Labour movement activist Pauline Bradley pens a song in memory of Hadi Saleh.

Remember Hadi Saleh

The shock has hit us like a bomb,
The news we heard today,
Our comrade Hadi Saleh,
Killed in a savage way,
His family and friends
Are mourning as we speak,
But he kept the unions together,
Through the Saddam years so bleak,

He wanted peace and freedom,
Equality for all,
No racial divisions,
No violence and scorn,
He spent 5 years in prison,
For his independent mind,
Escaped and lived in Sweden,
Worked for peace and humankind,

Saddams police wanted him dead,
So powerful was he,
But they won’t kill his spirit,
His soul or memory,
Occupation, war and “resistance”
Cause barbarity,
But he kept the union together,
So that we can become free,

So remember Hadi Saleh,
Who stood for right and good,
And raise the red flag high,
Shrouded in our martyrs blood,
His soul it lives inside us,
And we’ll keep his dream alive,
And we’ll build our unions together,
So that light and love survive.

Forming a government and framing a constitution

The Guardian’s Jonathan Steele outlines the contours of the coming negotiations on forming a new Iraqi government and constitution making.

Elections in Iraq should unite us all

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the Commons today that the “elections were a moving demonstration that democracy and freedom are universal values, to which people everywhere aspire.”

First, however, let me deal with the tragic crash of the RAF C130 Hercules aircraft in Iraq. As the House will be aware, the aircraft came down approximately 30 kilometres to the North West of Baghdad, at half past four in the afternoon Iraq time yesterday. The aircraft was flying from Baghdad International Airport to Balad Airbase. The site has been secured, and we are investigating the cause of the crash. The House will understand that it would be wrong at this stage to speculate about possible causes.

10 UK service personnel were onboard the aircraft and are presumed killed: nine from the Royal Air Force and one from the Army. Their next of kin are being informed. The Ministry of Defence will release the names of those who were onboard only once this process is complete and the families have been given time to inform other loved ones and friends. I know the House will join me in sending our deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of these brave men and to their comrades.

Yesterday’s elections in Iraq demonstrated the vital importance of what those and thousands of other brave British servicemen and women have been helping to achieve there.

Only two years ago, Iraq was still under the sway of one of the most ruthless dictators in the world. Dissent was punishable by torture and summary execution – with an estimated 300,000 people buried in mass graves during the period of Saddam's dictatorship..

The last time that the Iraqi people voted was in the staged elections of Saddam's tyranny – with just one candidate, a man who had been flouting the will of the United Nations for twelve long years.

Yesterday, in contrast, the elections took place in implementation of a mandate from the United Nations – for it was the Security Council in Resolution 1546 which laid down the timetable and process for these elections, and the steps which will follow. Yesterday, the Iraqi people had the choice not of one but of some 8,000 candidates for the new National Assembly, from 111 different political parties and entities, and 11,000 candidates in regional and Kurdish elections. One third of the candidates in the national elections were women.

While turnout figures will not be available for some days, it is already clear from initial estimates that a substantial proportion of the Iraqi population took part in these elections. Turnout appears to have been especially high in the North and South of the country, among both men and women.

The turnout in Sunni majority areas was lower, mainly because of the high penetration of insurgents threatening to kill voters. However in other areas where Sunni Arabs were able to vote freely, they appear to have done so in good numbers. Simon Collis, British Consul-General in Basra, told me this afternoon that some 50% of Sunnis in that province may have voted. He described the 'extraordinary atmosphere' in Basra as families went out to vote, taking along their children dressed in their smartest festive clothing.

Polling was also brisk in the mixed Sunni-Shia suburbs of Baghdad, the largest centre of the Sunni population. In Mosul, extra polling stations had to be opened when turnout exceeded expectations.

Yesterday’s elections were monitored by some 22,000 domestic election observers, 33,000 party officials, and some 120 international monitors accredited to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. I arranged that three of the monitors should come from this House on an all-party basis: the Hon Members for the Forest of Dean [Diana Organ], Blaby [Andrew Robathan] and Torridge and West Devon [John Burnett]. My Rt Hon Friend for Cynon Valley [Ann Clwyd] also observed the elections, as did the Noble Baroness Nicholson on behalf of the European Parliament.

Electoral procedures are reported to have worked efficiently throughout the country. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the Canadian head of the International Mission for Iraqi Elections, has described the election as a 'very good process'. My Hon Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean [Diana Organ] described arrangements in the town of Maysan as 'model'.

I should like to pay tribute to the Independent Electoral Commission and to their advisers from the United Nations, led by the quite exceptional international diplomat Carlos Valenzuela, for their outstanding work in assisting the Iraqis and ensuring that yesterday's elections ran smoothly. I also want to thank our Ambassador Edward Chaplin and all our staff in Baghdad, Basra and Kirkuk for the excellent job which they did in covering the elections.

No-one expected these first free elections in half a century to be perfect. But they went far better than many had anticipated, and they are all the more remarkable given the circumstances in which they were held.

We have grown used to insurgents in Iraq who attack any and every group and organisation working to rebuild the country. The Iraqi people most of all have suffered from this terrorist violence. And the insurgents had made clear that they would use the vilest means possible to stop yesterday's elections from running smoothly, or at all. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a leader of the terrorism in Iraq, declared last week that democracy was an 'evil principle'. He and his henchmen – many, like him, not Iraqis themselves – sent suicide bombers to attack polling stations and other areas associated with the elections, with the message: If you vote, you die.

Yesterday’s elections represent a real blow to this disgusting campaign of violence and intimidation.

In Sadr City in Baghdad, for example, a mortar attack at a polling station in a local school left a number of people wounded. However, Multi-National Forces troops at the site report that people simply helped the wounded, and then along with those who could, rejoined the queue to vote. In Sunni areas in central Iraq, large groups of people defied terrorist intimidation and walked several kilometres to polling stations to cast their votes.

These elections were a moving demonstration that democracy and freedom are universal values, to which people everywhere aspire.

The fact that not a single suicide bomber managed to get through the security cordons around polling stations is a great tribute to the bravery and effectiveness of Iraq's own security forces - it was they who were in the front line. I pay tribute to them, and to the troops of the UN-mandated Multi-National Force who helped to maintain security around the polling stations across Iraq. Several policemen were killed when suicide bombers unable to get through their rigorous searches blew themselves up. Our thoughts are with their families and those of all the Iraqis who lost their lives in yesterday’s violence.

As Iraq’s Interim Prime Minister, Dr Ayad Allawi, said this morning, 'There will still be violence, but the terrorists now know that they cannot win'.

We have seen the determination of the Iraqi people to participate in building a more secure and democratic future for their country. We now need to support them as they continue that process.

The Independent Electoral Commission expect to publish the results within ten days of the elections, and to certify those results by 20 February.

Yesterday's elections were for a Transitional National Assembly of 275 members, elected on a wholly-proportional system. Its first task will be to elect a three-person Presidency which will in turn appoint a Prime Minister and Cabinet, whom the Assembly will be asked to approve. This Iraqi Transitional Government will then be sworn in and the Interim Government will dissolve. We expect this to take place by the end of February. As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said, 'the success of these elections augurs well for the transition process'.

The new Assembly will then begin work on the next stage of the political process in Iraq, as set out in UN Security Council Resolution 1546: the drafting of a permanent Constitution for Iraq.

Many Iraqi political and religious leaders, including Ayatollah Sistani, have made clear their wish to include Sunni groups in this process. I welcome Prime Minister Allawi’s call earlier today for a “new national dialogue that guarantees that all Iraqis have a voice in the next government”. There are important safeguards for both the Sunni and Kurdish minorities in the Transitional Administrative Law, under whose terms the Constitution will need to be approved. The Constitution must not only receive an absolute majority of votes in a referendum, but in addition can be blocked by two-thirds of voters in any three of the country’s 18 provinces.

The United Kingdom will continue to offer every support to the political process in Iraq as set out by the United Nations, working with our international partners including through the EU. We will seek an early meeting of the Sharm-el-Sheik group of Iraq’s neighbours and G8 countries, to build on international support for Iraq. And we will continue to work for a central role for the United Nations in supporting the political process.

There have been deep divisions over Iraq in the last two years. But this election should unite us all. Yesterday the Iraqi people in their millions showed their wish to embrace freedom, and to shape the future destiny of their country. I know that the whole House and the country stand behind them as they pursue that historic endeavour.

LFIQ's further response to Alice Mahon

Labour MP Alice Mahon today criticises LFIQ in the Independent. We have sent the following response. Alice's letter is also here. We have to defend ourselves, of course, but we stress that the most urgent issue is providing moral and material solidarity to Grassroots Iraq.

Alice Mahon (Letters, 31 January) says that Labour Friends of Iraq (LFIQ) would be more convincing if we had commented on the bombing of Falluja and abuse of prisoners. A quick glance at our web site (www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk) shows that we carry a regular feature called “Bush doesn’t get it,” where we propose an absolute ban on torture. We also issued a model motion on Falluja before the attack, which condemned its aerial bombardment, demanded political and humanitarian means to prevent civilian casualties and added that a flourishing democracy in Iraq would powerfully undermine terrorism. It is preposterous to say that LFIQ is an apologist for the war, most of us opposed it, but post-war solidarity is the priority. More importantly, Iraqis have moved on by giving the purple finger to the fascist gunmen and bombers and voting in huge numbers. So let all those who took different positions on the war unite to provide huge moral and material solidarity to Iraqi unions and civil society.

Gary Kent
Director, Labour Friends of Iraq
PO Box 2421, Reading, RG1 8WY

Sir: Gary Kent, director of Labour Friends of Iraq, Harry Barnes MP and Ann Clwyd MP, Tony Blair's special envoy on human rights in Iraq, are right to condemn the torture and killing of Hadi Saleh, the international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions ("Anti-war movement divided over trade unionist's murder", 22 January).

Their call for the opponents of the war to "move on", however, would sound more convincing if they themselves did more:

To mourn the death of up to 100,000 Iraqi civilians. What about a minute's silence or a few tears on the floor of the House of Commons for them and their grieving families?

To condemn the bombing of Iraqi cities, including Fallujah, which was authorised by the interim Iraqi government and carried out by the Americans.
To raise questions in public about the human rights of Iraqis who have been tortured by the Iraqi security forces. If the American Human Rights Watch group is capable of exposing the abuses why are Britain's so-called human rights experts ignorant of what is happening?

Of course I accept that it is difficult for the apologists of the biggest foreign policy blunder for 200 years to accept their responsibility for the Pandora's box which they have opened.

ALICE MAHON MP
(Halifax, Lab)
House of Commons

Voices from Iraq

The Iraqi people spoke clearly and decisively yesterday for freedom and against tyranny. Here are a few comments from the growing number of Iraqi blogs about the election and their part in it.

“I bow in respect and awe to the men and women of our people who, armed only with faith and hope are going to the polls under the very real threats of being blown to pieces. These are the real braves; not the miserable creatures of hate who are attacking one of the noblest things that has ever happened to us. Have you ever seen anything like this? Iraq will be O.K. with so many brave people, it will certainly O.K.; I can say no more just now; I am just filled with pride and moved beyond words.” The Mesopotamian

“The turnout in Iraq was really like nothing that I had expected. I was glued in front of tv for most of the day. My mother was in tears watching the scenes from all over the country. Iraqis had voted for peace and for a better future, despite the surrounding madness. I sincerely hope this small step would be the start of much bolder ones, and that the minority which insists on enslaving the majority of Iraqis would soon realise that all that they have accomplished till now is in vain.” Healing Iraq

“I couldn't think of a scene more beautiful than that. From the early hours of the morning, People filled the street to the voting center in my neighborhood; youths, elders, women and men. Women's turn out was higher by the way. And by 11 am the boxes where I live were almost full!
Anyone watching that scene cannot but have tears of happiness, hope, pride and triumph

I walked forward to my station, cast my vote and then headed to the box, where I wanted to stand as long as I could, then I moved to mark my finger with ink, I dipped it deep as if I was poking the eyes of all the world's tyrants. I put the paper in the box and with it, there were tears that I couldn't hold; I was trembling with joy and I felt like I wanted to hug the box but the supervisor smiled at me and said "brother, would you please move ahead, the people are waiting for their turn. Yes brothers, proceed and fill the box! These are stories that will be written on the brightest pages of history.” Iraq the Model

“I did it, I voted YES,YES, I did it. I have the courage to do it.” Diary from Iraq

“Today only we may announce the victory!” Hammorabi

“All these fingers are up for you terrorist, anti-democracy, pro-beheading, suicide-bombers, Baathist, Saddamist and anti-peace people. In Kurdistan and Iraq now, people check each others index finger, " Oh you have a normal finger ?!! How come it is not blue ?! You are NOT democratic at all" Ironically, Al-Zarqawi, the head of the terrorists and co, means "The Blue", and the finger of every voter participated in this great event, is blue! The FINGER of PRIDE!” Kurdos World

“The history will record how Iraqis challenged even death today; with a turnout of 72% Iraqis showed the other civilized face of this country, showed the world that the culture of kidnapping, beheading and mass killing does not belong to them, they are like the rest of nations willing for democracy, peace and justice...” Losers Blog

“The Happiest Day of My Life is 30th of January. Hello Cheerfully. Today Iraqis did a very nice job & proved that whatever happens, they will stay standing against the evil force.” Iraqi Humanity

“Entered on the booths and people checked my name and I colored my finger with this great voting color and I got my ballot which was very big (in the size of a poster) all I had to do is to put a sign beside my chosen party, to be honest I was very slow when putting the sign because I wanted to enjoy the moment, putting the ballot in the box was the most difficult emotional time, when I finished Iraqis (which I don’t know) came to congratulating me and shaking my hands.” Baghdad Dweller

“Even now, I have no idea who is going to win, but it really isn't important. It is enough for me to know that our new government won't be the result of a sham election, that it will be the will of the people.” Democracy in Iraq (Is Here!)

“It was my way to scream in the face of all tyrants, not just Saddam and his Ba'athists and tell them, "I don't want to be your, or anyone's slave. You have kept me in your jail all my life but you never owned my soul". It was my way of finally facing my fears and finding my courage and my humanity again.” Free Iraq

The purple finger: violet is the new black!

There’s a long way to go yet but the Iraqi people’s bravery in giving the purple finger to the gunmen and the suicide bombers is a major revolution and starts to change the prospects for peace, democracy and human rights in a united Iraq. It should also force all those who denied the possibility of such a success in the elections to rethink their position. Those who opposed the war, like most of us, need not surrender any of their analysis and those who supported military action need not change their colours. But both sets of people should now heed purple power – as our revamped web site does symbolically – and unite behind the Iraqis struggle to end terror and retrieve their sovereignty. (GK)

Why the left should get real about Iraq

In today’s Observer, Michael Ignatieff, contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and author of 'The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror,' writes passionately in advance of the Iraqi elections. He says “Explaining this morose silence requires understanding how support for Iraqi democracy has become the casualty of the corrosive bitterness that still surrounds the initial decision to go to war. Establishing free institutions in Iraq was the best reason to support the war - now it is the only reason - and for that very reason democracy there has ceased to be a respectable cause.

He adds “Liberals can't bring themselves to support freedom in Iraq lest they seem to collude with neo-conservative bombast. Anti-war ideologues can't support the Iraqis because that would require admitting that positive outcomes can result from bad policies. And then there are the ideological fools in the Arab world, and even a few in the West, who think the 'insurgents' are fighting a just war against US imperialism. This makes you wonder when the left forgot the proper name for people who bomb polling stations, kill election workers and assassinate candidates - fascists.”

We concur, it is time for the left and liberals to get real about what is actually happening in Iraq (GK)

Keep up with the Iraq Elections on these sites

LFIQ will post assessments of the Iraq Election. But for now we would urge readers to get over to Normblog and Harry’s Place (see links below on the left) and Friends of Democracy where you will find excellent posts about the sights, sounds, voices and hopes that have been raised, loud and defiant, in Iraq on this wonderful day. (AJ)

Halliday and Rawnsley explain the current international situation

Today’s Observer carries two very fine articles which help us understand the current political situation.

The veteran writer on international relations, Fred Halliday describes how “we are still infected by Cold War ills: an arrogant West, shabby dictators, naive protests.

He excoriates “the contemporary global protest movement, to a considerable degree a children's crusade of intellectual demagogues, recycled 1960s bunkeristas with their fellow travellers in literary circles, dreamers and political manipulators, of the old and new lefts, whose claim to moral and analytic superiority too often masks a set of unexamined, and themselves often recycled, platitudes from the Cold War period and, indeed, from the ideology of the communist world.”

Halliday also slams its “ritual incantantion of 'no war' that avoids any substantive engagement with problems of international peace and security, or reflection on how positively to help peoples in zones of conflict; a set of vague, unthought out, uncosted and often dangerous utopian ideas about an alternative world; a pleasing but vapid invocation of global human values and internationalism that blithely ignores the misuses to which that term was put in the 20th century (for example by Stalin or Mao); a complacent attitude, innocent when not indulgent, towards political violence (witness the cult of Che Guevara, a cruel and dangerous man, and the invitees from Northern Ireland, Palestine and Iran, to name but three at the London Social Summit in October). This was a capitulation, that would have shocked their socialist forebears, to nationalist and religious bigots (as in the reception by the supposedly left-wing Mayor of London of Sheikh Yusif al-Qaradawi, the descendant of a line of Mus lim fascist thinkers). There is also a vapid and politically ineffective attitude to nature, forgetting, as the tsunami should have reminded all of us, that nature can also kill. And all of this is mixed up with a shallow, repetitive critique of globalisation, in the name of what we are never sure, and a naive, uninformed, analysis of the US.”

His colleague Andrew Rawnsley explores the Iraqi elections, saying that “To be hopeful about Iraq is to invite being straitjacketed for insane optimism. But better that than the dismal certainties of those who have already denounced these elections as a doomed charade before a single result has been returned.”

He examines the issue of the US/UK military exit strategy and reveals that whilst they are “wary of announcing a timetable for withdrawal, not least for fear of providing dates for the insurgents to target” that “secret scoping of how they might begin to reduce their forces has begun in the Pentagon and Ministry of Defence.”

He rightly concludes that “People prepared to risk their lives to vote deserve not our cynicism, but our respect and hope.”

American left activist and writer David Bacon condemns Hadi Saleh’s murder and assesses US policy in Iraq

When they came for Hadi Saleh, they found him at home in Baghdad with his family. First, they bound his hands and feet with wire. Then they tortured him, cutting him with a knife. He finally died of strangulation, but apparently that wasn't enough. Before fleeing, his assailants pumped bullets into his dead body.

No group claimed credit for his assassination on January 4. Nobody knows for sure who carried it out. But for many Iraqis, the manner of his death was a signature.

In 1969, when Saleh was only twenty, sentenced to death in a Baathist prison, such murderous tactics were already becoming well known. For the next thirty-plus years the Mukhabarat, Saddam Hussein's secret police, used them against his friends and coworkers. In early January in Baghdad, killers intent on sending the same bloody message finally visited these horrors on him.

Iraq has never been a very safe place for trade unionists, socialists or democratic-minded people. In one of the few times when Iraqi progressives seemed to be on top, they finally threw out the king in 1958. For a few years, organizing unions and breaking up the big estates were not just dreams, but government policy. Oil was nationalized, and the revenue used to build universities, factories and hospitals.

That vision of Iraq shaped Saleh's generation of political activists, and still holds their loyalty today. For Americans, who know little of Iraqi history, that vision is unknown. His death wasn't even reported by the mainstream US media, because it doesn't fit the paradigm of soldiers and roadside bombs, through which Americans are taught to understand the occupation.

Thirty-five years ago, Saleh's dangerous notions led to his being arrested, accused of being a trade unionist and a red. Narrowly escaping execution, he spent five years in prison. On his release he joined many of his compatriots who'd already fled into exile, where he lived for over thirty years.

When Saddam Hussein finally fell, Saleh and his friends returned to reorganize the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. He became its international secretary. And even under a brutal US military occupation, they began seeking ways to turn into reality that old dream of a progressive Iraq.

Remarkably, they've been very successful at organizing new unions, which workers need as never before. A study by the economics faculty of Baghdad University last fall puts unemployment at 70%. Wages were frozen by the occupation authorities at $60 a month.

First US administrator Paul Bremer, and now Iyad Allawi, installed as President by the US and British, seek to privatize Iraq's big state-owned factories, which workers fear will lead to even further job losses. In September, 2003, Bremer issued Order #39, permitting 100% foreign ownership of businesses, except for the oil industry, and allowing repatriation of profits. Bremer appointee Tom Foley, a Bush fundraiser, drew up lists of state enterprises to be sold off, including cement and fertilizer plants, phosphate and sulfur mines, pharmaceutical factories and the country's airline.

