THE international face of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, his Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, has been sentenced to hang.
A spokesperson for the Vatican, Father Federico [sic] Lombardi, has already urged Iraq not to carry out the execution. The Catholic Church stands resolutely against capital punishment — and their plea is given even more pertinence because, oddly enough, Tariq Aziz is a Roman Catholic.
This religious anomaly — a Catholic serving in the governing body of an Islamic country — says something about Saddam Hussein’s regime, in a positive sense. Such a situation in, say, Saudi Arabia — one of the West’s allies in the Middle East — is utterly inconceivable. Allied troops stationed in some Gulf states are banned from any Christian worship.
Iraqi society under Saddam was brutal — of that there is no doubt — but it was by no means the most repressive state in the Middle East. Even Iraqi Jews lament the passing of Saddam’s regime. An ancient part of the society, they were able to live, trade and worship in relative peace. Now matters are infinitely more difficult.
Women — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — have similarly found their rights and quality of life eroded.Tony Blair’s part in the decision to go to war in conjunction with George Bush is baffling. How could someone who called it so right in the North of Ireland get it so wrong in the Middle East?
Tariq Aziz was undoubtedly privy to the machinations of Saddam Hussein.However, almost all the savagery was carried out solely on Saddam’s orders, and enacted by his family. For multifarious reasons Tariq Aziz should not be executed, and Tony Blair as a humanitarian, as a peacemaker in the North of Ireland, as the special Middle East envoy on behalf of the EU, UN, USA and Russia — and also as a fellow Catholic — should make strenuous efforts to get the former Iraqi Prime Minister’s death sentence commuted.
Not only would this be the correct compassionate and civilised response — it might also, as the Vatican has said, encourage reconciliation and the rebuilding of peace and justice in Iraq. The alternative is that we find ourselves back at that grizzly, blood-stained location — square one.
The Irish Post
A spokesperson for the Vatican, Father Federico [sic] Lombardi, has already urged Iraq not to carry out the execution. The Catholic Church stands resolutely against capital punishment — and their plea is given even more pertinence because, oddly enough, Tariq Aziz is a Roman Catholic.
This religious anomaly — a Catholic serving in the governing body of an Islamic country — says something about Saddam Hussein’s regime, in a positive sense. Such a situation in, say, Saudi Arabia — one of the West’s allies in the Middle East — is utterly inconceivable. Allied troops stationed in some Gulf states are banned from any Christian worship.
Iraqi society under Saddam was brutal — of that there is no doubt — but it was by no means the most repressive state in the Middle East. Even Iraqi Jews lament the passing of Saddam’s regime. An ancient part of the society, they were able to live, trade and worship in relative peace. Now matters are infinitely more difficult.
Women — of all ethnic and religious backgrounds — have similarly found their rights and quality of life eroded.Tony Blair’s part in the decision to go to war in conjunction with George Bush is baffling. How could someone who called it so right in the North of Ireland get it so wrong in the Middle East?
Tariq Aziz was undoubtedly privy to the machinations of Saddam Hussein.However, almost all the savagery was carried out solely on Saddam’s orders, and enacted by his family. For multifarious reasons Tariq Aziz should not be executed, and Tony Blair as a humanitarian, as a peacemaker in the North of Ireland, as the special Middle East envoy on behalf of the EU, UN, USA and Russia — and also as a fellow Catholic — should make strenuous efforts to get the former Iraqi Prime Minister’s death sentence commuted.
Not only would this be the correct compassionate and civilised response — it might also, as the Vatican has said, encourage reconciliation and the rebuilding of peace and justice in Iraq. The alternative is that we find ourselves back at that grizzly, blood-stained location — square one.
The Irish Post
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