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Journalism of Courage
It Starts with a few whispered words over tiny cups of black coffee, a sidelong glance — and then comes the about betrayal and revenge.
The village of Saddam Hussein’s birth, home to some of the captured leader’s closest kinsmen, is watchful for signs of complicity in what is regarded here as the ultimate crime: helping the Americans hunt down Saddam. US authorities have not named the informant who helped lead them to Saddam, but they have publicly said that the informant was a near tribal relative of the deposed dictator.
Speculation is running particularly high in Auja, where the blood ties are so strong that many of the men bear a marked resemblance to the captured leader.
Any villager who falls under suspicion of helping the Americans stands face to face with calamity.
Under the rigidly inflexible tribal code, disloyalty towards even an ordinary fellow tribesman — let alone one as revered as Saddam — not only stains the wrongdoer’s honour, but that of his entire family. Saddam’s Albu Nasir tribe has a complicated family tree consisting more than a dozen large clans. The closer the connection to Saddam, the greater the fear of being implicated in his betrayal.
‘‘How could anyone think it could be anyone in our family?’’ said Muwafak Haddoshi, a 26-year-old third cousin of Saddam’s, with an edge of panic in his voice.
In Auja and surrounding villages, there is a strong sense that tribal authorities will deal with anyone whose guilt is established in helping the Americans find Saddam.
On Tikrit’s main street, young men agreed blood ties dictated revenge. Auja’s elder Sheikh Mohammed Al Nida said he hoped the culprit or culprits were outsiders. But if the informant were someone from the tribe, ‘‘he would certainly have to be punished’’, he declared. —(LAT-WP)
