What happened in Al-Dijel?

[gilliam]

The complainants and witnesses about the genocide of Saddam and his regime against Al-Dijel people revealed the following crimes:

1. Indiscriminate killings by using massive military and security powers including helicopters against innocent civilians by top officials who were controlling the power.
2. Mass arrests against hundreds of families.
3. Detention of these families in concentration camps under reckless tyrannized oppression
4. Among the arrested are children under 14 years old
5. None of the arrested people were submitted to court and most of them know nothing about why they have been detained or their relatives killed
6. Banishing these families including newborn babies and children into the heart of desert under sever merciless conditions
7. Leveling to the ground the houses and farms of these families
8. Death of many detainees under tortures
9. Using different ways of torture and psychological abuses during the detention
10. After 4 years of most sever condition and humiliation the detainees freed but many were executed before and latter
11. They have not been submitted into a court and after their release they have been treated severely badly under strict scrutiny and on and off calls and threat by the security until the fall of the regime 2003.
12. Some of the pregnant women gave birth in the detention camps. The babies died later due to lack of any care and the physico-psychological torture that their mothers exposed to. Died babies undignifiedly rapped with newspapers and taken from their mothers.

The crimes are much more than that. It was a tragedy which spread fears and terrors in the heart of all Iraqis at that time. One of the witnesses whose 7 brothers were executed at the same time described the day of taking them into the desert that he will never forget its terror even for hundred years to come. The scars will never heal and the beloved ones who were executed and killed will never come back. The women who were raped will never heal especially that they may cancel it inside themselves. Mothers who lost their babies will never forget their last cries from hunger or pain helplessly.

Saddam, his half bother and the others tried several times to pull the tribunal into sideways or convert it into a political stage. He described George Bush as the number one liar in the world. They tried to convert the court to look as if they are the victims and not the accused by complaining about their treatment and suffering. However they directly confessed about the crimes by throwing it on the less ranking officers or on the other parts of the security system.
hammorabi.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-happened-in-al-dijel-complainants.html

 

[Al_Masetti]

I dunno … some folks seem to be of the opinion that Saddam should be given his country back…

Some folks seem to be very comfortable with dictatorships (the totalitarian variety … not the authoritarian variety…)… perhaps because their own personalities are such that THEY want to be absolute dictators.

The other thing that is “funny” “funny” strange… not “funny” ha-ha ] is that folks keep referring to PRESIDENT Saddam, not DICTATOR Saddam… Just like President Castro… not Dictator Castro…

[sigh]

 

[Matt25]

Al Masetti:

The other thing that is “funny” “funny” strange… not “funny” ha-ha ] is that folks keep referring to PRESIDENT Saddam, not DICTATOR Saddam… Just like President Castro… not Dictator Castro…

[sigh]

Heads of State and former Heads of State are referred to by their official titles. For example-
vatican.va/holy_father/special_features/peace/documents/peace_20030216_card-etchegaray-iraq_en.html

STATEMENT OF CARDINAL ROGER ETCHEGARY,
SPECIAL ENVOY OF JOHN PAUL II IN BAGHDAD Sunday, 16 February 2003

  I have just experienced in Iraq an extraordinary intensity of communion with the person who sent me there, Pope John Paul II. Seldom, have I felt so strongly that I was not only the bearer of his message of peace but that he himself was present. I only followed him among the Christian communties, among all the Iraqi people, to **President Saddam Hussein** who showed a profound willingness to listen to a living word that comes from God, and that every believer, as descendant of Abraham, welcomes as the surest leaven of peace.

    As I leave this land, unjustly cut off from all others, I want to be more than the simple echo and amplifier of the aspiration of a country that has an urgent need of peace.

    Among the dark clouds that recently have gathered, here is a small glimmer of light. But let no one stop praying. The new and brief respite which has been granted must be used by all in a spirit of reciprocal confidence to respond to the demands of the international community. The least step in these days will have the value of a great leap towards peace.

    Yes, peace is still possible in Iraq and for Iraq. I depart for Rome crying this out more strongly than ever.

 

[abcdefg]

Matt25:

Heads of State and former Heads of State are referred to by their official titles. For example-
vatican.va/holy_father/special_features/peace/documents/peace_20030216_card-etchegaray-iraq_en.html

Matt25, I’m interested in when you will say “President Saddam” next time. notify me, OK?

 

[Matt25]

abcdefg:

Matt25, I’m interested in when you will say “President Saddam” next time. notify me, OK?

I’m not a diplomat or a newsreader, Saddam Hussein was a murderous tyrant so I feel no great need to respect his former status. Nonetheless when he was President and Don Rumsfeld shook hands with him I guess he called him Mr President.

Incidentally why just worry about former President Saddam or current President Castro in the list of dictators. President Niyazov of Turkmenistan has a much worse record of torture and murder than Fidel does.

hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/28/turkme11796.htm

• Followers of minority religions – both registered and unregistered – are repeatedly harassed by police and security in the form of house raids, confiscation of religious materials, threats, and beatings. In some cases, these include followers of groups that were registered since the president introduced simplified registration procedures at the U.S. government’s request;
• Several mosques have been unjustifiably demolished;
• President Niyazov publicly expressed the wish that no more mosques be built in Turkmenistan, coinciding with the completion of the building of the country’s largest mosque, whose construction adheres to state dictums;
• Islamic religious training has been effectively eliminated in Turkmenistan through drastic cut-backs in faculty and students at the country’s last remaining Muslim theological department; and
• President Niyazov announced that he is preparing to introduce a forthcoming list of accepted Islamic rituals which Muslims must observe.

Indeed, we would argue that state control of religious expression in Turkmenistan has reached a new height. The state no longer simply controls religion; it is actively trying to eliminate even state-controlled religions in order to establish a new religion based on the personality of the president.

I suppose that the US is even now preparing an al-Dijel style trial for the President.

 

[Matt25]

riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

…really began watching when they brought on the first witness, who was also the first plaintiff. He talked about the whole Dujail situation and his account was emotional and detailed. The details were intriguing considering he was only 15 years old at the time. The problem with his whole account is that so much of it is hearsay. He heard from someone that something happened to someone else, etc. Now, I’m not a lawyer but I’m a fan of The Practice and if watching Dylan McDermott has taught me anything, it’s that hearsay is not acceptable evidence.

The second witness was more to the point but he was 10 when everything happened and that didn’t help his case. In the end, when the judge asked him who he was making a complaint against, he said he wasn’t making a complaint against anyone. Then he changed his mind and said he was complaining against one of the accused… Then he added his complaint was against anyone convicted of the crime… And finally it was a complaint against “All Ba’athists at the time”.

Couldn’t they find more credible witnesses? They were fifteen and ten at the time… it just doesn’t make sense…

It wasn’t really like a trial. It reminded me of what we call a ‘fassil’ which is what tribal sheikhs arrange when two tribes are out of sorts with one another. The heads of the tribes are brought together along with the principal family members involved in the rift and after some yelling, accusations, and angry words they try to sort things out. That’s what it felt like today. They kept interrupting each other and there was even some spitting at one point… It was both frustrating and embarrassing- and very unprofessional.

One thing that struck me about what the witnesses were saying- after the assassination attempt in Dujail, so much of what later unfolded is exactly what is happening now in parts of Iraq. They talked about how a complete orchard was demolished because the Mukhabarat thought people were hiding there and because they thought someone had tried to shoot Saddam from that area. That was like last year when the Americans razed orchards in Diyala because they believed insurgents were hiding there. Then they talked about the mass detentions- men, women and children- and its almost as if they are describing present-day Ramadi or Falloojah. The descriptions of cramped detention spaces, and torture are almost exactly the testimonies of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, etc.

 

[gilliam]

Your talking about mass murder and small ones escaping. This isn’t a Perry Mason move.

 

[Matt25]

channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=739

The day they tried to kill Saddam

Channel 4 News interviewed four of the more than 400 witnesses in Dujail who have been questioned by the lawyers prosecuting Saddam. Now aged 75, Um Abbas remembers her four sons, all killed after the assassination attempt - one shot trying to resist the security forces and three executed in prison.

“Some people ran away and some people fought,” she said, her lined face framed by her black chador. “Whoever fought was killed. Some people managed to survive by hiding in the drainage pipes in the orchards. My son tried to resist, but he couldn’t, so he climbed a palm tree. They struck him from a plane and he was killed. They brought us to their headquarters and showed us eight or nine corpses, which they threw on the ground. Blood was flowing everywhere.” …

Others perished in the bombing. Former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan and Saddam’s half-brother, the then head of the Mukhabarat secret police, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, are also expected to be tried for the alleged killings at Dujail, as well as three local Baath Party officials and a judge accused of presiding over show trials.

The new footage may help the prosecution, as it shows Saddam giving orders for interrogations, but it could be used by the defence if they wish to suggest that he was acting in response to a genuine threat on his life by a group plotting to overthrow his government. The defence may also question the motives of the new Iraqi authorities in choosing Dujail for what they see as a show trial, given that Iraq’s Prime Minister, Ibrahim al Jaafari, is the leader of the Dawa party.

 

[abcdefg]

The new footage may help the prosecution, as it shows Saddam giving orders for interrogations, but it could be used by the defence if they wish to suggest that he was acting in response to a genuine threat on his life by a group plotting to overthrow his government

reminds me of Holocaust deniers like that Iranian guy.

 

[Matt25]

abcdefg:

reminds me of Holocaust deniers like that Iranian guy.

In what way? Is the defence alleging a Jewish conspiracy? Did several million Iraqi’s die in Dujail because of their ethnicity?

 

[abcdefg]

I’m not saying it’s Holocaust Denial. but attempting to shift the responsibility of Dijel Massecre from Saddam to general public doesn’t differ much from Holocause denial.