Ann Clwyd MP: Iraqi Election Day 2005 - "I have waited all my life for this"

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Ann Clwyd MP gives an eyewitness account of election day in Iraq

“I have waited all my life for this”

Election Day in Basra City was exhilarating. Men and women streamed down the main streets in the bright sun. They waved an inky finger in the air to show us proudly that they had already voted.

I visited four polling centres in Basra that day. There were separate queues of hundreds of men and women. It was obvious that the people of Basra could not wait to get out and vote. By the afternoon, because of the rush to vote in the morning, the centres were almost deserted except for the election officials. In the first polling centre, we walked past tight security up the long drive to the school. Under Saddam, election centres were based in Ba’athist headquarters, to further intimidate the voters, and there was only ever one name on the ballot paper!

This school, like the others I visited, was decked out in ribbons with the colours of the Iraqi flag: black, white, red, and green. Two long queues had formed, one of men and the other of women. The queue of women stretched down the road almost as far as I could see. They were all smiling, chatting and waving. Sweets, which had been left by the first person who had turned up to vote at that centre, were being handed out. Outside and inside the polling centre, the Iraqi election officials were working efficiently. The Iraqi security services were a discreet, but reassuring, presence. Voters could vote in one of three or four stations within the centres. The process was very orderly. Posters with pictorial instructions were on all the walls for those needing assistance. But officials were in place to guide first-time voters (which of course were everyone) through the process, from collection of the ballot paper to the dipping of the voter’s finger in ink to after they had voted.

Dyed purple fingers were held up everywhere with pride and as a symbol of election day in Iraq. In each polling centre I saw evidence or heard reports of the determination of the people of Basra to get out and vote. Early on in the day, one of the centres was shelled as it was opening. A group of women queuing apparently responded with ‘songs’ of defiance, to show that they would not be deterred from voting. Elderly and disabled people were brought in, sometimes on makeshift wheelchairs. Whole families turned out to vote, and many told me that it was a day of celebration for them, like going to a wedding or Eid.

The elections have certainly been a great boost to the confidence of the Iraqi people, not least because of the bravery and professionalism shown by the Iraqi security services. I myself saw no British troops in Basra the whole of election day – it was obvious that the success story of elections belonged to the Iraqi people. The overall turnout of 58 per cent, although in Basra the turnout was 80 per cent, is, I believe, remarkable, and reflects the determination of Iraqis to defy the terrorists, and vote for their future.

I am sure that all of us as MPs wish the newly elected members of the Transitional National Assembly (TNA) well Democratic elections, where one in three of all candidates who stood were women, are a first for the region. I hope that we will be able to support the TNA and the new government in building a democratic, federal and inclusive Iraq for everyone, regardless of ethnicity, religion or gender.

Political prisoners: the legacy of suffering

While in Basra I met with several ex-political prisoners. Many were tortured, and lost years of their youth, imprisoned without trial in one of Saddam’s prisons. Families shared in their fear and suffering. There are many hundreds of thousands of people, killed by the regime, in mass graves all over Iraq. Again all of these have left grieving and perhaps dependent relatives. So much more needs to be done for these people as they are suffering both
psychologically and materially.

A recent Human Rights Watch report into the Basra Massacre of 1999, which followed the assassination in March 1999 of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq a- Sadr, shows once again that the persecution in Iraq did not stop in 1991, as so many people believe. Human Rights Watch has a list of 120 men who were arrested, and the dates of their executions in the months following the uprising. They believe there are likely to be many more. Human Rights Watch also interviewed local survivors of the massacres. They report the arrests of hundreds of young men who were rounded up and transported to the Basra Ba’ath Party Headquarters after the uprising. One former prisoner describes how “there were over fifty people there. Some of them were shot on the spot right there. I heard gunshots and people screaming”.

Most of the massacres, however, took place in remote locations near Basra. Eyewitnesses report seeing truckloads of men unloaded next to trenches and shot, before bulldozers shovelled the earth over them. I was able to meet with the representative of the Ministry of Human Rights in Basra, as well as the local representative of the Free Prisoners Association. Both are committed to helping the families of ex-political prisoners. They are receiving some assistance but much more help is needed from the international community.

