The Second Year of the Union - Part 2: The Mahdawi Court Trials in Iraq and Nasser's Break with Khrushchev

Tuesday the 10th

Demonstrations broke out across the country against the government in Iraq, with the demonstrators bitterly denouncing the "godless communist regime in Iraq."

The demonstrators carried a symbolic coffin for the Iraqi officer Shihab, and passed it before the Guest Palace, calling on the President to address them. He stood on the palace balcony and delivered a moving speech, in which he said:

"After Iraq's revolution took place and the communists seized power there, we did everything in our power to restore harmony between us, but Iraq's Qasim and his companions turned their backs on this Republic that had stood by them, when everyone else abandoned them.

"I sent word to Iraq's Qasim four times, inviting him to meet with us for the sake of Arab unity of ranks, but he made one flimsy excuse after another to refuse the meeting, until it became certain to us that he was harboring something against Arab nationalism, concealing within himself a black hatred for it. The communists, who falsely and deceitfully claimed to be nationalists, rushed to spread lies and misleading rumors among the naive.

"The truth is that al-Shawwaf's movement was no conspiracy, but was seized upon as a rare opportunity, to eliminate Arab nationalism and extend communist control over Iraq. Anyone who listened to Abdul Salam Arif's trial could see that the sole reason for that trial was to be rid of Arif, simply because he had raised the banner of Arab nationalism."[1]

Qasim arrested the senior officers of the Iraqi army who championed Arab unity and served as pillars of Arab nationalism, threw them into his own horrific detention camps, subjected them to every kind of torture, and then referred them to the infamous "Mahdawi Court."

Radio Baghdad, which broadcast excerpts from these "trials," named some of the accused, among them al-Za'im Nazim al-Tabaqchali, commander of the Second Division, and al-Za'im Aziz al-Aqili, commander of the First Division. Eight senior officers were tried alongside them.

At the session of 16 September, al-Mahdawi, the court's presiding judge, said to the accused al-Tabaqchali:

"You are filthy and rotten."

The accused answered him: "No, you are the filthy, rotten one." At that, they set upon him with blows right there in the courtroom, an act with no precedent whatsoever in the history of trials.

We used to hear, over the radio, shameful examples of these "trials."

The court "observed" the procedural formalities requiring that the accused have a lawyer to defend him, choosing, as this "lawyer," one of the communist officers, who would then stand and heap upon his own "client" even more "charges" than those the military prosecution itself had brought against him.

One of the "spectators" would recite a poem cursing the accused and glorifying the sole leader, at which applause would rise, mixed with the ugliest insults.

The presiding judge would be delighted, and ask to hear the "poetry" again.

The farce continued, until this vile "court" came to be known by the name "the Mahdawi Circus."

The name was not quite accurate, for a circus is meant for entertainment, and the display of skill, whereas the "Mahdawi Court" was a bloodbath, in which the throats of innocent men were slit, amid the laughter of thugs gathered from every corner.

I shall never forget this "lawyer," appointed by the Mahdawi Court to defend one of the accused, who stood and heaped charges upon his own client, pinning them on him and cursing him, until, in a final death of conscience, he ended by demanding the court sentence him to death, to cleanse him of his sins.

This "earnest request, which reached the court's own ears," was quickly granted, and the "criminal" was "cleansed" in a hail of bullets.

A series of death sentences was issued on 16 September 1959, and carried out on 19 September of that same month.

The official announcement read as follows:

"At seven o'clock this morning, the sentence of execution by firing squad was carried out in Umm al-Tubul Square, against the traitors expelled from the army, namely..."

But God was watching these criminals closely. The bullets of Arab nationalists mowed them down, and they were called to a harsh reckoning for their crimes. In 1963, Qasim himself drank from that same cup, bullets in his own body, and Zaqqum and Ghislin (the bitter tree and the foul discharge of Hellfire, in the Quran's own imagery) in his throat.

Your Lord wrongs no one.

His own era was one of obstruction to the nation's course, and of tearing its unity apart.

Abdel Nasser attacked the government in Iraq in a series of speeches delivered once he was certain of al-Shawwaf's movement's failure, repeatedly branding Qasim a "communist agent," saying he had "split" Iraq and was working "to split" our own Republic, with the help of a group of communists at his side. Nor did he forget to pour out the full measure of his anger upon Syria's own communists, who had "betrayed their homeland."

These had gone underground since the Union's establishment, fighting it by spreading rumors and slander.