In two years the IFTU has organized twelve national unions for different industries, and successfully challenged the occupation's low-wage regime. But success has had it cost. Saleh's murder is the latest in a series of attacks on workers and unions, in response to their increasing activity. Last November, armed insurgents attacked freight trains, killing four workers, and then beating and kidnapping others a month later. Teachers have also been
murdered. They say they're being blamed for helping the occupation by doing their jobs, although they perform no military function.

Attacks come from US troops and the Iraqi government as well. US soldiers threw the Transport and Communication unionists out of their office in the Baghdad's central bus station in December 2003, and arrested members of the IFTU executive board. Qasim Hadi, general secretary of the Union of the Unemployed, has been arrested several times by occupation troops, for leading demonstrations of unemployed workers demanding unemployment benefits and jobs. Last fall, after textile workers in the city of Kut struck over low pay, the factory manager and city governor called out the Iraqi National Guard, who fired on them. Four were wounded, and another 11 arrested.

Saleh's murderers had two objectives in making him a bloody example. For the Baathists among the insurgents, the growth of unions and organizations of civil society, from women's' groups to political parties, is a dangerous deviation. Their hopes of returning to power rest on a military defeat for the US, without a corresponding development of popular, progressive organizations that can govern a post-occupation Iraq.

Trying to stop those organizations from using the elections to organize a support base is a second objective. None of Iraq's new unions support the armed resistance, and they all call for an end to the occupation. But even progressive Iraqis disagree about the elections.

Some, like the Union of the Unemployed, boycott the process as a charade organized by the occupation. Other parties, however, from the Iraqi Communist Party, to which Saleh belonged, to the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq of Shiite Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, see elections as a vehicle for winning power. In exile, the ICP condemned the war and US invasion, but when the occupation started, it joined the Governing Council. Two of its members are currently ministers in the Allawi government.

While the Bush administration and some parts of Iraqi civil society might each have their reasons for wanting elections, they have very different goals in mind. For some on the Iraqi left, once the occupation is gone, a mass-based political party with a radical program could win the actual power to implement it.

Iraqi civil society - unions, women's' and professional organizations, and left-wing parties - are trying to grow in a political space that is rapidly shrinking. The armed resistance doesn't want them around. And despite talk of democracy, the Bush administration would prefer another dependable dictator than popular resistance to the free market plan. Saleh's assassination makes
plain the extreme lack of security of these Iraqi leftists, caught between the two. The longer the occupation lasts, the more violence skyrockets, and the harder it is for workers to join a union, much less demonstrate and protest.

John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president, condemned Saleh's murder and called him "courageous," a welcome departure from the cold war past in which left-wing trade unionists abroad were often reviled as enemies. US Labor Against the War went further, in a statement that combined condemnation with a call to end the occupation and withdraw US troops, a position the AFL-CIO has yet to take. Unions in Britain did so as well.

Another IFTU leader, Abdullah Muhsen, remembered Saleh's vision of an Iraq with a future, a vision that in the end, he died for: "a democratic, peaceful and federal Iraq, which would unite all Iraqis, regardless of their background, ethnicity or religion ...workers' rights to organize and to strike to achieve decent jobs, pay and working conditions ... a defeat for IMF shock therapy and economic occupation, imposed on us by the occupying powers."

David Bacon is a respected labour journalist and photographer in the US. He's also on the editorial board of International Union Rights, the magazine of the International Centre for Trade Union Rights

The Worst Advertisement: The Socialists and the Iraq Election by Alan Johnson

‘As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents’ (George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, 1937)

Alan Johnson gives a personal and scathing assessment of how “much of the left has backed itself into an incoherent and negativist ‘anti-imperialist’ corner. It has lost touch with democratic, egalitarian and humane values long-held on the democratic socialist left and argues that “The decent left will emerge as a political force by turning each negative refusal into a positive policy and campaign. For each refusal of ours does carry a positive charge: pro-human rights above all, pro-international solidarity with the victims of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, pro-worker, pro-feminism, pro-gay rights, pro-democracy, pro-liberty, pro-social justice. A decent left politics in the post-cold war world will define itself positively as the pursuit of these values and not as a negative coalition of ‘antis’. On such values we can build a culture not just a political movement.”

1. ‘looking straight into the eyes of the enemies of democracy’

Today, January 30, Iraq holds its first election. 15 million eligible Iraqi voters will go to the polls to elect a 275-member Transitional Assembly. The Assembly will choose a government, draft a constitution, and supervise fresh elections in December 2005. After thirty years of totalitarian dictatorship, bacchanalian tortures and abuses, mass graves, wars, sanctions and continuing occupation, it would be foolish to expect Iraq’s torment to be ended by one election. But the importance of the poll is clear enough. Abdullah Muhsin, Foreign Representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, spoke for all democrats when he said “Elections certainly offer the best hope of a secure Iraq and will legitimise the current UN-sanctioned political process, which is aimed at producing a national sovereign transitional assembly and a government mandated by the people. This view rests its legitimacy on international law - UN resolutions 1483, 1511 and 1546 - and the engagement of the majority of Iraqis and their key political parties across Iraq. Surely Iraqis, after all their struggles and sacrifices, have won the right to hold elections. Democracy is not given freely, but won, and to achieve it we shall walk, with heads held high, looking straight into the eyes of the enemies of democracy”.

Abdullah’s inspiring words reminded me of those spoken by the black freedom fighter Frederick Douglas in 1857: "Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform’ said Douglas. “The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters."

2. The Totalitarians and the Elections

But the democrats have their opponents. The word ‘farce’ was first used to describe the Iraq elections in an Al Jazeera report, 21 November 2004, The pro-resistance Association of Muslim Scholars “describe the forthcoming elections under US occupation as a farce”. On 31 December, Middle East Online ran the headline ‘Radical Iraqi groups call democracy a farce’. MEO reported that ‘Ansar Al-Sunna, Islamic Army in Iraq, Army of the Mujahedeen…said in an Internet statement Thursday they considered democracy "farcical and un-Islamic" and warned that no-one who took part in next month's polls would be safe. “Those who participate in this dirty farce will not be sheltered from the blows of the mujahedeen…Democracy is a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit…This (vote) is a mockery by the enemy to grant legitimacy to the new government which serves the crusaders. Participating in these elections . . . would be the biggest gift for America, which is the enemy of Islam and the tyrant of the age."

True to their word, on January 19 The Ansar al Sunnah Army posted today an internet video showing the killing of two Iraqis who were working for a an internet company that Ansar al Sunnah claimed was involved in preparations for the Iraqi elections. The statement read “We say to all who support the forces and have anything to do with the elections farce: Repent now and stop your disbelief so that you save your souls, or accept the hollowness of your fate as was the fate of these, as Allah is my witness. And may Allah grant peace and greetings to our prophet Mohammad and to his family and his friends. The military organization of the Ansar Al Sunnah Army, 9 Dhu'l-Hijjah 1425 / 19 January 2005.

And we have seen election workers and candidates murdered, polling stations bombed and voters intimidated. Nadia Selim wrote to the Independent (18 January) to tell of how thugs had prevented her family from exercising their democratic right to vote. “My family still live in Hay Al Jamia, which is a middle-class suburb in west Baghdad and has a mixed Shi'ite and Sunni population. In spite of the risks involved, my family were planning on voting in the Iraqi elections that are due to be held at the end of this month. Yesterday, they were visited by one of their local shopkeepers. He asked them to hand over their ration books to him for "temporary safe-keeping". It is by means of these ration books that voters will be identified when they cast their ballots on 30 January. He informed them that he had been visited by masked men carrying guns, who told him that they would be back. The gunmen had ordered him to collect the ration books from his neighbourhood, and said that if he failed to do so, he and his family would be killed. It was when the shopkeeper came back to call on my family a second time, sobbing and begging them not to condemn his children to a certain death, that they reluctantly handed over their ration books. They will now, like many others I am sure, be unable to cast their votes at the end of this month.”

With the stakes so high, and the democrats under murderous assault from a fascistic enemy, what has been the reaction of the socialists?

3. The Socialists and the Elections (with some Iraqis butting in)

I apologise for asking the reader to plough through the catalogue that follows. But as you do, please understand it is but a small selection. I really could have put together a list ten times the size. After each socialist sneer I have inserted a voice from Iraq about the elections, brave, joyful, determined and democratic. These Iraqi voices are taken from either Norman Geras’s blog at http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/ or from Friends of Democracy: Ground Level Election News From the People of Iraq at http://www.friendsofdemocracy.info/ .

* Seamus Milne (Guardian, January 13) argued the elections would be ‘at best irrelevant’.

(“Ahmed Khudayer beamed as he described his experience on the stump: "We drove round the streets last Sunday with a motorcade led by a white school bus with the roof taken off and garlanded with flowers to get attention. It went on for four hours. People were crying with joy. They remembered the past," he said. He is campaign manager for a coalition of secular parties called the United Democratic Forces”.)

* The Australian Green Left Weekly (January 26) declared the election “a sham”.

(“I'm proud to vote for the election," Shimon Haddad, one of the first to cast his ballot, told French news agency AFP.)

* Noam Chomsky thinks the January 30 Poll is "a poor joke" (Independent January 24).

(“We have been looking forward to this time for the last 50 years, actually, so it is a very exciting day for Iraq citizens.")

*Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) the 2004 left-wing Presidential candidate, dismisses the poll as ‘a farce’.

("When I look at the ink on my finger - this is a mark of freedom," Kassim Abood told Reuters news agency.)

* Felicity Arbuthnot (CommonDreams.org, January 18) goes one better, declaring the vote, ‘a farce of historic proportions’.

(“For 35 years we haven't had free or democratic elections. There was voting for just one person, the dictator Saddam. I am going to vote and no one can threaten me because I am loyal to my country and I will not stay at home. If there really is a guy called Zarqawi I will still vote, even if it takes my life”).

* Socialist Worker sees ‘nothing but a fraud’ (29 Jan).

(“I will vote in the election... This is a very important time for us, it is a time of freedom, something new for the Iraqis that we never had before”.)

* The esteemed historian (and long-time Communist Party of Great Britain member) Eric Hobsbawm, while admitting that democracy is ‘rightly popular’ (quite as if he was talking about Sunday opening or the 4-4-2 system) is not really convinced it is meant for Iraq. He seems to think the idea of Iraqis enjoying democracy is premised on the silly assumption that “If gas stations, iPods, and computer geeks are the same worldwide, why not political institutions?”

(“I will vote and I am not going to be scared by Zarqawi's threats... The future is not just the responsibility of our government but our's also. We are always depending on our governments to do everything and this is not good...”)

* And then we have Terry Eagleton. Eagleton is a man who is moved to anger by the chocolate chip cookie (it’s American and decadent or something) but is capable of a sympathetic and playful aesthetic appreciation of the suicide bomber. ‘Suicide bombers…are out to transform weakness into power. Because they are ready to die while their enemies are not, they score a spiritual victory over them’ [they also murder ‘them’ don’t they, the little kids I mean, the people who just got on the bus, or had the coffee, and Jews as Jews, but lets not get in the way of Eagleton’s art criticism –AJ ] There is a smack of avant garde theatre about this horrific act. In a social order that seems progressively more depthless, transparent, rationalised and instantly communicable, the brutal slaughter of the innocent, like some Dadaist happening…” And so on and so on. When Eagleton is not lecturing the left on the useful social role suicide bombers play in rescuing us from our depthless and instantly communicable social and aesthetic experience he is lecturing us on the need to embrace Aristotelian virtue ethics. You couldn’t make this stuff up.

(“I will vote and I'm not scared by Zarqawi. Every single Iraqi should vote. Zarqawi is not God. His people are acting just like the Ba'athists did and they are saying anyone who plays any part in the election will be executed”)

Sorry, but we haven’t really got started yet.

* Edward S Herman links the Afghan and Iraq elections in this way: ‘What makes these elections unfree is not so much the technical failures and fraud in the use of the electoral machinery, sometimes substantial, as the fact that each election is being imposed from without by a party with an axe to grind and does not come from indigenous sources. Its source is the needs of a superpower…’ Did you notice the election ‘does not come form indigenous sources’? That is it a mere ‘Theft-Rationalization Election’, nought but a mere ‘staged election in the rubble’. In fact even Alex Callinicos admits that “of course it’s true that the elections were forced onto Bush and Bremer by the mass protests that the Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called just under a year ago” (12 January 2005). Herman claims the resistance, however, is ‘a legitimate and understandable response to aggression’.

(“... a man in his early 50s, wearing an old blue jacket and a pair of torn brown trousers. His shirt is buttoned up and his grizzled hair laid flat on his head. Thick glasses rest on his nose. His hand is clutching a thick bundle of papers. "Vote for the People's Alliance," he says to people as he hands them the fliers.
..... A couple of children follow the man for a couple of blocks and every time he hands out a leaflet they run in front of him asking for more. "Do we have to vote for you if we take some of these?" asks one of the kids. "No, no," says the man, waving his hands. "It is up to you to choose who you vote for.")

* Writer Juan Cole predicted the Iraq elections would be ‘a disaster in the making’. (25 Sept 2004)

(“Even if there's a bomb in my polling place... I will go in it." "When people finally taste freedom, this country will turn around [.]" "It's the most important pillar in building a free country.")

* Corey Oakley in Socialist Alternative, an Australian socialist group, is clear enough on where she stands. “We can say this. The call by many of the leading resistance and political groups to boycott the elections are fully justified. The resistance is right to try to disrupt the elections, and right to continue its attacks on the US occupation rather than participate in an exercise designed to reassert faltering American control of Iraq… participation presupposes collaboration with the US occupation, something that the resistance has emphatically opposed”.

(“Some Baathist guy once came to our house and told my family we didn't have to go to the trouble of filling out our ballots - he'd do it for us," he said, referring to Mr. Hussein's party. "This time," Mr. Ali said, "I'm marking my own box.")

* A group of leading Quebec leftists has released a statement that the election has “nothing to do with democracy or the promotion of human rights. On the contrary, its purpose is to legitimate, in Iraq, the structures imposed by the American military occupation”. You can see how the anti-election left neatly gets you each way. While Felicity Arbutnot says the elections are a ‘farce’ because, amongst other things, there are not enough electoral observers the Quebec leftists think the Canadian election observers are a farce. Now that’s neat, you have to admit. While Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, has described his mission as an aid to the Iraqi people ('The participation of international actors in a country undergoing democratization or that wishes to consolidate its democratic foundations plays a fundamental role of legitimation at many levels.”) the Quebec leftists just grab the word ‘legitimation’, twist its meaning and pretend they have caught Kingsley in a confession. They tell us Kingley’s “fundamental role is to legitimate…the murderous invasion and occupation suffered by that country!"

(“Addressing a gathering of families who had lost their loved ones during the poison gas attacks, he [Barham Salih] proclaimed: "I am not a guest in Halabja. I am from Halabja, as all Kurds and all decent humane people around the world are from Halabja .....These elections could not be more serious. If we miss our chance now, we could miss our chance for another 80 years.")

* Perhaps, for getting it all ways up, we can’t beat Farooq Sulehria, a freelance journalist based in Sweden, who wrote, ‘The Iraq elections, no matter how fair and free, will remain a farce’. Note that, no matter how free and fair, the elections will be, despite that freedom and that fairness, just, still, a ‘farce’.

* Carsten Kofoed is the Spokesman of the Danish Committee for a Free Iraq. We need to dwell on Kofoed for a little while because he in being so candid he expresses the thinking of quite wide layers of the ‘anti-globalisation’ left. He is not just for “boycotting the election farce” (January 22, 2005). Also in his sights are the softies who appeal for participants in the election (election workers, party activists, voters) not to be murdered. This is an unacceptable concession to Imperialism/Empire. Wait, you’ll get it. Listen up. ‘Firstly, Allawi is participating in the election fraud, as he is running for “president”, and he is an Iraqi…Allawi, his regime and all the parties being a part of it, all these Quislings, who together with the occupiers bear the responsibility for all the crimes of the occupation, the killings, torture and destruction, traitors, who have just hailed the massacre on Fallujah [are] …all legitimate targets of the Iraqi resistance. Secondly, and as regards ordinary Iraqis, the resistance, being the flesh and blood of the Iraqi people, does not want to hurt any innocent Iraqi father, mother or child, which is exactly why the resistance has been warning all Iraqis not to participate in any way in the illegal sham elections. Trying to destroy the US election farce, which has the purpose of legitimizing the occupation by “electing” a new religiously and ethnically based US puppet regime and of driving Iraq further towards civil war, is an inherent part of the strategy of the resistance, just as it has been the objective of the resistance to smash the whole US-imposed “political process” in order to hinder the establishment of a stabile pro-US regime in Iraq, a goal that has been reached up until now”.

And what about the socialists and the free trade unionists? Does the Spokesman of the Danish Committee for a Free Iraq spare even these Iraqis? Well, you know the answer. Any appeal to spare would be ‘completely wrong and extremely dangerous, because they blur the line between patriots and collaborators in Iraq, between those who are in the camp of the resistance and those who are the lackeys of the occupation, which includes people claiming to be “Communists” and “trade unionists”’.

(“Registration lines are starting to get more like shopping lines. In Baghdad, the rates of registration have been inconsistant, but on my way back from work today I saw a good number of people at the local governmental office taking part in the registration process. This only means that people are losing their fear of the terrorists” This from Husayn at his Democracy in Iraq blog)

* The international network titled ‘the anti-imperialist camp’, after attacking ‘the faked elections in Iraq’ have organised a demonstration ‘in Support of the Iraqi Resistance’ in Porto Allegre on January 30.

* The Trotskyist ‘Fourth International’ claims the election is nothing but ‘a subsidiary pretext for the Bush administration in its drive to seize control of the crucially strategic area stretching from the Arab-Persian Gulf to Central Asia’ (Ashcar, Jan 05).

(“As is happening every day, [election] posters were being torn off and replaced quickly by similar ones or by posters with a new design”.)

* Socialist Worker in the USA thinks it has travelled back in time to 1916 and Zimmerwald. Sharon Smith, as Lenin, advises, ‘The antiwar movement must not lose sight of the fact that its main enemy is at home--any resistance to that enemy deserves our unconditional support…If we are waiting for the “ideologically pure” movement--assuming the unlikely scenario that all those opposed to the war could agree on one--we could be waiting forever.’ (Sharon Smith, Socialist Worker, US, January 25). Well, let’s just back the beheaders and socialist-torturers then.

* Romantic nonsense about the resistance is not confined to the US left (though the US left really does seem more than a few pages short of a full shooting script). In England, the Weekly Worker reported that at a public meeting in Sheffield on November 23 2004. ‘The Labour MP Alan Simpson…stated of Iraq: “If I was there, I would be in the resistance.”’ http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/555/stwc.htm. Alan Simpson denies he said this. Writing to clarify the WW claims he points out ‘My comments were roughly that "it is wrong of the press to describe the fighters as foreign militants. Most are now Iraqis who simply oppose the occupation of their country. It is not for us to tell Iraqis what they should do. They will make these decisions themselves. But we should understand their resistance. In similar circumstances, many of us would be involved in active resistance to a foreign power that took military occupation of our own country."’ (16 December 2004).

(“Iraq's first electoral debate was sponsored by Friends of Democracy in Samawa, Al Muthanna province. Our correspondent Kasem covered the event. The first two debaters were Mr. Mouhammad Al Zayadi from list No. 185 of the Al Mathna block and Mr. Hakem Khazal from list No. 118 of the middle Euphrates block”).

* George Galloway, leader of the Respect Coalition, interviewed by the BBC, said, “Actually, the Iraqi Resistance does not target its own civilians, but the people that are being fought by the Resistance in Iraq are the people who are working for the occupation (…) Our county in 1941 stood alone when the Americans were watching the war on newsreel. Hitler was at the Channel Ports and might have crossed. If he had crossed he might have occupied our country. If he had occupied our country there would have been a British Resistance. And no matter how hard up a family was the idea that they should join Hitler’s occupying police force and not become a target of us, the British Resistance, is preposterous.” His interlocutor, John Harris, asked, “Do you think there is a moral equivalence between Hitler’s Nazi occupation of Europe and the British and American Occupation of Iraq?”. Galloway replied, “…There is no difference at all.”.
(For an analysis of Galloway’s interview see ‘George Galloway’s Brechtian Solution for Iraq’ (http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk/archives/000181.html)

(“The city of Amara woke up today to find dozens of young volunteers from different parties sticking large posters on walls and shop windows. The last four days of the campaign are expected to witness an invasion of advertising material’)

* Walden Bello, a long standing Fellow of the Transnational Institute (TNI), has opposed attempts to question the resistance. “What western progressives forget is that national liberation movements are not asking them mainly for ideological or political support. What they really want from the outside is international pressure for the withdrawal of an illegitimate occupying power so that internal forces can have the space to forge a truly national government based on their unique processes. Until they give up this dream of having an ideal liberation movement tailored to their values and discourse, U.S. peace activists will, like the Democrats they often criticize, continue to be trapped within a paradigm of imposing terms for other people.”