Abdullah Muhsin interview

Alternet interviews the IFTU’s Abdullah Muhsin, who says “Our priority is to keep Iraq together, and make sure that extremism does not take hold in Iraq – especially after the borders were left open and the police and the army were dismantled, which were disastrous policies in our view. We need to move forward, keep Iraq together, and to build a lasting democracy.” He also says that “The peace movement should help us and other genuine democratic Iraqis who want to build a genuine democracy in Iraq” which “will benefit the Middle East.” He also says that “What's important to us is how to [utilize] some of the operations of the market for the benefit of working people. While you have a free market economy, one should recognize that social provisions are necessary. So while we think foreign investment is something good, privatization is something else. We do not support privatization, specifically in areas such as education, health, and oil. Oil represents 97 percent of the Iraqi economy. In order to rebuild Iraq and feed the country, you need that income and it should remain publicly owned.” He criticises the “resistance” and remembers the brutal murder of Hadi Saleh: “This is a man who fought all his life for the right of working people to have a genuine free trade union movement. A man who was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein in 1969 for seven years, and who spent five years of his life on death row for his belief in trade unions. A man who spoke out against the occupation of Iraq and the war at every international meeting that he attended. A man who escaped Saddam Hussein in 1974 to be killed by the same forces, the remnants of Saddam's Mukhabarat.” He rightly concludes that “We want the good things that people in the West take for granted.”

Labour MPs to fight on anti-war ticket

According to a report in today's Independent. The report goes on to say:

The Labour Friends of Iraq has launched an attempt to defuse the issue at the election. In a campaign pack, the group admits it might have been wrong for Britain to go into Iraq, but insists: "We are where we are. Today, almost everyone wants a sovereign democratic Iraq. The last thing the Iraqi people need is for us to cut and run now. If the multinational force withdrew tomorrow, there will be a bloodbath, civil war, the Balkanisation of Iraq and the end of the hopes of all democrats and progressives."

The group, whose joint presidents are the Labour MPs Harry Barnes and Ann Clwyd, Mr Blair's special envoy to Iraq, denies the Prime Minister is "just Bush's poodle", saying that he opposed the US President on the Kyoto treaty.

It admits "grave mistakes" have been made in Iraq but insists there are "many good news stories" to tell, including the removal of Saddam, the trials of Saddam and his henchmen, the return of Iraqi refugees and the rise of a free Iraqi trade union movement.

LFIQ Toolkit on Solidarity with Grassroots Iraq

The Toolkit for Solidarity has been sent to all Constituency Labour Parties and Labour MPs. It is a useful resource pack for local parties, full of facts, ideas and arguments. Very kindly, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw) did the design and printing.

Introduction

This pack of information outlines who we are and the nature of the new Iraqi trade union movement and wider civil society, which we are urging party members and others to support.

The new unions that have replaced Saddam's state-run fronts, are beacons of hope. But they face huge obstacles. Unemployment stands at over 50%. Attempts to rebuild the shattered economy are being literally sabotaged by a rag-bag alliance of former Saddam supporters, foreign jihadists and disgruntled men who were drummed out of the Iraqi army and police by the US.

Iraqi unions, like all unions, campaign for improved wages and conditions as well as for progressive labour legislation. But they also provide a non-sectarian bulwark against the nihilistic terror of private armies.

We are supportive of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), whose web site is www.iraqitradeunions.org and which contains a mine of information on the IFTU and the emerging labour movement.

We have established Labour Friends of Iraq (LFIQ) to bring together people who opposed the war and those who supported it, but now see that circumstances have changed, not least given the superb turnout for the recent elections and the Iraqi people's thirst for democracy, and can agree that the priority is now to support democracy, secularism and human rights in Iraq. This new unity of people who disagreed over the war is symbolised by our choice of Presidents.

One is Rt Hon Ann Clwyd MP, an outspoken critic of Saddam since the 1980's, the Special Envoy to the Prime Minister on Human Rights in Iraq and a long-standing friend and supporter of Iraqi democrats.

Our other President is the North East Derbyshire MP Harry Barnes who did his national service in Basra in the 1950's and who also has always opposed Saddam. Harry opposed the war and joined anti-war marches and platforms. He has no regrets about this, but is also a supporter of the new Iraqi trade union movement and a friend to Iraqi democrats.

