ByNews Desk- The Cradle
The return of Saddam Hussein’s political party to Jordan revives historical grievances resulting from the former Iraqi president’s controversial rule
The Shia Dawa Party’s political office said in a statement that, “The Iraqis were surprised, shocked, and outraged by the news of the Jordanian government’s permission for the (Saddam’s Ba’ath) party to engage in political activity.”
On May 14, the Independent Electoral Commission in the Kingdom of Jordan approved the political participation of 27 new political parties, including the Arab Socialist Baath Party, whose Iraqi branch was led by long-time Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Saddam was deposed after 24 years in power when the US military illegally invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003. Saddam was executed in December 2006 by the new government of Iraq established under US occupation.
Saddam was convicted for ordering the Dujail Massacre. A Dawa Party stronghold, Dujail is Shia majority town of 75,000 residents located 53km north of Baghdad. After the Dawa Party attempted to assassinate Saddam in 1982, the Iraqi leader executed 140 people from the town allegedly involved in the plot.
Saddam was hated by many Iraqis for carrying out large numbers of political killings, as well as for starting wars against Iran and Kuwait that led to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.
The Dawa Party statement added, “It was sufficient evidence that this fascist party was prevented from working because of its black history and the tragedies that resulted from its presence in power for the peoples of the region because of its stoking of internal conflicts and wars of aggression, including the invasion of Kuwait, and opening the gates of Iraq to foreign occupation.”
The statement called on the “Jordanian government to cancel the license of this party and prevent it from practicing any activity to preserve common interests, which began a new, growing era, out of concern for cooperation and brotherly relations between the two peoples.”
In Jordan, Iraq’s Sunni-majority neighbor, Saddam remains popular for his support of the Palestinian cause, Arab nationalism, and resistance to Western intervention in the Middle East.
“Tens of thousands of Jordanians graduated from Iraqi universities in various fields during Saddam’s era with free scholarships,” Khalil Attiyeh, a parliamentarian in Amman, told AFP. He added that Saddam supported Palestinian resistance against Israel and gave money “to the families of the Palestinian martyrs and rebuilt the houses of those who had them demolished by the enemy.”
At the time of the US invasion, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees lived in Iraq, both those who were ethnically cleansed from their homes by pre-state Zionist militias in 1948 (in events known as the Nakba, or catastrophe), as well as their children and grandchildren who were born and grew up in Iraq but maintained their Palestinian nationality and refugee status.
During the US occupation of Iraq, Shia-dominated Iraqi security forces meted out harsh treatment to Palestinian refugees residing in Baghdad for the perceived favorable treatment they received under Saddam’s government.
In 2005, the Wolf Brigade, a US-backed paramilitary police unit, regularly abducted and murdered Palestinians, including many who were killed with the use of electric drills.
In one case documented by Amnesty International, two Palestinian brothers from the Baladiyya refugee camp in Baghdad were abducted by the Wolf Brigade. The same month they appeared on a television show confessing to a bombing in Baghdad. The men had been tortured for 27 days, beaten with cables, given electric shocks, and burned with cigarettes, before signing confessions for six bomb attacks, including five that had never actually taken place.
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