By Baghdadhope
It was in the month of April, last year, that Tareq Aziz, former prime minister, former foreign minister, but especially former public face of the regime of Saddam Hussein, dreamed of being able to live in Rome once released by the Americans who detain him in Baghdad since 24 April 2003, when he surrendered to US soldiers.
But reality is different from dreams, and always in April, but on the next 29 of the month, Tareq Aziz will start another kind of journey: from the prison where he is held to the court where a Kurdish judge - the same who read the death sentence of Saddam Hussein - will chair the process that sees Aziz involved, along with other hierarchs of the former regime including Saddam's half-brother, Watban Ibrahim Al Hassan, in the killings of 42 merchants who in 1992 were accused of having speculated on the prices of foodstuffs. A charge that appears as a pretext as others are the crimes Aziz will be probably accused of, maybe not as a performer but as a passive accomplice. Tareq Aziz then, the 8 of spades in the famous deck of cards representing the 52 most wanted hierarchs of the regime of Saddam, hardly will be able to make other requests. Unhelpful will be the appeals made by his son Ziad, who lives in Jordan with the rest of the family, who repeatedly demanded his father’s release for health problems. Neither will be those of the Chaldean Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly who still last Christmas requested Aziz’s release in a more general request for those who were detained in Iraq without evidence against them. Inevitably this process, like the others that preceded it, will be declared by many voices in the world as illegal and manipulated by the American government that effectively controls the Iraqi one. Nothing could be more true. The same, hasty execution of Saddam Hussein demonstrated the desire to hide the misdeeds and the complicity of foreign governments with the Iraqi regime. It is also true, however, that a negative behaviour does not erase another just because it is prior to it. Americans crimes in Iraq will not erase those of the regime Aziz was an important part of. The Chaldean Christian Michael Yohanna, who was born in Tel Keif in 1936, the one who created for himself an Arab identity changing his name in Tareq Aziz and whose very presence in the elite of Iraqi power was cited as evidence of the benevolence of the regime towards minorities can repeat his son’s words: "My father worked in the political field, was not responsible for anything against his own people, he was following orders and had no decision-making power."
But reality is different from dreams, and always in April, but on the next 29 of the month, Tareq Aziz will start another kind of journey: from the prison where he is held to the court where a Kurdish judge - the same who read the death sentence of Saddam Hussein - will chair the process that sees Aziz involved, along with other hierarchs of the former regime including Saddam's half-brother, Watban Ibrahim Al Hassan, in the killings of 42 merchants who in 1992 were accused of having speculated on the prices of foodstuffs. A charge that appears as a pretext as others are the crimes Aziz will be probably accused of, maybe not as a performer but as a passive accomplice. Tareq Aziz then, the 8 of spades in the famous deck of cards representing the 52 most wanted hierarchs of the regime of Saddam, hardly will be able to make other requests. Unhelpful will be the appeals made by his son Ziad, who lives in Jordan with the rest of the family, who repeatedly demanded his father’s release for health problems. Neither will be those of the Chaldean Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Emmanuel III Delly who still last Christmas requested Aziz’s release in a more general request for those who were detained in Iraq without evidence against them. Inevitably this process, like the others that preceded it, will be declared by many voices in the world as illegal and manipulated by the American government that effectively controls the Iraqi one. Nothing could be more true. The same, hasty execution of Saddam Hussein demonstrated the desire to hide the misdeeds and the complicity of foreign governments with the Iraqi regime. It is also true, however, that a negative behaviour does not erase another just because it is prior to it. Americans crimes in Iraq will not erase those of the regime Aziz was an important part of. The Chaldean Christian Michael Yohanna, who was born in Tel Keif in 1936, the one who created for himself an Arab identity changing his name in Tareq Aziz and whose very presence in the elite of Iraqi power was cited as evidence of the benevolence of the regime towards minorities can repeat his son’s words: "My father worked in the political field, was not responsible for anything against his own people, he was following orders and had no decision-making power."
But it will be useless. And it will be little. Too many Iraqis did not have the power to denounce the crimes of the regime. He had this power, but he did not use it. This is also a crime.