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Saddam’s end evokes anger and sadness in Sri Lanka

WHEN the advisors of former US President Franklin D Roosevelt discussed the human rights situation in Nicaragua under the pro-American dictator Anastasio Somoza, Roosevelt is reported to have said, 'Somoza may be a son of a b----, but he’s our son of a b----.'

A friend who called me on Saturday morning moments after the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hanged said that Saddam Hussein was certainly an SoB, but he is still “our SoB”. The anger and sadness were pervasive across Sri Lanka. Not only Sri Lanka’s 8.5 per cent Muslim population, but also almost all Sri Lankans condemned the execution. The Eid-ul-Adha festival which was celebrated here on Sunday was sans its usual happiness and joy. The main topic at every gathering was the execution of Saddam Hussein. Many agree that he died a real hero. There were others, who, however, recalled the reign of terror under Saddam Hussein. Yet they condemned the execution.

Saddam will be remembered in Sri Lanka as a friend. During his reign, Iraq was the largest buyer of Sri Lankan tea. When the United States and other western nations manipulated the United Nations and imposed sanctions on Iraq, Sri Lanka in spirit stood by Iraq and our country benefited from the UN-approved oil-for-food scheme because tea was among the items allowed under this programme. Sri Lanka is one of 32 countries with which Iraq had signed bilateral trade agreements —and fulfilling a promise we made at the Madrid donor conference in October, 2003, we donated 100 tons of tea to Iraq.

The government reacted only a day after the execution, after a newspaper on Sunday questioned its silence, though politicians of all hues condemned it. The Foreign Ministry in a statement on Sunday said, “We are dismayed at the execution of former President Saddam Hussein, which was carried out on Eid-ul-Adha festival day. While regretting this unfortunate turn of events, we fervently hope that this will not affect negatively the process of restoring peace and normalcy in Iraq.”

The statement was probably more a reaction to the angry mood across Sri Lanka than a condemnation. After all, a developing country like Sri Lanka has to be very careful not to anger the powers that be in the international arena. In Sri Lanka, Saddam had been very popular. During the first Gulf War, graffiti on the walls of Colombo hailed him as a leader who stood up to the might of the United States, though many in Sri Lanka —Muslims and non-Muslims —did not approve of his invasion of Kuwait. Several Muslim parents have named their new born sons after the former Iraqi leader.

There is also a village called Saddam Hussein Nagar in eastern Sri Lanka. The village, containing a hundred houses, a school and a mosque, was built largely from the aid the former Iraqi leader had sent to the flood victims of 1978. The grateful villagers were sad when Saddam was ousted in April 2003. They were Saddam’s Fedayeens here. They view the events that unfolded in Iraq as US high-handedness and dictatorship.

When Saddam was captured, more than 20 Sri Lankan lawyers offered their services free of charge to defend him and argued that the case be tried before an international tribunal. Lawyer N Sri Kantha, who spearheaded the campaign, said then that theirs was a fight for justice and against big power hegemony in a unipolar world. “We would not have minded if Saddam was ousted by the Iraqi people themselves. But we cannot accept an outside power invading the country, overthrowing its leader and then saying that he will be sentenced to death, even before a trial,” said Sri Kantha, leader of a Tamil political party which gave up violence and joined the political mainstream in the wake of the 1987 Indo-Lanka accord.

The mainstream Sri Lankan media, which are pro-market in their economic outlook, are generally pro-left as far as international affairs are concerned. The Sunday Times newspaper in its year-end review had this to say: “If the former Iraqi dictator was executed for crimes against humanity, the question that arises is how many times should the prosecutors of war for oil or profit at the cost of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives in Iraq and elsewhere be hanged.” The article was appropriately headlined “Save the goat, slay the son” in keeping with imagery of the Haj festival, which commemorates the sacrificial spirit displayed by Prophet Ibrahim and his son, Prophet Ismail.

Some Muslims here said the execution of Saddam went against the spirit of forgiveness that Islam exhorts. But forgiving is easier said than done. It needs spiritual courage. Those people who danced on the streets of Iraq upon hearing the news about Saddam’s execution cannot be blamed, because they were hurt. I used to urge a Buddhist friend of mine, a torture victim during Sri Lanka’s reign of terror in the late 1980s, to forgive his persecutors. He said he never would. His answer was the same even when I reminded him of the teachings of the Buddha.

The execution of Saddam Hussein has another relevance to Sri Lanka, which is now debating whether to hang or not to hang those convicts who have been sentenced to death. If a referendum is held right now in Sri Lanka, an overwhelming majority, who saw the pictures of Saddam’s last moments at the gallows, would vote against the death sentence.

Ameen Izzadeen is a Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo