by Carsten Kofoed, Danish Committee for a Free Iraq
The trial against Saddam Hussein is a show trial
By Carsten Kofoed, Spokesman of the Danish Committee for a Free Iraq, July 2, 2004
The so-called trial against Saddam Hussein and 11 other leaders of the former regime in Iraq has started. Just like the transfer of power, this trial is also a farce from end to end, even though there is being talked about an "indictment" in order to give the show trial in which the accused have been denied access to lawyers just a bit of credibility. The sentence against Saddam Hussein has already been pronounced in Washington. Not even his detention can the "sovereign" Iraqi government handle itself.
The trial is illegal because it is a result of the illegal war against Iraq that has led to an US-installed puppet regime whose actions lack any form of legitimacy. This illegitimate "government", headed by Iyad Allawi, who boasts of his age-long work for the CIA, has set up a "court", which is now going to judge the, from a legal point of view, current president of Iraq.
But no matter the crimes that have been committed by Saddam Hussein and Co. during their reign, this does not give that pack of collaborators, who arrived in Iraq in April 2003 sitting on the US tanks, and today are only in the positions they are because of the US military presence in Iraq, the slightest right to judge neither the political leaders of the former Iraq nor any Iraqis.
On the contrary, these Iraqis are to be regarded as traitors. They supported the aggression on Iraq and are now part of the torturing occupying power, which the great majority of Iraqis want to see leave Iraq right now.
The show trial against Saddam Hussein has several objectives.
Firstly, it is meant to justify the occupation of Iraq and all its crimes by "making a showdown with Saddam Hussein".
Secondly, it is part of Bush´s occupation and election propaganda towards the American people, who are getting more and more sceptical of the occupation of Iraq.
Thirdly, it is a showdown with the whole independent Iraq that was born in 1958, and which since 1991 refused to accept US dictates, an Iraq standing firmly on Iraqi control over Iraqi oil, but which has now been transformed into an US colony.
And fourthly, it is part of the US and Israeli criminalisation of Arab nationalism of which the Baathist government was a representative, and which the US and Israel want to bury because it, to a certain extent, opposes their interests in the oil-rich region.
In fact, the "trial" against Saddam Hussein shows the total US hegemony over the Iraqi people as such. By the help of its lackeys in Baghdad the US can judge even the president of Iraq.
Both Saddam Hussein and other political prisoners in Iraq should be released. They cannot be held responsible by a bunch of Iraqi Quislings who do not represent Iraq and the Iraqi people.
Today, it is only the Iraqi resistance, who by liberating Iraq can ensure justice and freedom to the Iraqi people and initiate possible trials against Saddam Hussein and Co. But when the bells of liberation strike in Iraq, it is surely not him and the Baath Party that will first be dealt with by an Iraqi liberation council. As in Denmark after the German occupation, the turn will first come to traitors and collaborationists. And Saddam Hussein is not one of them.
Sent as a comment (640 words maximum) to the Danish press on July 2, 2004.