These two have united in Labour Friends of Iraq to build a movement that goes beyond the increasingly sterile arguments for and against the war. Instead they want to build solidarity with progressive forces in Iraq. It's not that we don't mention the war or won't criticise the actions of the US or our own government, when necessary, but that the priority is now to unite the British labour movement in support of our comrades in Iraq.

Iraq has strong labour movement traditions. Before the Ba'athists came to power, a million people joined the May Day march in Baghdad in 1959. Iraq also has a proud tradition of secularism and tolerance. Iraq is the cradle of civilisation and its oil wealth could give a decent life to all its people. But today peace and progress is threatened by the terrorist "resistance" and by foreign asset-strippers.

The stakes are very high. Join with us to help Iraqi democrats rebuild their country.

Yours in comradeship,

Jane Ashworth, Chair LFIQ
Gary Kent, Director LFIQ
Alan Johnson, Research and Publications Officer LFIQ

Contents

Section 1: A campaign pack with model resolutions, leaflet and ideas for making solidarity with Grassroots Iraq and details of the emerging trade union movement in Iraq.
Section 2 Details of the campaign of political assassinations of Iraqi trade union leaders by the ‘resistance.’
Section 3 Articles from the press which outline the case for solidarity with Grassroots Iraq and for moving on from pro or anti-war positions.
Section 4 Background papers explaining the case for cancelling Saddam’s debt and a Question and Answers on the current political situation.

Section 1

The Iraqi trade union movement: building solidarity

“Independence, transparency and the importance of not being part of the state”.(IFTU slogan)

After three decades of repression, wars and sanctions that most hurt working people, Iraqi society has been devastated. One of the very few causes for hope in the present situation is the emergence of genuine, independent trade unions, women’s groups and political parties bringing Iraqi workers together, regardless of religious, ethnic or national origins.

There are several new union movements which have emerged since the fall of Saddam but the largest trade union organisation in Iraq is the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), which organises workers across a range of occupations and whose affiliated unions have taken successful strike action in several industries. Some case studies are included in this briefing.

The IFTU stands for:
• the rights of all Iraqi workers;
• a new democratic trade union movement actively involved in influencing economic and social policies and rebuilding civil society, together with other social movements;
• the increased role of women at all levels within unions and in civil society;
• cooperation with international and regional labour movements, seeking their help to equip Iraqi working people with new skills and knowledge;
• special attention to the social and economic needs of disabled people. These are very many disabled people due to decades of war.

The IFTU has forged strong links with British trade unions. The 2004 TUC Congress passed a resolution to “maintain and strengthen contact with Iraqi trade unions, in particular the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), by:
initiating, together with affiliated trade unions, a solidarity committee to liaise with, and give practical support to, the trade union movement in Iraq, including the delivery of a structured education programme on the TUC model, and assistance with the provision of IT and other office equipment;
facilitating visits and twinning arrangements between Iraqi and British trade unionists; and
ensuring that links are made between Iraqi women trade unionists and their British counterparts”.

(Excerpt from Motion 82, moved by NATFHE and carried overwhelmingly)

Since then, many British trade unions have demonstrated their solidarity. The RMT has sent a delegation to Iraq and set up its own support fund for the IFTU. The FBU has made contact with Iraqi fire fighters and sent over much needed fire-fighting equipment. UNISON has brought over a group of Iraqi trade unionists to take part in its education and organising programme. There is no reason why Labour Parties shouldn’t do similar things, though their budgets may be smaller. Later on in this briefing, we suggest ways in which you can make contact with the Iraqi trade union movement, and show practical solidarity. Our Iraqi comrades have the right to expect us to do all we can.

The IFTU in action: a suitable case for solidarity

1/ The Baghdad Teachers’ Union

The union held its first open conference on 29th July 2003. The conference elected a leadership of 15 and adopted a rulebook.

350 delegates representing 20 union committees attended the conference. At the conference, the 20 committees merged to form two committees. Two Presidents were elected, one for Al Rasafa and one for Al Krah (districts of Baghdad).

In Al Rasafa there are 25,500 members out of a total of 32,000 teachers. In Al Krah there are 29,000 out of 32,000 teachers. This is without any form of closed shop or compulsion. Membership costs one thousand dinars per year.

