrow to dishevelment of this sort. Only something beyond the bounds of ordinary suffering and loss - some unendurable disappointment, some unimaginable grief - explains it . By the perverse logic of our sympathies, we find the first shoots of nobility in that. The more the American's revelled in Saddam's humiliation, the more surely they set in train the process of his ennoblement . The next day we saw film of American doctors pulling open the dictator's mouth - an old lion who had lost his authority, his dignity and his bite. E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma, as Tosca exults over the body of Baron Scarpia. And before him all Rome trembled. But never forget that Scarpia looks different to us the moment Tosca stabs him. This is the irony of the avenger's kiss - il bacio di Tosca - that it immediately makes a man again of a monster. And Saddam had this public relations advantage over Scarpia: he went on living. As a victim of what could easily be shown to be chaotic justice he went on living and expostulating, and grew by the day more handsome. Civilian clothes suited him better than military. He had always looked an oaf in his khaki beret - a comic opera dictator, too sleek, too oiled, an at-someone-else's-say-so autocrat, a parvenu in the international aristocracy of despots. But in the white shirt and long black coat of the scholarly recluse, he appeared to be in another kind of conversation with humanity. He looked forever haggard, which does more for the grandeur of the human countenance than looking forever pleased. A sense of outrage lined his face in a way that the exercise of power never had. In a word, his appearance gave the impression of a man whom circumstances had made contemplative The which being the case, his execution, however it was conducted, was never going to satisfy that part of us that wants to revel unreservedly in the downfall of a brute. A leader article in this newspaper last week pondered the mistakes which had allowed a tyrant to be martyred. Myself, I believe the aesthetic trajectory of downfall makes such an outcome inevitable. Partly it is to be accounted for by the inconstancy of our more bloodthirsty ambitions in the face of their fruition. "My rage is gone, / And I am struck with sorrow," proclaims Aufidius, the second after cutting Coriolanus to pieces. This is the emptiness audiences often feel at the end of tragedy, on discovering that the appropriate distribution of punishment and reward isn't pleasing after all. But it is also to be explained by the awe in which, whatever the surrounding carnage, we still hold the final moments of an individual life, as the dying enters what Dickens called "the dread solemnity of the sages and the patriarchs". However much we may wish to deny the wicked the solemnity they share with the virtuous, it will have its way with them. It was written across Saddam Hussein's face when he declined the black hood and accepted the noose. Never mind how we interpret his actions - whether we call it heroism or defiance, or imagine that we saw in his eyes the fear which the victims of his terror dearly wanted to see - the spectacle of him confronting the final seconds of his life was dreadful, in the solemn sense. That it was dreadful in other senses - that it was made a spectacle at all - is no less a question of aesthetics. The jeering of the guards, the filming of the execution by mobile phone, the distribution of the video across the internet, bore not upon the justice or timing of the event, but its appearance. This is the aspect brutality wears in a technological age Saddam Hussein at that moment was not personal; he was something other than the sum total of his achievements and his crimes. The circumstances of his fate, brewing from the moment he was hauled haggard and handsome from his rat hole, raised him. "He nothing common did or mean / Upon that memorable Scene." The words are the poet Marvell's. The memorable scene is the execution of Charles I. On that occasion, too, the guards "Did clap their bloody hands". So ill-behaviour goes with the event. You cannot, in such an hour, still the years of pent-up rage. All that's changed are the mobile phones. Marvell's King submits to his execution with more grace than the conditions of Saddam's could ever have allowed - bowing "his comely Head, / Down as upon a bed". It is beyond us to speak with such lyricism of Saddam Hussein. But a similar lesson is to be learnt from both falls from eminence and power. Defeat becomes a man. As arbiters of the lives of others, we strut like clowns. Let our own lives hang suddenly by a thread, and we become, in our demeanour, as angels or philosophers. Whatever our past crimes and buffooneries, in our fall the dread solemnity of the sages and the patriarchs claims us. Howard Jacobson. The Independent on Sunday, January 6, 2007 *Paul Wolf is a lawyer in Washington, DC, who has worked on the defense of Saddam Hussein * * * Shunpiking Online & Agencies
