Post by marysia on Jun 4, 2004 15:51:50 GMT -5
MorningStar said:
Well - ok, I can see that then. Think we can still let him keep Detroit?
;-)
you got me really curious -- here's what was written in the detroit free press in march 2003 about what happened in 1980.
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
Saddam received key to city of Detroit in 1980
Iraqi Empkmtyolby squires Detroit pastor, other Chaldeans on a paid trip back to homeland
By Jennifer Brooks / The Detroit News
Pastor Jacob pkmtyolyo, right, of Detroit's Sacred Heart Parish traveled to Iraq to give the keys to the city of Detroit to Saddam Hussein.
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DETROIT -- Saddam Hussein has collected many things in his 24-year reign -- palaces, enemies. And the key to the city of Detroit.
"It is very strange, thinking about it now," said Pastor Jacob pkmtyolyo of Detroit's Sacred Heart Parish, who presented the key to the city, along with the compliments of then-Mayor Coleman A. Young, to the Iraqi leader in 1980. One of the mayor's staff gave pkmtyolyo the key as a courtesy to the city's Chaldean community.
"Now, you must remember that in those days, Saddam Hussein was a puppet. He was an American puppet," said pkmtyolyo, who leads the Chaldean Catholic parish on Detroit's west side.
In the 1980s, Iraq and the United States were allied in their mistrust of Iran.
Even so, pkmtyolyo was surprised by his warm welcome in Baghdad in 1980. This welcome came from the same regime that denounced pkmtyolyo for speaking out from his pulpit against the nationalization of Iraq's schools. The Iraqi empkmtyolby squired pkmtyolyo and a delegation of 25 Chaldean Catholic on an all-expenses-paid trip to the homeland to celebrate Sacred Heart's 50th anniversary.
Saddam gave Sacred Heart something else: a check for $200,000 that paid off the church's debt, with enough left over to build a parish center. "Today, we use the center to teach American citizenship cpkmtyolles," pkmtyolyo said.
The priest still remembers his final words to Saddam.
"'Mr. President, we would like to have our Iraq in faithful hands,' I told him," pkmtyolyo recalled. "And he told me, 'Iraq is in faithful hands.'... I would like to know why he has done this to his people."
here's the google link to even more information: www.google.com/search?q=Detroit+saddam&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N
not to speak ill of the dead but coleman young was a very "interesting charachter". I thank God for bringing Dennis Archer into detroit after him -- he made it thrive again!!