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After
decades of brutal repression under Saddam Hussein,
Iraq's Kurdish minority celebrated yesterday as
their
former rebel chief, Jalal Talabani, became the
country's new president.
Kurds in the north poured jubilantly on to the
streets after watching his acceptance speech on
television, their
incredulity heightened by the knowledge that the
same pictures had been beamed live into Saddam's
cell.
The former dictator's cousin Ali Hasan Majid, better
known as "Chemical Ali", was also made to watch
proceedings, according to officials at the human
rights ministry.
Majid infamously led the brutal Anfal campaigns
against the Kurds in 1988, gassing to death 5,000
people with
chemical weapons at Halabja.
Paying tribute to "the martyrs of Kurdistan and the
southern marshes," a reference to Shias killed
during a joint
uprising against Saddam in 1991, Mr Talabani
promised to establish a government committed to
democracy
and human rights.
"We will carry out our duties without any sectarian
or racial issues and we will always comply with the
demands
of all Iraqi people," he said, raising his arms
aloft as MPs stood in applause.
Nine weeks after January's election, Iraq's
bickering political factions have yet to name a new
government.
Mr Talabani was appointed with two vice-presidents,
the former Shia finance minister Adel Abdul Mahdi
and the
outgoing Sunni president Ghazi al-Yawar.
Their role will be largely ceremonial but in the
coming days they will perform probably their most
single
important act: nominating a prime minister, whose
position will be much more powerful.
A Shia politician, Ibrahim al Jaafari, is expected
to be named in the coming days and will lead the
country until
new polls in December.
His Shia-dominated United Iraqi Alliance won 146 of
the 275 parliamentary seats in the Jan 30 election.
The Sunni speaker Hajem al-Hassani proclaimed the
end of Iraqi sectarian divisions yesterday. "This is
the
new Iraq - an Iraq that elects a Kurd to be
president and an Arab former president as his
deputy," he said. "What
more could the world want from us?"
For all the proclamations of brotherhood, many
expect the wrangling to continue. Shia MPs have
expressed
irritation over "unreasonable" Kurdish demands over
the distribution of oil wealth.
www.telegraph.co.uk
Saddam watches new
president on TV
The Australian,
From correspondents in Baghdad, Iraq
SADDAM Hussein watched the election of Iraq's
new president on video today and was shaken by what
he saw,
the country's human rights minister said.
"He was clearly upset. He realised that it was over,
that a democratic process had taken place and that
there
was a new, elected president," Bakhtiar Amin said.
"It was not just the fact that there was a new
president, but that the president was a Kurd. And
the previous
interim president became a vice-president. What's
more, it all happened without bloodshed," he said.
Iraq's parliament earlier elected Jalal Talabani, a
veteran Kurdish leader, as president. Ghazi Yawar,
the
previous president, became one of two
vice-presidents.
Saddam watched a video recording of the election,
broadcast live on Iraqi television, in his prison
cell at Camp
Cropper, a US-run high security facility on the
outskirts of Baghdad.
Later, 11 of his senior lieutenants, including two
half-brothers and former deputy prime minister Tariq
Aziz,
watched the same video together, Mr Amin said.
It was the first television that Saddam and his
former deputies had seen since being taken into
custody.
Because they watched a recording of the live
transmission, which also contained a rolling strap
of news across
the bottom of the screen, Saddam was able to catch
up on various news items from around the world, the
minister said.
He said seeing the footage is likely to have
hammered home to the former president and his
deputies that Iraq
has moved on since they were captured.
But Mr Amin, a Kurd who was forced to flee Iraq
under Saddam, said it could have an even greater
impact.
"I feel this will affect how they respond when they
go to trial," he said. "Now they know a government's
being
formed, a democratically elected government, they
know for sure that they are not coming back and my
feeling
is that they may be inclined to be more honest when
they go before the tribunal."
Saddam and his 11 top aides are due to go to trial
later this year, although the process is expected to
begin with
one of his lieutenants.
Mr Amin, who specifically asked for a television to
be put in Saddam's cell so he could watch the
election, said
he may also be allowed to watch Mr Talabani's
swearing in ceremony tomorrow. Tonight, Iraq's new
prime
minister should be sworn in.
"We wanted the former dictator to know that Iraq has
moved on, that there's a new Iraq, and that he is
not part of
it," Mr Amin said.
www.theaustralian.news.com.au
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