wfn.org | Commentary: Justice for Hussein must hinge on values he disdained

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Dec. 19, 2003  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
7 E-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org 7 ALL{598}

NOTE: A photograph of Liberato C. Bautista is available. For a related
commentary, see UMNS #597.

A UMNS Commentary
By Liberato C. Bautista*

The war in Iraq and the recent capture of its brutal ruler, Saddam Hussein,
evoke deep personal memories as well as ethical reflections for me. The
capture presents a major challenge and an enormous responsibility for the
United States and the coalition that prosecuted the war in Iraq, but more
profoundly, for the United Nations. 

As the case against Saddam Hussein moves forward, it is important that the
sentiments and resolve of both the Iraqi nation and the international
community be taken seriously. We must proceed with all the available
expertise in national and international law so that justice deserved is
justice rendered. The highest degree of fairness and impartiality in
international justice must be observed.

These related events of war and captivity carry, for me, notions of life and
death. I was a church youth leader at the height of the Marcos military
dictatorship in the Philippines. After graduating from college, I became the
human rights coordinator of the National Council of Churches in the
Philippines. My human rights work over the years has provided me views of
suffering, death and life that continue to inform my Christian faith and
convictions. 

Today, working for the United Methodist Board of Church and Society at the
United Nations, I hope for a future that is more just and peaceful - one
where nation will not lift sword against nation any longer.

The international community has the United Nations as a venue to rally people
all over the world to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of
every person. When those human rights and international laws are violated,
the United Nations provides directions, and in some instances tribunals, for
meting out justice.

The International Criminal Court provides a model for how the world community
may help in the trial of Saddam Hussein. The necessary quest is for justice -
for the accused Hussein and for the aggrieved, in this case, the Iraqi
people. Closure is also important for the peoples of the world, who must now
come to terms both with their concern and indifference toward Iraq's
suffering under Hussein.

The "ultimate justice" and the "ultimate penalty" for Saddam Hussein, and for
all military dictators, will have to come from the very values and
instruments - of peace and human rights, of democracy and good governance, of
law and justice - that he disdained and trashed. The international community,
under the aegis of the United Nations, has expertise in these instruments,
including lessons learned from past mistakes. 

The decent way to handle Hussein's case is to invoke life-giving measures and
not to use the same instrument of death - like capital punishment - that he
wantonly used in running Iraq. Life, which human institutions cannot give, is
the same life that an institution cannot take away. 

Hussein may now be tried for crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide,
but that does not license any of us to deny him the workings of a Christ who
alone has the power to redeem, restore and transform human beings.

When dictators are denied the very life that they denied their people, then
the logic of death grips us. There is another way in Jesus Christ. The logic
of life is in our Christian affirmation that in Jesus Christ's life, death
and resurrection, we have been promised life. 
By Christ's ransom, we are called to no longer inflict death upon members of
the resurrection community, which is the church. 

The logic of life is found in the affirmation of human dignity in every
person, and hence the protection of that dignity in every right that is now
found in the pantheon of human rights already in place through the United
Nations. Justice will be served, and served well, with the intentional use of
these human rights instruments.

Saddam Hussein was not alone in the business of brutality and dictatorship.
This is why the creation of the International Criminal Court, now functioning
in The Hague, is significant: It sent a warning that impunity in the ways
flaunted by the likes of Ferdinand Marcos, Idi Amin, Pol Pot or Augusto
Pinochet will not be tolerated.

Dealing with the case of Saddam Hussein is a momentous task in which our
sense of justice itself is on trial. Elusive as it may be, the justice we
seek must be retributive, in that the offender is prosecuted and punished,
even as his right to a fair trial is ensured. Justice must also be
restorative, so that the victims find reparation, restitution and
rehabilitation. 

In the end, justice must be redemptive, and it becomes so when people and
communities are empowered to deal with the truths of their past in ways that
allow reconciliation and social reconstruction, thus ending cycles of
violence.

We may never fully fathom how someone like Saddam Hussein could wield so much
power for so long. But may it come to us in the season of advent that peace
and justice will, in God's good time, embrace and fall upon us (Psalm 85:10).

# # #

*Bautista is assistant general secretary for United Nations Ministry of the
United Methodist Board of Church and Society. He is based in New York City at
the Church Center for the United Nations.

 
 

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org