Tuesday, 17 March: An Attack on the Soviet Union

President Abdel Nasser shifted his attack from the communists of the Arab world to Khrushchev himself, in the capital "Moscow," directing a concentrated attack at "the criminal communist agent," "Iraq's Qasim," and Fadhil al-Mahdawi, "the president of the court of insults," as he called him.

The Soviet Union responded swiftly by concluding an economic agreement with Iraq, as if to tell Abdel Nasser that he would face a Soviet-Iraqi alliance if he continued his attacks on communism. Khrushchev spoke at the ceremony signing this agreement, attacking Abdel Nasser for "taking on the ignoble task the colonizers themselves undertake, in attacking communism. But does His Excellency forget that the communists have crushed those who attack their own creed, and gone on their way regardless, and that Nasser places Arab nationalism above the interest of the Arab peoples themselves?"

He reminded President Nasser of the Soviet Union's own stance against the colonizers' aggression on Egypt during the Suez war of 1956, and that it had come forward with a generous offer to build the High Dam on the Nile, Nasser being free to accept or refuse the offer. He said that a wise man does not spit into the well he may one day be forced to drink from again.

The President answered Khrushchev, saying that when we befriended the Soviet Union, we did so on the condition that it not interfere in our internal affairs, and that "we cannot accept communist colonialism," nor "a red Fertile Crescent," nor "a red dictatorship." He reminded everyone that the communists had approached him after the 1952 revolution, hoping he would become one of their own, but that he "rejects atheism and subservience alike."

Khrushchev's comment on the President's speech was: "I knew Nasser was an enemy of communism, but I never thought his hatred of it would reach such a degree. Despite all this, our relations with the United Arab Republic will continue as they now stand."

The Abolition of the Supreme Customs Council

In 1955, I was Minister of Finance.

Customs had been, and still was, under its authority.

It was run by a director general.

As chance would have it, that director happened to be a fellow student of mine from my own studies.

He had been a judge, and I had requested him seconded to Finance, to appoint him Director General of Customs.

He had not been in the post for long before tongues began wagging about his own integrity and honesty.

I knew him to be a man of strength and integrity.

But I was not unaware that customs' own "clientele" were the merchants' own agents, among whom were men who recognized neither what was lawful nor what was forbidden, and who feared neither God's judgment on their integrity nor on their own honor.

They were accustomed to attempting to buy men's loyalty, and if a "clean" man proved beyond their reach, they surrounded him instead with a terrible atmosphere of rumor, until they had tarnished his reputation and wrapped him in a cloud of suspicion.

People have, since time immemorial, loved to spread bad news, sought it out eagerly, and passed it along with a certain pleasure and gloating. But if someone is spoken of well, that word rarely travels far from where it was first spoken.

Especially when the official post in question offers access to forbidden money.

Even the ministry's own Secretary-General "told me what he had heard" about the Director General, and related to me "some of what he had heard," and I found these to be genuine "tales," ones no one but children could possibly take seriously.

"His Excellency" himself may well have had his own eye on that post, as I had heard. So I said to myself: why not do as Lebanon does, and establish a Supreme Customs Council? Having such a body at the head of the institution, overseeing the Director General's own conduct, might serve as an added safeguard, on top of:

The Director General's own good reputation, as I knew it, and the oversight of the Supreme Council.

I drew up the legal instrument, and it won the Council of Ministers' approval, and was well received. We appointed as its chairman a former judge and minister, and two members, one of them from the two Baathist parties, well known for their honesty and sound judgment.

Things went very well at first, but began to sour, because of a "power struggle" within the customs administration itself.

Until I returned to this ministry under the Union.

After long reflection on the true state of customs, an institution that feeds the state a large share of its general budget, I found it necessary to take up the surgeon's "scalpel" once again.

I put the matter before Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, with all its faults and merits laid bare, and our discussion concluded that the earlier arrangement needed to be restored, abolishing the Supreme Customs Council and returning the Director General to the staff of his own original ministry, "at the appropriate time."

President Abdel Nasser issued Decision No. 476, dated 17 March 1959, providing for the establishment of a central customs administration based in Cairo, headed by a director general at the rank of deputy minister, assisted by a deputy general and an advisory council. This decision also provided for the abolition of the Supreme Customs Council in the Northern Region, which had been established by Decree No. 3135, dated 19 October 1955.

So that the rights of its employees would not be lost, the new decision provided for "attaching them to the Northern regional administration." The reaction of the customs staff was mixed, ranging from gloating admirers to resentful, embittered ones.

