1979 Ba'ath Party Purge

The 1979 Ba'ath Party Purge (Arabic: تطهير حزب البعث) or Comrades Massacre[1][2] (Arabic: مجزرة الرفاق) was a public purge of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party orchestrated on 22 July 1979 by then-president Saddam Hussein[3] six days after his arrival to the presidency of the Iraqi Republic on 16 July 1979.[4][1]

1979 Ba'ath Party Purge
Syrian President Hafez al-Asad (centre) with Iraqi Vice President Saddam Hussein (left), Algerian Foreign Minister Abdelaziz Bouteflika (right), and Syrian Vice-President Abd al-Halim Khaddam (far right, half-covered) at Arab League Baghdad Summit.
Native name Comrades Massacre
Date22 July 1979
Location Ba'athist Iraq
Also known asKhuld Hall Incident, Comrades Massacre
TypePurge
Cause
  • Failure of unity talks between Syrian and Iraqi Ba'ath parties
  • Saddam's claim that he has discovered a fifth column in the Revolutionary Command Council plotting to overthrow the party leadership in co-ordination with Hafez al-Assad
Organised bySaddam Hussein
Outcome
  • Killing of former Secretary Muhyi Abdul-Hussein on 8 August 1979.
  • Saddam Hussein's domination of the Ba'ath party
  • Arrests and subsequent killings of Ba'athist opponents accused of Syrian collaboration
  • Deepening rift between Iraq-based and Syrian-based Ba'ath movements
  • Hafez al-Assad's support to Iran during the Iran-Iraq War
Deaths21
Arrests68

Six days after the resignation of President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr 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 to carry out a campaign of arrests and executions that included Baathist comrades, who were accused of taking part in a pro-Syrian plot to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The list included most of the comrades who opposed Saddam Hussein's rise to power after Al-Bakr,[1] and among these was the former president's secretary, Muhyi Abdul Hussein. Names of people were announced and they were taken outside the hall to be executed. Ba'athist propaganda at the time showed that they were convicted of conspiracy and high treason to the party.[2] Iraq subsequently cut off relations with its fellow Ba'athist regime in Syria, accusing Hafez al-Assad of organizing the plot.[5]

Background
Joint meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and the Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'th Party in Baghdad – Iraq, on June 16th of 1988, presided by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, on his right side is RCC deputy chairman Izzat Ibrahim ad-Duri.

Syria-Iraq Unification talks

Various rounds of unification talks were ongoing between the two Ba'athist parties at the official level, with the Iraqi Vice-president Saddam Hussein publicly endorsing the merger of Iraq and Syria in 1978. By then, Saddam had become the effective leader of the Ba'ath party due to Iraqi President Ahmed Hussein Al-Bakr's health issues. A major demand of Saddam was the unification of both the Syrian and Iraqi wings of the Ba'ath party, as the first step to integrate Syria with Iraq. He also sought the rehabilitation of Michel Aflaq, who was on the kill-list of Syrian Ba'ath party, and make Aflaq the head of a re-unified Ba'ath Party. It was reported that Syrian President Hafez al-Assad objected these demands and was strongly opposed to the idea of a unified military command.[6]

Resignation of al-Bakr

On 11 July 1979, an ailing Ahmed Hussein al-Bakr announced his resignation before a meeting of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and his intention to transfer the presidency to Saddam Hussein.[7] US government's Radio Free Europe claimed in 2003 that it was a "coup" orchestrated by Saddam who compelled the ailing President to retire "for health reasons".[8]

RCC member Muhyi Abdul-Hussein fiercely objected to al-Bakr's resignation during the session and urged al-Bakr to take a temporary vacation without transferring power to his successor, a proposition that was declined by Al-Bakr. This had raised the suspicion of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi second-in-command who became president on 16 July 1979. In an assembly of party leadership convened on 22 July, Saddam staged a purge against the military wing of the Baath-Party whom he accused of collaborating with Syria to topple the regime in Iraq.[9][6]

Event
External video
video icon BBC News "Saddam's 1979 Baath Party purge", Footage of the purge from a Ba'ath Party video

Saddam hurriedly convened an "emergency session" of party leaders on July 22. During the assembly, which he ordered to be videotaped,[3] he claimed to have uncovered a fifth column within the party. Abdul-Hussein "confessed" to be part of a Syrian-financed faction established in 1975 that played a major role in the Syrian-backed plot against the Iraqi government. He also gave the names of 68 alleged co-conspirators.[10] 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,[11] were sentenced to execution. Those spared were given weapons and directed to execute their comrades.[12][13]

Some of the victims are listed below:

Name Position
Muhammad Mahjub
Muhammad Ayish
Adnan Hussein Abbas al-Hamdani
Ghanim Abdul-Jalil Member of the Regional Command from 1974 to 1979
Muhyi Abdul-Hussein Member of the Regional Command from 1974 to 1979
Secretary of president al-Bakr.
Muhyi Abdul-Hussein talking during purge.