On 23rd August 2003 the Baghdad teachers attended a conference of 400 delegates from teachers unions in 15 regions. The unions came together and elected a 16 strong national committee.

The united union campaigns for:
* The reinstatement of politically victimised teachers.
* Teacher representatives in all state courts.
* A trade centre for teachers to shop at low cost.
* A substantial wage increase.
* The reduction in primary class sizes from 28 to 24, and then to 18 maximum.
* Retraining for former teachers, including training in computers.
* Housing for teachers.

2/ Interview with Abdul Aalye Awlawe Al Rekeabye, President of the Agricultural Union.

Q: tell us something about your union. When was it established? How were you elected and what have you achieved since election?

A: On 5th June 2004 a conference was held at the Ministry of Agriculture in Baghdad. 119 delegates representing 28 committees attended. This was from Baghdad only. 24 individuals put themselves forward for election to the leading committee and 15, including me, were elected. I was then elected President at the first committee meeting. We have warm comradeship with all regional union committees, such as those in Al Umara and Dyala Kut al Basra.

We organised a strike on 4th and 5th September 2004 at the A1 Kandy Company, demanding a pay increase. All the 170 workers at the company took part in the action and after two days we won a minimum wage agreement for unskilled workers and an increase in the monthly rate from 30 thousand to 70 thousand dinars.

We have organised several seminars on trade union rights. We campaigned for reinstatement and compensation for workers who were sacked for their political views by the old regime. The union has succeeded in obtaining the reinstatement of many workers.

We are affiliated to the IFTU and consider our union as one of the main pillars of the federation – we were at the conference that established the IFTU on 16 May 2003.

We are presently campaigning for a labour code in line with ILO principles on rights at work, and demanding the repeal of Saddam’s 1987 anti-union law, which is still in place.

At our conference on 5th June 2004, it was agreed to form a Food Staff Workers Union, as a section of the Agricultural Union. The new Food Staff Union has already achieved success in wage struggles, notably in the Baghdad Tobacco factory. It has also prevented the forced transfer of one of its officials from one company to another: the state management backed down in the face of a threatened strike. The union now has branches organising in the following sectors: Food Oil, Tobacco, Sweets, Yoghourt, Food Products, Soft Drinks.

3/ Report from Khalud Jasim Muthana, President of the Construction and Wood Workers’ union.

After the fall of the Saddam regime, we began to organise in the construction industry. I was appointed as the President of the preparatory committee, which by 28th June 2004 comprised 42 workplace committees.

Our first conference was held at Baghdad central railway station and was attended by 250 workers – men and women. The main theme of the conference was to build a new trade union centre. The second theme was for the reinstatement of workers victimised by Saddam’s regime because of union activity. Conference then elected a leadership of 15.

Since the conference we have managed to form another 18 union committees. We have demanded that the Oil Ministry ensures that oil supplies are maintained to the factories where we organise. We have organised to protect from sabotage, the electricity supplies to workplaces where our members work. We organise in both the public and private sectors.

We now have about 54 workplace committees, elected by rank and file members. These committees include about 25 women and our policy is to maintain good relations with all Iraqis, whatever their background.

4/ Report from Torki Abd nor al-Lehaby, President of the Transport and Communication Union

I was a delegate to the conference on 16th May 2003 that formed the IFTU. I was then given responsibility for the transport and communications sector. We established a sector committee of 15 and elected a President (me), a Vice President and a Secretary.

We then formed the Transport and Communications Union in both the public and private sectors, including telecommunications and the post office. We have several thousand members in the Post Office, including women.

We also organise in haulage and public transport. We organise and co-ordinate in 14 provinces and as well as Baghdad, we have strong membership in Najaf and Babal.

Perhaps our proudest achievement, apart from achieving pay increases, was to force the reopening of our Baghdad office, closed and ransacked by American troops on 6 December 2003.

What you can do to help

Why not make contact with one of the unions described above? Twin with them and discuss specific fund-raising activities with their particular requirements in mind. We can help you do this.

For instance, a mobile phone for a union organiser costs the $400 per year. A manual worker earns around $120 per month, a teacher or lecturer around $180 per month and even a senior professor earns only $ 400 per month. Membership of the teachers’ union (like most Iraqi unions) therefore has to be very cheap: just one US dollar per month. So sponsoring a union organiser’s mobile phone would be a massive contribution to the work of the union.

