Haaretz
Tevet 9, 5767
The Yemeni and Libyan
governments on Friday made 11th hour appeals to spare Saddam Hussein's
life.
Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal wrote to the U.S.
and Iraqi
presidents, urging them to save Saddam, according to the
official Yemeni news agency Saba.
Bajammal wrote to President
George W. Bush that Saddam's execution would
"increase the sectarian
violence" in Iraq, Saba reported.
In a letter to President Jalal
Talabani, Bajammal urged the Iraqi leader to halt the execution and employ
his "wisdom and political prudence to create a climate that helps heal the
wounds" in the country.
It was not clear why Yemeni President Ali
Abdullah Saleh did not write the letters. Saleh maintained close ties with
Saddam and was among the few Arab leaders who supported Saddam during the
1991 Gulf crisis.
Yemen is believed to host thousands of Baath Party
members and exiled
officials of Saddam's regime.
Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi made an indirect appeal for Saddam's life,
telling
Al-Jazeera television that his trial was illegal and that he should be
retried by an international court.
Saddam was a prisoner of war,
and "those who arrested should try him," Gadhafi said, referring to the
American troops who captured Saddam in December 2003.
Leaders in
one of the United States' largest Arab-American communities said Saddam
Hussein's execution will increase violence overseas and
will not help
the Iraqi people.
Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American
News, said Saddam's death
sentence is one more casualty in a war that
has killed thousands, and it will not solve the power struggle among Iraqi
religious groups.
"The execution might bring some amusement and
accomplishment to the Bush
administration, but it will not help the
Iraqi people," said Siblani, who is also affiliated with the Congress of
Arab American Organizations and the Arab American Political Action
Committee. "The problem we're facing in Iraq is going to
multiply."
The Detroit area contains one of the United States'
largest concentrations of people with roots in the Middle East, including
an Iraqi community of Arabs, Kurds and Chaldeans, who are Catholic. Many
fled their homeland during Saddam's rule.
Joseph Kassab, executive
director of the Chaldean Federation of America, said his humanitarian
organization is against the taking of human life. But he noted there are
lessons to be learned.
"His execution should become an occasion upon
which the world must reflect and remember so we never again relinquish our
destiny to tyrants like him," Kassab said.
Imad Hamad, director of
the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in nearby Dearborn, said
Saddam's victims were celebrating his impending death, but many Iraqi
people are fearful of what lies ahead, he said.
"There is a unique
joy when any dictator is being brought to justice, and
those who have
been direct victims of Saddam, they cannot help but celebrate," said
Hamad, who is originally a Palestinian from Lebanon. "The joy would have
been complete if we were to see the healthy Iraq, the united Iraq, the
safe Iraq. Then everybody would be jumping up and down,
celebrating."
Hamad said it does not matter whether Saddam remains
a captive or is killed. The future of the Iraqi people should be the main
focus, he said.
"We captured him, we took down his regime, now we
execute him," he said. "Does that change Iraq? Does that bring peace and
security to Iraq? I don't think so."