PARIS (1 January 2007) - SUNDAY newspapers across Europe were largely pessimistic as to whether Saddam Hussein's execution would solve any of Iraq's problems. The Sunday Telegraph in London said it would be "naive to think that his execution will end the growing sectarian violence that has gripped Iraq since the US-led invasion toppled Mr Hussein in March 2003." But it conceded that the hanging "might sow a necessary seed of separation between" loyalists of the secular Baath party that had ruled Iraq for three decades and the Islamist extremists. "The execution has definitively robbed the former group of a symbolic figurehead and any hope of a recognisable Baathist revival," the right-leaning newspaper said in an editorial. The president's death "may yet open up a tiny chink of hope," it concluded. Execution "barbaric" - Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm called the execution "barbaric" and said in a radio interview that he would have preferred to see Mr Hussein imprisoned for life. The Independent on Sunday said execution defied moves worldwide in recent decades to scrap the death penalty and "can too easily be portrayed ...throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds as victor's justice." The Italian press also agreed that the execution had "divided the world" and would not "end the nightmare of the Iraqis". The business daily Il Sole 24 ore said "this is not the beginning of a new Iraq," while Il Messagero concluded that dialogue was urgently needed in Iraq but "the necessary conditions to do not exist, and that death of Saddam will not help this". Only the Turin-based daily La Stampa saw Saddam's death as "possibly a turning point for a country finally united by the disappearance of the person chiefly responsible for its ruin." Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said that "Italy is against the death penalty and so even in such a dramatic case as Saddam Hussein, we still think that the death penalty must not be put into action." Vatican - a spirit of vendetta Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman said, "A capital punishment is always tragic news, a reason for sadness, even if it deals with a person who was guilty of grave crimes." "The killing of the guilty party is not the way to reconstruct justice and reconcile society. On the contrary, there is a risk that it will feed a spirit of vendetta and sow new violence. In these dark times for the Iraqi people, one can only hope that all responsible parties truly make every effort so that glimmers of reconciliation and peace can be found in such a dramatic situation," he added. Spain's respected daily El Pais said that in executing Mr Hussein the Iraqi government "lamentably succumbed to an easy temptation". The government "may or may not gain greater public backing but the Arab country is no better off today, nor is its future more promising with the elimination of the man from Tikrit," Mr Hussein's hometown. "With the precipitate and quasi-clandestine hanging of the tyrant, Baghdad has not just lost an opportunity to show magnanimity that Iraq desperately needs if it is to have the least chink of home. It has also lost the chance to carry on judging Saddam for his crimes against humanity and expose to Iraqis the truth behind his appalling reign in all its gore." France's Foreign Ministry taking note of the execution reiterated the government's opposition to capital punishment, abolished in France in 1981. It urged all Iraqis to look towards the future and work towards reconciliation and national unity'. But the two frontrunners in the coming presidential election condemned the execution. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, described it as a "mistake" and said it would not help efforts to build a democratic Iraq. "The execution of Saddam Hussein, the worst of men, is a mistake," he wrote in Le Monde while stressing his opposition to the death penalty. Socialist Ségolène Royal who expressed her "disgust" at the execution said, "I am opposed to the death penalty even for an abominable dictator." The German weekly Bild am Sonntag was similarly pessimistic, saying this was not a time for "joy or relief ...because Saddam's death does not solve any of the problems that the military campaign against him created". * * * LDNDON (3 January 2007) - The Guardian commented in an editorial titled "Death by Camera": "But the manner of Saddam's death, ridden with chaos and malice, has made the act much more divisive and dangerous. It was justice delivered in its crudest form, by hooded men taunting Saddam with Shia slogans, the distillation of a fractured and lawless country. The possibility that the pictures were recorded by a senior Iraqi official, as Saddam's prosecutor Munkith al-Faroon suggested yesterday, underlines the decayed state of what passes for central authority in the country.' "For all the talk of Iraqi sovereignty, the former leader was tried by a special tribunal shaped by western forces, and was kept by the US until the final hours before his hanging. His body was flown to Tikrit on a US helicopter and US embarrassment over the bungling of his death has put pressure on the Iraqi government to investigate. The mayhem revealed in the new film, like the wider mayhem across most of Iraq, is in part mayhem that we have created. Like the image of Saddam's statue being toppled in 2003, and pictures of torture from Abu Ghraib prison, the illicit pictures of his death will come to define the conflict, evidence of just how disastrous the whole project has Bush slept through hanging, but his nightmare may be only just beginning." On 2 January Ghada Karmi, a research fellow at the University of Exeter described the hanging in the Guardian as follows;
