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TV revives bloody past as Iraq awaits
Saddam trial
21.7.2005
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BAGHDAD (Reuters)
- A man describes how Saddam Hussein's secret police
shoved a dissident's baby into a sack with a vicious
cat that scratches it. Undercover agents throw a man
to his death from the roof of a building.
Skip to next paragraph Iraqiya state television is
reviving images of life under Saddam as a court
prepares to announce his trial date.
``I wish they were here to see the day when Saddam
is finished,'' a tearful woman who lost her
relatives under Saddam told the television program,
which broadcast footage of abuses filmed by the same
former security forces who committed them. |
Former dictator
Saddam Hussein
Photo : AP |
Officials in Iraq's
Shi'ite-led government, some of his most hated
opponents, want a speedy death sentence for Saddam,
ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
But that could undermine the credibility of the
special tribunal that laid down the first charges
against him this week and raise questions about
justice in a new Iraq projecting itself as the first
true democracy in the Arab world.
In a country where some of Saddam's old secret
police are leading an insurgency that has killed
thousands, Iraqiya focused on grisly images from the
past.
Grainy footage of senior officials, including Ali
Hassan al-Majid -- nicknamed Chemical Ali because
his men allegedly gassed 5,000 Kurds in 1988 --
shows them questioning Shi'ites after a failed
rebellion in 1991.
One official calmly smokes a cigarette and then
kicks one of them in the face. The bound men were
later executed.
BLINDFOLDS AND ROOFTOPS
In another reminder of nearly a quarter of a century
of Saddam, a blindfolded man with his hands bound
behind his back is pushed off the roof of a
building.
In another scene captured on video, a man is being
held on the ground with his arm extended, while his
arm is beaten with a club until the bone breaks.
The show about crimes under Saddam follows a
propaganda series about fighters confessing to
everything from murder to homosexuality, a crime in
Iraq. That show has been hugely popular even though
some think the confessions are forced.
In a chilling scene, Saddam's men pump bullets into
the heads of men tied to poles. ``That one is still
breathing,'' says an officer in the footage. Another
bullet is fired.
Saddam says the court has no legitimacy and has
appeared confident and defiant during televised
questioning.
One man in the Iraqiya show described how Saddam's
agents put a dissident's baby in a sack with a cat.
``Enough, enough. I am a member of the (banned)
Da'awa Party,'' he confessed.
In another case, an elderly woman held up a picture
chart of her extended family, all allegedly killed.
``This is a picture of Muhammad,'' she said softly
of one of them.
It's a story repeated many times since Saddam fell
and Iraqis rushed to investigate the fate of loved
ones, uncovering mass graves and rifling through
government documents.
Viewers disturbed by the Iraqiya program were
reminded of the tragedies of today during an urgent
news break. A man strapped with explosives blew
himself up among a group of Iraqi army recruits in
Baghdad.
The attack killed six people, minor by Baghdad
standards. Iraqiya then broadcast pleasant scenes of
waterfalls and farmers in lush fields, a peaceful
life that few Iraqis expect soon.
Reuters
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