Support the TUC’s Aid Iraq Appeal, raising money for all genuine trade unions (not just the IFTU) Iraq.

The fund was launched in October 2004, by Brendan Barber (TUC General Secretary) and Hashimia Muhsin Hussein, President of the Electricity and Energy union in Basra - the first woman trade union leader in the history of Iraq.

All money raised will go to funding trade union organisation in Iraq. The TUC makes no deduction for administration. Money will be used for union organising, education and IT/office equipment.

Details (including an online donation facility) can be found on www.tuc.org.uk/iraqappeal

Contact the IFTU direct, via their British representative Abdullah Muhsin. Abdullah is happy to speak at labour movement meetings. The IFTU is also raising money for the ‘Khalil Shawqi Appeal’, named after a former railworker and trade unionist who became a well known playwright and actor and a prominent opponent of Saddam Hussein.

The IFTU explains “It is our modest aim with the assistance of the international labour movement …to take travelling theatre companies to every workplace in Iraq to explain (trade unionism) through the medium of theatre, poetry and exhibitions. Theatre is a great popular tradition amongst the Iraqi people. Our initiative will take back the tradition of trade unionism from the discredited state-run trade unionism of the Ba’ath regime. Education is a massive task and we are commencing this project by equipping a bus as a travelling theatre to tour Iraqi workplaces and communities”.

To support this project or to contact the IFTU for a speaker, e-mail abdullahmuhsin@iraqitradeunions.org

Get together with other local Labour Parties to organise a meeting with a speaker from the IFTU or one of the other progressive Iraqi organisations that we can put you in contact with. You might want to make it an open meeting and invite local trade unionists along as well.

Suggested Model Resolution

This CLP resolves to do all it can to help the Iraqis build a free, stable and democratic future. We wish to see the occupation forces withdrawn as soon as possible once elections have been held and democracy and stability have a reasonable prospect of survival.

We condemn all acts of terrorism, including the holding of innocent people as hostages. We note that the vast majority of victims of these attacks are Iraqis. We also note that far from ending the occupation, the terrorism is prolonging it.

We acknowledge that those who supported and those who opposed military action in Iraq have united in support of the efforts of the emerging civil society in Iraq, including various parties, women’s groups and the new secular and independent trade union movement.

We therefore support the TUC’s appeal to raise funds to help rebuild the Iraqi trade union movement and/or resolve to twin with an Iraqi union and raise funds for it and/or invite a speaker from the Iraqi trade union movement to address our next meeting in order to launch our solidarity campaign. (delete as appropriate).

Updated model motions are available at www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk

Section 2.
Trade unionists under attack

Details of the campaign of political assassinations of Iraqi trade unionists by the ‘resistance.’ (see Questions and Answers for detailed assessments of these insurgents.) Having been organising underground and subject to jail and torture under Saddam, the trade union leadership now face more death squads. The ‘resistance’ is waging war against the unions and murdering militants who campaign for a secular, sovereign and democratic Iraq.

Here we focus on the assassination in January 2005 of Hadi Saleh and the threats to the life of Nozad Ismail.

1 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.

2 Urgent Global Labour Alert issued by Labour Friends of Iraq

We are appealing to the international labour movement to help avert the assassination of a trade union leader, 40 year old Nozad Ismail who is the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk.

Nozad has already survived two assassination attempts this year at the hands of the so-called 'resistance'. He receives daily death threats. The only weapon we have to help Nozad is publicity. We aim to make the cost of murdering him too high by publicising his case and demanding the resistance stop intimidating him and threatening his life. There is no single authority upon which we can place demands or focus pressure. The people who wish to kill Nozad don't organise openly. This appeal is, therefore, different from cases where someone has been imprisoned but is no less urgent.

Pass this motion in your party or union branch and tell the local newspapers. This (union branch/party branch/CLP) notes that Nozad Ismail, the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk has twice survived assassination attempts by the so-called resistance and is subject to daily death threats. We call upon the international labour movement to extend solidarity to Nozad in the hope that these acts of solidarity and resulting publicity may make the cost of murdering him too high. We believe that increased solidarity with Iraqi democrats like Nozad will also contribute to the success of the forthcoming elections which can secure a sovereign and democratic Iraqi government, which can best tackle the so-called resistance, from which these threats emanate.