Wednesday, 18 March 1959

Lists of dismissals began appearing in the Official Gazette.

Most of them were made on the proposal of Abdul Hamid al-Sarraj, the Minister of Interior.

Decision 502 provided for the dismissal of four doctors from the Ministry of Health.

Decision No. 503 provided for the dismissal of 39 teachers and instructors.

Decision No. 509 provided for the dismissal of four more doctors.

A series of further decisions then followed on later dates.

Decision No. 770, dated 10 May 1959, provided for the dismissal of two university professors and 107 teachers and instructors combined.

Decision No. 772 provided for the dismissal of 20 teachers and instructors from the provinces of Homs and Hama.

Decision No. 774 provided for the dismissal of the agricultural engineer Abd al-Jabbar Abu al-Shamat, a man from Aleppo whom I know personally, of leftist leaning, but known for his dedication to his work and his fine reputation.

I can attest that I was taken by surprise to read his name among those dismissed.

Afterward, that is, on 8 July 1959, an issue of the Official Gazette appeared, packed with the names of those dismissed "under the provisions of Article 85 of the Civil Service Law," which allows the Council of Ministers to dismiss any official for reasons of its own judgment, with no need for the dismissal decision to even state them.

These powers had since passed to the President of the Republic.

Among those dismissed was the engineer Ihsan Baha al-Din al-Jabiri, likewise of leftist leaning, and a member of the family of the political leader Ihsan al-Jabiri, who had "lent" him his name but not his own principles.

Looking at these dismissals, it becomes clear that the flames were beginning to consume the communists, from the very top of the ladder to its lowest rung.

I did not favor this course, since I oppose dismissal as a matter of principle, except in rare cases genuinely required by the higher interest of the state.

I opposed these dismissals from the moment the first name was brought before the Council of Ministers by the Minister of Interior, and voted against it openly and publicly.

To avoid the "awkwardness of opposition," the lists simply began appearing in the Official Gazette instead, for us to read once the issue reached us, meaning that the process of dismissal now took place directly between the Minister of Interior and the one holding the right of signature, namely the President of the Republic.

A Visit to the Vice President

I met today with Mr. Akram al-Hourani, Vice President, in his office, to discuss the state budget with him. The economic situation was growing worse by the day, because of the stubborn lack of rain, especially now that we were in the middle of March.

I asked him whether he could see the President, and he said yes, that he could board a plane and be with him within two and a half hours.

We spoke of the worsening dispute with the Soviet Union. He launched a fierce attack on the communists, describing them as "thugs, criminals." He said: "If the Soviet Union is going to back them, then it's better for our relations with it to sour right now. In our whole lives, we have never accepted anyone's charity."

I did not share this view, and reminded him of our own long friendship with that country, which had stood by us in 1955, when Turkey moved its armies to our borders, and which had issued its own frightening ultimatum to France and Britain during the aggression on the Suez Canal, and on the whole of Egypt, in 1956. Could we possibly forget that our deadliest and worst enemy is world Zionism, and that America and the colonial states of the West strive desperately to help it, supplying it with the very means of life?

What interest, then, could we possibly have in making an enemy of the Soviets, who stand with us, even if only in words, on the international stage, and who supply us with weapons?

It is true that they are against the Union, and proof of this appeared in Bakdash's own absence from the session that voted on it. And here they are today, standing beside Qasim, to whom flocks of communists fleeing their own countries are streaming. I recently read in a Western newspaper that Westerners would rather see Iraq turn communist than join the United Arab Republic. I fear that Baghdad may become a launching point against this young Republic.

But Mr. al-Hourani was, today, quite different from the man he had been only yesterday.

Khalid Bakdash, in the days of the "National Gathering," had been the apple of al-Hourani's eye, and of Khalid al-Azm (the Red Millionaire), Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Sabri al-Asali, the state's own darling son, at the very forefront of the council that made its gravest decisions. He had been "the voice" of the "friendly state's" own direction.

And now! Now, he had become the hunted enemy, "the traitorous spy."

These two expressions came to Mr. Akram's lips quite naturally, without any affectation, directed at whoever he happened to dislike, whether personally or politically.

Glory be to Him who changes, while Himself never changing.

Did Khair al-Din al-Zirikli not say:

Alas for politics and its endless turning,

the composed man's own patience grows weary of it.

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Endnotes:

[1] See the book by Mr. Amin Said, vol. 2, p. 290.