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The 1979 Ba'ath Party Purge (
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
: تطهير حزب البعث) or Comrades Massacre (
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
: مجزرة الرفاق) was a public
purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
of the Iraqi
Ba'ath Party The Arab Socialist Baʿath Party ( ar, حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي ' ) was a political party founded in Syria by Mishel ʿAflaq, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Bītār, and associates of Zaki al-ʾArsūzī. The party espoused B ...
orchestrated on 22 July 1979 by then-president
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
six days after his arrival to the presidency of the Iraqi Republic on 16 July 1979. Six days after the resignation of President
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr ' (1 July 1914 – 4 October 1982) was the fourth president of Iraq, from 17 July 1968 to 16 July 1979. He was a leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and later the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and ...
and Hussein's accession to President of the Iraqi Republic, Regional Secretary of the party, and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council on July 16,1979, he organized a Ba'ath conference on July 22 in Al-Khuld Hall in
Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
to carry out a campaign of arrests and executions that included Baathist comrades to consolidate Saddam's hegemony and increase his influence. The list included most of the comrades who opposed Saddam Hussein's rise to power after Al-Bakr, and among these was the former president's secretary,
Muhyi Abdul Hussein Names of God in Islam ( ar, أَسْمَاءُ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلْحُسْنَىٰ , "''Allah's Beautiful Names''") are names attributed to God in Islam by Muslims. While some names are only in the Quran, and others are only in the hadith, th ...
. Names of people were announced and they were taken outside the hall to be executed. Baathist propaganda at the time showed that they were convicted of conspiracy and high treason to the party.


Background

Earlier in 1979, al-Bakr had begun to make treaties with
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, also under Ba'athist leadership, that would lead to the unification of the two countries. Syrian
president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Hafez al-Assad Hafez al-Assad ', , (, 6 October 1930 – 10 June 2000) was a Syrian statesman and military officer who served as President of Syria from taking power in 1971 until his death in 2000. He was also Prime Minister of Syria from 1970 to 1 ...
would become deputy leader of the union, and this would drive Saddam Hussein and his Sunni clique into obscurity.


1979 Iraqi coup d'état

On 16 July 1979, Saddam acted to secure his grip on power. Saddam staged a palace coup by forcing the ailing al-Bakr to resign "for health reasons." The ailing al-Bakr resigned under the threat of force, and formally transferred the presidency and chairmanship of the RCC to the "cherished comrade Saddam Hussein". Abdul-Hussein objected to the transfer of power. Saddam justified this purge based on a perceived conspiracy organized by the left military wing of the Baath-Party interested in unifying Iraq with Syria at the expense of Iraq.


Event

Saddam hurriedly convened an assembly of party leaders on July 22. During the assembly, which he ordered to be videotaped, he claimed to have uncovered a
fifth column A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. According to Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, "fifth columns" are “domestic actors who work to un ...
within the party. Abdul-Hussein, broken after days of physical torture and under the threat of his family's execution, confessed to taking a leading role in a Syrian-backed plot against the Iraqi government and gave the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators. These were removed from the room one by one as their names were called and taken into custody. After the list was read, Saddam congratulated those still seated in the room for their past and future loyalty. Those arrested at the meeting were subsequently tried together and found guilty of treason. Twenty-two men, including five members of the Revolutionary Command Council, were sentenced to execution. Those spared were given weapons and directed to execute their comrades. Some of the victims are listed below:


Aftermath

By August 1, hundreds of high-ranking Ba'ath Party members had been executed. On August 8, the
Iraqi News Agency The mass media in Iraq includes print, radio, television, and online services. Iraq became the first Arab country to broadcast from a TV station, in 1954''.'' As of 2020, more than 100 radio stations and 150 television stations were broadcasting t ...
announced that twenty-one of the twenty-two Iraqis were executed by firing squad for "their part in a plot to overthrow Iraq's new president". The twenty-second man was condemned to death
in absentia is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent". may also refer to: * Award in absentia * Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body * Election in absen ...
because he was "nowhere to be found", the agency said.  A tape of the assembly and of the executions was distributed throughout the country. "On an August afternoon in 1979, his face tense and somber, Saddam Hussein from the balcony of the presidential palace in Baghdad "informed a chanting crowd of 50,000 supporters "that he had just witnessed the punishment the state court had ordered for 21 of those men: They had been executed by a firing squad. The crowd cheered".''BEHIND IRAQ'S BOLD BID'', by Claudia Wright, 26 October 1980, ''The New York Times''.


References

{{Saddam Hussein 1979 in Iraq History of the Ba'ath Party Political and cultural purges Political history of Iraq Political repression in Iraq Saddam Hussein