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Opa, Oma, (01)
Some first hand reporting Kurdistan on the capture of Hussein...
Eric (02)
Celebrations like Iraqi Kurdistan has never seen (03)
Dec. 14, Suleimaniya, Iraqi Kurdistan -- I first received the news when my
former student at McGill, who I brought with me to conduct research in
Iraq, called me on the phone. He said the students at the local
university where he is teaching English were celebrating they had just
heard rumours that Saddam had been captured in Tikrit. Then I began to
hear car horns outside, louder and more insistent than the usual Middle
Eastern traffic cacophony. By the time I went outside, the shop owners
behind my apartment building had begun firing their automatic rifles in
the air, the surest sign of celebrations in the Middle East. (04)
Although Saddams capture is good news for the vast majority of Iraqis, the
event has a special resonance here in the Kurdish north. The Kurds
suffered genocide at the hands of his regime, round-ups and massacring of
whole villages, the use of chemical weapons on towns like Halabja and
Khanequin. (05)
I headed to nearby hotel with a satellite television connection. They had
announced a news conference for 3 p.m., which would hopefully confirm the
news. As I sat with some American, French, Canadian, and Kurdish friends,
they showed the first images of a bearded, very disheveled Saddam,
undergoing a medical examination. The Iraqi Kurds in the room burst into
cries of recognition and joy, slapping each other on the back and hardly
believing their eyes. (06)
Once I headed outside again, the streets had completely filled up with
celebrating people, holding up British, American and Kurdish flags, photos
of Bush and Blair, and playing music and dancing. The owner of a
photocopy store was distributing copies of the photo of captured Saddam,
printed from the Internet. Everyone from old men in their 80s, to
children hardly past 5 years old, was dancing and holding up the pitiful
photo of what was once the incarnation of dread in the Republic of Fear.
Mistaken for an American or a Brit, I received handshakes and smiles all
around. The pure joy in the streets is palpable, electric. The word on
the street is that today has just been declared a national holiday, and
the next three days have also been declared holidays, so that the
celebrations can continue. Iraqs Kurds have waited a long time for this
particular holiday. (07)
Because a guerrilla wars primary weapon and target always remains
psychological, the huge importance of this day for the people of Iraq can
not be over emphasized. Because Saddam was captured and not killed, the
effect will be even greater. Kurds I spoke with here insisted that they
are happy he was taken alive he has a lot to answer for, and they are
hoping he will be made to answer at an international court of justice.
They want to see a humiliated Saddam interrogated for his crimes. In any
case, the few thousand insurgents, the Saddam die-hards and jihadists who
have been mounting attacks across the country, have been dealt the most
critical of blows. (08)
But will this end the terrorism in Iraq? Perhaps not in the very short
term, since the insurgents may well make a last push to demonstrate their
ongoing capacity and relevance. Todays events will, however, help us to
determine if the insurgency in Iraq is truly spearheaded by Saddams
loyalists. If it is, then today we caught our first glimpse of the light
at the end of Iraqs tunnel -- from the grimy basement of a home in Tikrit. (09)
David Romano (010)
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