COCHIN, 16 December 2003 — A fishing village known as “Saddam Beach” intends to boycott American products to protest the capture of the former Iraqi dictator.
The Arabian Sea town in southern Kerala state was formally named Saddam Beach during the first Gulf War in 1991 to express solidarity with Saddam Hussein.
“We have been praying for Saddam ever since the first Gulf War. We will now boycott all American products because our beloved leader has been captured by the US forces,” said Mohammed Bashir, who heads the Saddam Hussein Voluntary Trust in the town of 1,500 families.
Bashir said residents would not buy American products such as Coca Cola and Pepsi, as well as garments and electronic items made in the United States.
Saddam Beach is some 170 km (105 miles) north of Cochin, the state’s commercial hub. Saddam’s humiliating capture from a hole in the ground has infuriated some supporters here. “We will march to the beach picking up all the US products we can gather from our houses and toss them into the sea,” said Bashir.
Newspapers reported yesterday that posters of Saddam and the Iraqi flag were fluttering along the road skirting Saddam Beach. Saddam Beach fishermen recently built a boat named Iraq and others have named their boats after the cities of Iraq: the Basra, the Karbala and the Baghdad.
Kalangadan Veeran Moideen Musaliar, a community leader, said many town residents had been working in Gulf countries, including Iraq, for many years.
“But ever since the war on Iraq by America, many expatriates have come back, having lost their jobs. The village economy has been ruined,” Musaliar said.