"For the Arab world, this has been a shameful, humiliating event that underlines its total surrender to western diktat. The execution was carried out under the auspices of a foreign occupying power, and with a clear western message: we give ourselves the right to invade a sovereign Arab state and remove its leader because he offends us; we think you Arabs are incapable of sorting out your own affairs in accordance with our interests, so we will do it for you." The hurried execution was carried out to stop him from revealing secrets about the West's past enthusiasm in supporting and arming his regime with chemical weapons. Hence he was tried on the relatively minor charge of killing 148 people in the village of Dujail, following a plot to assassinate him. "Far better to put him away safely for that rather than risk his exposing western hypocrisy, treachery and double dealing." * * * (30 December 2006 ) - Writing in Scotland's award-winning Sunday Herald, Iain Macwhirter said that Saddam "went to the gallows in dignity, holding the Koran, urging reconciliation, his head uncovered amid his captors' balaclavas. He was executed under the auspices of an Anglo-American occupation that has brought little but death and destruction to Iraq. Even members of the Iraq Study Group in the US Senate accept that the people of Iraq are probably worse off now than under Saddam. So, who is going to hold the executioners to account? " Who will try Bush and Blair, the authors of an invasion which was almost certainly illegal under international law and which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? Shouldn't they be in the dock? "They ordered the invasion of Iraq on the dubious pretext of disarming weapons of mass destruction which weren't there. They deceived the international community and their own people in order to justify the invasion of a country which posed no military threat. That is perilously close to prima facie evidence of a war crime. To execute Saddam while accepting no responsibility or guilt for what we have done to Iraq is shameful, and history will condemn us for it. " And let's not maintain the fiction that the US had nothing to do with this judicial killing. If the occupying powers had wanted to, they could, of course, have prevented Saddam's hanging. But Bush decided that the US public would rather warm to this exercise in Old West justice. And perhaps they will. "And the stench of hypocrisy will linger for years in the West as we slowly come to terms with the enormity of what has been done to Iraq in our name." Source: http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.1096790.0.hold_these_grotesque_executioners_to_account.php * * * BRUSSELS (30 December 2006) Xinhua - THE European Union (EU) is against the death penalty, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Saturday when asked to comment on former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's execution earlier Saturday. "The EU condemns the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein. The EU' s position is that we are always against death penalty," the spokeswoman told Xinhua over phone. Last 4 November the European Union had urged Iraq not to carry out the death sentence passed on Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein after his conviction for crimes against humanity. "The EU opposes capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances, and it should not be carried out in this case either," Finland, current holder of the rotating EU presidency, said in a statement. U.S. White House spokesman Tony Snow responded by saying the judgement was a "good day for the Iraqi people", while British interior minister John Reid said the ruling should be respected. Other (EU) leaders and officials expressed on 30 December the EU's opposition to the death penalty against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. "The passing of Saddam Hussein closes a long, painful chapter in the history of Iraq. While the EU opposes capital punishment as a matter of principle, Saddam's trial and punishment mean that those who commit crimes against humanity cannot escape justice," EU commissioner on external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner said. The commissioner made the comment in a written statement in response to the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was hanged earlier on Saturday. Waldner noted that Saddam Hussein's career and legacy show the "futility of the politics of violence and terror", adding that she hopes that all Iraqi leaders will now find the wisdom and courage to join forces to end the violence and to build a future of stability and prosperity for their country and people. Finland, which will hand over the EU presidency in two days to Germany, echoed the similar position. "The EU has a very consistent view against using the death penalty and it should have not been used in this instance either, although there is no doubt over Saddam's guilt of very serious crimes against humanity," Finland's Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja told Finnish YLE television. EU Aid and Development Commissioner Louis Michel believed capital punishment was at odds with the democracy Iraq's leaders were trying to build. "You don't fight barbarism with acts that I deem as barbaric. The death penalty is not compatible with democracy," he said. * * * By CEOSI
Translation from Spanish by John Catalinotto (International Action Center, USA) Dec 30, 2006, 17:12 'The execution will not hold back the resistance of the Iraqi people to the foreign occupation, or against the collaborationist forces and all those who are trying to bring about a sectarian division of the country' "With the execution of Saddam Hussein the occupiers and their internal sectarian allies are trying to eradicate the forces of non-sectarianism, integration and public management of Iraq's resources that have characterized historical social process in the country for the last 50 years of the last century. But those same values remain present in the aspirations of the Iraqi people and its inspiration takes shape in the popular resistance struggle against the occupation and for the total sovereignty of Iraq." The Spanish Campaign against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq (CEOSI), upon the execution at dawn of Dec. 30, 2006 [1] of ex-president of Iraq Saddam Hussein, declares: 1. We reiterated what we have already published in previous official statements [2] about the manifest illegality of the trial of members of the previous government of Iraq and, therefore, the illegality of all its consequences and results given that the Iraqi leaders captured and held by the forces of occupation of the U.S.A. are prisoners of war. 2. In this sense, we considered that the total responsibility for the execution of ex-president Saddam falls to these occupation forces and the Bush government. The execution of Saddam Hussein shows that the government of Bush, confronted with the evident collapse of the U.S.