MEP deplores Saddam execution

COLOMBO: The Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) deplores the execution by hanging of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. We should remember that the foreign conquest by the military forces of the United States of America has terminated the independence of the sovereign state of Iraq, the MEP states in a release.

The invasion by foreign military forces was justified by the argument that Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) had been produced and kept hidden by Iraq. However, the fact that no such WMD have been found as yet, has been revealed to the whole world.

Iraq is a country endowed with large reserves of petroleum and it was actually to seize these resources, which were coveted by the economic powers of the Western countries, that this terrible destructive course of action was entered into. On this occasion, as previously throughout history, a false excuse has been offered as the reason.

The foreign military units that have occupied Iraq have killed hundreds of thousands of people of Iraq and have rendered further multitudes disabled.

Massive destruction of property has taken place, dragging Iraq as a whole to the very jaws of obliteration.

The verdict of the farcical trial of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, carried out while he was a political prisoner, violated all international conventions on legality and justice.

Saddam Hussein's lawyers were assassinated. The principal Judge presiding over the trial resigned. This establishes the fact that democracy and independence of the judiciary have been subjugated.

The Mahajana Eksath Peramuna deplores, with disgust, the enforcement of such a verdict, which was carried out after handing over President Saddam Hussein from American military custody to the puppet government of Iraq so that he could be cruelly executed by hanging.

President Saddam Hussein and the people of Iraq were the closest of friends with the people of Sri Lanka. The help they gave us in overcoming many problems cannot be forgotten by the people of Sri Lanka.

We should also like to commemorate the special service rendered by Saddam Hussein, as a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, together with the people of Iraq, in establishing new international agreements in order to transform the patterns of world dominance.