Comment by Marek Antoni Nowicki regarding the execution of Saddam Hussein

On Saturday before dawn, we regressed to an era of barbarianism. From the outset, it was obvious the conscious decision to eschew an international court meant Saddam Hussein would be quickly hung. With premeditation, he was turned over to a tribunal consisting of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites, thus sealing his fate.

Today, after the execution, some of the Western governments that solemnly, though not always convincingly, affirm their present and future opposition to the death penalty, themselves contributed to what we were forced to witness being broadcast from the American secret base in Iraq on every channel.

Saddam Hussein, just like other similar criminals in various parts of the world, should have been tried for all the horrid crimes he undoubtedly committed. For those crimes, he should have faced an international court. Delivering even the most hateful criminal into the hands of ruthless avengers cannot be mistaken for a fair trial. Victims never make for impartial and fair judges. For that very reason, the international community founded the International Criminal Court and turned to international judges to try crimes in the former Yugoslavia or Rwanda. In Kosovo, international judges adjudicate all matters related to that conflict on behalf of the UN. International judges are the only ones able to introduce even a modicum of justice and rule of law into an atmosphere of revenge and vengeance.

Given the conditions in Iraq, the Hussein trial conducted by local judges must have been a farce. There were not, because there could not have been, conditions for observing even basic guarantees. One is left with the impression the trial was needed only to prevent the dictator being killed immediately. As on many other occasions in history, it was a facade of a trial to allow the meting out of rough justice. It remains unanswered, however, why the unusual haste was required (especially since it prevented in-depth investigations of Hussein’s other crimes, including one concerning the onerous Iraq-Iran war in which the USA supported the Iraqi dictator, a fact that remains a public secret).

The fault lies primarily with the states that openly supported the execution of the former dictator or did nothing to prevent what happened. The heroic protests of Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and the Vatican today stem from the pangs of the international community’s guilty conscience.

All of us – humanity as a whole – suffered a great defeat. This certainly cannot be summed up as the Iraqi authorities’ sovereign will (which they do not have, for obvious reasons) or dismissed with a call not to mourn too much for Saddam. At stake is something of far greater importance than the mere taking of the life of an Iraqi despot.

Warsaw, 31 December 2006.
Published in the Gazeta Wyborcza national daily on 2 January 2007.

See also open letter of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights Board to the President of Iraq Mr Jalal Talabani, regarding the execution of Saddam Hussein.