-British conquest of Iraq of 2003, a consequence of the political and military offensive of the Iraqi resistance, has chosen - against the recommendations from several national and international bodies - to close all doors to dialog with the political and military forces of the patriotic resistance [3] and to align itself openly with the Shiite denominational block and the paramilitary forces of the Iraqian religious extreme right in its strategy of sectarian division of the country. The execution of Saddam is going to mean, following this logic, more war and more sectarian violence in the next months and that will worsen the suffering of the people of Iraq even more, if that is possible. 3. With the execution of Saddam Hussein the occupiers and their internal sectarian allies are trying to eradicate the forces of non-sectarianism, integration and public management of Iraq's resources that have characterized historical social process in the country for the last 50 years of the last century. But those same values remain present in the aspirations of the Iraqi people and its inspiratioin takes shape in the popular resistance struggle against the occupation and for the total sovereignty of Iraq. The execution will not hold back the resistance of the Iraqi people to the foreign occupation, or against the colaborationist forces and all those who are trying to bring about a sectarian division of the country, a struggle to which the Baathist movement is clearly committed together with other forces under a democratic and pluralistic program. Endnotes: 1. To 06:00 (hour of Bagdad; 04:00, Spanish peninsular hour) in facilities under control of the troops of the U.S.A. 2. See yourself in IraqSolidaridad: Comunicado de la CEOSI sobre la primera sentencia dictada contra Sadam Husein y miembros del depuesto gobierno de Iraq & La justicia es imposible bajo la ocupación 2. See yourself in IraqSolidaridad: Carlos Varea: Guerra abierta y más violencia sectaria. EEUU pierde en combate en Iraq en diciembre una media diaria de cuatro soldados Source: http://www.iraqsolidaridad.org/2006/docs/ceosi_30-12-06_sadam.html#ancre37858 * * * BRATISLAVA (30 December 2006) Xinhua - SLOVAK government disagreed with the execution of former Iraqi presiden Saddam Hussein, though his regime committed many crimes, foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday. "The Slovak Republic has always clearly and resolutely condemned the crimes committed by the regime of Saddam Hussein, but it also rejects the death penalty in all cases and in all circumstances," spokesman of foreign ministry Skoda said. Like other European Union countries, Slovakia does not use the death penalty. * * * By BRIAN BRADY
WESTMINSTER EDITOR, The Scotsman LODNON (6 January 2006) - GORDON Brown has placed himself at odds with Tony Blair by labelling the execution of Saddam Hussein "deplorable". In the first hint that a Brown premiership will adopt a radically different stance over Iraq, the Chancellor criticised the conduct of witnesses during Saddam Hussein's last seconds after they taunted him and filmed his death on a mobile phone. Brown's comments sparked dismay from Blair's closest aides, who say the Prime Minister has deliberately kept silent in order to appease the struggling Iraqi government. There is concern that it could provoke diplomatic tensions with under-pressure Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Yesterday Maliki insisted the execution was a "domestic affair" and Iraq's government would "review its relations with any country that does not respect the will of the Iraqi people". Amid fears of spiralling sectarian violence in Iraq, the defiant administration is preparing to hang a number of senior Saddam allies as early as today, including the former dictator's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and a former judge. Brown has offered an outspoken verdict on the execution last week, echoing Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's criticism of the event. In an interview for this morning's Sunday AM on BBC1, the Chancellor said: "Now that we know the full picture of what happened, we can sum this up as a deplorable set of events. "It is something, of course, which the Iraqi Government has now expressed its anxiety and shame at. It has done nothing to lessen tensions between the Shia and Sunni communities. Even those people, unlike me, who are in favour of capital punishment found this completely unacceptable, and I am pleased that there is now an inquiry into this and I hope lessons in this area will be learnt, as we learn other lessons about Iraq." Downing Street has pointedly refused to endorse Prescott's view, while Blair, who returned from holiday late last week, rejected requests for comment during a hospital visit on Friday. The Prime Minister will now face pressure in the wake of Brown's comments and is likely to be brow-beaten over the affair during Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. "It is not helpful, no," a Blairite aide said of Brown's intervention. "If Tony is not passing comment yet, he is doing