However, on December 7 2004, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) placed Waldon Bello, along with other Filipino activists, on a death-list as "counter- revolutionaries". Some on the list have been shot. Of course Bello must be defended. But to do so we will have to reject his views about being ‘trapped within a paradigm of imposing terms for other people’. Indeed the Appeal Letter issued by Bello’s comrades begins ‘ASSASSINATION AND VIOLENCE HAVE NO ROLE IN CIVIL SOCIETY’. So it seems there are times when it is acceptable to push one’s own ‘values and discourse’.

(“Here is the Communist Party list, written on a wedding ring! There is list No.169, for the Unified Iraqi Coalition, plastering the walls with a new poster bearing the photo of Mr. Abdel Aziz al Hakim, and a second one with the photo of Mr. Mohamad Baker Al Sadr. Pink and green-colored pamphlets were also given out).

* Arundhati Roy, the novelist and activist, has argued that “It is absurd to condemn the resistance to the U.S. occupation in Iraq, as being masterminded by terrorists (…) Like most resistance movements, [the Iraqis] combine a motley range of assorted factions. Former Baathists, liberals, Islamists, fed-up collaborationists, communists…But if we were to only support pristine movements, then no resistance will be worthy of our purity. Before we prescribe how a pristine Iraqi resistance must conduct their secular, feminist, democratic, non-violent battle, we should shore up our end of the resistance by forcing the U.S. and its allied governments to withdraw from Iraq.” (Who are these ‘liberals’ in the insurgency? Communists, far from lining up with the former ba’athists and Islamists, are being tortured and shot).

(“Nobody wants History to repeat itself. Nobody wants to see a new Saddam addressing “the great people of Iraq” on television, while at the same time crushing and humiliating them. Iraqis will not accept being ruled by a man whose intentions and goals are obscure, or by a leader not chosen by them. The times of suspicious coups are over, and the eyes of the Iraqis will remain open to any attempt that might put Iraq in peril. Iraqis will bear their historical responsibility towards God and future generations. If not, eternal curse will fall upon them. The first step along this Holy road is elections”).

* Alex Callinicos, leader of the SWP, philosopher, revolutionary Marxist, author of many works about the leading role of the working class in the victory of international socialism from below, dismissed as a ‘hullabaloo’ the international trade union condemnation of the torture and killing of Hadi Saleh, international officer of the IFTU. After all, pointed out Callinicos, Hadi Saleh was “an Iraqi Communist Party leader who supports the occupation”. Oh, well, that’s alright then, and let’s hope his killers got the IFTU membership files, yes, Mr Callinicos?

(“The campaign platform for the Coalition of the Independent Sons of Missan, a group of independent professionals running for the Missan governate council [includes] Point 1-Serving the people of the governorate in cities and rural areas with total honesty, integrity and sincerity, without any discrimination based on class, tribe or confession”) .

Enough. Orwell’s point is made. The socialists really are the worst advertisement for socialism. Why has it come to this?

4. Another Left is Possible

Much of the left has backed itself into an incoherent and negativist ‘anti-imperialist’ corner. It has lost touch with democratic, egalitarian and humane values long-held on the democratic socialist left. This has come about because the ‘anti-imperialist’ left – guided by the likes of Callinicos - has reduced the complexity of the post-cold-war world to a single Great Contest: ‘Imperialism’ or ‘Empire’ versus ‘the resistance’ or ‘the multitude’. Today’s ‘anti-imperialist’ left is griped by the same manichean world-view and the same habits of mind that dominated mush of the left in the Stalinist period (from apologia to denial, from cynicism to grossly simplifying tendencies of thought, from the belief that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ to the abandonment of workers who get on the wrong side of the ‘anti-imperialists’). The consequence of this Manichaeism, in the Stalinist period and again today, is political and moral disorientation and a Grand Dumbing-Down of the left. At the extremes the ‘anti-imperialist’ left actually lends its support to vicious sub-imperialisms such as Milosevic and Saddam.

For the post Communist world cannot be reduced to a manichean struggle between “Imperialism” and “Anti-Imperialism.” There is no “anti-imperialist camp” in which the working class and the democrats merge their forces with General Galtieri, the Mullahs of Iran, the Serb chauvinism of Slobodan Milosevic, Ba’athists, or Islamic fundamentalist forces. The latter, especially, can indeed become a magnet for the poor and oppressed, as a reaction to Great Power imperialism, but so, in its day, could Stalinism. Socialists cancel themselves out if they support such forces. Politics involves more than just putting a plus sign where the U.S. State Department puts a negative, to paraphrase Trotsky.

If “anti-imperialism” is defined as whatever, at any given moment, is in conflict with the U.S., then one’s politics are defined negatively, but decisively, by the actions of the U.S. An independent democratic socialist judgement on events is impossible.

When John Pilger says the left ‘should not be choosy’ but should back the fascistic Iraqi ‘resistance’, we refuse. When the left says 9/11 was simply ‘blowback’ for the crimes of US imperialism, we refuse. When Michael Moore asks us to believe that pre-war Iraq was a country of happy kite-flying children, we refuse. When Michael Moore writes ‘there is not terrorist threat, repeat after me, THERE IS NO TERRORIST THREAT’, we refuse. When a warm welcome is extended by the ‘left-wing’ Major of London, Ken Livingstone, to the Fundamentalist cleric, Dr Al-Qaradawi, an anti-semite, and a proponent of the killing of homosexuals and wife-beating, we refuse. When the left fails to rouse itself to oppose Crimes against Humanity in the Balkans, or in Zimbabwe, or in the Sudan, or in North Korea, because to oppose ‘the resistance’ of Slobodan Milosevic or Robert Mugabe or Kim Il Sung is to support ‘imperialism’, we refuse. When the left apologises for the suicide bombers who blow up Jews in coffee bars in Tel Aviv on the grounds that the ‘resistance’ must be supported, and the ‘Zionists’ opposed, we refuse (even as we seek a secure Palestinian state). And when a leader of the Stop the War Movement (and the SWP) John Rees, argues that ‘Socialists should unconditionally stand with the oppressed against the oppressor, even if the people who run the oppressed country are undemocratic and persecute minorities, like Saddam Hussein’, we say enough is enough.

The decent left will emerge as a political force by turning each negative refusal into a positive policy and campaign. For each refusal of ours does carry a positive charge: pro-human rights above all, pro-international solidarity with the victims of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity, pro-worker, pro-feminism, pro-gay rights, pro-democracy, pro-liberty, pro-social justice. A decent left politics in the post-cold war world will define itself positively as the pursuit of these values and not as a negative coalition of ‘antis’. On such values we can build a culture not just a political movement.

We remain partisans and artisans of the great reforming project of Kant and Marx.

Democracy is impossible in Iraq while the country is occupied. We work for a speedy withdrawal of US and UK troops through the political process, as Robin Cook outlined in a thoughtful article in today’s Guardian.

But – and it is not always clear Cook understand this point or feels the need to act urgently on it - there are many fights to wage now in order to achieve that withdrawal in a way that strengthens the forces of democratic and progressive Iraq and not the theocratic or secular authoritarianisms. For security. For an economy that serves the people of Iraq and has social justice not private profit at its core. For women’s rights against the Islamist militias issuing Fatwas in the south. For jobs, and for labour rights. For an international reconstruction that would deserve the name Marshal Plan for Iraq. For freedoms of speech and association. For the right to vote.

The polls open in a few hours. I do not think we will not be talking about a ‘farce’ when they close. The anti-election left will be proved wrong. And we will be reminded of these lines from Euripedes, ‘Those self-important fathers of their country / Think they’re above the people. Why they’re nothing! The citizen is infinitely wiser’ Rooted in that wisdom a decent left can grow

Alan Johnson

Iraqi trade union leader kidnapped: please publicise

We feared that something like this would happen. The so-called resistance is attacking the leadership of the emerging labour movement in Iraq and seeks to intimidate all workers. This brutal attack is just the latest in a long line that all labour movement organisations should condemn without delay. We all hope that Talib will be released. If you wish to send messages of support email abdullahmuhsin@iraqitradeunions.org.

Gary Kent, Director LFIQ

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) denounced yesterday further attacks on one of its key leading elected officials. At 9:30am on Thursday 27 January 2005 a group of six gunmen using two cars broke into the main building of the Carton Board Manufacturing Company in Al Zafarania District
of Baghdad and kidnapped Mr. Talib Khadim Al Tayee, President of the Iraqi
Mechanics, Metalworkers & Printworkers Union (IMM&PU), after attacking
him violently in front of workers.

Mr Talib Khadim was on union business with workers of the company when the gunmen attacked him, hitting him repeatedly on the head using the butts of their guns. They tied his hands and legs and kidnapped him, taking him to
an unknown location. All this happened in front of workers, after locking away the company security guards in an office.

Mr Talib Khadim lives in Al Zafarania district. He is very well known there as a good community activist and a champion of workers' rights. Mr Talib is a brave patriotic Iraqi who put himself forward and was elected as President of the IMM&PU at the union's first open Conference on 31 May 2004 in Baghdad.

This latest criminal act, which targets trade union leaders and especially leading figures of the IFTU, was instigated by extremists who want to stop Iraq moving forward to embrace a new politics of tolerance, peace and democracy.

This criminal act is closely linked in its methods and its intentions to the recent brutal assassination of Hadi Saleh, the IFTU International Secretary.

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) declares that this criminal attack will not intimidate our workers' federation continuing its struggle to build an independent, democratic and open trade union movement.

The IFTU Executive Committee condemned the attack on a trade union official, declaring: "Disgrace and shame on the terrorists! Glory to the Iraqi working class!" and demanded the release of Talib Khadim and an end to terrorism against those brave patriotic working class fighters who are working to organise Iraqi workers.

The IFTU calls on all legal and labour movement bodies to urgently use all their means to demand the release of Talib Khadim our comrade.

Iraqi elections – Simon Pottinger spots something unusual near Manchester

Those who know it will agree that the drag from central Manchester towards Oldham to meet the motorway network is indeed nondescript. Taking this route on a grey January morning following a dull meeting makes it no better. Your focus is on stopping at the fewest possible number of traffic lights and little more.

Following some unexpected congestion this morning I came across a building I’ve passed many times without really noticing what it’s was. Today it was surrounded by the kind of temporary fencing often used to protect building sites behind which the car park was filled with modern marquees. Equally spaced along these barriers were white placards covered in Arabic. The congestion it became apparent was due to cars being waved out of the site by the police, and two coaches which were parked in the bus lane. The pavement was likewise blocked but by a large group of men.

Slowly but suddenly it dawned on me that this was an “out of country” polling station for the Iraqi elections. It was one of those breathless, heart stopping moments of shock and elation uncommon enough in normal life but almost never experienced by a British leftie of a certain age. This was as uplifting an experience as I have had in 25 years of political activity – and this impact upon someone who opposed the war.

Abdullah Muhsin argues that the elections in Iraq are essential to avoid a brutal assault by reactionary forces.

As the date for the Iraqi elections approaches, violence and terror are on the increase. The poll on January 30 will make or break Iraq. I say this with deep anxiety. I shall explain why.

Iraqis currently have only two choices, no more. I shall briefly outline the two choices and explain why, in reality, only one of these choices gives any hope for progress, democracy and rule of law.

The first choice is to embrace the UN-sanctioned political process and use the election, no matter how flawed and limited it is, as a means of allowing the people of Iraq to exercise direct power through the electoral system, based on a form of proportional representation.

This is the first time that Iraqis have been given the right to vote on their representatives since the UN legitimised the occupation nearly two years ago in security council resolution 1483.

Iraqis will be given the right to choose with relative freedom, against a backdrop of limited freedom, a 275-member-strong national assembly, which will become the transitional legislative body that will govern Iraq for a short period of no more than one year.

It will have one overriding responsibility - to draft a permanent secular constitution to be adopted by Iraqis through an open referendum by no later than October this year, as sanctioned by UN resolution 1546.

The consitution, if endorsed, would lead to a general election and certainly end the occupation, regain full sovereignty and take Iraq on the road to a representative parliamentary democracy that will, hopefully, bring stability, peace and prosperity.

It will ensure a united and federal Iraq, guarantee religious freedom, advance public service and cement the virtues of citizenship based on respect for the human rights of Iraq's different nationalities and religions.

Elections certainly offer the best hope of a secure Iraq and will legitimise the current UN-sanctioned political process, which is aimed at producing a national sovereign transitional assembly and a government mandated by the people.

This view rests its legitimacy on international law - UN resolutions 1483, 1511 and 1546 - and the engagement of the majority of Iraqis and their key political parties across Iraq.

Surely Iraqis, after all their struggles and sacrifices, have won the right to hold elections.

The election must be allowed to go ahead. Iraq's key political forces, the UN and the international community want the election to go ahead and succeed and, above all, a majority of Iraqis want to see the election succeed.

The world community must recognise this and help Iraqis to make this happen by ensuring that extremists are prevented from allowing the country to slide into social strife and, possibly, civil war - for civil war is what they are working to achieve.

Democracy is the only way to silence the extremists, terrorists and Saddam loyalists. It is the only way to hold Iraq together and give hope to millions of Iraqis who yearn for decent jobs, peace and prosperity.

The majority of Iraqis opposed the war and occupation, but, nevertheless, are jubilant at witnessing the end of Saddam's nightmare.

Iraqis have had enough of absolute truth and a political ideology which has brought them nothing but genocidal internal wars and external wars of aggression, bringing with them destruction, mass graves, hardship and sanctions.

They wish to embrace new politics of pluralism, human rights and social justice with a strong sense of community within a unified and federal Iraq.

But Iraqis once more have to brace themselves for a tough week amid the chaos of the suicide bombers and the inability of both Iraq's interim government and the occupation authority to provide adequate security for people to carry on with their daily routines.

Iraqis have no choice but to go to voting stations and silence the anti-democratic forces. This is not a desperate call, but a realistic stand.

Ultra-fundamentalist leader al-Zarqawi said recently: "We have declared war on those who support the principles of democracy."

Democracy is not given freely, but won, and to achieve it we shall walk, with heads held high, looking straight into the eyes of the enemies of democracy.

The second choice facing Iraqis is to boycott the election and embrace outright armed struggle to end the military occupation of Iraq.

According to those pressing for this view, the election is a ploy that will legitimise the US invasion and occupation and further entrench the imperialists' strategy in Iraq and the wider Middle East.

It will not produce a legitimate democratic government, it is argued, but will result in a puppet regime that will enable the US to build permanent military bases across Iraq.

But this argument ignores the fact that the forces pushing for violent engagement are composed of extreme reactionary fanatics.

They are mainly ultra-fundamentalist in nature, such as al-Zarqawi, who makes no distinction between innocent civilians, both Iraqis and foreign workers, and foreign armies. Such fundamentalist groups seek to establish a Taliban-style regime.

Other groups are composed of Saddam loyalists. These represent an extreme form of nationalism with a dark and violent history drenched in the blood of thousands of Iraqi democrats - communists, trade unionists, progressives and women activists.

Saddam loyalists now pretend to be some sort of national liberation movement. Their false claims have been given credence by some ultra-left sectarian apologists, both in the West and across the globe.

In reality, this extreme nationalism is the same force that willingly served the imperialists' agenda and fought on their behalf in Iraq and elsewhere in the region during the second half of the 20th century.

These forces are not fighting for the sake of Iraqi integrity and sovereignty, but to secure their return to ultimate political power.

They are ready to sell Iraq again to further this end and resume the dark days of dictatorship and brutality.

Given the vivid history of this monstrous ideology, it is hard to stomach the open support provided to such forces by armchair revolutionaries in the West masquerading as anti-imperialists, who display their ethnocentric ignorance by championing a false battle fought with somebody else's blood.

This is a dangerous strand of thought, clad neatly in a real cultural imperialist coat - "listen to us, we know better." And if it just so happens that you dare to question or disagree with their mode of thinking, then ready-made labels are immediately available to be used against you - labels such "quisling," "collaborator" and many more.

This extreme argument rests its logic on the basis that the forthcoming election will be divisive, that it could lead to civil war and that it is nothing but an imperialist plot to legitimise the authority of the imperialists' puppet regime in Baghdad so as to plunder Iraq's natural wealth.

Such a view has neither a popular base nor international endorsement.

However, it draws support from extreme nationalism - Saddam loyalists and Islamist fanatics and disenfranchised hard-left fanatics so detached from reality that they can only survive on empty slogans.

They are opposing the election and are seeking to embrace "armed struggle," proclaiming the notion of national liberation against the occupation and against those who they see as collaborationists, though they conveniently wish to forget that they are the cause of the occupation and bloodshed.

How strange it is that such erstwhile "liberators" failed to defend Iraq against the invasion and ran away in April 2003 from the very same forces that they now claim to oppose.

"Collaborationist" is a term that gives them fake legitimacy to massacre many innocent Iraqis civilians in exactly the same way that they used to kill when in power.

By definition, it implies that the majority of Iraqis are the legitimate target of this resistance. Nothing has changed.

This "resistance" is no French Maquis, nor is it like the Vietnamese national liberation movement. It is composed mainly of shadowy forces operating in the dark has no support from the people of Iraq and is feared and despised by Iraqis.

Everybody knows what kind of regime al-Zarqawi and Saddam loyalists are seeking to create in Iraq. Neither has an open social and political programme, but both would be dictatorships - the former of the fundamentalist variety, the other secular.

None of these forces can offer any hope to Iraqis. They should not be allowed to gain ground. Iraqis deserve better than this - the election must go ahead.

This orginally appeared in the Morning Star on 27th January and is published with the author's permission

Labour MPs unite to condemn "resistance" attacks on Iraqi trade unions

Labour MPs Harry Barnes, Tony Lloyd, John Mann, Mike Gapes, Clive Betts, Bill Tynan and Chris Mole have today tabled this Commons motion deploring attacks on trade unionists in Iraq. The numbers of supporters will grow in the next week or so.

That this House condemns the recent brutal torture and murder of Hadi Saleh, International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), by Saddam loyalists in the so-called Iraqi resistance; further condemns the torture and murder of four IFTU members when their train was attacked by mortar fire between Mosul and Baghdad, the kidnap of two train drivers, Salah Mehdi Taher and Salih Chiyehchan Harbi and the severe beating of five rail workers, Abd' al-Emir Abd'al-Malik, Mustapha Kamel Mehdi, Amer Shamaan Amer, Ali Abd' al-Radh and Basil Abd' Ouwd, who have been left in a life-threatening condition, the mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack on the headquarters of the Transport and Communication Workers' Union, and two failed assassination attempts on Nozad Ismail, the President of the IFTU in Kirkuk; expresses its support and admiration for the rail workers of Basra, members of the IFTU, who condemn the "criminals, terrorists and brigands' who are murdering trade unionists in Iraq and who have been taking strike action against the terrorists since the beginning of the year, demanding adequate security protection on all land transport and the safe return of their kidnapped colleagues; and pledges full support to the TUC Aid Iraq Appeal raising money for Iraqi trade unionists to rebuild a free and independent trade union movement, and strengthen civil society in Iraq.

The unity of humanity and the crimes against it

Esteemed blogger Norman Geras writes on the lessons of Holocaust Memorial Day and Iraq

Today is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It is a day on which people throughout the world are remembering the crimes committed by the Nazis and their collaborators against the Jewish people and millions of others in Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Both the nature and the scale of these crimes continue to beggar belief. However much one knows about them, reading or hearing or seeing again an account, or presentation, or film, of some part of that experience invariably reveals some freshly appalling aspect of it, some new detail of Nazi barbarity that leaves one aghast.

Naturally, a main purpose of publicly marking this period of twentieth century European history is to remember its victims: Jews the most hated and most relentlessly pursued and targeted, but also Roma and Sinti, Poles, Russians, as well as others from virtually all the countries of Europe - and amongst them Jehovah's Witnesses, the disabled and the
mentally ill, gay people, Communists, Social Democrats, resistance fighters, more.

However, another crucial purpose of the commemoration is to emphasize the unity of humankind: in its shared needs and nature, its commonality of suffering and its fundamental rights to a life free from fear, from wanton assault, murder, arbitrary imprisonment, hunger and other grave but preventable or remediable misfortunes.

