I had always wondered what happened to Tariq Aziz, I knew that he was a Christian and had always assumed he was a Chaldean Catholic but was never sure. What I do know is that argument that somehow Christians had some sort of privileged status under Hussein because of him can’t possibly be true. Christian schools got nationalized and Quran made mandatory while he was working with Hussein, so if anything he was a Baathist first and a Christian second.
Tariq Aziz on trial, bishop of Kirkuk: “justice, but in respect of man”
After five years of detention, Saddam’s former deputy prime minister goes before the judge, charged with the execution of dozens of merchants in 1992. The only Christian in the entourage of the rais is wrongly cited as proof of the favour “enjoyed” by this community under the dictatorship. Aziz now risks the death penalty.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) – “Justice, but in respect for human rights and of the dignity of the person, against any capital sentence”, is the appeal that the Chaldean archbishop of Kirkuk, Louis Sako, issued today at the opening of the trial, with risk of the death penalty, against former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, the only Christian among the leadership of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
The international public face of the dictatorship of the rais, Aziz is accused of executing 42 merchants in 1992, guilty of having speculated on food prices in violation of state controls. The former foreign minister, a Chaldean Christian, is often cited as proof of the favour that Christians enjoyed under Saddam. “Nothing could be more false”, say some Chaldean Iraqi refugees in Italy. Born to a Chaldean family near Mosul in 1936, Tariq Aziz always put his religious affiliation in second place, presenting himself first of all as an Iraqi Arab and a member of the Baath party. He changed his original name, Michael Yohanna, for less compromising one. He “did not bat an eye” at the nationalisation of the Christian schools, nor at the provision for the obligatory teaching of the Qur’an……..(more)……….
