The Hindu : International : Iraqis indifferent to trial of Saddam Hussein

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Wednesday, Oct 19, 2005

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International

Iraqis indifferent to trial of Saddam Hussein

Rory Carroll

Sunnis see the prosecution by "kangaroo court" as a Shia stratagem

BAGHDAD: The stage is set, the actors are ready, but the audience is distracted. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's trial starts on Wednesday, trailing words such as momentous and historic, a courtroom drama with gallows in the wings.

The former President is expected to play his part, defiant and confident even if denied a tie lest he make a noose. The prosecution and defence have studied transcripts from Nuremberg and The Hague and rehearsed their lines. Five judges will determine the final act.

Iraq, however, does not quite fit the bill of a nation thirsting for justice.

Fading stature

The man whose persona invaded his citizens' thoughts more effectively than his troops invaded neighbouring countries, has shrunk.

The ragged fugitive dragged from a spider hole near Tikrit in December 2003 was physically diminished — Mr. Hussein lost weight on the run — and the subsequent incarceration and near-invisibility whittled his relevance.

``People here don't think it will be a fair trial. But they will do nothing because they don't care about him,'' said Fawzi Mohammad (48), a cement plant manager in Fallujah, a city of ruins and a symbol of resistance to the Americans. ``Saddam now is the past for us. He is like an old currency, worthless.''

Abbas Ali Hassan, secretary of Fallujah's city council, bristled at the name. ``Forget him. We want to develop. We don't want to remain on the shore. We want to go deeper into the sea.'' It is not that the pain is forgotten. How can survivors from Halabja, the Kurdish town gassed in 1988, forget losing 5,000 friends and relatives? How can Shias forget those executed in the 1991 uprising while mass graves are being excavated in the desert? Wednesday's trial, the first of 12, concerns the killing of 143 Shias from the village of Dujail, revenge for a failed assassination attempt when he visited in 1982.

If the televised proceedings inflame Arab Sunni passions it will not be out of concern for Mr. Hussein but what his presence in the dock represents: victory for Shias and Kurds. Government officials admit that Shia militias are operating death squads against Sunnis. Many Sunnis suspect that Mr. Hussein is facing a kangaroo court which is another front in the campaign against their sect. Sunnis in Dujail have no love for the former President, yet they have started killing and terrorising the village's Shias in revenge for the trial.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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