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Detroiters denounce Saddam hanging
 | | Detroit peace activists protest the hanging of Saddam PHOTO BY DIANE BUKOWSKI |
By Diane Bukowski
The Michigan Citizen
DETROIT
— Demonstrators denounced the execution of deposed Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein and called instead for the imprisonment of U.S.
President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney outside Detroit’s
McNamara Federal Building Dec. 30.
The
protest came on the heels of well-publicized celebrations in the
Arab-American community in Dearborn, but some leaders there also
expressed their opposition to Hussein’s execution.
“The
Bush administration had complete control over whether Saddam Hussein
was executed,” said Cheryl Labash of the Michigan Emergency Committee
Against War and Injustice (MECAWI). “It was a colonial lynching. It
means the Bush administration intends to escalate the war, not end it.”
She
said concurrent demonstrations were taking place in New York’s Times
Square and Boston, as well as in other places around the world. The
International Action Center (IAC), based in New York and founded by
former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, called for the U.S. protests.
Clark
was one of Hussein’s defense attorneys during his trial, which the IAC
termed a mockery, and illegal under international, U.S. and Iraqi law.
He said that Hussein, who was in the custody of the U.S. military until
moments before his execution, was turned over to his Iraqi executioners
only after Bush’s order or express approval.
According
to a Boston Globe article published Dec. 30, “Hundreds of U.S. lawyers,
advisers and investigators played a crucial role in the process of
trying and convicting the ousted Iraqi leader. . . the U.S. government
spent more than $128 million building the courthouse, exhuming mass
graves, gathering evidence, and training Iraqi judges — dwarfing the $9
million spent by Iraq.”
The
IAC said in a statement, “This punishment has nothing to do with the
alleged crimes of the Iraqi leader nor is it part of an historical
judgment of his role. It is the act of a conquering power against a
nation that is occupied against the will not only of its 2003 legal
government but against the will of the vast majority of its people.”
Minister
Malik Shabazz and members of the New Black Panther Party joined the
demonstration and also spoke out angrily against Hussein’s execution.
“We’re
not saying that we supported Saddam Hussein,” said Shabazz, “but we are
saying that the U.S. backed him up, and gave weapons to Iraq publicly
and Iran secretly while they were at war so that millions of people
would be murdered. Then they set him up to go into Kuwait, which was
legitimately part of Iraq until Britain carved it up.”
Shabazz
said three administrations of U.S. presidents have been responsible for
the subsequent devastation of Iraq and the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis, in addition to the deaths of more than 3,000 U.S.
soldiers there.
“Papa
Doc Bush bombed Iraq for 45 days in a row, for almost 24 hours a day,
dropping more bombs in one and a half months than all that were dropped
in Vietnam,” said Shabazz. “Then he set up sanctions which killed a
minimum of 6,000 children per month. The first thing Bill Clinton did
was to bomb Iraq, then Baby Doc Bush comes in and invades Iraq. Over
655,000 innocent non-combatant Iraqis have died in this process.”
Shabazz
said that under Hussein, Iraq was a prosperous nation which has now
been taken over in the interests of the oil companies and corporations
like Halliburton.
“Under
Hussein, Iraqis had free college education and free health care,” he
noted. “Here in the richest and most militarily powerful nation in the
world we have neither. Hussein was tried on claims that he killed 148
Iraqis, but Bush himself killed more people on death row alone when he
was governor of Texas.”
Imad
Hamad, Michigan Regional Director for the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee, joined in condemning the execution in a
phone interview.
“No
one is against the collapse of a dictatorship anywhere in the world,”
said Hamad. “But the vast majority of people don’t believe that the
trial was necessarily legal. It was a political trial and a political
execution. Most Americans, and most civilized nations around the world,
stand against execution. This one occurred during a holy time,
offending many of the Muslim faith, such as the Sunnis.”
Hussein’s
execution took place on the eve of Eid, the holiest holiday for Sunni
Muslims, and a time when governments traditionally grant pardons
instead of carrying out punishments.
“Iraq
needs to be stable, free, united and democratic,” Hamad went on. “But
Hussein’s execution comes at a time with the country is dealing with
more division and an escalation of violence, and this will give
ammunition for further violence.”
Labash
said The Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice will
continue to organize to end the war against Iraq and bring the troops
home. A national protest in Washington, D.C. is set for Mar. 17, the
fourth anniversary of the war. Locally, anti-war activists will also
join a Jan. 15 Dr. Martin Luther King Day Freedom March beginning at 12
noon at Central Methodist Church on Woodward and E. Adams.
For more information, go to www.mecawi.org or call 313-680-5508.
 
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