The flow of victims did not end in 1945. New chapters have been added to the book of the dead. One of the longest and darkest of these chapters in recent times has been the agony endured by the peoples of Iraq: a story of daily, all-enveloping fear, of the most brutal tortures, of people broken or destroyed in the presence of those they loved, of 'disappearances', of mass murder. Just like the unity of humanity, the unity of such crimes against humanity is self-evident.

All the elements of what Iraqis have had to suffer share a lineage with the crimes of German National Socialism. The victims of Saddam Hussein's regime need especially to be remembered today. Fierce political divisions over the war in Iraq may have had the effect

of obscuring them from view. But across the legitimate differences of political and moral judgement about that war, holding those victims within public memory is now one of the duties of solidarity with the peoples of Iraq as they struggle for transition towards a better, democratic life.

Prospects for Arab Democracy

The veteran Guardian writer David Hirst has an incisive article in today’s Guardian on Shia-Sunni relations in the Middle East. It quotes Lebanese commentator Joseph Samaha as saying that, "The danger to certain Arab governments is the democratic 'weapon of mass destruction' that could destroy the structure of tyranny and backwardness that weighs heavily upon the chests of their peoples."

Response to Alice Mahon MP

Labour MP Alice Mahon told the Commons the other day that "A support group has grown up around the Prime Minister, and it has singled out trade unionists as victims, which does the anti-war movement no good."

This follows on from the Chair of the Stop the War Coalition (STWC), Andrew Murray's criticism of LFIQ that "This is a group established to campaign in support of Blair's strategy and against the Stop the War Coalition."

We are certainly a support group but we exist to support Grassroots Iraq and not any individual politician.

As a labour movement organisation we certainly single out Iraqi free unions for support and see no need to apologise for this. We have highlighted a wave of attacks by the "resistance" on trade unions because we think that this signals a concerted attempt to physically liquidate the leadership of the emerging Iraqi labour movement.

Alice added that [this] "does the anti-war movement no good at all." The way it is phrased, or recorded, makes it unclear what she refers to but it is not our responsibility if the antics of the Stop the War leadership (detailed elsewhere on this web site) harm the anti-war movement.

Iraq is now the hinge of our time. A success for the current political process can see the withdrawal of foreign troops and a decent Arab democracy. This could then have enormous progressive benefits for the rest of the Middle East, contributing to a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. This could, in turn, marginalise that extremist minority in Islam which opposes democratic reform.

Gary Kent

US Left statement opposing attacks on Iraqi trade unions

LFIQ does not endorse all the views expressed in this statement from the New York based Campaign for Peace and Democracy but we welcome the clear message of opposition to Hadi's killers from the heart of the US left (AJ)

The following statement is being circulated by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy (CPD) in response to the murder of Hadi Salih and attacks on other Iraqi trade unionists. CPD has a long history of supporting democratic rights, including workers’ rights, everywhere. During the Cold War, it campaigned on behalf of both dissidents within the Soviet bloc and popular forces struggling against U.S. imperial power and its clients in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere.

Since the first Gulf War, the Campaign stood in opposition both to U.S. aggression against Iraq and to the bloody regime of Saddam Hussein. Since the recent war and the occupation of Iraq, CPD has been part of the antiwar movement in the United States, calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. At the same time, the Campaign has argued against the position, held by many antiwar activists, that it is necessary to give indiscriminate support to all the elements in the Iraqi resistance, including those authoritarian and oppressive military groups masquerading as liberation forces. CPD is committed to a democratic Iraq and sees the struggle against the U.S. occupation as part and parcel of a democratic solution to that country’s long martyrdom.

The Campaign for Peace and Democracy believes that trade unions are a critical, central element in the fight for a decent and democratic Iraq, and it has just launched a campaign to condemn attacks on Iraqi trade unionists, including but not limited to the assassination of Hadi Salih. The text of the statement is below.

Circulation of the statement began only on January 23, and already more than 450 people have signed, including Stanley Aronowitz, Medea Benjamin, Norman Birnbaum, Eileen Boris, Marc Cooper, Richard Deats, Daniel Ellsberg, Barry Finger, Barbara Garson, Jill Godmilow, Gary Groth, Mina Hamilton, Thomas Harrison, Doug Henwood, Adam Hochschild, Doug Ireland, Joanne Landy, Hany Khalil, Jesse Lemisch, Nelson Lichtenstein, Betty Reid Mandell, Marvin Mandell, David McReynolds, Timothy Mitchell, David Oakford, Mike Parker, Glenn Perusek, Katha Pollitt, Nancy Romer, Matthew Rothschild, Jennifer Scarlott, Lynne Schwartz, Sunil Sharma, Adam Shatz, Alan Sokal, Chris Toensing, Jay Schaffner, Juanita Webster, Immanuel Wallerstein and Naomi Weisstein. (Affiliations and identifications of these and the other signatories can be found on the Campaign for Peace and Democracy website, www.cpdweb.org, where individuals from the U.S. and around the world are invited to add their names.)

----Joanne Landy, Thomas Harrison, Jennifer Scarlott, Co-Directors, CPD

CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY STATEMENT
OPPONENTS OF THE OCCUPATION CONDEMN ATTACKS ON IRAQI TRADE UNIONISTS

We, who opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq and who call for an immediate end to the occupation of that country, are appalled by the torture and assassination in Baghdad on January 4, 2005 of Hadi Salih, International Officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). There are also disturbing reports of intimidation, death threats and murders targeting other IFTU members, trade unionists in general, and political activists.

We utterly condemn the assassination of Hadi Salih. We call upon all sides in the conflict in Iraq to respect the rights of non-combatants as required by international law and to recognize the rights of workers to organize freely, without threat or harm, in trade unions of their own choosing in accordance with International Labor Organization (ILO) standards.

We believe that the physical targeting of trade unionists is in no way politically or morally acceptable, even though we disagree strongly with the IFTU's support of UN Resolution 1546, which supports the U.S. military presence in Iraq. This resolution has been used by the Bush Administration to justify keeping U.S. troops in the country.

We also oppose the victory of those elements of the resistance whose agenda is to impose a repressive, authoritarian regime on the Iraqi people, whether that regime is Baathist or theocratic-fundamentalist. We do not know whether such authoritarian elements have gained decisive control over the resistance to the U.S. forces and their Iraqi and international allies. We do know, however, that the continuing occupation of Iraq, which grows more brutal with every passing day, only strengthens these elements, increases their influence over the resistance and makes their ultimate victory more likely.

We further oppose the occupation because it is part and parcel of an imperial U.S. foreign policy that shores up undemocratic regimes like those of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, gives one-sided support to Israel against the Palestinians, and promotes unjust, inequitable economic policies throughout the world. Not only in Iraq but throughout the Middle East and globally U.S. foreign and military policy either directly or indirectly subverts freedom and democracy.

For further information about the issue, please contact us at cpd@igc.org

To add your name or see the full list of signers, please go to www.cpdweb.org

The murder of Hadi Saleh – why are you silent? An open letter to the leaders of the Stop the War Coalition.

We invite anyone who supports the views expressed in this Open Letter, whatever political party they support, to sign it - email us at info@labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk Signatories so far.

Harry Barnes MP, Peter Tatchell, Professor Sir Bernard Crick, Huw Lewis AM (Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney), Meg Munn MP, Wayne David MP, David Aaronovitch, Jeff Cuthbert AM (National Assembly for Wales), Branka Magas, Quintin Hoare, Norman Geras, Chris Bertram (Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, personal capacity) Kawa Besarani (Iraqi political activist), Leighton Andrews AM (Assembly Member for the Rhondda, Aelod Cynulliad dros y Rhondda) John Mann MP, Dennis Bates (Barnsley Central CLP), Professor Robert Fine (Chair of the Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, personal capacity), David Hirsh (Sociology Department, Goldsmiths College, personal capacity), James Doyle (Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Bristol, personal capacity) Ray Kiely (anti-war activist and Senior Lecturer in Development Studies, SOAS, personal capacity, Councillor Christopher Binding (Rhondda Cynon Taff County Borough Council Labour - Penrhiwceiber, Miskin and Perthcelyn), Lynn Ferguson (NATFHE, personal capacity)Alan Johnson (South Lakeland Stop the War, Research Officer of Labour Friends of Iraq, NATFHE),Jane Ashworth (Chair, Labour Friends of Iraq, Reading East Labour Party, PCS), Gary Kent (Director, Labour Friends of Iraq, also personal capacity TGWU/NUJ), Martin Pagell (Labour Councillor, Manchester City Council), Simon Pottinger (Middlesbrough and East Cleveland Labour Party), David Harry, Dr Jeremy Stangroom (The Philosophers' Magazine, www.philosophers.co.uk), Councillor Clive Furness (London Borough of Newham), Ben Harris, Barry Winter (ILP, North East Leeds CLP, NATFHE personal capacity), Clive Bradley (anti-war activist), Nigel Bunyan, John O'Farrell, Belfast (personal capacity, NUJ), Nick Cohen (writer), Phil Dore (LFIQ and Cardiff North CLP), David Boothroyd (Labour Councillor for Westbourne Ward, Westminster City Council), Debbie Williams (South Lakeland Stop the War, TGWU personal capacity) Sacha Zarb (PCS and Greenwich Labour Party), Dan Paskins (Labour Councillor, Oxford), Paul Anderson. Nathan Yeowell (Battersea CLP), David Toube, K M Tyrie (Community and Public Service Union, CPSU personal capacity), Chris Martin, Stephen Marks (Oxford East CLP), Rich Watts, James Kettle (Westminster & City CLP), John Medhurst (PCS personal capacity), Declan McVeigh (NUJ, London - personal capacity), Graham Lloyd, Kevin Sturr (Regional Food for Peace Officer, USAID Senegal), William Brown (ILP, Sheffield Central CLP - personal capacity) Anthony Cox (AMICUS member), Oliver Kershaw, Cllr Andrew Brown (Blackheath Ward, London Borough of Lewisham), Eric Lee, Bert Ward (Middlesbrough),Councillor Gareth Davies (Blyth Valley Borough Council, Chair. Cramlington West Branch, Blyth Valley CLP), Richard Sanderson (Labour Party member, Lee Ward - Lewisham CLP), Antonia Bance (Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Oxford West and Abingdon), Ophelia Benson (www.butterfliesandwheels.com), Nick Brereton (anti-war activist and socialist, Newcastle), David Grant (Teacher of History/Modern Studies, Glasgow), Dr Conrad Russell (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Leeds Metropolitan University, personal capacity), Christine A.Howell (member Reading East CLP), Joe Baxter (Edinburgh Iraqi Solidarity Activist), David Mapstone, Anthony Hutchison (PCS member), Douglas Rogers (writer), John Erskine (Leeds North West CLP, Unison, Personal capacity), Harry Goldstein (Labour Party member), Bryan Harvey (Victoria B.C. Canada), Robert Jubb, Pauline Bradley (Haringey Unison Social Services Convenor, Haringey TUC and Tottenham Green CLP), Christine Titmus (Christian peace campaigner), Mick Lawlor (Lay Activist T & G).

Text of the letter

“The StWC reaffirms its call for an end to the occupation, the return of all British troops in Iraq to this country and recognises once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessary, to secure such ends”. Statement issued by the officers of the Stop the war Coalition, signed by Lindsey German, Convenor, and Andrew Murray, Chair of the StWC.

“Right now, the STWC supports “the resistance” in Iraq by any means necessary – a tacit endorsement of the suicide bombing, hostage-taking and execution of innocent civilians, including brave, selfless aid workers, election supervisors and ordinary Iraqis on their way to school and work. The STWC justifies this carnage in the name of “national liberation” (sic). Motivated more by hatred of the US and British governments than by love for the Iraqi people, many so-called leftists support a “resistance” that, if victorious, would bring to power Baathists, Islamic fundamentalists and pro-al-Qaeda militants. Is that what the left now stands for? Neo-fascism, so long as it is anti-western?” Peter Tatchell, ‘The Left’s Retreat from Universal Human Rights’, December 18 2004

The murder of Hadi Saleh and the silence of the Stop the War Coalition Leaders

The torture and murder of Hadi Saleh, International Officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions on January 4 was part of a wave of attacks on Iraqi trade unionists by the ‘resistance’. Make no mistake about it, the ‘resistance’ are pursuing a campaign of physical eradication of leaders of the Iraqi left and Iraqi democrats. The death of Hadi Saleh is the latest of a number of actual and attempted political assassinations which have been condemned by the international left and labour movement. The exception has been the Stop the War Coalition which has remained effectively silent on Hadi’s brutal murder.

The international left and labour movement has spoken with one voice – global and unequivocal – to say that Hadi Saleh was a courageous socialist and trade unionist brutally murdered by the ‘resistance’, enemies of democracy and the working class. He was our comrade, they are our enemies. Letters condemning the killing and supporting the IFTU have poured in. This list is only a partial one.
• The Trades Union Congress (TUC)
• The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
• The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (UK)
• The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers – RMT (UK)
• The AFL-CIO
• The Canadian Labour Congress
• United States Labour Against the War (USLAW)
• The International Transport Federation (ITF)
• The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF)
• The All Pakistan United Federation of Trade Unions
• Confederazione Generale Italiana Del Lavoro (CGIL)
• The Federation of Workers Councils and Unions of Iraq (FWCUI)

The key exception to this united front of solidarity has been the begrudging utterances from you at the Stop the War (StWC) Coalition. It is indisputable that your Coalition is a significant umbrella organisation for socialists and trade unionists in the UK. It also contains many of the lefts most powerful and oft heard writers and broadcasters. So why are you all but mute on such a significant and terrifying development? We imagine that many of your membership are asking the same question.

Here is what Andrew Murray, the StWC Chair wrote on Independent journalist Johann Hari’s own website, hidden away in a ‘comments’ section. This is the only comment from StWC leaders on the murders - one line, in one post, on one blog, while writing about another topic - ‘We condemn this killing and its perpetrators, whoever they are.’ That’s it.

With this sentence Murray reveals his political dilemma. On the one hand he is unable to clearly condemn the 'resistance' and their practice of political assassination. To do so would contradict his expressed support for the ‘resistance’ to oppose the occupation, 'by any means they find necessary’. On the other hand he dare not come out in support of the murderers or reiterate his 'by any means they find necessary’ position because the backlash would surely split the StWC. Not knowing which way to turn, Murray tries to take cover behind the pseudo-sophistication of the commentator who pretends he knows too much to go with the widespread knowledge that the 'resistance' are to blame. But no amount of 'whoever they are' will get him off the hook.

We know who did the killing, so do the IFTU, and so does Murray. The ‘resistance’ that Murray defends killed these trade unionists and will continue their campaign of political assassinations until we democrats and socialists can build a movement strong enough to help defend our Iraqi comrades. In these circumstances, when what we need is a clarion call from the leadership of the StWC to all its supporters to stand shoulder to shoulder with the IFTU against the ‘resistance’ it may have been better for Murray to have maintained an Omerta.

The Stop the War leaders have ignored the warnings of Mick Rix

The murder of Hadi Saleh demands the most serious political and moral accounting by every member of StWC leadership. For the StWC leaders were warned months ago. The ex-Aslef leader, Mick Rix, when he resigned from the Stop the War Coalition Steering Committee in October 2004, commented on the “deliberate, archaic, violent, and plain downright stupid” language the StWC leaders used when describing Hadi’s organisation. The IFTU had been called ‘collaborators’ by the StWC officers, ‘quislings’ by leading StWC member George Galloway MP (comments picked up and published in the Arab Press), and a ‘fake’ union by the newspaper of Lindsey German, the Convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, Socialist Worker.

Mick Rix argued presciently that these irresponsible statements by StWC leaders had “placed these good trade unionists and socialists at a terrible risk”.

The Stop the War leaders have romanticised the ‘Resistance’

StWC leaders view the “resistance” as a legitimate national liberation movement. StWC leaders view as ‘collaborators’ the IFTU, all election workers, and all democratic parties participating in the January elections, whether Iraqi Communists, Kurdish Parties or Shia.

This view is quite wrong. The leaders of the ‘resistance’ are an amalgam of Baathists, Islamic fundamentalists, pro-al-Qaeda militants and criminals. There is nothing progressive about their political programmes. If they were ever to take state power then it would be a disaster for every worker, woman, lesbian and gay, Christian, Jew and democrat who would be left in Iraq. There would be years of unbridled reaction.

The UN-backed elections draw near. These elections are supported by the vast majority of Iraqis, 75% of whom expressed a ‘strong intention’ to vote. The vast majority of Iraqis have decided the UN backed political process offers their best chance to win sovereignty and democracy. In response the ‘resistance’ have targeted democrats, election workers, socialists, trade unionists, the leaders of the Shia, the Kurds and the Communists, and the schools that will function as polling booths.

Details of political assassinations and attacks conducted by ‘the resistance’ against Iraqi Trade Unionists

* 27/28 October 2003

The resistance tortured and murdered 4 IFTU members when their train was attacked by mortar fire on the railway line between Mosul and Baghdad. The 2 train drivers, a train controller (guard) and a security guard working for Iraqi Railways (IRR) were killed and their bodies mutilated and burnt by terrorists. The freight train that was attacked was reported to have been carrying consumer goods. The leaders of four important British trade unions organising workers in the transport sector, joined Andy Gilchrist, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union in sending messages of support and sympathy to the families of the murdered Iraqi railworkers. They pledged to support the IFTU in the struggle to rebuild independent trade unionism in Iraq. Kevin Curran, GMB General Secretary, Tony Woodley, T&GWU General Secretary, Keith Norman, ASLE&F Acting General Secretary and Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary all wrote messages of solidarity to the IFTU.

13 November 2004

The ‘Resistance’ murdered the Iraqi Communist Party leader Wadhah Hassan Abdul Amir (Saadoun), a member of the Interim National Assembly, along with two of his comrades, while travelling from Baghdad to Kirkuk.

* 25 December 2004

The ‘Resistance’ attack a freight train travelling from Basra to An-Nasiriyyah and kidnap the two train drivers, Salah Mehdi Taher and Salih Chiyehchan Harbi. The other five workers on the train were severely beaten and left in a life-threatening condition, Abd’ al-Emir Abd’al-Malik, Mustapha Kamel Mehdi, Amer Shamaan Amer, Ali Abd’al-Radh and Basil Abd’ Ouwd.

* 26/27 December 2004

The ‘Resistance’ launch an RPG attack on the headquarters of the Transport & Communication Workers’ Union. The ‘resistance’ shelled the building with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars which caused a large whole in the wall of the building and a crater in the ground. Luckily there were no fatalities.

January 4 2005

The ‘Resistance’ tortured and murdered Hadi Salih, International Officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. He was tied and blindfolded and severely tortured before being forced to kneel and strangled by electric cord. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) has said "This vicious murder is nothing less than an attack on the right of Iraqi workers to trade union representation. It is aimed at destabilising and undermining the development of trade unions as cornerstones of development and respect for human rights" (ICFTU General Secretary Guy Ryder).

* Ongoing threat to Nozad Ismail, IFTU leader in Kirkuk

A trade union leader, 40 year old Nozad Ismail, the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk, has already survived two assassination attempts by the ‘resistance’ and receives death threats.

* Ongoing attacks on Election workers

The ‘resistance’ have killed 17 election officers, nine would-be candidates, and bombed schools that are to act as Polling Stations

* Ongoing attacks on the FWCUI

The ‘resistance’ has also attacked the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI). Although the FCWUI and IFTU seriously disagree on many things, they share a view of the ‘resistance’ and have condemned the murder of Hadi Saleh in these terms: “Assassination is tradition by those political groups who have no any connection with Iraqi people and they are trying to implement their policies through threats, assassination persecution and physical eradication. (…) We condemn strongly this reactionary antihuman action which directed against any human aspect of Iraqi people. We declare in order to guarantee a peaceful and secure live for Iraqi people and to eliminate the current insecure and chaotic situation and scenario of assassination, terror and persecution in Iraq, are only possible through strengthening the progressive front of civil people in Iraq to end the occupation in Iraq and to eliminate the terrorism of political Islam and loyalists of Baath regime”.

These ‘resistance’ activities show that, while desperate individuals have certainly become involved, the ‘resistance’ is at its political core a Ba’athist and radical Islamist insurgency organised against the vast majority of Iraqi people, against the self-determination of the Iraqi people, and against the democratic process. The ‘resistance’ is not a national liberation movement in any sense.

Stop the War leaders must answer these questions

Was Hadi Saleh, despite his 5 years in detention under Saddam, his subsequent exile, and his heroic work in building the underground Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement and the IFTU, a “quisling” and a “collaborator”. We doubt the decent people who are the STWC members think he was.

