The Congress, which is leading the UPA coalition government at the Centre, said: “The clear procedural deficiencies in the trial process and the undue haste in execution do not carry any credibility.”“Earlier, we expressed our concern and appealed not to execute the death sentence of former President Saddam Hussain of Iraq…. They (his execution) validate our previously expressed apprehensions regarding ad-hoc victors’ justice and therefore, we condemn it,” Mr Janardan Dwivedi, chairman, Media Department of the All-India Congress Committee, said in a statement here.
“Nevertheless, we hope that this unfortunate event will not stand in the way of the process of restoring normalcy and reconciliation in Iraq,” he added.
BJP Spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told The Tribune over phone that the main Opposition party had already expressed its apprehension and concern over the manner in which the trail of Saddam Hussain was being conducted.
He said the party’s senior leader and former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh would be giving a detailed reaction of the party subsequently.
Denouncing the execution, the Politburo of the CPM said: “The hanging of Saddam Hussein will be condemned by all those who believe that an imperialist occupying power has no right to violate national sovereignty and dispense justice on those whom they have illegally overthrown.”
“The execution of Saddam Hussein will only increase the hatred for the United States among the Arab people and West Asia. President Bush and his cohorts will have to face the consequences of this illegal and criminal act perpetrated by its client government in Iraq,” it said, adding “the UPA government should realise that its strategic alliance with the Bush administration, which is notorious for its imperial aggrandisement, will harm India’s interests.”
Condemning
the “hurried execution of Saddam Hussain without going through the full process of law”, the CPI said: “It is a shameless act carried out by the imperialist occupation forces whose leaders themselves deserve to be tried as war criminals for bringing about mass murder of more than six hundred thousands of Iraq men, women and children.
“This act will only aggravate the situation in Iraq making it difficult to restore normalcy. It may even lead to the breakup of that country, which was a cradle of ancient civilisation,” the CPI said, adding the Indian Government should have raised its voice against this ghastly acct more effectively and forcefully and invoked the intervention of the UN.
The All India Forward Bloc, CPI (M-L)-New Democracy, Nationalist Congress Party, National Panthers Party and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) also condemned the execution of Saddam Hussain.
While the NCP MP Tariq Anwar said the incident of hanging of Saddam Hussain was a serious worry to the whole world, the CPI(M-L) said by this the American imperialists wanted to threaten any other regime which plans to resist America of what its fate would be.
Describing the execution as the “cruel act of
vengeance with imperialist political motive by President Bush and his cohorts”, the CITU said the execution would severely hurt the feeling of particularly the people of Arab and West Asia and was bound to have repercussions.
The AIFB termed the execution as “the blackest day of international judicature”.
“This is nothing but a cold-blooded murder executed by the ‘puppet regime’ in Iraq under the whims and directions of US imperialism,” it said.
