Libya announces three-day mourning period
The government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi today announced a three-day official mourning period and cancelled all celebrations of Eid.
In an official statement, the government ordered all its branches to lower the national flag to half mast.
“All celebrations all around the country should also be cancelled,” the statement said of the most important holiday on the Islamic calendar.
On Friday, Gaddafi made an indirect appeal for Saddam’s life, telling al-Jazeera television that Saddam’s 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”, Gaddafi said, referring to the American troops who captured Saddam in December 2003.
Another appeal came from Yemen, whose prime minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal wrote to the US and Iraqi presidents, urging them to save Saddam, according to the official Yemeni news agency Saba.
The execution sent many Palestinians into deep mourning as they struggled to come to terms with the demise of perhaps their most steadfast ally.
Unlike much of the rest of the world, where Saddam was viewed as a brutal dictator who oppressed his people and started regional wars, in the West Bank and Gaza he was seen as a generous benefactor unafraid to fight for the Palestinian cause – even to the end.
Saddam’s final words were reportedly “Palestine is Arab.”
“We heard of his martyrdom, and I swear to God we were deeply shaken from within,” said Khadejeh Ahmad from the Qadora refugee camp in the West Bank. “Nobody was as supportive or stood with the Palestinians as he did.”
During the first Gulf War in 1991, the Palestinians cheered Saddam’s missile attacks on Israel, chanting “Beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv,” as the Scud missiles flew overhead.
He further endeared himself to the Palestinians during the recent uprising with Israel by giving money to the family of each suicide bomber and for each Palestinian killed in fighting.
Saddam’s support for the Palestinians – whose cause is deeply popular with Arabs throughout the Middle East – was at least partially aimed at gaining widespread support throughout the Arab world.
“Saddam was a person who had the ability to say ‘No’ in the face of a great country,” said Hosni al Ejel, 46, from the al Amari refugee camp near Ramallah.
“He wanted the Palestinian people to have a state and a government and to be united. But God supports us, and we pray to God to punish those who did this,” said Ghanem Mezel, 72, from the town of Saeer in the southern West Bank.
Others were happy to hear Saddam’s final words, knowing that his support for them remained unshakeable until the end.
Palestinians in the West Bank town of Bethlehem opened a “house of condolences” where people can gather to mourn Saddam. The organisers hung Iraqi flags, pictures of Saddam and broadcast Iraqi revolutionary songs.
Mohammed Barghouti, the minister of labour in the Hamas-led Palestinian Cabinet, said that although his Islamic group was often at odds with the secular Saddam, his execution was wrong.
“The Palestinians had bonded with Iraqis in brotherhood,” he said.
In Israel, where Saddam was seen as a bitter enemy, there was little sadness. But Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh expressed concerns about Iraq’s path in the post-Saddam era.
Sneh told Israel Radio that Israel was concerned about the strengthening of Iranian influence in the Shiite sections of southern Iraq and also in the central government. Iraq had also become a regional “power station” for terror that could spread chaos throughout the Middle East, he said.
“We have to be worried about what is going to happen now,” he said.
