Solidarity condemns, unreservedly, the execution of Saddam Hussein.
Despite the attempt of the Bush administration to depict this event as justice, we join the vast majority of people around the world, and in Iraq, in denouncing Saddam's execution as no better than a lynching organised and carried out by the US government. The so-called Iraqi court which tried Saddam and his co-accused was in fact an American court. The judges presiding over the proceedings were selected by the US, the laws governing its process were prescribed by the US, and the farcical nature of the trial itself - defence lawyers denied access to key pieces of evidence, denied access to their clients, the testimony of defence witnesses suppressed, the selection and replacement of judges - this was all engineered at the behest of a US government intent on rushing through a guilty verdict and execution.
That Saddam was not tried at a universally recognised and legitimate international court in the Hague is significant, serving to emphasis the illegal nature not only of his trial but of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. The fact that his trial was curtailed before he could face charges relating to the deaths of men, women and children in the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 was also significant, as by their very nature former US and British governments would have been implicated for their role in funding and arming Saddam when such atrocities were taking place.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who was a member of the defense team for Saddam Hussein, told the media after hearing of the plan to execute that:
"Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants are in the custody of the U.S. military in Iraq. They will be turned over to Iraq only on the order of or with the approval of President Bush. His pending decision will have long term consequences for the peace and stability of Iraq, and for the rule of law as a means to peace."
Like most dictators in the Arab and Third World, Saddam was supported and funded by the West when it suited their purposes - namely access to the raw materials required to fuel economies predicated on profit regardless of the human, social or environmental cost. Viewed at one time as someone who could help stabilise the Middle East on their behalf, Saddam outlived his usefulness and was subsequently destroyed. In that process, the lives of millions of innocent Iraqis have also been destroyed.
Believing in the inviolability of the principle of self determination, Solidarity holds to the view that only the Iraqi people are qualified to disperse justice in their country. The brutal and genocidal nature of US-orchestrated, UN administered sanctions throughout the nineties ensured that no indigenous resistance to Saddam's regime was able to take root, exactly as the US government intended. Only a puppet and client regime would ever be acceptable in a country that swims on a sea of oil.
The execution of the former Iraqi president will ensure that more British, American and Iraqi mothers will be forced to mourn the deaths of their sons in the days and weeks to come, and once again Solidarity calls on the British and American troops to consider for who and for what they are sacrificing their lives in the Middle East. Once again, we charge those responsible for the carnage in Iraq - Bush, Blair and their respective governments - with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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