by Arab Cause Solidarity Committee
Statement of the Arab Cause Solidarity Committee: The apprehension and incarceration of Saddam Hussein will not bring about the end of the Iraqi resistance (15-12-03)
The apprehension and incarceration of Saddam Hussein will not bring about the end of the Iraqi resistance, which is the expression of the growing opposition of the majority of the Iraqi population to the occupation and to the project of the U.S. and its allies to bring about the neo-colonial domination of the country.
Following the capture of Iraqi ex-President Saddam Hussein by U.S. troops, the Committee for Solidarity with the Arab Cause (Madrid) would like to make the following observations:
1.The apprehension and incarceration of Saddam Hussein will not bring about the end of the Iraqi resistance, which is the expression of the growing opposition of the majority of the Iraqi population to the occupation and to the project of the U.S. and its allies to bring about the neo-colonial domination of the country. The inability of the occupying powers to eliminate or restrain resistance actions, considering the massive and undisguised military operations carried out in the last few months, demonstrates the capacity, strength and social support of the insurgency.
Even though a good portion of its combatants might be Ba`athists, the resistance did not come about from the continuation of the leadership of the prior regime through the surviving sectors of that regime. It is instead the response of plural, democratic and patriotic Iraqi currents that – after the first phase of the insurgency – will have to tackle the delicate task of forming a unified national liberation front, that will have to formulate a social, plural and integrating program for Iraq after winning back national sovereignty.
2. The governments involved in the occupation are once again committing the same error they committed at the end of the invasion of the country and Bush`s May 1 proclamation that the war was over, by considering now that the capture of Saddam Hussein is decisive for regaining their control of the internal situation in Iraq, since the evident ruin that the resistance has caused in only a few months to their project of dominating the country.
With doubt a very symbolic event, the detention of Saddam Hussein only will constitute an extremely limited and temporary propaganda respite for the foreign and collaborationist forces, which have hardly shown themselves capable of managing the serious bankruptcy of the occupation in all its aspects – military, economic, political and social. That failure is corroborated by the latest methods the Bush administration applied for a transition of political power and of security to Iraqi elements with no democratic legitimacy and to internal security forces, with the aim of alleviating the heavy human and material costs that the resistance has
imposed on the occupiers.
3. It is for this reason an equally grave error to consider, as some governments and political forces felt themselves under pressure to declare this Sunday (Dec.14) – this was the case with the secretary general of the PSOE (Social Worker Party of Spain), Rodriguez Zapetero – who was opposed at the time to the invasion of Iraq, that the capture of Saddam Hussein was going to favor a rapid process of restoring sovereignty and democracy to the country. On the contrary: each relaxation of external and internal pressure on the U.S. and its allies will encourage the Bush administration`s intentions of reactivating its initial plans to impose direct military control on Iraq and the region as a whole. It is possible to imagine that if this were the case the Sharon government in Israel without major pressure from the United States would re-launch its war of devastation in Palestine.
4. Finally it is possible to point out and condemn the immorality and cynicism with which the governments earlier involved in premeditated genocidal policy against the Iraqi people (which has taken the lives of more than one and a half-million civilians, according to agencies of the United Nations) and after an illegal war of aggression and plunder – included among these is the Aznar government (Spain) – causing the destruction that Iraq is suffering and the impoverishment of its population, celebrating the capture of Saddam Hussein and those who will should be found guilty claiming that their own crimes can be forgotten.
Particularly reprehensible is the fact that those who keep harking back to the logic of the “war on terrorism” in an attempt to definitively dismantle International Law, annul the essential principles of sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples, and turn back for their own citizens basic social and democratic rights, present the capture of the former Iraqi president as a long-hoped for triumph of the principles of justice and liberty.
Regarding the last point, it has to be remembered that the occupation authorities keep imprisoned in Iraq thousands of citizens (more than 17,000, according to the Iraqi Commission of Human Rights) with no legal protection at all, no recognized rights, with a procedure illegal from every angle that violates international conventions.
End the occupation, sovereignty for Iraq
Madrid, December, 15th, 2003
Arab Cause Solidarity Committee
