During the first week of November, the tribunal that was judging the former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, sentenced him to be hanged for the slaughter of 148 Shiite inhabitants of Dujaail, north of Baghdad, in 1982.
Saddam was a dictator who drowned in blood the Iraqi people, especially the Shiite and the Kurds. There is no doubt that he is responsible for this crime and many others. This trial, however, cannot be regarded as anything but an utter farce, typical of a “colonial justice”.
This is so, firstly, because its real aim is not to do justice to the Iraqi people, but to cover up with a veil of “juridical legitimacy” the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the imperialist troops, whose main excuse has been, precisely, to “liberate” that country from “Saddam Hussein’s tyranny“.
Secondly, because the tribunal that tried him is part of a puppet government, agent of a colonial occupation that has already caused 655 000 fatal casualties in the country (see article Authentic Genocide) and uses torture indiscriminately and slaughters civilians. The crimes committed by the occupation are far worse than those committed by Saddam, but none of them has been tried and sentenced. To the contrary, they are encouraged by the American government and their puppets in Iraq. Let us remember that Bush has just had a bill passed allowing torture practised on prisoners regarded as “enemy fighters”.
Thirdly, and with absolute hypocrisy, he is convicted for a crime committed when Saddam was an ally of the American imperialism and was wagging war against Iran so as to weaken the revolution in that country.
In these years imperialism remained silent about Saddam’s crimes, something they always do when dealing with dictators that can prove useful to their interests. Let us remember the answer given by Franklin D. Roosevelt, then president of the USA, to those who pointed out that Anastasio Somoza, Senior was committing atrocities in Nicaragua: “He may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch“. After the invasion on Kuwait in 1990, Saddam was no longer an ally and became an “enemy”. That is why his crimes, previously accepted are now condemned.
We have no doubts that Saddam deserves to be tried and convicted for his atrocities. But neither the criminal imperialism nor the puppet Iraqi administration has any political or moral right to do so. Only the Iraqi people have the right to do so. But this right will only be exerted once the imperialist occupants and their Iraqi puppets are defeated and expelled from the country. That is why we expose this trial as real farce and we reject the conviction that resulted from the process.