Were StWC wrong to have referred to Hadi’s comrade, Abdullah Mushin as a ‘collaborator’? Do you now unreservedly retract these words? Will you release a public statement to this effect? We are sure, if only out of political expediency and with hindsight, you wish you had not used this language. Now is the time to put pride aside and make the difficult but brave decision to correct this mistake.

Do StWC condemn unequivocally the ‘resistance’ for its brutal slaying of Hadi Saleh?

The ‘resistance’ murders people who help the UN backed elections. Do StWC leaders view these murders also as legitimate acts by the “resistance”? Do StWC leaders support attacks on Polling Booths. We doubt the decent people who are the STWC members want to see the elections derailed by a wave of terror.

Who do the StWC view as ‘legitimate targets’ that may be attacked by ‘any means necessary’? Does StWC view as ‘legitimate targets’ all who join the Iraqi Police, work for the Iraqi Election Commission, work on rail reconstruction (for US contractors) or even dentists who include soldiers amongst their patients? We doubt the decent people who are the STWC members think they deserve to be killed, or even to be condemned for working in reconstruction.

The StWC leaders have a moral responsibility to speak out now

Previous statements by StWC leaders have been picked up around the world. The Arab Press reported George Galloway’s attack on the IFTU as ‘quislings’. This charge circulates among the ‘resistance’ in Iraq, as did the view of the StWC leaders that the ‘resistance’ are akin to the French Resistance of the 1940s. Now that the ‘resistance’ is torturing and murdering trade unionists StWC have a moral responsibility to speak out clearly and loudly as a collective in condemnation of the ‘resistance’.

If the StWC leaders do not respond adequately to these questions and do not stand unequivocally with Hadi’s comrades against Hadi’s killers then the movement should ask itself why it continues to fund StWC.

What is to be Done?

Rather than back the Ba’athists and the fundamentalist-terrorists of the resistance we should support the progressive democratic forces in Iraq. We should support the UN-backed elections and constitution-building process. We should make solidarity with the free Iraqi trade union movement, the women’s groups and the democratic political parties. We should argue for a Marshall Plan for Iraq and continue to oppose every measure taken by the occupation authorities that is not in the interest of the Iraq people, from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment to violence against civilians. We should call for the speedy reconstruction of Iraq in the interests of the Iraqi people. The US have $18b ring-fenced for reconstruction and they should spend it on schools, roads and hospitals under the direction of the elected Iraqi Transitional Assembly. We should support – as all Iraqi do - the speedy withdrawal of the coalition forces as part of a political settlement that gives the Iraqi people a future.

In an interview conducted at the ICFTU conference in December 2004 Hadi Saleh said this:

Q: are there risks in being involved in trade unionism?
HS: Yes, [the ‘resistance’ is] against civil society organisations, including trade unions. We have not been targeted, but the teachers’ unions have already lost members who were targeted and killed, so did the engineers and the doctors’ association, too.

Q: Who killed them and why?
HS: Two things: first of all, those extremists who targeted those trade unionists, both teachers and engineers, killed them under the notion they are collaborating with a State created by the Americans, so by definition those are collaborators and legitimate targets. So, some are killed like this. Secondly, others can fall victim to organised crime also.

Q: What kind of international solidarity do you need?
HS: We call our brothers and sisters in the international community to support us to make sure that our rights in organising formal unions freely and openly is guaranteed and ensured. That our struggle for fair wages, better working conditions, is guaranteed. We consider ourselves as fledglings in the trade union movement, and we need support to build our union. The international labour movement has a lot of expertise, knowledge on this, they could assist us. Training especially is fundamental for us.

We invite anyone who supports the views expressed in this Open Letter, whatever political party they support, to sign it (email us at info@labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk).

We urge everyone and especially those who marched against the war to move on and to support the IFTU financial appeal and the TUC Aid to Iraq Appeal.
Labour Party members can join Labour Friends of Iraq.

Time to end the silence. Time to make a stand for our Iraqi comrades. Enough is enough.

Posted by garykent at January 11, 2005 11:53 AM

John Mann and Harry Barnes defend Iraqi trade unionists

Foreign Office Questions in the Commons on 25th January. We note the ludicrous slur on us and will respond later.

9. John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab): What action he is taking in conjunction with allies of the UK and the Iraqi Interim Government to protect Iraqi trade unionists.

The Minister for Trade and Investment (Mr. Douglas Alexander): The transitional administrative law makes specific provision for the right of all Iraqis to join trade unions, and at least 12 national trade unions have already been established. We follow closely trade union issues in Iraq and are working with the TUC and other trade union organisations to support Iraqi trade unions.
John Mann: We have seen beatings, kidnappings, mortar attacks on the Transport and Communications Workers Union headquarters and the torture and murder of Hadi Saleh, one of the trade union leaders. What are the Government doing to let the British people know about the magnificent efforts of Iraqi trade unionists—not least the rail workers of Basra, who are striking against the terrorists—and Iraqi trade unions in the battle for democracy in Iraq?

Mr. Alexander: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work in publicising such issues, and we condemn without reservation the atrocities that he has described. Only this morning, our ambassador in Baghdad gave an interview in which he made clear both our determination to continue to support the people of Iraq as they move through this difficult period immediately prior to the elections, and the scale and significance of what is at stake in Iraq. There is a clear choice between civil society, which my hon. Friend has described, with all the people of Iraq being given a true say in the future of their country, and a group of terrorists who are determined to deny them that opportunity.

Mrs. Alice Mahon (Halifax) (Lab): I am deeply saddened by the recent torture and death of the well known trade unionist. Is not the truth, however, that the interim Government take their orders from America? We should all deplore the carnage in Falluja and the fact that this unnecessary war has claimed 100,000 victims. A support group has grown up around the Prime Minister, and it has singled out trade unionists as victims, which does the anti-war movement no good. Would it not be better to set a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq and let the Iraqi people rule themselves after the election?

Mr. Alexander: Any deaths are to be regretted, but Prime Minister Allawi made a clear statement on Falluja: the insurgents were given the opportunity to lay down their arms and take part in the democratic elections. It is, of course, a matter for regret that the insurgents chose not to do so, but they should not be able to deny the Iraqi people the very civil rights that the prospect of democracy offers them.

Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab): I had the privilege of meeting the late Hadi Saleh, the former international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Workers Trade Unions, when he came to the House and I chaired a meeting, that he addressed. During his hideous murder, lists of members of the IFTU were stolen from his home by terrorists. What can be done to allow trade unions to exercise security over information so that they are not dealt with in that way?

Mr. Alexander: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend's long-standing interest and work on behalf not only of trade unions in Iraq but of the people of Iraq. The United Kingdom, working as part of the multinational force, will stand with the Iraqi people and work closely with the interim Government to try to implement the necessary security measures to defend the Iraqi people against the insurgency. We are, of course, concerned about trade unionists, but we are concerned about all the people of Iraq, which is why we shall continue to work hard in the coming days to make sure that security is in place to allow them to have their say in free and fair elections.

The key players in the election

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer carries a very useful Associated Press Report on the key players in this Sunday’s Iraqi election.

Fair Dinkum! Aussie Union Shows the Way on Solidarity

The Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union (LHMU) has been running a campaign drive to get Iraqi LHMU members to register and vote in the Iraqi election.

National President Helen Creed said, “The recent brutal murder of Hadi Saleh, a top official of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions ( IFTU), demonstrates that those who oppose workers' rights are too often the same group who are now terrorising the people of Iraq. The building of a democratic civil society will be an important step on the road to re-building democratic trade unions in Iraq - that's why we urge our members who are eligible to vote to go and register right now. Our position is similar to the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, like them we remain critical of the US-led invasion. But the IFTU advocates that union members ignore the threats from religious fanatics and the Saddamists and go out and vote in the coming election".

Voices like Helen Creed, and Alex Gordon of the RMT in this country, are increasingly setting the tone for trade unionists around the world.(AJ)

Election fever in Iraq

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad colourfully captures the mood of “election fever,” bravery, ignorance on elections and enthusiasm by political canvassers in Iraq in today’s Guardian. One says "It doesn't matter who wins, it is the election that counts. When people go out and vote they will never allow a new Saddam to emerge again."

Iraqi defiance of killers who wish to stop elections

Today’s Guardian carries an article from William Shawcross in which he quotes “a recent poll by the London-based paper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat found that 66% of those asked supported the elections on schedule. Iraqi women, who due to past bloodshed constitute a majority of the Iraqi population, are particularly interested.”

TUC Conference on Iraqi Trade Unions

TUC Solidarity Conference for union delegates

Congress House London WC1
10:30am to 5pm
Monday, 14 February 2005

Trade unions in Iraq: what British unions can do to help

Iraqi trade unionists need our help to rebuild their movement and cope with the problems of violence, unemployment and privatisation. They need money for equipment, leaflets and organisers. They want training on collective bargaining, promoting women inside the union, and dealing with labour law.

The TUC Aid for Iraq Appeal is raising money, British unions and providing material support and courses. But we¹ve only just started and we¹re only scratching the surface.

This conference is about how we go beyond a good start and really begin to make a difference. Unions are encouraged to send delegates who will return with ideas, information and a renewed commitment.

Speakers from the key Iraqi and Kurdish trade union confederations and sectoral unions will explain what challenges trade unionism faces in Iraq and what it¹s like being an Iraqi trade unionist. People already working on solidarity projects will explain what they¹re doing. And there will be workshops discussing what we can do to help Iraqi unions.

The registration fee includes a donation to the TUC Aid for Iraq Appeal, but there will also be a collection at the conference.

Registration fee - £30 including VAT. Cheques should be made payable to "TUC Aid"

Pat Brown, EUIRD, TUC, Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS - email: pbrown@tuc.org.uk)

Gordon Brown on civil and social rights

LFIQ is chiefly concerned with providing solidarity to Iraqi democrats and progressives but we are very concerned to increase support for measures that increase social justice, in its own right, and to avert and marginalise the use of terrorism and sectarian fundamentalism. Gordon Brown recently visited Africa and recalled Martin Luther King's "recognition that the achievements of civil rights could not be real without the achievement of economic and social rights." He added his support for "One moral universe where progress is not just one individual or even just one or two countries doing well but all of us advancing together and where by the strong helping the weak it makes us all stronger." We apply such principles to our work on Iraq.

Alex Callinicos dismisses 'hullabaloo' about Hadi Saleh's murder

Professor Alex Callinicos is a political leader and theoretical guru of the Socialist Workers’ Party, the leading force in the Stop the War Coalition. He is widely read in the global anti-capitalist movement.

Calinicos has written an article that does not condemn the brutal murder on January 4 of the Iraqi trade unionist Hadi Saleh by the 'resistance'.

Callinicos condemns the beheadings carried out by al-Zarqawi but Hadi's murder is not given as an example of an action by a 'guerrilla insurgency' that should be condemned.

He adds, "In the last few days the assassination of an Iraqi Communist Party leader who supports the occupation has provoked a hullabaloo in the media and the unions here in Britain."

The use of the word 'hullabaloo' to dismiss the pain and anger that has been expressed by Hadi's family, comrades, and the international labour movement at Hadi's slaying is shameful. Callinicos should apologise. The SWP should dissociate themselves from his appalling comments.

It will not be enough this time for the leaders of the left – trade union leaders, editors of socialist magazines, left-wing MPs, columnists – to shrug their shoulders, or to say nothing because they want to preserve 'the unity of the left'. A brave Iraqi trade unionist has been murdered at the hands of ba'athists, his last moments a nightmare we can barely imagine. And a leading figure on the British and international left doesn’t condemn Hadi's torture and murder, making clear his own view, and that of his party, by the disgraceful characterisation of it as a silly 'hullabaloo'.

Silence diminishes every person who takes that route. Time to speak out. Time to tell the Socialist Workers Party and Professor Alex Callinicos that when they sneeringly dismiss international labour movement condemnation of the murder of free trade unionists as a 'hullabaloo' they will be opposed – loudly and in public - by the decent left and the decent trade unionists. (AJ)

Voting enthusiasm

Norman Geras blogs about the enthusiasm among Iraqis living in Manchester for the January 30 Poll and transcribes part of an interview with an Iraqi Kurd (HA) on Radio 5 Live.

LFIQ: who we are and why we were formed

Today’s Independent (see below) carries a report which quotes LFIQ criticisms of the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition. Their response is to claim that we are “a group established to campaign in support of Blair's strategy and against the Stop the War Coalition." Let’s try to unpick this. We are an independent Labour group and bring together people from all wings of the party. Some will have supported Tony Blair on some things, others will have actively opposed his policies of one or more issues.

Our Joint President Harry Barnes MP is well-known as one of “Blair’s bastards” and is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group but we have all come together to support Grassroots Iraq.

Most of our activists were strongly opposed to the war and took part in Stop the War activities. A minority wasn’t and didn’t. But what unites us is not opposing the STWC but favouring solidarity with the nascent labour movement. I feel sure that most people will see through Andrew Murray’s attempt to metaphorically mark “unclean” on our door by saying we’re a Blairite front.

And the most important issue is how Labour Party activists, trade unionists and others on the decent left increase their solidarity with the Iraqi unions and democrats.

And let’s not forget, either, that this is not some petty or arcane debate between totalitarians and democrats but concerns people’s lives. We would not be at all interested in criticising Stop the War leaders if they had done the decent thing and fully and readily done what so many did without prompting and forcefully condemned the murder of Hadi, a good and brave comrade.

Gary Kent

Anti-war movement divided over trade unionist's murder
By Andrew Grice Political Editor
Independent 22 January 2005

The murder of a prominent trade unionist in Iraq has provoked a split in the anti-war movement in Britain over whether he should be seen as a hero or a collaborator with the American-led occupation.

The torture and killing of Hadi Saleh in Baghdad on 4 January has become a litmus test of whether campaigners who opposed the Iraq war should "move on" and embrace moves towards democracy in the country. The more moderate voices in the anti-war camp have accused hardliners of failing to condemn the murder and implying it was a justified act by insurgents.

Mr Saleh, the international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, spent five years in jail during Saddam Hussein's regime. He returned from exile abroad after Saddam's fall to try to establish trade unions in the new Iraq. Allies say he was tied, blindfolded, severely tortured and strangled by an electric cord as part of a campaign by the "Iraqi resistance" to eradicate democrats.

His killing has been condemned by trade union bodies around the world, including the TUC, and many critics of the war. But the Stop the War Coalition has been accused of remaining virtually silent - a charge it dismisses as a smear by opponents.

Gary Kent, director of Labour Friends of Iraq (LIFQ), said yesterday: "This horrible murder has galvanised the decent left who mostly opposed the war but cannot stomach ambiguities or worse on the so-called resistance. It illustrates there is a large faultline on the left about post-war Iraq. Some armchair revolutionaries are happy to fight to the last drop of someone else's blood. But the elementary notion of solidarity with Iraqi trade unions is fast winning the day, and about time too."

The Labour MP Harry Barnes, the group's joint president, claimed the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition was "noticeably silent" about the killing until it was forced to make a brief comment.

He said: "I was very proud to support the Stop the War Coalition but its leadership has now degenerated into an unrepresentative and totalitarian rump. For me, the war was wrong but we just have to recognise that things have changed and now give increased and active solidarity to all those forces within Iraq who are desperately trying to rebuild civil society, make the elections work, preserve the unity of their country and see the withdrawal of foreign troops."

Ann Clwyd, Tony Blair's special envoy on human rights in Iraq and LIFQ's other joint president, said: "Hadi was a brave patriot who stood up for workers' rights under Saddam Hussein and suffered severely at the hands of the secret police."

Andrew Murray, chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, said: "We condemn all civilian deaths in Iraq, including those tens of thousands which are the responsibility of the occupying forces. And we recognise the right of Iraqis to resist the unlawful occupation, which is at the root of violence in Iraq and is the consequence of the war."

He accused LFIQ of using the murder to attack the anti-war movement. "This is a group established to campaign in support of Blair's strategy and against the Stop the War Coalition."

George Galloway's Brechtian Solution for Iraq

Bertolt Brecht wrote a little poem about the June 17 1953 workers' rising in East Germany. His poem was about the way Stalinists thought of 'The People' as a kind of Platonic idea which the Central Committee of the Communist Party would protect, if necessary against the actually existing people. If the people got in the way of The People then the tanks would roll in. Thus the left was perverted and turned into its opposite. Brecht's poem was titled 'The Solution':

After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

I was reminded of those lines watching Newsnight on January 18. George
Galloway (a leader of the Respect Coalition and the Stop the War Coalition) was being interviewed by John Harris. Here is the exchange: George Galloway: "Actually, the Iraqi Resistance does not target its own civilians, but the people that are being fought by the Resistance in Iraq are the people who are working for the occupation (..) Our county in 1941 stood alone when the Americans were watching the war on newsreel. Hitler was at the Channel Ports and might have crossed. If he had crossed he might have occupied our country. If he had occupied our country there would have been a British Resistance. And no matter how hard up a family was the idea that they should join Hitler's
occupying police force and not become a target of us, the British Resistance, is preposterous."

John Harris: "Do you think there is a moral equivalence between Hitler's Nazi occupation of Europe and the British and American Occupation of Iraq?"

George Galloway: "…There is no difference at all."

George Galloway offers a Brechtian solution to the agony of Iraq. Support the resistance, he says, for the resistance 'does not target its own civilians'. Notice how odd Galloway's formulation is – 'its own civilians'. Orwell would have loved that. Galloway is not claiming that the 'resistance' does not target civilians. He is claiming that the 'resistance' does not target 'its own' civilians. Only those
'working for the occupation' are 'fought' (ie killed, AJ). But who is 'working for the occupation' according to the resistance? Ah, there's the rub. It turns out to be the vast majority of Iraqi people.

First, the Shia are 'working for the occupation'. The Shia support the election and the UN-backed political process. The Shia have representatives in the Interim Government. As such they are 'working for the occupation' and are legitimate targets. The 'resistance' has massacred the Shia since the first days of the war. The Shia, it seems, are not 'its own' civilians. They may constitute 60% of the Iraqi people but that will not save them. They are not 'the Iraqi
people'.

Second, the Kurds are 'working for the occupation'. The Kurds weigh in at around 18% of the Iraqi people but this does them no good as – supporting the elections - they too are not part of 'the Iraqi people'. Kurds don't qualify as 'their own' civilians.

Third, all democrats – Sunni included - and all who would participate in the UN-backed elections and political process are 'working for the occupation'. Men like Hadi Saleh, the trade union leader who on January 4 was tortured and murdered by the 'resistance' because he seeks a sovereign Iraq via the route of elections, politics and building the workers movement. For this crime he had his face beaten to a pulp, was tied to a radiator and strangled.

This third group - the democrats - is large indeed. Heroic election workers helping Iraqi to their first poll in thirty years are 'working for the occupation' (I think those election workers are the glory of democracy and should have trees planted in their name after the election, stretching along a boulevard leading to the Transitional Assembly building). Members of the Iraqi Communist Party who fight for social justice and Iraqi sovereignty by political means not suicide
bombings are 'working for the occupation'. Men and women who work in schools that are to be used as polling stations are 'working for the occupation'.

Polls reported on Al Jezeera show an average of 81% of Iraqis support the elections and 19% oppose the elections. No matter, the 81% are 'working for the occupation'.

Don't forget the humanitarian aid workers who are 'working for the occupation'. Nor the engineers and the brickies rebuilding the electricity substation, the rail workers taking consumer goods to Mosul, the guard protecting the oil pipeline, and the labourer rebuilding the water-treatment plant and the hospital. Each and every one of them, 'working for the occupation'. And anyone seeking to join
the Iraqi police force and protect the Iraqi people from the small minority who murder define themselves them by that very act as enemies of the Iraqi 'People'. As for the burned-out Christian churches, do these targeted Christians not count for the 'resistance' as 'its own' civilians?

When Hadi Saleh, a giant of a man, was building the underground Iraqi trade union movement George Galloway was dining with Tariq Aziz, [Iraq's then deputy prime minister] who "puts HP sauce on every dinner. There's HP sauce every time you sit down with him", said Galloway).

And he hailed Saddam inside his palaces ('Sir, we salute your courage,
your strength, your indefatigability') while talking like a schoolboy about the tyrant's Quality Street chocolates ("He didn't have a chocolate either, which is interesting").

