The Role Of Muhammad Baqir AlSadr In Shia Politial Activism In Iraq From 1958 to 1980 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Chapter Ten-Sadr
Interrogated

Sadr
himself was placed under house arrest, which the regime tried to
extract concessions from him. During his interrogation of Sadr in
August 1979, Fadil al-Barak, the head of the security agency,
demanded that he make a public statement denouncing the Iranian
Revolution and supporting the Iraqi policy toward Iran. When Sadr
refused the regime softened its language, and a new mediator, Shaykh
Isa al-Khaqani, was sent to ask Sadr to fulfil only one of five
conditions to spare his life: withdraw his support of Ayatullah
Khomeini and of the Iranian regime; or issue a statement supporting
one of the government's policies such as the nationalization of
foreign oil companies and national autonomy for the Kurds; or issue
a fatwa forbidding association with the Da'wa party; or
revoke the fatwa that prohibited joining the Ba'th party; or be
interviewed by an Iraqi or other Arab newspaper that was affiliated
with the Iraqi regime. By then Sadr, according to his personal
secretary al-Nu'mani, had concluded that his days were numbered
any way, and he decided to reject all government demands in
anticipation of his martyrdom. He told al-Khaqani, the Ba'th
regime's mediator:

"The
only thing I have sought in my life is to make the establishment of
an Islamic government on earth possible. Since it has been formed in
Iran under the leadership of Imam [Khomeini] it makes no difference
to me whether I am alive or dead because the dream I wanted to
attain and the hope I wanted to achieve have come true, thanks to
God."

(61)

When
the Islamic fundamentalist groups, the Da'wa party and
Islamic Action Organization headed by al-Shirazi and the Mudarisi
brothers,

(62)

saw
the regime harassing their leader, they took up arms against the
Ba'th officials. They attacked the Ba'th party ideologue Tariq
Aziz (then the foreign minister) in Mustansiriyya University. Aziz
was supposed to deliver a speech to the Ba'th party members among
the university's student body stating the regime's policy
towards Iran. Muslim activists threw a bomb at Aziz, injuring him
and killing his bodyguards. At the public funeral for the guards
another bomb was thrown at the funeral procession, killing several
people.

(63)

The
regime faced for the first time resistance that was undermining its
support among the Shi'a. Saddam Hussein, by then the new president
of the republic, during a hospital visit to those who has been
injured at Mustansiriyya, called for revenge against the
perpetrators. The regime's old tactic of labelling the Muslim
armed struggle as the work of Iranian elements in the country was no
longer convincing because, Muslim anti-government activities
continued to flourish even after more than 130,000 Iraqis of Iranian
origin had been deported to Iran. Moreover, Sadr, the symbol of the
Islamic movement, belonged to a well-known Iraqi family. What the
Ba'th regime needed was to liquidate the Islamic movement
altogether. On March 31, 1980, the Revolutionary Command Council
passed a law sentencing all past and present members of the Da'wa
party or its affiliated organizations, or people working for its
goals, to death. That law eliminated any possibility of sparing
Sadr's life.

Sadr
had in any case left no room for retreat. While he was under house
arrest, he smuggled three messages to his associates calling on the
Iraqi people to resist the regime in any way possible.

(64)

In
these messages, he spoke as their leader in their name, and he
demanded from the government political and religious rights for all
people, Shi'as and Sunnis, Arab and Kurds. He even appealed to the
members of the Ba'th party, whose leader he accused of violating
the principles of the party itself. He challenged the Ba'th
leadership to allow the people for only one week to express their
hostility to the regime. In one of these messages, Sadr issued an
ultimatum: topple the regime and establish an Islamic government in
its place:

"It
is incumbent on every Muslim in Iraq and every Iraqi outside Iraq to
do whatever he can, even if it cost him his life, to keep the jihad
and struggle to remove this nightmare from the land of beloved Iraq,
to liberate themselves from this inhuman gang, and to establish a
righteous, unique, and honourable rule based on Islam".

(65)

Security
Forces Come For them Both

The
security forces came for Sadr and his sister on April 5, 1980, and
detained them in the headquarters of the National Security Agency in
Baghdad. Three days later, his body was brought back to his uncle
Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr in Najaf for secret burial. The whereabouts
of Bint al-Huda, his sister, were never disclosed by the regime, but
it is widely believed that she too was executed.

(66)

Two weeks later, Ayatullah Khomeini announced the execution of
Sadr and his sister and called on the Iraqi people and the armed
forces to overthrow the Ba'th regime.