Saddam Hussein Dies, Robert Mugabe Remains…
Freeafrica (January 29, 2007)
By: Thabo Siziba

Saddam Hussein, pictured in a December court appearance

Photo: Zimbabwe gov – Pictured; Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe

Hussein reportedly refused ot wear a hood over his head during his execution. (THE VIDEO BELOW IS VERY GRAPHIC FOOTAGE OF SADDAM BEING HANGED. PLEASE DO NOT CLICK PLAY ON IT IF YOU THINK IT MAY OFFEND OR IMPACT BAD ON YOU).

Only 6 years ago Saddam Hussein, then hailed as an iron fist leader of Iraq, would have vowed never in his life time the executioner’s nooze would find its way to his neck. Yet today as we speak, the ‘great’ tyrant has been shown to his grave.

On November 5, 2006 Saddam Hussein was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. The former Iraqi leader was convicted over the killings of 148 people in the mainly Shia town of Dujail following an assassination attempt on him in 1982. Upon sentencing, the usually defiant Saddam (69years old), was given time to appeal but as Iraq law dictates, if an appeal is overruled the execution is to take place within 30 days of the final ruling. On December 26, 2006 the Iraqi High Tribunal's appellate chamber upheld Saddam Hussein's death sentence in the Dujail massacre case living the distraught ‘leader’ with only 30 days to plan for his death. Hands bound behind his back and his ankles shackled, he asked guards to loosen his manacles but refused to let authorities cover his head with a black hood.Then he was led to the trapdoor of the gallows, where, five minutes later the trap doors would open, throwing him to his death.
His execution took place shortly after 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET, December 29 2006), Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told Iraqi television. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who was also a witness to Saddam’s execution told international media, by telephone conversation, that Saddam had died “in the blink of an eye”.

As time ticks on and the inevitable remains to be seen, Saddams chapter is finally closed – well at least for those who have been fighting breathlessly in the hope of sing him rule again, but for the rest of us who remain victims and potential victims of the likes and substitutes of Saddam Hussein in the hailing and spread of terrorism, the fight is long from over. As we move on to other parts of the world such as Africa, again we are met by further brutality against mankind, “crimes against humanity and genocide” which in some cases have been committed in decades upon decades and yet the perpetrators remain ruling and protected under the guise of sovereignty. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe remains an ‘unwanted’ fugitive of international law owing to his ethnic cleansing attempts against the Ndebele tribe of Zimbabwe during the early 1980s to the late 1980s , wherein approximately 20 000 innocent women, children and men where slaughtered in cold blood, some buried alive in mass graves. Robert Mugabe and his party difined and named this period the “Gukurahundi” which in Mugabe’s Shona language means ‘the rain that washes away all dirt’. Many who disappeared amongst the families of the Ndebele tribe have still not been accounted for to date. Hundreds of thousands where displaced during this period of Mugabe’s terror and millions fled mainly to neighboring South Africa, living all their belongs behind. To date the aftermath of that period still lingers as the forbidden topic of the existing and ongoing “hate and mistrust between the Ndebele and the Shona people of Zimbabwe”. Whenever the topic of such hatred is brought up people quickly brush it under the carpet and prefer to live it than talk about it – an atmosphere of fear that Mugabe and his gang created throughout the country. All that Robert Mugabe has ever said to account for the period in question was that it was a “period of madness”.

It is a passionate dream to many victims of Mugabe’s atrocities that Saddam Husseins fate shall one day become the fate of Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF. criminal enterprise – or at the least that even without the extreme of a punishment by death, Mugabe and his gang are one day somehow through a proper justice system, held accountable for their previous acts and commands.