Galloway called an Iraqi free trade unionist a 'Quisling' in the Morning Star and it was reported in the Arab press. While those trade unionists were fighting Saddam's agents in exile, and living with their own terrible memories of being tortured in Saddam's jails, Galloway gave an interview to The Times with this little revealing gem ('I tell him how much I like his suit. He looks pleased, and thanks me. I ask him what make it is. He shows me the label to the jacket -
Kenzo. Is that a designer label? "It's famous, but not top of the label." I later discover that you can't get much more "top of the label" than Kenzo').

There is a campaign of assassination and intimidation against the Iraqi people, including the nascent labour movement, by a small minority - in essence, right-wing death squads - who fear democracy and seek to impose secular or religious dictatorship on the Iraqi people in the name of The Iraqi People.

We need a decent left that fight for the democrats in Iraq, for labour, for women's rights, for social justice in the economy of post-war Iraq, and for the speedy withdrawal of coalition troops as part of a political settlement that gives Iraq a future. Most trade unionists and peace activists want that. They do not support the thugs who killed Hadi Saleh.

It is time for the decent left to saddle up and reclaim the leadership of their own movement.

As for George Galloway himself, would it not be easier if, having lost his confidence, he dissolved the Iraqi people and elected another?
(AJ)

Alex Gordon and Adullah Muhsin pay tribute to Hadi Saleh

In today's Guardian.

Comment on abuses by soldiers

Three British soldiers stand accused of "shocking and appalling" physical and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Photographs appear today. The trial is current and so we cannot comment specifically but abuse is wrong in itself and can only give succour to terrorism, which is why it is also completely counter-productive. Elsewhere on this site, we argue for a complete prohibition on torture.

Exchange of correspondence between Andrew Murray, Stop the War groups and LFIQ President Harry Barnes MP

Dear Comrades, Andrew Murray has written to all StWC branches to rebut the letter from myself and others from Labour Friends of Iraq.

Andrew's first accusation is that we are "cynically using the murder last week of Iraqi trade unionist Hadi Salih to attack the anti-war movement."

I was a keen opponent of the war and supported the Stop the War Coalition. I wrote very positive things about the million strong march in February 2003 and was very proud to march with everyone else.

We also had the privilege to meet and work with Hadi and considered him to be a comrade. Is it cynical to remember a murdered comrade and trying to avert further murders or is that what the labour movement is all about?

We thought that your leaders mishandled their response to this murder which is clearly part of a strategy by the "resistance" to eliminate the leadership of the emerging Iraqi labour movement.

Since Hadi was murdered on January 4 we have been working hard to encourage solidarity from the international labour movement.

The response of your leaders to Hadi's murder was, at the very best, niggardly. It is in sharp contrast to that of the StWC's sister organisation, US Labour against the war (USLAW).

Noticing that the StWC leaders had made no such statement, we wrote an
Open Letter asking them to condemn the murder as a collective body.

Frankly, it was reasonable to expect that such a statement would have been issued voluntarily and not in passing in a line in a letter to a paper. You need only look at the IFTU web site (www.iraqitradeunions.org) to see how this should have been done, and was by so many groups.

Andrew claims that LFIQ is a "campaign in support of Blair's Iraq strategy." This is just cheap. Please take a look at www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk to see for yourselves.

You will see that we seek to unite people in the party who may have taken different approaches to the war but, whilst staying true to their positions, unite to support the Iraqi labour movement since the most important thing is to help a democratic Iraq emerge from the years of Saddam, sanctions and war. We make no apology for having members and supporters who took different positions.

Some of us opposed the war and were active in Stop the War groups. Some of us led those branches, organised and addressed school walk-outs, blocked roads, occupied town centres, ran 24 hour vigils and teach-ins. I myself voted against the war in the Commons on every occasion. Some of us did not oppose the war, taking the view that the internal Iraqi opposition could not overthrow the tyrant Saddam.

We run a series on the website titled 'Bush Does Not Get It' and we have criticised the US administration sharply on the issues of prisoner abuse, economic reconstruction, civilian deaths and the military action in Falluja. You will also find information on the rise of democratic political parties in Iraq, the enthusiasm for democracy, the organisations of women struggling to establish women's rights, the growth of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, and the struggles for social justice. We work with democratic forces inside Iraq from trade unions to political parties to bloggers to community groups.

We support the UN-backed elections and democratisation process as do the Shia, the Kurds, the Communists, the socialists, the trade unionists, various Sunnis and most Iraqis. We support the election of a sovereign Iraqi government and the speedy withdrawal of troops from Iraq as part of a political solution.

We don't support "Troops Out Now," whatever is happening on the ground, whatever the nature of the 'resistance', whatever the character of the UN backed election process, whatever the support that election process has inside Iraq, whatever the progressive and democratic organisations of Iraq are saying about the timing of the removal of the troops.

We run campaigns in support of threatened Iraqi trade unionists. Nozad Ismail, IFTU organiser in Kirkuk has twice escaped assassination attempts by the resistance. Our solidarity campaign for Nozad has secured pledges of solidarity from workers and unions in Britain, Europe, North America and, Australia.

Clearly our two organisations do not agree on some matters. But the need for a clear condemnation of the campaign of assassination against trade unionists being waged by the resistance, and a ringing message of solidarity for the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions should not be a matter for dispute between us.

We welcome anyone who would like to work with us or has ideas about how to help the democrats in Iraq. We are open to new ideas and certainly don't have all the answers. You can contact us at info@labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk

Yours, Harry Barnes MP, Joint President Labour Friends of Iraq

Dear Brother/Sister

Some of you have received a communication from a group called Labour Friends of Iraq soliciting support for a letter cynically using the murder last week of Iraqi trade unionist Hadi Salih to attack the anti-war movement.

The authors did not have the courtesy to send this email to the StWC office.

This is a group established to campaign in support of Blair's Iraq strategy, and against the StWC. A glance at its website will show that it is less a friend of Iraqi labour than a friend of the British government's occupation policy.

The devastation of Fallujah, the killing of Iraqi civilians by the US forces (19 last weekend alone) and the fact that US-British troops are, according to the Iraqi government, responsible for two-thirds of civilian deaths in Iraq are among the issues these "friends of Iraq" ignore. Their initiative is supported by leading pro-war campaigners like Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch, and MPs who have backed the government throughout like Meg Munn and Wayne David.

The Stop the War Coalition has condemned the murder of Hadi Salih, and
its perpetrators. We have not been silent. I sent the following letter to The Independent on the matter, in response to an article by Johann Hari. Mr Hari has so far blocked publication of the letter in the paper - so much for his commitment to free speech! The letter, along with other correspondence, can be found on our website.

Andrew Murray
Stop the War Coalition

Bush Does Not Get It (6) Torture: the case for absolute prohibition

‘Iraqi detainee Hussein Mutar, in videotaped testimony shown during the sentencing phase, said he had supported the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein until he was abused. "The Americans came to free the Iraqi people from Saddam," Mutar said. "I didn't expect this to happen. This instance changed the entire picture of the American people (for me)."’ (CBS News, January 15 2004, reporting on the trial of US Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr.) See Normblog comments on this piece here

The 2005 Human Rights Watch Annual Report has damned the US record on human rights in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay. The report states, ‘When the United States disregards human rights, it undermines...human rights culture and thus sabotages one of the most important tools for dissuading people from becoming terrorists. Instead the US abuses have provided a new rallying cry for terrorist recruiters and the pictures from Abu Ghraib have become recruiting posters for Terrorism. Inc’.

The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, says "This abuse of prisoners is the predictable product of an environment created by a series of policy decisions taken at the highest level of the Bush administration. It is a product of the Bush administration's continuing refusal to end and disown coercive interrogation,"

There is no sign the Bush administration is listening. Condoleeza Rice last week pressured Congress to reverse legislation that had been passed 96-2 in the Senate aimed at imposing restrictions on extreme interrogation methods. Albert Gonzalez, the White House lawyer who was on watch when the guidelines for the interrogation of prisoners were loosened in 2002, is the White House choice for Attorney-General. And reports in the Washington Post last week suggest the Bush team wants to create a network of prison camps in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Yeman similar to Guantanamo Bay in being US-run and outside the scope of International law.

Labour Friends of Iraq believes the British government should take the lead in arguing for an absolute prohibition on torture on two grounds: pragmatism and principle.

The pragmatic grounds for absolute prohibition are clear. Torture aids the terrorists. Torture allows the terrorists to frame the issues just as they please. It hampers ideological combat against the terrorists. Torture turns the terrorist recruit into the hard-line terrorist militant. This was the case with members of the Muslim Brotherhood tortured by Anwar Sadat in Egypt (one of whom went on to be Bin Laden’s No.2). Torture undermines the democrats in Iraq when those brave people are Iraq’s greatest hope. Torture undermines the fragile UN-backed political process when that process is the sole alternative to the violence. Torture corrupts its perpetrators. It leads to talk of ‘El Salvador’ options (death squads). Torture creates widespread alienation from the transition process when it is the energy and hope of ordinary people, above all else, that is required to secure the transition to democracy.

The argument advanced by such writers as Alan Dershowitz for ‘torture warrants’ to be issued by judges according to the rule of law is wrong not only in principle but on pragmatic grounds. Torture does not ‘work’. It mistakes the kind of war the democrats are engaged in, the nature of the ‘enemy’, the path along which victory lies, and the meaning of ‘victory’ itself.

Michael Ignatieff, in his book ‘The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror’ has suggested that the Dershowitz argument is a slippery slope. ‘Legalisation of physical force in interrogation will hasten the process by which it becomes routine’. Certainly US practices have already taken their toll on the instincts of the British government. Steve Crawshaw, the London Director of Human Rights Watch, told the Guardian newspaper, ‘It was dismaying that it needed a law lords’ judgement to rule that detention without trial was not acceptable in a democracy…It is even more dismaying that the British government seems reluctant to concede this’.

Ignatieff asks us to consider the words of Jean Amery. an Auschwitz survivor, who was a Belgian resistor tortured by the Nazis. In his book At the Minds Limit Amery wrote that torture did not only signal the psychosexual depredations of the individual perpetrator. Amery’s message, says Ignatieff, was that torture was ‘the key to the identity of the society responsible for it’. If we believe Amery is right then we should send Charles Graner to jail but also sack Donald Rumsfeld. We should jail Lindy but also close Guantanamo Bay.

Amery’s idea, according to Ignatieff, tells us why we must insist on an absolute prohibition of torture on grounds of first principle: “[Amery] helps us to see why torture should remain anathema to a liberal democracy and should never be regulated, countenanced, or covertly accepted in a war on terror. For torture, when committed by a state, expresses the state’s ultimate view that human beings are expendable. This view is antithetical to the spirit of any constitutional society whose raison deter is the control of violence and coercion in the name of human dignity and freedom.”

"We should have faith in this constitutional identity. It is all that we have to resist the temptations of nihilism, but it is not nothing. It is the paramount duty of political leaders in a democracy under attack to keep the forces of order intently focused on the political requirement of maintaining legitimacy (..) we are fighting a war whose essential prize is preserving the identity of liberal society itself and preventing it from becoming what terrorists believe it to be. Terrorists seek to strip off the mask of law to reveal the nihilist heart of coercion within, and we have to show ourselves and the populations whose loyalty we seek that the rule of law is not a mask but the true image of our nature”.

Ignatieff is right. We have argued that purely coercive ‘solutions’ in Iraq are a chimera. We need ‘political warfare’: capacity-building the organisations of democratic grassroots Iraq, economic reconstruction on a scale and urgency that would deserve the name ‘Marshall Plan’, a step-change in international community involvement in security, and a fierce commitment to human rights and the rule of law, all to underpin the UN-backed political process which – by the speedy achievement of full Iraqi sovereignty and withdrawal of coalition forces - remains Iraq’s only hope”. (AJ)

Why Mick Rix resigned from Stop the War Coalition

“Mick Rix [ex-leader of ASLEF, the Train Drivers trade union], who resigned from Stop the War's elected steering committee in October last year, did not do so because he believed that we endangering the lives of Iraqi trade unionists” (Lindsey German, Convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, their web site on 9 January).

This is what Mick Rix told Andrew Murray, Chair of the Stop the War Coalition in widely published correspondence in October 2004: “The movement that I was brought up in, comrade, allows constructive criticism, yourself, StTW and Respect crossed the line, in terms of human decency, and was an all out assault. The language that was used was deliberate, archaic, violent, and plain downright stupid and dangerous if you happen to be an Iraqi at this present time. Then again you are not. I don't think you also realise the danger that your actions and those of the Respect colleagues in the StTW have placed Abdullah and perhaps others in the IFTU against attacks from extremists. Some people talk about life and death situations, some unfortunately have to live it and so do their families in Iraq and I don't see why you, Respect or the coalition have a right to think you can place them in that situation, when they are living daily with those consequences, because they are not the "new" friends of yourself, George , StTW or Respect such as extreme nationalists, or religious fundamentalists. It is you who have attacked the IFTU and Abdullah. So much for the bold statement the StTW will not interfere in Iraqi internal politics, your statement, and that of the StTW at worst, did, the statement has probably placed these good trade unionists and socialists at a terrible risk.”

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

Eric Lee pays tribute to Hadi Saleh .

The torture and murder of Hadi Saleh marks a turning point for trade unions around the world. The question is now posed -- to quote the famous American trade union song, "Which side are you on?" Let me explain.

Hadi Saleh represented everything that trade unionists should hold dear -- he was a committed socialist, survived repression (including a spell in Saddam's jails) and exile, and was helping to build an new and independent trade union movement in Iraq for the first time in more than a generation. He was the international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).

It was in that capacity that I met him last year in the coffee bar of the Trades Union Congress in London. He spoke little English and I spoke even less Arabic, but we were able to communicate through our mutual friend Abdullah Muhsin, the IFTU's foreign representative. We discussed how the IFTU could make the best use of its website, which we had originally produced in English. We were discussing the importance of an edition in Arabic as well. Abdullah later showed Hadi how to add content to the site when he returned to Baghdad.

On January 4th, 2005, Hadi Saleh was tortured and murdered by Ba'athist thugs in his home in Baghdad. According to one report, "They bound him hand and foot and they blindfolded him. They beat and they burned his flesh. Once they had finished torturing him, they strangled him with an electric cord. As a final touch, they riddled his body with bullets."

He is not the first Iraqi trade unionist to be targetted by the so-called "resistance". In a press release issued five days before Hadi's murder, the IFTU wrote that it "denounced yesterday further attacks on its members on the railway line between Basra and an-Nasiriyyah and on union premises in Baghdad. These criminal acts designed to intimidate workers and trade unionists follow a well-established pattern of targeted campaigns of assassination and terror which have been waged by those loyal to the former fascist-type, dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein against individual IFTU activists and ordinary workers in recent months."

It should not surprise us that the last remaining loyalists of the Saddam regime would target trade unionists. After all, people like Hadi Saleh and Abdullah Muhsin were jailed and exiled during the decades of Ba'athist rule. Independent unions were not tolerated in Iraq. Only the state-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions was allowed to exist, and it was under the direct control of Saddam's family and cronies.

Hadi Saleh was killed because trade unionists represent an important part of the new civil society emerging in Iraq in the wake of the fall of the Ba'athist regime. Whatever one thinks of the US-led invasion -- which Hadi Saleh and his comrades opposed -- what we should all be able to agree on today is the need to rebuild civil society in that long-suffering country.

Most trade unions in the world do seem to understand this, and the outcry following Hadi's murder was world-wide and comprehensive. It involved not only official national trade union centers like the AFL-CIO, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Trades Union Congress in Britain, but also groups like US Labor Against the War (USLAW). USLAW, which played a key role in opposing the invasion and which continues to oppose the occupation, has taken a firm stand of nevertheless supporting the emerging unions in Iraq, and has raised money for the IFTU and other organizations. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, representing 148 million unionized workers around the globe, declared: "This vicious murder is nothing less than an attack on the right of Iraqi workers to trade union representation."

But some have been reluctant to add their voices to the global protest. In Britain, a group called the Stop the War Coalition, led by top figures in the British Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party and financially supported by some unions, has been denouncing the IFTU as quislings, a "fake union", tools of the occupiers, traitors and so on for weeks. Other opponents of the war and occupation have severely criticized them for doing so, pointing out that doing so could endanger the lives of Iraqi trade unionists who could now be targetted by the "resistance".

One very prominent left-wing trade union leader quit the Stop the War Coalition a few weeks before Hadi's murder, warning precisely of this sort of thing. In a letter, Mick Rix, formerly the general secretary of the train drivers union ASLEF wrote, "The language that was used [by the Stop the War Coalition] was deliberate, archaic, violent, and plain downright stupid and dangerous if you happen to be an Iraqi at this present time."

In the struggle between independent trade unions on the one side and a coalition of Ba'athists and Islamo-fascists on the other, the choice for trade unionists and others on the left should not be a difficult one. No more difficult than the one posed by the song, which tells us that "there are no neutrals" and asks of each of us, "Will you be a lousy scab -- Or will you be a man?"

Lessons from History - the Nazi werewolves

In 1944 Heinrich Himmler formed the Nazi Werewolf guerilla movement. It fought the Allied armies inside Germany until 1947. It would be wrong to suggest a direct parallel to the Ba'athist component of the 'Iraqi 'resistance' planned by Saddam. But these extracts from an article on the Werewolves in History Today October 2000 by Perry Biddiscombe (author of The Last Nazis), suggests many points of
comparison.

They shall not pass, Harry Barnes letter in Independent

The brutal torture and murder of Hadi Salih, who impressed all with his basic decency and dignity after decades of oppression and exile when he briefed MPs last year, is rightly damned by Johann Hari (Opinion, 7 January). It is also a watershed moment when progressives who have shown a "sneaking regard" for the so-called resistance should shed such lethal illusions. What worries Labour Friends of Iraq is that Hadi's murder is part of a strategy to eliminate the leadership of the emerging Iraqi labour movement. Nozad Ismail, the president of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk, has twice escaped the assassins and receives daily threats. We have launched an urgent global appeal but the "resistance" doesn't have a postbox and doesn't listen to rational argument. One way of overcoming this form of fascism is to mobilise decent people to say "they shall not pass".

Hadi Saleh tribute in Guardian

Hadi's brutal murder. Friday January 14, 2005

We unreservedly condemn the brutal murder of Hadi Saleh, the international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, at his home in Baghdad on the night of January 4. He was tied and blindfolded and tortured before being forced to kneel and strangled by electric cord. Hadi was a brave patriot who stood up for workers' rights under Saddam Hussein and was a key activist in the clandestine Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement which was established in 1980 to keep alive an independent labour movement. He was hunted by the regime for his activities and forced into exile where he continued to work as a printer.

We agree with the IFTU that Iraqi working people have lost a brave trade union leader who dedicated three decades of his life to fighting Saddam's dictatorship. He fought for a democratic, peaceful and federal Iraq which would unite Iraqis regardless of their background, ethnicity or religion. He championed workers' rights to organise and strike to achieve decent jobs, pay and working conditions. His cowardly murder is part of a pattern of targeted assassinations and terror by Saddam loyalists.

Harry Barnes MP, Ann Clwyd MP, Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, Kevin Curran, General secretary, GMB, Pat Rabbitte TD, Leader, Irish Labour party, Peter Bottomley MP, John Lloyd, Bob Marshall Andrews MP, Baroness May Blood, Northern Ireland, Sunder Katwala, General Secretary Fabian Society (personal capacity), Gary Kent, Director Labour Friends of Iraq, Ian Davidson MP, Meg Munn MP, Mike Gapes MP, Rudi Vis MP, Johann Hari, writer, Rob Marris MP, Ernie Ross MP, John Grogan MP, John Austin MP, Tony Lloyd MP, John Cryer MP, Wayne David MP, John Mann MP, Dr Lynne Jones MP, Richard Burden MP, Martin Salter MP, Alan Johnson, South Lakeland, Stop the War.

Bush Does Not Get It (5): Lessons from the agony of Falluja

On November 5, before US military operations in Falluja began, Labour Friends of Iraq posted a model emergency resolution for Labour Party branches. It read: “This CLP is alarmed that military action against the terrorists in Falluja and other towns will result in large scale loss of civilian life. The aerial bombardment of a built-up civilian area will drive ordinary Iraqis towards the men of violence. We implore the Labour government to exercise all its influence to prevent these casualties and to pursue all political and humanitarian channels to resolve the crisis. We urge the Labour Government to do all it can to support the UN process that envisages a democratic sovereign Iraq and to support all democratic forces within Iraq, including the newly emerging trade union movement. This CLP recognises that a flourishing democracy and civil society in Iraq will powerfully undermine the terrorists”.

This week Channel 4 broadcast a report from a devastated Falluja. It concluded with these words: “Over 300,000 people have lost their homes and now bitterly resent the Americans. ‘The City of Mosques’ has become the ‘City of Rubble’. It is hard to see how this will strengthen Iraq’s new democracy”.

