IRAQ: BAGHDAD: PRESIDENT SADDAM HUSSEIN CELEBRATES 60TH BIRTHDAY (1)

(28 Apr 1997) Arabic/Nat

Iraq marked President Saddam Hussein's 60th birthday on Monday with official nation- wide celebrations and scattered street parties around the country.

Saddam did not appear in public for the celebrations but reportedly met privately with senior government and military officials who congratulated him on his birthday.

In the week-long celebrations, which began with music and poetry festivals on Saturday, the woes of the country were largely put aside.

Nation-wide celebrations marked on Monday the 60th birthday of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi television showed Saddam receiving flowers from young children on the occasion of his anniversary.

For Saddam's birthday, life-size portraits and banners with slogans pledging loyalty to Saddam adorned street corners in many towns.

Cars - decorated with portraits of Saddam and bunting in the black, white, green and red of the Iraqi flag - roamed city streets, their horns blaring.

On the President's birthday, it has become a custom not to work in Iraq.

The day is not an official holiday but, since the government started marking Saddam's birthday during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, most of the government departments and schools are closed for the festivities.

Nation-wide celebrations were held to commemorate the 60th birthday in Baghdad and other provinces.

Thousands of Iraqis poured into the streets of the capital wishing their leader a very happy birthday.

Streets were decorated with portraits, flags, colourful lights and banners in support of Saddam Hussein and demanding an end to seven years of U-N sanctions.

The United Nations imposed an embargo on Iraq following the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

All over the streets, loudspeakers shouted out: "Blessed be your birthday, our beloved leader. May God add from our age to yours."

Saddam has been in power since 1979. Since then, he's led his nation through two wars -- the eight-year conflict with Iran and the invasion of Kuwait in 1991.

Celebrations began Saturday, when the Bedouin Poetry and Dancing Festival was opened at the Grand Parade Square.

The festival inaugurated by Culture and Information Minister Hamid Yousif Hummadi, includes Bedouin poetry reading and folk dancing.

Some devoted citizens got married on this very special day for the Iraqi people.

Despite the U-N embargo and the limited food resources, the government offered birthday cakes.

At another festival, young school children in traditional Arab and Kurdish costumes danced and sang in praise of the Iraqi leader, while government and party officials and tribal chieftains marched in processions touting banners.

SOUNDBITE: (Arabic)
" We tell the world that we are with our leader Saddam Hussein towards victory. And there is no power in the world that will make the Iraqi people give up their rights as sovereignty, independence and freedom."
SUPER CAPTION: Latif Nsayyif Jassim

Saddam himself did not appear publicly to mark his birthday which the government media highlighted as " the actual birth of the Arab nation."

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