Kurds await Saddam hanging with grim satisfaction
Source: Reuters
By Sherko Raouf KIRKUK, Iraq, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Zanah Hadi, a 50-year-old Kurdish labourer, cannot wait to see Saddam Hussein hang but like many in Iraq he fears the former president's execution could spark more violence. "Every Kurd in Kirkuk and beyond is longing to see Saddam hanging on the rope from the gallows," he said on Friday evening as the hanging was reported to be just hours away. "If Saddam is executed, I will fire 70 shots in the air and I will dance until I drop," he said. He was closely following conflicting reports on Iraqi media on Friday as officials met to finalise the details of the hanging that some fear could deepen sectarian tensions already threatening to pitch Iraq into civil war. An appeals court upheld Saddam's death penalty on Tuesday for crimes against humanity and Iraqi officials said he might be hanged before the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on Saturday, coinciding with the haj pilgrimage to Mecca. "I'm afraid this Eid may be a bloody Eid," Hadi said. Saddam received the death penalty for his part in the killing of 148 Shi'ites in the early 1980s. He was still on trial for genocide in a second case but his execution would mean those charges are dropped. He will also never be tried on other charges, including a chemical gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja that killed 5,000 people in 1988. "It would have been much better for the execution to have taken place in Halabja, not in Baghdad," said Barham Khorsheed, 40, a Kurdish taxi driver in Sulaimaniya. Norzan Yaseen, a 32-year-old teacher from the Turkmen community in Kirkuk, said Saddam's hanging would make no difference and she urged the government to concentrate on bringing security and basic services. "The Iraqi government has brought nothing but calamities to the Iraqi people in the last three years," she said. Ahmed Qasim, a 27-year-old farmer, said Saddam's trial had been a "political show orchestrated by the United States". "During Saddam Hussein's time there was no violence or killings or terrorism or evictions," he said. "Now after the fall of Saddam, things have got worse. Executing Saddam Hussein will incite the Sunni Arabs' anger and may lead to a civil war."
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