Aftermath

Details of the events were publicised on 28 July 1979, and Iraqi media began accusing Syria of backing the alleged plot. Syrian Ba'athists responded by denying any relations to the coup plotters.[7] On August 8, the Iraqi News Agency 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 because he was "nowhere to be found", the agency said.[11]  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".[14]

The events led to a complete rupture of ties between the Ba'athist governments of Syria and Iraq. Saddam Hussein conveyed Assad his personal conclusion that Syrian Ba'athists "were deep in the plot", but continued the financial support to Syria as offered during the 1978 Arab League Summit. This would continue until the 1980 Iran-Iraq war, during which Assad overtly aligned with Iran, causing Iraq to accuse him of betraying Pan-Arabism.[15] In a secret memo issued to Syrian Ba'ath party members in 1981, Hafez al-Assad stated that Syria's policy was to prolong "the war to a degree that will facilitate the replacement of Saddam" and install pro-Syrian Iraqi Nationalist Front in Iraq. Syria hosted Iraqi opposition parties for decades, including the pro-Iran Shia Da'wa party.[16] Iraq in turn would support the National Front for the Liberation of Arab Syria, a coalition of Syrian opposition factions that included pro-Iraqi Syrian Ba'athists and Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which opposed the Alawite-dominated Ba'ath party rule in Syria. It also supported the Islamic revolts in Syria after 1980. Relations between the two countries remained strained until Saddam Hussein's overthrowal in a 2003 American invasion.[17][18][19]

References
  1. صدام وإعدام البعثيين, retrieved 2022-07-14
  2. "بعث العراق وسوريا... صراع الإخوة الأعداء". اندبندنت عربية (in Arabic). 2021-08-28. Retrieved 2022-07-14.
  3. A Documentary on Saddam Hussein 5 on YouTube
  4. Saddam Hussein's 'Official' Biography
  5. Ehteshami, A. Hinnebusch, Anoushiravan, Raymond (2002). Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System. New York, USA: Routledge. p. 92. ISBN 0-415-15675-0.
  6. Batatu, Hanna (1999). Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Princeton University Press. p. 282. ISBN 0-691-00254-1.
  7. Batatu, Hanna (1999). Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Princeton University Press. p. 283. ISBN 0-691-00254-1.
  8. Moore, Kathleen (9 April 2008). "Iraq: The Rise And Fall Of Saddam Hussein". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
  9. "The 1979 Saddam Hussein coup d'état in Iraq". Iraq Now. 2021-07-22. Retrieved 2023-01-16.
  10. Batatu, Hanna (1999). Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Princeton University Press. pp. 282–283. ISBN 0-691-00254-1.
  11. "Iraq executes coup plotters". The Salina Journal. August 8, 1979. p. 12. Retrieved April 25, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. icon of an open green padlock
  12. Bay Fang. "When Saddam ruled the day." U.S. News & World Report. 11 July 2004. Archived 16 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  13. Edward Mortimer. "The Thief of Baghdad." New York Review of Books. 27 September 1990, citing Fuad Matar. Saddam Hussein: A Biography. Highlight. 1990. Archived 23 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  14. BEHIND IRAQ'S BOLD BID, by Claudia Wright, 26 October 1980, The New York Times.
  15. Batatu, Hanna (1999). Syria's Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Princeton University Press. pp. 283–284. ISBN 0-691-00254-1.
  16. J. Barkey, Lasensky, Marr, Henri, Scott, Phebe; Yacoubian, Mona (2011). "6: Syria and the New Iraq: Between Rivalry and Rapprochment". Iraq, Its Neighbors, and the United States: Competition, Crisis, and the Reordering of Power. Washington DC, 20037, USA: United States Institute of Peace. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-60127-077-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. Ehteshami, A. Hinnebusch, Anoushiravan, Raymond (2002). Syria and Iran: Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System. New York, USA: Routledge. pp. 91, 92. ISBN 0-415-15675-0.
  18. Arnold, Guy (2016). Wars in the Third World Since 1945. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 450, 451. ISBN 978-1-4742-9102-6.
  19. J. Barkey, Lasensky, Marr, Henri, Scott, Phebe; Yacoubian, Mona (2011). "6: Syria and the New Iraq: Between Rivalry and Rapprochment". Iraq, Its Neighbors, and the United States: Competition, Crisis, and the Reordering of Power. Washington DC, 20037, USA: United States Institute of Peace. pp. 149, 150. ISBN 978-1-60127-077-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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