Peace possible in Iraq - Tutu
2004-12-11 17:10
Dubai - Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Saturday that if forgiveness and dialogue were possible in post-apartheid South Africa, the same was true for Iraq despite the disastrous security situation in the country.
"If we don't learn to live together like brothers and sisters, we will die like fools," the Nobel peace laureate told a press conference marking the close of the first Dubai International Film Festival.
"Many of us said at the beginning that a war not sanctioned by the United Nations was an immoral war," he said in reference to the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 to oust dictator Saddam Hussein.
"And nothing that has happened since has changed that," added Tutu, who attended the festival in support of the closing gala film "Red Dust", set during South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation hearings in the 1990s.
"When you say to people, 'this is your leader', that is one of the best recipes for disaster. Every community wants to choose its leaders," and those not chosen democratically can have no credibility, he said, alluding to Iraq's interim government installed by the US-led coalition.
Iraq is 'a mess'
Describing Iraq as "a mess" and its security as "disastrous", Tutu, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said however that "no situation is totally hopeless" and humans ultimately want peace.
"We weep for our sisters and brothers in Iraq," where according to a report published in October by the British magazine The Lancet, as many as 100 000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start of the Iraq war.
"And we hope the world will ultimately realise we will never win a war against terror until the conditions that make people desperate have been removed," he said.
Ten years after the end of apartheid, South Africa today has the kind of stability that no one would have been able to predict, Tutu stressed.
Possible for enemies to become friends
"It is possible for enemies to become friends. It is possible for people who are different in all kinds of ways to cohere in one society," he said.
Red Dust was selected for the festival because of its message of inter-cultural reconciliation, according to organisers of the event held under the theme of bridging cultural gaps between east and west.
Long Walk to Freedom to become a movie
Organisers and Red Dust producer Anant Singh announced that Singh would be adapting Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom into a movie, with Morgan Freeman portraying the former South African president.
"I hope the world will be able to take the theme of this festival as encapsulated in (Red Dust) as a strong message; our world is alienated and broken up into different factions," said Tutu.
"We very much need to be reminded that we are one family ... You see (worldwide) that we are hell-bent on destroying each other because we are different."
- AFP