Yes, the C4 report also informed us: “Fallujans have told me - in private - that they are angry with the insurgent groups and that they blame them as well as the Americans for the destruction of their city”.

Yes, it is also true that the C4 report tends to assume every dead body in Falluja is the responsibility of the Americans while other reports tell us that Fallujans were being killed by the Falluja-based terrorists and fundamentalists long before the US assault began. The Times, for instance, reported that ‘As residents of the brutalized city of Falluja begin to emerge after their liberation by American troops…Mutilated bodies dumped on Falluja's bombed out streets today painted a harrowing picture of eight months of rebel rule’.

Nonetheless the scale of the humanitarian and political failure in Falluja is as stark as the military ‘victory’. Elections are only three weeks away and many Sunnis are unsure whether to vote. Their participation is vital to the legitimacy of the results and ability of the Iraqi assembly to restore peace and security by marginalising the ba’athists and terrorists. Yet the US and the international community have failed to care for, or to speedily return to Falluja, the hundreds of thousands of Fallujans who fled the city; failed to organise the distribution of voting papers to Fallujans; failed to check the spread of disease among Fallujans.

As a result, on January 9 (reports the United Nations Aid Mission to Iraq website) “Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in al-Naimiya area in Fallujah Friday calling on the interim Iraqi government and U.S. army to open new routes for displaced residents to return to the war-torn town. Demonstrators carried banners saying "Is it the solution to displace women and children and destroy houses?'' and "Occupiers, get out of our city''

Purely military ‘solutions’ in Iraq are a chimera. We need ‘political warfare’: capacity-building the organisations of democratic grassroots Iraq, economic reconstruction on a scale and urgency that would deserve the name ‘Marshall Plan’, a step-change in international community involvement in security, all to underpin the UN-backed political process which remains Iraq’s only hope. Labour Friends of Iraq will continue to argue this view.

Resolution for Ward or Constituency Labour Party: Iraqi Trade Unions

This CLP believes that the Iraqi 'resistance' is seeking to eliminate the leadership of the emerging Iraqi labour movement, as exemplified by a wave of attacks including the recent torture and murder of Hadi Saleh, International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and two failed assassination attempts in 2004 on Nozad Ismail, the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk and continued death threats made against him. This CLP supports railway workers in Basra who are on strike in pursuit of improved protection and the safe return of their kidnapped colleagues. This CLP welcomes
solidarity statements made by the ICFTU, the TUC and the wider international labour movement in response to the murder of Hadi Saleh and resolves to a) hold a fund-raising event for the striking Basra Rail workers and the TUC Fund for Iraq, co-hosted by local trade unions, b) to invite a speaker to address the CLP from Labour Friends of Iraq and to subscribe to Labour Friends of Iraq.

We're growing, join us

LFIQ supporters include Harry Barnes MP, John Mann MP, Rt Hon Ann Clwyd MP - Special Envoy to the Prime Minister on Human Rights in Iraq, Meg Munn MP, Roger Casale MP, Chris Mole MP, Stephen Pound MP, Andy Burnham MP, Steve McCabe MP, Clive Betts MP, Andy King MP, Adrian Bailey MP, David Cairns MP, Bill Tynan MP, Sion Simon MP and Mike Gapes MP. Why don’t you join too?

Support for LFIQ Open letter to Stop the War leaders backed by Peter Tatchell

The well-known human rights activist Peter Tatchell has joined Labour MP Harry Barnes MP, Meg Munn MP and other activists, many of whom were involved in anti-war work, in our growing list of supporters for this open letter. It’s not too late to join them. Please send your name, address, CLP/union branch, if applicable, and preferred designation to info@labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk

Guest Post: JOHN LLOYD (Editor FT Magazine) on why trade unions offer vital hope for Iraq

Extract: "Trade unions are, in fact, one of the best means of achieving such solidarity. They have done so in the past - when, as in this country, they brought together Catholics and Protestants in Britain and Ireland who might otherwise have been fiercely opposed; when they organised Muslims and Israelis in Israel, before the Intifada and the Israeli retaliation made it impossible; when they brought in blacks to what had been white unions in the US, before and after the last war. They were always opposed, precisely for these reasons, by groups who wanted the rival ideologies of nationalism, fundamentalism or race superiority to remain in force. They are being opposed again in Iraq, and that opposition has claimed a brave life. It will claim more."

Hadi Salih was killed on Tuesday last week. He had tried to get some independent trade union activity going in Iraq under Saddam - who had
regarded trade unionists, as the good pupil of Stalin's that he was, as an extension of his Ba'ath Party and his state's power: 'transmission belts' to carry the orders and ideology from top to the masses. Once the Ba'ath tyranny was removed, he was able to operate freely once more. He thought.

I had met him once, when he came to London on a tour of Europe to garner support for the establishment of the post-dictatorship unions. He was reserved, slow moving, dignified; he spoke no English, and so conversation was stilted. He thought he could get unions going among the oil workers in the south; among state employees; in transport. He thought there would be a lot of support for the idea. But, he added - according to the notes I took at the time - "people are still frightened. It will take time to end that".

Murder, not time, ended him. He was murdered because the work he was
involved in was an attempt to give to working people what unions did when they were first created in the early 19th century: a sense of solidarity in labour, and a strength to bargain with employers and the state which otherwise would have too much power over them, if viewed only as individuals. Unionism at its best was not anti-, but pro-individualist. It sought to allow people who might be - were - treated as mere factors of production to gain some basis for a life outside toil; what we now call private life, or leisure - that which makes an individual more fully an individual.

His murderers hate such individualism. They are the inheritors of an ideology which demanded either total obeisance to the state or to a version of Islam dictated by men who use the religion, just as brutally as did the medieval monarchs and nobles who tortured and burned their states free of heretics, or individualists, as we would call them now. It is no accident that the missives sent into the airwaves by Osama bin Laden or his lieutenants talk still of
'Crusaders' as, with Jews, their main enemy: the world they wish to recreate is one where faith could be allied to power to exact and retain total obedience, on pain of death.

That is what is at stake in the coming election, and this past week's murder makes that rather more brutally clear than it was before. Focusing on the possibility or not of the elections later this month, we tend to ignore the indispensable partner to free choice of representatives - that is, civil society. And civil society is the warp and woof of individuals' lives when they live together freely in society: the associations, networks, arrangements, private deals, negotiations, local markets, clubs, societies, religions ... and trade unions. Those things which humans all over the world have developed or copied, to give themselves a sense of themselves as more than just atomised individuals or families, with nothing else between them and the state, or them and the state church.

The heirs of Saddam who committed the murder do not just hate America, or the West. They hate the possibilities which civil society brings, once it begins to spring up. Civil society is always subversive of totalitarian or authoritarian power: in democracies, it sets limits on the exercise of legitimate power. It demands diversity, difference, debate. It cannot work without respect for difference, whether that be of sex, of politics, of religion or of race. It does not have to be 'western' in the way it does this: it can draw on Muslim and other
traditions of co-existence. Muslim societies, as Morocco, have (with restrictions) had Jewish communities live among Muslims for centuries - even if, as in Christian countries before modern times, the two peoples were discouraged or forbidden to intermarry.

Is this possible? The signs are not good, at least in Baghdad and in the 'Sunni triangle' all about it. There were many murders this past week, both of Iraqis and of US soldiers. A bomb destroyed part of the office of Iyad Allawi, the Iraqi prime minister, on Monday – which shows with what impunity the insurgents can operate in the capital. Worse, those election officials who had been supposed to oversee the polls in the Sunni areas have resigned in their dozens, fearing that they will be targeted.

Many of the Sunnis seem likely to withdraw - either fearful of the consequences of a vote, or genuinely believing that to vote is to legitimise a US-backed, Shia-majority rule which will make matters worse for them in the long run. The posters calling for an election are themselves Western inspired: one shows a big-eyed, charming baby, and has the slogan 'it's their right to dream of an independent Iraq'.

It doesn't seem to be charming many of the Sunnis: a policeman in the Sunni town of Salman Pak told reporters earlier this week that "everyone [in the town] supports the resistance and everyone rejects the elections because they will prolong the occupation".

The hope must lie elsewhere in the country's south, in the Kurdish north and even with the Sunni groups who still seem determined to take part in, rather than support the wrecking of, the political process. For these Sunnis, and most of the Shias, the prospect of a society which we have come to call 'normal' is less identified with the occupation, more a matter of having a free life, with some security, some material prospects and some possibility of human solidarity beyond family and clan.

Trade unions are, in fact, one of the best means of achieving such solidarity. They have done so in the past - when, as in this country, they brought together Catholics and Protestants in Britain and Ireland who might otherwise have been fiercely opposed; when they organised Muslims and Israelis in Israel, before the Intifada and the Israeli retaliation made it impossible; when they brought in blacks to what had been white unions in the US, before and after the last war. They were always opposed, precisely for these reasons, by groups who wanted the rival ideologies of nationalism, fundamentalism or race superiority to remain in force. They are being opposed again in Iraq, and that opposition has claimed a brave life. It will claim more.

78.3% Iraqis say they will vote

Iraq the model reports on a poll of 4974 Iraqis living in and around Baghdad. The headline results were (1) 78.3% of Iraqis would come out to vote on the day of elections despite security problems and (2) 87.7% of Iraqis support military action against terrorists. Omar comments “If these were the results that appeared after taking samples from in and around Baghdad which is considered to be the most dangerous area in the country (and inhabited by lots of Sunni Iraqis by the way!), then what would the results look like if the samples were taken from Basra or Erbil??”

Bush Does Not Get it (4): Discharge Tracy Perkins!

Angela K Brown reports (Washington Post January 9) “An Army platoon sergeant who ordered his soldiers to throw Iraqis into the Tigris River [in January 2004] was sentenced Saturday to six months in military prison, but will not be discharged (..). Prosecutors say Zaidoun Hassoun, 19, drowned (…) Before deliberations began, the prosecutor, Capt. Megan Shaw, said Perkins had jeopardized the U.S. mission because insurgents were using the incidents to spread anti-American propaganda”. Indeed.

Because it would have been the right thing to do as well as setting an example to other troops about the treatment of Iraqis, and because it would have removed a recruiting tool of the ba’athist/islamist resistance Tracy Perkins should have been discharged. Angela K Brown reports that “soldiers said the orders came from Army 1st Lt. Jack Saville, the platoon leader, who is to be tried in March on the same charges as Perkins — as well as a conspiracy charge”.

Ideas and propaganda are more powerful than munitions in this war. The Perkins decision promotes the idea that US soldiers are, more or less, above the law. (AJ)

Basra Railway Workers Strike against terrorists

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions website reports on an all-out strike by the IFTU in Basra. The strike began in protest at the wave of attacks on railworkers that have left 7 train drivers kidnapped and others beaten. The strikers have condemned these attacks, called on the Interim Iraqi Government to protect rail workers and to take urgent steps to secure the release of their kidnapped comrades. The IFTU “urgently calls on all international labour movement bodies to send messages of support to the Iraqi Railway Workers' Union and to join the IFTU in demanding security for transport workers”.

Respect: The Voice of Hadi Saleh

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions has posted an interview with Hadi Saleh, the slain International Secretary of the IFTU, conducted during the ICFTU Congress in December 2004. His recognition of the dangers facing trade unionists is extremely poignant in the light of his own brutal murder.

Women’s Rights, Democratic Elections and the Stop the War Coalition

Norman Geras has three posts at his blogsite today that our readers will want to check out.

First, a survey conducted by the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies (CSSR) into the views of 1,000 Iraqi women in Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra about their opinions, needs and hopes for the future (results in pdf form are downloadable).

Second an article from The Times of 9 January by Amir Taheri on the upcoming elections in Iraq.

Third, Norm reports on Nick Cohen’s article in the Observer of 9 January. Cohen, as fearless and insightful as ever, observes that:

“Hadi Salih, international officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was tied and blindfolded and tortured by Baathist 'insurgents' loyal to Saddam Hussein before being forced to kneel, strangled by electric cord and shot.

I shouldn't be shocked that there hasn't been a squeak of protest from the anti-war movement at the killing of a brave socialist, but I am. Two years ago I believed that after the war people who opposed it for good reasons would vow to pursue Blair and Bush [-] for what they had done [-] to their graves, but have the intellectual honesty to accept that Saddam's regime was fascist in theory and in practice and the good nature to offer fraternal support [to] Iraqi socialists, democrats and liberals in their deadly struggle.

More fool me. The Stop the War Coalition, which organised one million people to march through the streets of London, told the kidnappers and torturers from the Baath Party and al-Qaeda that the anti-war movement 'recognises once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessary'. Its leading figures purport to be on the left, but have cheered on the far-right and betrayed their comrades by denouncing Iraqi trade unionists as 'Quislings' and 'collaborators'. There have been a few honourable protests: Mick Rix, the former leader of the train drivers union, walked out in disgust saying that the anti-war movement was putting the lives of Iraqi trade unionists at risk. (Its denunciations of better and braver men and women than the British pseudo-leftists could ever be were reported in Arab newspapers which circulate in Iraq.” (AJ)

Main Points of the Program of People's Unity (Ittihad Al-Shaab) Electoral List

LFIQ regularly posts information about those contending the Iraqi elections on 30 January without necessarily endorsing any.

People's Unity (Ittihad Al-Shaab) List is a coalition electoral list that includes 275 Iraqi Communists, democrats and independent patriotic and social figures, with 91 women candidates, covering all Iraq's provinces. The candidates represent the full social, ethnic and religious spectrum of Iraqi society.

The participants struggle to achieve a host of objectives, including:

Establishing a federal democratic regime that guarantees rights for all Iraqis, ensures a life free of violence and terror, and enables them to end the occupation, achieve full independence, and rebuild the homeland on the basis of cooperation, democracy and social justice.

Ensuring that Iraqis enjoy all political freedoms and civil rights, and developing the spirit of Iraqi citizenship, instead of using sectarian and nationalist criteria as a basis for sharing political power.

Striving to regain full national sovereignty over all the country's powers and national resources.

To speed up the provision of security and stability which are essential for a speedy restoration of public services.

Defending without fail the interests of working people and down-trodden strata, and combating relentlessly the administrative corruption and bribery.

Rebuilding state institutions on the basis of citizenship, efficiency and integrity, especially the police, army and national defence forces, and ensuring that they are not infiltrated by the hostile forces.

Respect for human rights, and dealing firmly with those who violate them.

Ensuring the rights of nationalities, through federalism for Iraqi Kurdistan, and securing cultural and administrative rights for the Turcomans, Chaldo-Assyrians, Menda'is, Yezidis, and others.

Respect for Islam and other religions, and ensuring the right of believers to exercise their religious codes and ceremonies.

Defending relentlessly the rights of women and their equality with men, and ensuring the rights of motherhood and children.

Taking measures to ensure that those who had been expelled from work for political reasons return to their jobs, and guaranteeing their full rights.

Compensation for the families of martyrs and the "disappeared", and the victims of Anfal campaign of genocide, the Halabja massacre, the mass graves and the suppression of the popular uprising in March 1991, as well as Faili Kurds youth and other fighters against dictatorship.

Combating unemployment, improving people's standard of living, and preserving the purchasing power of their incomes.

Maintaining the food ration system and improving the quality of ration contents.

Tackling the injustice suffered by pensioners, and increasing their pay so as to ensure dignified life and secure old age.

Ensuring the rights of workers to earn fair wages, and the rights stipulated by the Labour Law.

Establishing a full social security system, and ensuring free health service.

Offering all necessary help for the disabled, and compensating them for the harm they have suffered.

Rebuilding the state sector (as the main sector) on the basis of efficiency and profitability.

Allowing other sectors (private/mixed/co-operative) to develop and integrating the four sectors.

Striving to abolish all Iraq's debts and compensation payments resulting from Saddam's wars.

Promoting democratic and progressive culture in society through activating the role of intellectuals and providing them with the required support.

Complete reform of the educational system, to satisfy the requirements of a democratic Iraq in this century.

Combating illiteracy and ensuring free education

Sami Ramadani and ‘Tahir’ are ‘Useful Mouthpieces’: Alex Gordon of the Rail Maritime and Transport Workers Union (RMT)

Alex Gordon (RMT) has led the way among the UK trade unions in building solidarity with Iraqi unions. He is respected both here and in Iraq.

In these comments on Johann Hari’s web site he tells some truths about Sami Ramadani and ‘Tahir’ in response to their attack on Hari’s Independent article ‘A leading Iraq Trade Unionist has been murdered: where is the left?’

We urge all those who have relied on Ramadani to make their judgements on Iraq and the IFTU to read it carefully.

“It is entirely predictable, unfortunately, to read the lengthy, unhinged, polemical whining from Sami Ramadani and 'Tahir' in response to Johann Hari's excellent article. Both of these individuals have acted as useful mouthpieces to cheerlead 'the popular resistance' from the safe distance of London.

Sami Ramadani for example, refers to the 'valiant resistance' in his lengthy diatribe against the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions addressed to me following the disgraceful treatment of their General Secretary who was invited to address the European Social Forum in October 2004. 'Tahir' has launched similar victrolic attacks in recent months on Iraqi feminists who have the temerity to point to the reactionary social politics of the leaders of 'the resistance'.

Since both Sami and 'Tahir' are responsible for myth-making and the attempted popularisation of reactionary, religious and fascist forces in Iraq, it is difficult to take very seriously their diatribes against Iraqi trade unionists, democratic socialists and communists who have the temerity to prefer a UN-political process to car bombings and terrorism.

Certainly, in view of the obscene vilification of Iraqi trade unionists by some in this country in the recent past, which has resulted in the recent vile murder of Hadi Saleh, it is quite inappropriate to find their comments above further denigrating and fingering Iraqi trade unionists and communists.

It would be difficult to imagine how a 'perfect' democratic trade union movement could possibly emerge overnight from three and a half decades of dictatorship, war and now foreign occupation and fascist terror. The critical demand that has to be made on any Iraqi government is whether they will ratify International Labour Organisation Conventions concerning the right of workers to form and join trade unions of their choice and the right to take strike action - principles the British government are in breach of, incidentally.

The IFTU has consistently made this demand and has pursued it consistently in discussions with the ILO and the Iraqi Interim Government.

The left and the trade union movement should back the IFTU's campaign, seek to build and strengthen direct links with democratic, independent trade unions in Iraq and reject the views of those who finger trade unionists and make mealy-mouthed apologies for their murderers”. (AJ)

‘Labour Against the War’: silent on the murder of Hadi Saleh

On 7 January, three days after the murder of Hadi Saleh, the pressure group ‘Labour Against the War’, (LAW) led by Jeremy Corbyn MP and Alan Simpson MP, released a statement noting that ‘the Iraq insurgency has moved up a gear’.

LAW mentions the ‘sophistication’ of the ‘insurgency’ but is silent about its targets - election workers, Shia, Kurd and trade unionists. LAW is silent about the torture and murder on January 4, of Hadi Saleh, the International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. The LAW website carries no mention (let alone a condemnation) of the recent wave of terrorist attacks on the IFTU. The kind of ‘left’ represented by Labour Against the War is now a pro-tyrant left. We need to build a decent left. (AJ)

Democracy means workers can choose their trade union

Labour Friends of Iraq support the right of workers in Iraq, as everywhere, to choose for themselves their trade union. This is a basic labour right enshrined in International Labour Conventions 87 and 98. The union's political viewpoint is not legally relevant to the right to freely establish a trade union. In a democracy, the state has no right to abrogate to itself the right to define one union as legal and another as illegal.

Labour Friends of Iraq notes that the Federation of Workers' Councils and Union of the Unemployed - a small federation linked to the ultra-left Worker-Communist Party of Iraq - has lodged a complaint at the ILO claiming that the Interim Iraqi Government has refused it recognition.

The FCWUI further claims that 'The governor of Sharaban [in Baghdad] issued an official order to all companies and factories in this neighbourhood to prevent and try any labour activist who joins FWCUI. He stressed that the only official and legal federation is IFTU and threatened to arrest those who joined FWCUI'.

A formal complaint has been sent by the FCWUI to the ILO. The ILO's Committee on the Freedom of Association discussed this complaint in November but has informed the FWCUI (December 8 2004) that ILO discussions have been adjourned 'since it had still not received the [Interim Iraqi] government's observations'. LFIQ will monitor this story. (AJ)

Harry Barnes MP renews appeal for Nozad Ismail

The brutal torture and murder of Hadi Salih, who impressed all with his basic decency and dignity after decades of oppression and exile when he briefed MPs last year, is a watershed moment when progressives who have shown a "sneaking regard" for the so-called resistance should shed such lethal illusions.

