Defectors denounce Saddam: Dissident former ambassadors surface in London to denounce Saddam's reign of terror

THE LONDON-based Iraqi opposition, and the Western governments that support it, received a great boost to morale yesterday with the defection of two senior diplomats who spoke out against what they called President Saddam Hussein's regime of 'terror and misery'.

Hisham al-Shawi, until now ambassador to Canada, and Hamed al-Jubouri, who retired last week as ambassador to Tunisia, were the highest-ranking defectors since the end of the Gulf war. They are the first ambassadors who have defected to give public support for the Iraqi National Congress, the main umbrella group of the Iraqi opposition abroad.

At a press conference in London yesterday, both defectors delivered indictments of the regime they were leaving.

President Saddam's government, Mr Shawi said, 'has no other objective but the maintenance of its tyrannical power, notwithstanding defeat, disgrace and total ruin'. Mr Shawi added that he had taken charge of about pounds 242,000 under his authority in Canada. It would be used for the opposition and 'will be returned to my country when its age of tyranny has passed'.

The two diplomats, friends since secondary school and both former ministers of state for foreign affairs, said they came to Britain because it was where the main Iraqi opposition to President Saddam was based. They were granted visitors' visas and will consider applying for political asylum 'in the near future'.

The risks of defection are real. A nuclear scientist who sought outside help was gunned down in the streets of Amman in December by Iraqi agents. Mr Shawi and Mr Jubouri were undeterred: 'We don't fear reprisals. If we did we would not have done what we have done.'

Their accounts gave some idea of the everyday compromises they made to serve a regime with which they so profoundly disagreed. It is not uncommon in the Arab world for those who have fallen out of favour, yet who have important domestic tribal or political constituencies, to be sent out of the way as an ambassadors.

Both defectors felt the time had come to jump ship. President Saddam had already recalled several ambassadors: Mr Shawi had once refused to return for consultations. Challenged why as a member of the Baath party he had defended incidents such as the 1988 gassing of the Kurds at Halabja, Mr Shawi retorted that he had never been a member of the party and had always distanced himself from the Iraqi action.

The practical damage caused to the regime by the men's defection is limited. Neither was a member of the inner circle of power.

Neither was of President Saddam's Takriti clan, which controls the apparatus of power. Mr Jubouri comes from the Jubour, which is the largest clan from north-eastern Iraq and second only to the Takriti in influence. Many Jabour serve in al-Amn Al-Khass, the special security organ of the regime, but the clan has suffered reverses of late. It was its members who were executed for leading an abortive coup by units of the Republican Guard after the Gulf war.

Both men said they had no information about Iraq's nuclear programme or military rearmament after the Gulf war, having been abroad for years. They said that they would refuse to talk to Western intelligence agencies: 'Our purpose here is not to be informers,' said Mr Jubouri.

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