Commentary: Justice for Hussein must hinge on values he disdained
12/19/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. 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.
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