Hadi's murder is part of a strategy to eliminate the leadership of the emerging Iraqi labour movement.

Nozad Ismail, the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk, has twice escaped the assassins and receives daily threats.

We have launched a global appeal

See entry for 22 December.

But the "resistance" doesn't have a postbox and doesn't listen to rational argument. One way of overcoming this form of fascism is to mobilise decent people to say "they shall not pass."

Iraqi CP Mourns Trade Unionist Leader

Assassinated by Anti-People Terrorists

The Political Bureau of the Iraqi Communist Party issued a statement today, 5th January 2005, mourning a prominent trade unionist leader and party member, comrade Hadi Saleh (Abu Furat), who was assassinated in Baghdad in a cowardly act by anti-people terrorist elements and supporters of the ousted dictatorial regime.

Comrade Saleh, a member of the executive bureau of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and head of its international department, had been a well-known activist over several decades in the clandestine Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement. He returned to Iraq from exile immediately after the collapse of Saddam's dictatoship in April 2003 and worked tirelessly to rebuild the party and expand its influence. He was also actively involved in defending workers' rights and establishing the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, and contributed to developing its ties with regional and international trade union
organisations.

The statement of the party's Political Bureau said: "While strongly condemning and denouncing these cowardly acts, which expose the bankruptcy of their perpetrators and their destructive terrorist scheme, we stress that this crime, and others, will not go unpunished. The perpetrators of these crimes will receive just punishment for these vile crimes".

The statement concluded by conveying warmest condolences to comrade
Saleh's wife and family, as well as his comrades and friends.

Mick Rix was right

When the veteran left-wing union leader Mick Rix resigned from the Stop the War Coalition, he said of the controversial statement issued by the Coalition's leaders, which attacked the IFTU that: "The language that was used was deliberate, archaic, violent, and plain downright stupid and dangerous if you happen to be an Iraqi at this present time. Then again you are not".

At other points he is even more prescient regarding the threat: "a few words in a press release" place Iraqi trades unionists and socialists in danger. This took place at a time when StWC and its allies were mounting a concerted attempt to pin tags such as "collaborators", "quislings" and "fake union" on the IFTU (essentially for supporting the UN backed election process) – this is the language to which Rix refers. Articles to this effect in the Guardian by Sami Ramadani have had particular international impact.

In any event I am certainly not sure how clear my conscience would be if I had "fingered" the IFTU as "collaborators" in a situation I compared to Vichy France, having also stated that I support the "resistance" to use "any means they deem necessary".

Simon Pottinger

Johann Hari on the left and solidarity

The Independent columnist Johann Hari devotes his column today to the aftermath of the tragic murder of Hadi Salih. The article deserves widespread attention.

The article describes Hadi’s brave fight against Saddam, the war and his continuing fight for labour rights as well as his hope that trade unions could play the same role in regenerating Iraq that they played in post-war Japan. "The labour movement in Japan has been fighting for their country and for social justice for 50 years. If they can do it, we can too. That is why, despite everything, I am enthusiastic."

It quotes his friend Abdullah Muhsin, the international representative of the IFTU, on Hadi’s murder, "He was an ordinary but a very decent man. He worked in the print industry in Iraq and in exile, and the passion of his life was Iraqi workers and their desire to live as free people. And now I hear people describe his murderers as 'the resistance'. Resistance to what? To trade unions? To a decent man who loved his family and loved Iraq and wanted his country to be free? They cannot silence Salih. They cannot silence the Iraqi trade unions. Not again."

LFIQ Joint President Harry Barnes says: "This brutal murder is a wake-up call for any on the left who still have illusions about the 'resistance'. It was one thing to oppose the war, as I did on every occasion in the Commons - but we have moved beyond that debate. We may not like how we have got here but those on the left who do not give urgent and increased solidarity to the Iraqi trade unions will be damned by history."

Johann concludes that “there is something practical that everybody who cares about Iraqis can do about it. The TUC has set up an online donation service for the Iraqi Trade Unions here.

If just 5 per cent of the people who marched against the war supported the Iraqi labour movement now with their wallets, we could strengthen the hands of Iraqi democrats at a turning point in their country's history.

This isn't about supporting the occupying forces. It's about supporting ordinary Iraqis trying to get beyond Saddam and beyond the occupation. Do it for the Iraqi people. Do it for Hadi Salih.”

Statement of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) on the Assassination of Mr. Hadi Saleh, international secretary of Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions-IFTU

A terrorist group has assassinated Mr. Hadi Saleh, a prominent leader and international secretary of Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions-IFTU, Wednesday January 04. 2005 .They assassinated him near his home in Baghdad, in a series of assassination and physical eradication exercised by the terrorist groups. Assassination is tradition by those political groups who have no any connection with Iraqi people and they are trying to implement their policies through threats, assassination persecution and physical eradication. Assassination will not end the path of any progressive political activist and group which determined to struggle for a free and progressive life for Iraqi people.

We express our condolence to his family and his friends.

We condemn strongly this reactionary antihuman action which directed against any human aspect of Iraqi people. We declare in order to guarantee a peaceful and secure live for Iraqi people and to eliminate the current insecure and chaotic situation and scenario of assassination, terror and persecution in Iraq, are only possible through strengthening the progressive front of civil people in Iraq to end the occupation in Iraq and to eliminate the terrorism of political Islam and loyalists of Baath regime.

US Labor Against the War Statement on the Murder of Hadi Saleh

Hadi Salih, International Officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was a courageous union activist. His assassination in Baghdad yesterday is a crime against Iraq's working people and its labor movement. The cowardly manner of his killing - he was shot in his bed - is intended to send a message to Iraq's workers and trade unionists - that their efforts to participate in any peaceful process of political change will be met with death. We stand in solidarity with
the IFTU in rejecting this brutal intimidation.

Hadi Salih was killed because of his commitment and dedication to making Iraq a democratic and progressive country, building a society in which its people can lead safe and secure lives, with full employment at a decent standard of living. US Labor Against the War shares his vision of a peaceful and progressive Iraq, and sends its condolences to his family and fellow workers.

The ultimate source of violence in Iraq is the US occupation. The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions calls for the end of the occupation and the US war. Salih's murder does not bring this end one step closer. Instead, it seeks to terrorize Iraq's labor movement, and other parts of its civil society, to keep them from seeking any peaceful means of gaining political power in the interest of its working people.

In the past three months, IFTU members and rank-and-file workers have
been murdered and kidnapped as they tried to carry out normal union
activity, or simply do their jobs. On November 3, four railroad workers were killed, and their bodies mutilated. On December 25, two other train drivers were kidnapped, and five other workers beaten. On the night of December 26, the building of the Transport and Communications Workers in central Baghdad was shelled. Together with the assassination of Hadi Salih, these horrifying crimes are making Iraq as dangerous a place for union activists as Colombia.

The murderers of Hadi Salih and other Iraqi workers and unionists must be brought to justice. Iraq must become a safe and secure society in which people can exercise their rights as workers and unionists without fearing death and terror. The rights and security of Iraqi unionists are must be ensured and respected. This must include the full right to belong to a union and bargain with employers, the dismantling of the old Saddam-era laws banning unions in the public sector, and an end to the attempt to privatize Iraq's workplaces in the interests of transnational corporations.

The occupation must end, and the security of Iraq's unions and workers
guaranteed. Bring the troops home now!

Hadi Salih, presente!

Bush Does Not Get It (Part 3):

‘One does not reach democracy, or freedom, through torture’.

In today’s New York Times Mark Danner, author of Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror reviews the Bush administration’s record on the use of torture, the treatment of prisoners since 9/11, and the progress of the war on terror. Danner ‘gets it’. “The war in Iraq and the war on terrorism are ultimately political in character. Victory depends in the end not on technology or on overwhelming force but on political persuasion. By using torture, the country relinquishes the very ideological advantage - the promotion of democracy, freedom and human rights - that the president has so persistently claimed is America's most powerful weapon in defeating Islamic extremism. One does not reach democracy, or freedom, through torture.

Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions Statement on the Murder of Hadi Saleh

The IFTU mourns the loss of comrade Hadi Saleh who was assassinated last night (4 January 2005) at his family home in Baghdad in a cowardly act carried out by elements loyal to the fascist type dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein.

This is a sad tragedy for Saleh’s family, the IFTU and the Iraqi working people.

Iraqi working people have now lost a brave trade union leader who dedicated three decades of his life to fighting against Saddam’s dictatorship. He fought for a democratic peaceful and federal Iraq which would unite all Iraqis regardless of their background, ethnicity or religion. He championed workers’ rights to organize and strike to achieve decent jobs, pay and working conditions.

Hadi Saleh was a key activist in the clandestine Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement (WDTUM) which was established in 1980 to keep alive an independent labour movement. He was hunted by the regime for his trade union activities and forced into exile.

Hadi Saleh opposed Bush’s illegal war against Iraq. He returned home to Iraq after the ignominious collapse of the disgraced Saddam Hussein dictatorship. Hadi worked tirelessly to end the occupation and set about the task of re-building independent trade unions in Iraq resulting in the formation of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) of which he was a founder member (May 2003).

The IFTU denounces this act of cowardice act which follows a well orchestrated programme of intimidation against workers and trade unionists and indicates a well established pattern of targeted campaigns of assassination and terror waged by Saddam’s loyalists.

The IFTU therefore is calling on the international labour movement, the ILO and peace movements across the globe to deplore and denounce this heinous crime. We ask for messages of condolence to be sent to comrade Hadi Saleh’s wife and family and for statements of support to be sent to the IFTU and the working people of Iraq for whom Hadi Saleh worked tirelessly.

Furthermore we ask the international labour movement to demand that Iraq’s interim government provide adequate protection for workers and their legitimate trade union representatives as they carry out their jobs.

The IFTU demands that the perpetrators of this vile crime be arrested and brought to trial and prevent acts such as the murder of comrade Hadi Saleh from happening again.

Messages To: Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU): Abdullah Muhsin, C/O UNISON, 1 Mabledon Place, London WC1H 9AJ, Tel’: 0044 79 76 84 68 68
Email: abdullahmuhsin@iraqitradeunions.org

International Transport Workers' Federation slams murder of Hadi Salih

David Cockroft, General Secretary of global union federation the ITF, said today: "I have to report with sadness that we have learned of the murder at his home last night of Hadi Salih, International Officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU)."

"A month ago at the congress of the ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions) Hadi Salih was telling us of his hopes to build a democratic union that would, in his words ' bring together all Iraqis no matter what their background, ethnicity or religion'."

"This was a man who was imprisoned, sentenced to death and driven into exile by Saddam Hussein. Yet he returned to Iraq to try and help its people build democratic institutions that would protect their rights as citizens and workers. He was the kind of person that Iraq needs now and in the future. His murderers have done that country no favours. They deserve only contempt."

Harry Barnes MP condemns murder of Iraqi trade union leader

"The terrible news that Hadi Salih, International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), was murdered at his home in Baghdad last night is a tragedy for his family and friends. A great working class leader, who I was privileged to meet when I chaired a briefing at the Commons last year, has been murdered by fascist Saddam loyalists. The best tribute we can pay to this decent and honourable man is to redouble all efforts to support the IFTU and civil society in Iraq. His murder should force everyone to recognise that the so-called resistance is no friend of the labour movement and that there should be no truck with it whatsoever. All left-wingers should now urgently give active solidarity to the IFTU who have lost a leader who suffered under Saddam and lost his life in trying to build a decent society in Iraq."

TUC condemns the murder of top Iraqi trade unionist

5 January 2005

The TUC today (Wednesday) condemned the murder of Hadi Salih, the international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), who was shot last night by assassins who broke into his Baghdad home.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "Hadi was a very brave man, who with no thoughts for his own personal safety, returned home as soon as Saddam was gone to try to make Iraq a better place to live and work.

"Like all trade unionists, Hadi believed in peaceful solutions to working people's problems and his commitment to rebuilding the trade union movement as part of a democratic Iraq has cost him and his family dear. Sadly, Iraq has now joined the list of countries where trade unionists live under the almost daily threat of violence and death, and Iraqi working people have lost someone who worked tirelessly on their behalf."

Hadi Salih had, on many occasions, condemned those who seek to use violence and terror in Iraqi. Only last month he had been at the ICFTU World Congress in Japan where he had met Brendan Barber and other senior British trade unionists.

Hadi Salih was 56, and was a former printing worker, who helped found the IFTU last May. Under Saddam Hussein's regime, Hadi Salih was sentenced to death in 1969 for his labour activism. But after five years in jail, he escaped the gallows when his sentence was commuted. After fleeing Iraq, Hadi became a political refugee in Sweden but rushed back to Baghdad shortly after the war began in a bid to rekindle the labour movement.

'Three Quarters of Iraqis Strongly Intend to Vote': New Survey

According to a report in the Philadelphia Daily News, 'Nearly three-quarters of Iraqis say they "strongly intend" to vote in next month's pivotal elections, and a small majority believe the country is headed in the right direction,
according to a major new poll of Iraqi attitudes.

The poll of nearly 2,200 people across most of Iraq found a resilient people modestly hopeful that the Jan. 30 elections will improve life. Iraqis said bread and butter issues such as unemployment and health care are more pressing than the bloody insurgency that claims Iraqi and US lives virtually every day.

The International Republican Institute conducted the poll with face-to-face interviews by Iraqi surveyors. The IRI is not connected to the Republican Party and is a US government-funded non-profit organisation that promotes democracy worldwide. It's one of the few independent groups to conduct in-depth scientific polling in Iraq. The poll, conducted between November 24 and December 5, found improvements over the last two months in Iraqis' feelings about the country's direction and, to a lesser degree, about the interim Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

The survey was conducted after U.S. and Iraqi troops retook insurgent-held Fallujah, but before it became clear that the insurgency remains potent. Nearly 54 percent said Iraq is generally headed in the right direction - compared with 42 percent in late September and early October - while 32 percent said it's headed in the wrong direction. Of the optimists, more than 16 percent cited the coming election and 21 percent cited the toppling of Saddam's regime as the main reasons they thought the country was headed in the right direction. Of the pessimists, nearly 53 percent cited the poor security situation as the main reason for thinking Iraq is headed in the wrong direction'. (AJ)

Shia leaders urge Sunni Participation in Iraq Poll

Erik Eckholm reported in yesterday's New York Times that 'leaders of the country's most powerful political coalition, which is led by Shiite parties, held a surprise news conference in Baghdad. They urged Sunni Arabs to take part in the elections and sought to dispel fears that they were under the sway of Iran or were trying to establish an Islamic theocracy. The leaders of the coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, said elections must proceed as scheduled despite widespread violence, which is concentrated in Sunni regions north and west of Baghdad.' (AJ)

LFIQ stresses solidarity in Guardian

Janice MacDonald writes that "those who are against the war but show minimal interest in Iraqi human rights are no friends of the Iraqi people". We back Iraqi unions and others who oppose occupation, neo-liberal economics and being saddled with Saddam's debts. But the so-called resistance deliberately murders such people for daring to support the UN election process. Nozad Ismail, the president of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, in Kirkuk, has twice escaped assassination and receives daily threats. Solidarity with Nozad and others is the most urgent priority for friends of the Iraqi people.

Gary Kent, Labour Friends of Iraq

Women and the Iraq Elections

Head over to C SPAN the US Political TV channel watch a fascinating 90 minute discussion held on December 22 on women’s participation in the Iraq election. The meeting is chaired by Haleh Esfandiari, Middle East Program Director at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre, Washington DC. Speakers include Anita Sharma, Director of the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre and Denise Dauphais, International Federation for Electoral Systems, Transitional Justice Program and speakers from other NGOs and democratisation projects. (AJ)

Go here and scroll to ‘The Iraqi Elections: Women and the Ballot Box: 22 December 2004’. If you don’t have a Real Player download one free at the CSPAN website.

'Keep up the Good Work': Message from Iraqi Democrat to Labour Friends of Iraq

“I’m glad to see your website, the support is appreciated by myself, and I’m sure many other Iraqis. I have linked your website, and want to thank you for mentioning mine. I hope to hear from you soon, and keep up the good work!”

Check out Husayn's blog Democracy in Iraq (is Coming) here

‘These are the People’: David Bacon

David Bacon travelled in Iraq in 2003 and wrote "No Justice, No Peace - The Occupation's War on Iraqi Workers" and has been awarded the Max Steinbock Award. This is a short extract from his acceptance speech of November 18 2004.

‘When we were in Iraq, we tried to understand what was life like for workers. We investigated how people were organized, especially in unions, and what their demands were. We looked at the huge unemployment, and the conditions of their lives, at work and in their communities. We had to learn the history of Iraq's labor movement, and it does have a long courageous one, going all the way back to the British occupation of the 1920s (…) If you're a union on the ground in Iraq, your choices are horrible. You confront an occupation killing people at a huge rate, which is provoking and consolidating the armed resistance. The economic agenda of the continued US presence still spells disaster for workers - unemployment, privatization, poverty and war. But in the eyes of Iraqi unions, the resistance is also hostile to their interests. Unions remember what Saddam and the Baathists did to unions and the left, murdering hundreds and driving them underground. Religious fundamentalist states are no less hostile. Iraqi unions remember also what happened in Iran after 1978, with persecutions and show trials. Iraqi unions and workers need peace and political space in which to organize civil society. These are the people who could govern Iraq and make it a democratic and progressive country - unions, womens organizations, and left wing political parties. (AJ)

Democrats Organise in Iraq

Zeyad (a 24 year old Iraqi dentist and blogger from Baghdad)over at Healing Iraq has posted a extremely useful survey of the competing party lists for the Iraqi election.

The article shows how fragmented the scene is (7200 candidates from over 220 political parties and organisations) But it also shows a wide range of democratic parties are competing. Alongside the major Shia and Kurdish lists, and the lists headed by Interim Prime Minster Allawi and Interim President, Ghazi Ajeel Al-Yawar Zeyad, Zeyad also discusses the ‘The Civil Society Organisations Assembly…a coalition comprised of 172 representatives of Iraqi NGO's that were formed after the war (…) The National Democratic Coalition slate, headed by Tawfiq Al-Yassiri, National Council member and the organiser of last December's anti-terrorism marches (…) The Iraqi Communist party has an independent party slate of 275 candidates headed by its general secretary, Hamid Majid Musa (…)The Independent Democratic Trend slate is headed by Aziz Al-Yassiri (…)The Independent Progressive Front slate is headed by Abdul-Karim Al-Rubai'i, a tribal Sheikh from Kut, and is similar to the list above (and) includes former Iraqi football players, Karim Saddam and Laith Hussein (…)The Watani (national) coalition list includes independents and technocrats headed by Dr. Wathab Dawud Al-Sa'di. It includes names such as the former judge Dr. Wathiba Al-Sa'di, the writer Jasim Al-Mutayr, women rights activists Hana Edward and Fawzia Al-Abbasi, and football player Abd Kadhum (…)Dr. Ghassan Al-Attiya, an independent Iraqi politician…heads the Iraqi Independents Bloc. Al-Attiya strongly advocates national dialogue and reconciliation (…)Hameed Al-Kifa'i, Iraqi journalist and former spokesman for the GC, heads the Democratic Community Movement list. It includes Hashim Al-Diwan, commentator of the Iraqi Fayhaa channel (…) (AJ)

New evidence the ‘resistance’ is a Ba’athist/Al-Qaida alliance

"Are you with democracy and a say in your future, or are you with slavery to al-Qaida and a miserable death?" was the response of a senior Iraqi minister to the statement of three Sunni Islamist Terrorist groups that they would kill anyone taking part in the Iraqi elections, reports Michael Howard in the Guardian

Ansar al-Sunna, the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of the Mujahideen called polling stations ‘centres of atheism’.

Howard also reports on fresh evidence that the so called ‘resistance’ is an alliance between Saddam’s Ba’athists and al-Qaida terrorists. ‘The claim that officials from Saddam's regime and jihadis are working together received a boost yesterday when Christian Chesnot, one of the French journalists released last week, told the Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that his captors had been "fundamentalists" and former Ba'ath party loyalists.’ (…) Iraq's former ambassador to India, Salah al Mukhtar, who is thought to be in hiding in Syria, backed the insurgency this week. He told Hawlati, an independent Kurdish weekly, in an interview: "Not only has the Ba'ath party been successful in reorganising its ranks, but it [is] capable of withstanding occupation strikes and striking back more powerfully." Asked whether the Ba'ath party supported Zarqawi, Mr Mukhtar said: "We support anyone who takes up arms against the US colonial rule of Iraq." (AJ)