it for good reason and he will give his views when the time is right." Blair said he would speak this week about "all those other issues". On a tour of a heart hospital in London last week, he said: "I'll find a way to talk about it, but not today." Brown has never been as committed to the Iraq campaign as the Prime Minister. But he is now understood to believe that the government has found itself "in a rut" over the conflict - and that the continuing deployment is overshadowing his main foreign policy aim of ensuring every child in the developing world has access to education. Although the Chancellor is less committed than Blair to maintaining the Coalition line on the continuing deployment, he has not so far used his position to offer an alternative view. Allies maintain that, if he succeeds Blair, he will use the opportunity to launch a fresh review of the Iraq campaign - but he will not "cut and run" from the country. A spokesman for Tory leader David Cameron said Brown's intervention hinted at a wider dispute between Blair and his most powerful colleague. "It is only at times like this that we get an idea of the real chaos at the top of the Labour Party," he added. A Liberal Democrat spokesman said Brown's outburst had betrayed the government's concerns about the "shameful" conduct of Saddam's execution. But Maliki said Saddam Hussein had received a fair trial and that his execution was for the benefit of Iraq's unity. The renewed tension between the Iraqi administration and 'allies' around the world came as President George Bush's new plan to pacify the country by sending more troops to Iraq was already running into trouble on Capitol Hill. Bush, who yesterday met his national security team, has appointed new military commanders and will disclose a new strategy as early as Wednesday. The military solution will probably call for an increase in US troops, possibly 9,000 additional soldiers for Baghdad alone. But Democratic house speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid shot down the suggestion within a day of gaining control of Congress. Even Republican senator John McCain, who advocates sending more troops to Iraq, said he would not support extra forces unless it was enough troops to stop the violence. Source: http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=33362007 * * * LONDON (30 December 2006) Xinhua - BRITISH Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said on Saturday that the hanging of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein meant he had been "held to account" for his crimes. "I welcome the fact (he) has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people," she was quoted by a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news report on Saturday morning. But she noted that Britain is opposed to the death penalty. "The British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else. We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime," Beckett said, adding "We have made our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation." The Foreign Secretary also predicted that Iraq would continue to face "huge challenges" after Mr Hussein. Meanwhile, London's Channel 4 comments: "Interestingly absolutely anybody with any culpability ranging from the Iraqi government itself to the American administration and our own British government have gone to ground on the matter. It's been left to John Prescott, currently standing in for Tony Blair, to condemn it - though even he had to have it wrung from him in an interview ostensibly about something else. "Fascinating to observe how readily the authorities like to dash out to condemn terrorism and the rest but when a possible abuse of behavior occurs by the authorities in Baghdad be it by us, Iraqi or anyone else, a strange silence falls over the proceedings. "All this ahead of George Bush's promised review of what to do about Iraq. America today burying Gerald Ford, their 38th president, and all those likely to be involved in any such review are there in their full fig paying their respects to the departed president." Source: www.channel4.com id=7815177&intcmp=news_snowmail_worldfeed * * * By SANJAY SURI
LONDON (2 Jan 2006) IPS - THE BRITISH government has found a simple way of welcoming the death penalty for Saddam Hussein while saying it opposes the death penalty. After former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was hanged, the government simply said both things, with no clear indication that the government cannot quite welcome what it opposes. "I welcome the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people," foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said after the death sentence was carried out. "He has now been held to account." She added: "We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime. We have made our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation." The first part of her statement welcomed the trial of Mr Hussein with the consequences of that trial known. Fuzzy diplomatese overlaid the rest; Mr Hussein had been "held to account." Beckett's statement suggests that the British government had expressed opposition to the death penalty itself as punishment, but threw up its hands in the face of Iraq's sovereignty. