Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/29/2003 2:40:56 PM PDT by MadIvan
EMMANUEL BABA can still muster a smile when he thinks back to the day in 1984 when he first met Uday Hussein, the man who destroyed his life and turned football from a popular sport into the regime’s favourite sadistic hobby.
Surrounded by friends and fans, Iraq’s most famous player turned manager has survived his ordeal. But, at 69, he admits he can never recover what Saddam’s eldest son took from him. The regime forced his wife into exile, drove out his son and turned his lifelong passion for football into a nightmare in which he and his players were imprisoned, tortured and robbed.
“I was coaching the army team at the time when I was first summoned to see Uday,” said the veteran footballer, whose nickname, Ammo Baba, is known throughout the Arab world as one of the region’s great players.
“The day I met him, my problems began. He ruined my life,” he said. Although rumours of Uday’s abuses have leaked out before, only now, after the regime’s fall, are people ready to talk.
Yesterday, footballers said that they were regularly imprisoned for losing matches, and, in one case, for not winning convincingly enough. Players often had their heads shaved as a humiliation. Also, contact with foreign clubs would have to be approved by Uday, who always took a hefty slice of the salary.
Mr Baba, who coached teams that won 18 championships and went to three Olympics, said that he was hired and fired 19 times by Uday, who did not want to share the glory of victory but needed the veteran footballer’s skills to build teams and win matches.
One of his worst ordeals was in Seoul in South Korea in 1988 when Iraq lost 3-0 to Italy in the Olympics. The team was terrified as their aircraft taxied to the end of the apron and stopped more than a mile short of the airport terminal in Baghdad.
“They did this to make us walk to the airport. But the whole team just ran away as fast as they could,” Mr Baba said. “My son and I walked back to the terminal and when we got there we were greeted by the secret police who put guns to my head and stomach and dragged me away.”
Since then, Mr Baba said he received regular calls from Uday swearing at him, threatening to kill him and hurt his family. The last time he was imprisoned was four years ago when he was 65 and suffering from diabetes.
He said that Uday’s punishments for the players varied. Sometimes, after they played badly, he would give them a concrete or lead ball and order them to play barefoot as he and his lackeys laughed on the touchline. Other times, he simply threw them into jail. On one occasion in 1999, when Iraq lost to Japan and South Korea, the entire team was told that it would be shot. Instead, they were taken to a farm where they lived with the animals for 25 days.
Ahmed Radi, the coach of the national team, said that in 1996 he was thrown into jail for a week even though Iraq had just won both its matches. “He said that I had not played well enough,” Mr Radi said. “The truth is he was jealous about a contract I had just signed to play in Qatar. If anyone was successful, he wanted to punish them for that as well.”
Laith Hussein, the captain of the national team, said that in addition to inflicting physical punishment Uday also stole from the players. When he was offered a good contract with a team in the Gulf, Uday threatened to jail him unless he signed a less tempting offer to play in Lebanon with a club owned by a friend of his.
“Not only did he make me take that contract, but then he took 40 per cent of my salary for the next eight years,” Mr Hussein said.
While all the Iraqi footballers said that they wanted to see Uday brought to justice, they added that the most important result was that players and fans would now be able to enjoy the game again. “Even if we lose 10-0 to Italy, I will be happy because no one is going to punish me for it,” Mr Hussein said.
In spite of the national team’s ordeal, in some respects their fame granted them a degree of protection. Others in the sporting world were less lucky.
Yesterday, Tariq Abdul Wahab, a well-known broadcast journalist for Uday’s Shabab sports television station, recounted how he was kidnapped by the secret police in 2000 and held and tortured for a month. He apparently came to the notice of Uday’s own intelligence service when a telephone call with an exiled Iraqi footballer was bugged and he was heard to make a mild complaint about the running of sport in Iraq.
After being kept in a tiny cell and beaten repeatedly, he was told he would be freed after a fitting punishment. His right arm, which held the telephone that transmitted his words of dissent, was smashed in four places with a sledgehammer, a punishment carried out twice after X-rays showed that the arm had failed to break at the first attempt.
His right ear, which he used to make the call, was then pierced by a barbecue skewer. His right leg was broken with such force that he watched as his toes bent backwards and touched his knee. He showed us the scars.
All the men who recounted their grisly tales knew that in some respects they were fortunate. Many other Iraqis who crossed Uday simply disappeared. Often, they were last seen being taken to the basement of Iraq’s Olympic Committee building.
There looters discovered mediaeval-looking human cages in a torture chamber where Uday’s victims would be suspended from the ceiling and subjected to electric shocks before they were disposed of for ever.
Regards, Ivan
George Steinbrenner's record of hiring and firing Billy Martin as manager of the Yankees has officially been broken.
BTW I am shocked about Galloway...what is the mood over there regarding him?
Think of the gangsta rappers, other entertainers, and producers of all types who would gladly kiss this bastard's ass to get him on their video or in their movie!
And the celebrity women would fall over over him--just like they do with OJ. No doubt J-Lo herself would dump Ben, and Susan Sarandon would lament the treatment he'd receive from the VRWC! Daschle and Clinton would be saddened at his plight.
I say this half jokingly, but the sad fact is that I believe it's true...
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