FEBRUARY 2004

“Our life was miserable,” said Ayar. “After my father was executed
PHOTOS COURTESY AP
Saddam Hussein through the years — from the heights of power in 1980 and 1998 and following his arrest in 2003
abuse
of power
Those who suffered under the Ba’ath Party
BY VANESSA DENHA
More than 30 years after his father was killed,
Roufi Ayar is returning to Iraq this spring. It will
be his third visit to his homeland since moving
to the United States — the first time he will be able to walk
freely now that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.
The capture of the dictator brought back many memories and
stirred up buried emotions for the Telkaif-born man. However,
Ayar was not surprised that the U.S. Military was able to sniff
Hussein out of his rat hole.
When he turned on the television the Sunday morning of
Hussein’s capture, Ayar was just as excited as a child on
Christmas morning. “It was the greatest Christmas gift,” he said.
However, jubilation is not an emotion Ayar has expressed
often in his life. His family suffered greatly under the power of
the Ba’ath Party.
In 1963, Ayar was a petrified 12-year-old boy huddled in his
family home in the small northern Iraq village when his father
was publicly executed. Hussein was not in power at the time, but
he was a formidable part of the regime and its violent tactics.
Ayar’s father, Hanna, was killed after being wrongly accused
of murder; the family was left to fend for themselves leaving his
widowed mother to look after Ayar, his older brother Zuhair and
four younger siblings.
“Our life was miserable,” said Ayar. “After my father was executed
they put my brother and my uncle in jail.” In fact, the
government jailed two local priests for providing a burial service
for Ayar’s father.
Survival was the focus, but the Ayar family often thought that
life was too hard to live. “Death would have been better,” he said
aloud as he remembered those days. They decided to fight back,
instead. “We had to show some strength. We were not going to be
cowards. We had to survive.”
24 CHALDEAN NEWS FEBRUARY 2004