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty, and acts to push that position. Not everyone sees that the British government did anything similar. "Amnesty International would have expected the British government to have used its influence with the Iraqi government to prevent use of the death penalty," James Dyson from Amnesty told IPS. Amnesty International would have expected the British government to have used its influence with the Iraqi government to prevent use of the death penalty. Beckett's bland, almost blasé statement, speaks of a formally stated position that few can deny is at odds with the reality of Iraq. Few will describe Iraq today as a sovereign nation -- 140,000 U.S. troops besides about 7,000 British troops and thousands from some other nations are not around as polite foreigners. Few can pretend that Mr Hussein was given proper judicial trial by an Iraqi court; quite apart from the serially and seriously flawed judicial process, the trial was influenced if not directed by U.S. authorities. That Saddam Hussein remained in U.S. rather than Iraqi custody up to the very end was only the last, if the most dramatic, indication of this. And for Britain to have opposed the death penalty for Mr Hussein would have in effect therefore meant opposing its very big brother, the United States. Beckett's statement suggests that Britain took a position opposed to that of the United States over the death penalty. Whatever the official expressions of the British position, this clearly did not become an issue between Britain and the United States. British officials evidently did try to bring some semblance of fairness into the trial proceedings, but as it turns out with no success at all. "British officials made a positive contribution to trying to make the trial more fair," Richard Dicker from Human Rights Watch told IPS. "But at the same time, this was a proceeding clearly heading towards capital punishment. How they can reconcile the contradiction between opposition to the death penalty on the one hand, and their commitment to fair trial, only they can answer." The government is not confronting that question, or offering answers, primarily because no one is asking. In Britain, not the opposition parties, not the media. Two contradictory positions stated in two paragraphs with the most invisible gloss over the obvious -- and that was that. And why just the death penalty: just as the government opposes the death penalty, it stands for fair trial. And there too the British just stated a position flying in the face of all known facts. "We oppose the death penalty in all cases as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, but it is especially abhorrent when this most extreme penalty is imposed after an unfair trial," said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa programme. As the British government would have everyone believe, two wrongs in Mr Hussein's case did make a right. (END/2007) * * *
A group from the Liberal Democratic Party protested Saddam Hussein's execution in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Moscow. Misha Japaridze/Associated Press MOSCOW (30 December 2006) Xinhua - SADDAM HUSSEIN'S execution may result in deterioration of the military and political situation in Iraq and heighten the ethnic and religious tension, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said on Saturday. Russia as many other countries is against the death penalty, irrespective of motives for such court decisions, Kamynin was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying. Kamynin noted with regret that numerous calls of representatives of various states and international organizations on Iraq's authorities not to carry out the capital punishment were ignored. Political consequences of the former Iraqi president's execution must be taken into consideration in this situation, all the more so because the matter of Saddam Hussein's fate is a very sensitive problem for the Iraqi society, the diplomat said. Moscow hopes for Iraqi people's wisdom and supports those influential Iraqi politicians who urge their supporters to restrain emotions, not to yield to possible provocations and jointly look for ways out of the extremely uneasy situation in Iraq. Russia for its part is ready to help in every way to achieve a steady and comprehensive settlement in Iraq on a bilateral basis as well as by participating in collective efforts of the international community, Kamynin added. * * * Hanging may make Saddam 'cult' hero
BERLIN (6 January 2006) - THE GERMAN government said on 30 December that it is opposed to the death sentence for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was hanged earlier in the day. Speaking on Berlin's RBB radio, Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler said that Germany held the view that the Iraqi leader was guilty of "serious crimes." However, the government remains opposed to the death penalty no matter where the execution was carried out, Erler said. On Wednesday (27 Dec), speaking at a regular briefing, German government spokesman Thomas Steg affirmed that Germany rejected the death penalty because it is banned in German and all European Union member countries. Mr Hussein, who was captured in December 2003, was executed by hanging at dawn on Saturday in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad for alleged crimes against humanity. Later German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned in an interview to be published on 31 December that the execution of Mr Hussein risked making the Iraqi dictator a martyr with cult status. "The repercussions of the execution of Saddam on the situation in Iraq are still difficult to evaluate," he told the German weekly Bild am Sonntag. But, he added, "there is surely a risk that this execution, carried out on a Muslim holiday and hyped up by the media, is creating the conditions to make Saddam a martyr to his countrymen." "The first signs of this are the numerous visits to his tomb," he noted, adding "it is still not clear if (the hanging) could lead to a new escalation of the violence in Iraq." The German government repeated after the