Turning on their TVs during the long holiday weekend, Iraqis were greeted by a familiar if unexpected face from their brutal past: former president Saddam Hussein.
The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar’s anniversary of his 2006 execution.
No one seems to know who is bankrolling the so-called Saddam Channel, although the Iraqi government suspects it’s Baathists whose political party Saddam once led. The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus, Syria, named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman.
The Saddam channel, he said, “didn’t receive a penny from the Baathists” and is for Iraqis and other Arabs who “long for his rule.”
Jarboua has clearly made considerable efforts to hide where it’s aired from and refuses to say who is funding it besides “people who love us.”
The channel, which is broadcast across the Arab world, dredges up the sectarian divisions that Saddam inspired among Shiites and Sunnis at a time when Iraq is gearing up for crucial national elections. Iraqi politicians have been arguing over parliamentary seat distribution in a dispute that has inflamed the split. The wrangling will likely delay the vote beyond its constitutionally required Jan. 30 deadline.
Saddam’s hanging three years ago was on the first day of Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar. His execution — and the day it was done — remains a sore point for Saddam sympathizers still smarting over images of the defiant leader in his final moments as Shiites in the death chamber shouted curses.
The Saddam Channel debuted on Friday, the first day of this year’s Id for Sunnis. The holiday started on Saturday for Shiites. The station’s name alternates between “Al-Lafeta” (“the banner”) and “Al-Arabi” (“the Arab”).
It is mostly a montage of flattering, still images of Saddam — some of him dressed in military uniform, others in a suit, even one astride a white horse. One image shows his sons Odai and Qusai smiling with their father, and another their bodies after they and Saddam’s grandson, Mustafa, were killed in a July 2003 gunfight with US troops.
One prominently displayed image is that of a man burning a US flag. Another shows graves covered with Iraqi flags.
All the pictures are set against audio recordings of Saddam making speeches and reciting poetry.
A media adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, brushed off the station and its message, and refused to comment on whether the government will seek to shut down the channel.
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