hanging of Mr Hussein that it opposed the death penalty in principle. In Berlin, Chancellor Merkel said that her country "respects" Saddam's conviction, but added her voice to the protest against the use of the death penalty. "On a day like this, my thoughts are above all with Saddam Hussein's many innocent victims and my wish for the Iraqi people is that they can follow a path in peace and without violence," Merkel added. * * * HELSINKI (30 December 2006) Xinhua -- FINNISH foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU), criticized Saturday the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, saying that EU opposes the death penalty in all cases. Tuomioja said in a statement that the EU opposes the death penalty also in the case of Saddam Hussein who was executed early Saturday morning. There are certainly no doubts about the fact that Mr Hussein was guilty of serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity, but that does not make the death penalty acceptable, Tuomioja said. * * * STOCKHOLM (30 December 2006) Xinhua -- SWEDISH foreign minister Carl Bildt has condemned the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, which was carried out in Baghdad on Saturday morning. The former Iraqi president was killed by hanging, something which provoked expressions of regret in Stockholm, local media reported. "Sweden and the European Union are without exception opposed to the death penalty," Bildt said in a statement issued by the foreign ministry. "I have previously expressed hope that the death penalty against Saddam Hussein would be commuted to life imprisonment. "Against this background I view it as regrettable that the execution of Saddam Hussein has now taken place," Bildt said. Bildt said the execution was particularly regrettable as it means that the current ongoing legal action against the former president cannot be concluded. He said that it was in the interests of the Iraqi people and the region to investigate Mr Hussein's attacks against his own people, particularly the Kurds. "The judicial process against Saddam Hussein is an important part of Iraq's coming to terms with the past. This must now continue through all who have been responsible for the regime's huge and serious human rights abuses being held accountable. "As important is to start a process of reconciliation that makes it possible for the Iraqi people to deal with the big challenges they face," he said. * * * PRAGUE (30 December 2006) Xinhua -- THE CZECH foreign ministry issued a statement on Saturday to speak highly of the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein earlier in the say, calling it "an important historic milestone" - the identical phrase to that used by US President George W Bush earlie that day. The Czech ministry believes that the death penalty given to Saddam Hussein by an Iraqi court is important for the country torn by violence, the statement said. According to the statement, the ministry thought the execution is at least a partial satisfaction for the relatives of the victims of the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein. "We firmly believe that from the long-term perspective, the end of the Saddam Hussein era will move Iraq closer to stability and democracy," the statement said. Although the death penalty contradicts European values, the execution of the Iraqi president should be looked at from the point of view of the present Iraq, the statement added. * * * BELGRADE (30 December 2006) Xinhua - THE EXECUTION of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would bring very bad consequences to his country, a Serbian government minister said on Saturday. The former ruling BAATH party headed by Mr Hussein is threatening with terrorism and the chaos in Iraq will be even bigger, Serbian Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic said. "From the aspect of Serbia, as well as all Europeans, we share the view that the death penalty should not be introduced," Stojkovic told reporters following his regular Saturday telephone talks with citizens. Mr Hussein, 69-years-old, was hanged at 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday as the major Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha was about to begin at daybreak. His execution came four days after an appeals court rejected an appeal against the sentence for crimes against humanity, relating to the killing of 148 people in the town of Dujail in 1982. There should have been a response to the calls by numerous non-governmental organizations that the death penalty should not be carried out, he said. * * *
br> GENEVA (30 December 2006) Xinhua -- SWITZERLAND reacted on Saturday to the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, calling the death penalty "unjustifiable". Mr Hussein, who was captured in December 2003 by American soldiers, was hanged at dawn on Saturday in northern Baghdad for alleged "crimes against humanity". In a statement, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said it condemned the serious crimes committed by Mr Hussein, but disapproved of the use of the death penalty, Swiss Radio International reported. "For Switzerland the death penalty cannot be justified, even for the most serious crimes. This fundamental position also applies to the case of Saddam Hussein," the ministry declared. It added that Switzerland remains "extremely concerned" about the dramatic insecurity in Iraq and hopes that the Iraqis can "overcome past challenges" and find ways of "ensuring peaceful reconciliation and of building a democratic society." | |||||||||||||||||
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He urged Iraqis "not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking"