Tell us that you support this initiative by emailinginfo@labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk and we will collate the lists and use it to focus maximum international attention. We will pass all motions and expressions of support to Nozad

Section 3.
Views from the Left

1. Understanding the Iraqi elections: the power of the purple finger

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”.

The Iraqi people spoke clearly and decisively on 30 January 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

“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

“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.

2 The battle for democracy Gary Kent, Director of Labour Friends of Iraq, Yorkshire Post, November 2004. (abridged)

All the Iraqis I know were exiled by Saddam Hussein, as were four million people. They detested Saddam’s murderous regime, which was modelled on Stalin and Hitler. The victims ran into the millions. My Iraqi friends also opposed the war because they feared the impact on their loved ones and country. They thought that Iraqis should overthrow Saddam.

But now that Saddam has gone, they are enthusiastic to rebuild their country. And the United Nations has endorsed a process which aims to give Iraq its first democratically elected government in the new year. It will decide whether foreign troops stay or go.

Withdrawing the troops before the elections would create a security vacuum which would murder democracy and probably balkanise Iraq. And it would betray Iraqi democrats because a whole new Grassroots Iraq has emerged. out of the ruins of a one-party state.

Hundreds of new newspapers and dozens of mainly new parties are campaigning around the elections. There are many active women’s groups. Workers have set up free unions to replace the state-run fronts which were part of Saddam’s terror apparatus.

The key union formation is the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), which has soared from a tiny clandestine outfit to 12 affiliates with 200,000 members.(This figure is certified by the ICFTU) They face huge obstacles. Unemployment stands at over 50%. The shattered economy is slowly being rebuilt after decades of being ripped off by Saddam and his sons plus the effects of UN sanctions and the recent military action.

And there is terrible violence, by a rag-bag alliance of former Saddam supporters, foreign jihadists and disgruntled men who were all too quickly drummed out of the Iraqi army and police forces.

For so long as the reconstruction is delayed, more people will be tempted to join the resistance. And the more people that are drawn into terrorism, the more the reconstruction will be delayed. But this is the dynamic in the “Sunni Triangle,” not the whole of the country.

One way out of the vicious circle is to develop the organisations which are needed in any healthy democracy and even more in Iraq. Democracy is more than just the right to vote: it is about the right to organise and make decisions that affect our lives.

Iraqi unions are like all unions and argue for better wages and conditions as well as progressive labour laws. But they also provide a non-sectarian forum for discussion and an outlet for political frustrations. The unions are a bulwark against nihilistic terror.

Parts of the “resistance” use terror to strengthen their hand in the elections. Others oppose elections and are doing their utmost to prevent them. This is why they have slaughtered hundreds of Iraqi civilians. From new Iraqi army recruits to children celebrating the opening of a new water treatment plant.

Unfortunately, parts of the British Left think that the key enemy is America and have made a pact with the insurgent devil because their enemy’s enemy is their friend. Some ultra-leftists even tried to attack the IFTU General Secretary at a meeting in London, presumably ignorant of the fact that he was jailed for ten years and tortured under Saddam.

It was entirely honourable to oppose the war and everyone should mourn the continuing loss of life but it is a disgrace to side with those who want to destroy democracy in Iraq.

We have established Labour Friends of Iraq to bring together people who opposed or supported the war but now see that circumstances have changed. The new unity of pro-war and anti-war forces is symbolised by the choice of our Presidents.

The two have united to try to fashion a new “third way” – going beyond increasingly sterile arguments for and against war in favour of solidarity with Grassroots Iraq. It’s not that we don’t mention the war but that the priority is to unite the labour movement here in support of the labour movement in Iraq.

British trade unions, which opposed the invasion, have led the way in aiding brave Iraqi trade unionists. The Fire Brigades Union, for instance, provided much needed fire-fighting equipment to the Iraqi fire brigade. The TUC has launched an Aid Iraq Appeal, raising money for Iraqi trade unionists to rebuild a free and independent trade union movement, and strengthen civil society in Iraq. All the money raised goes to funding trade union organisation in Iraq, without deductions for administration. The money will help Iraqi unions develop their organising and education programmes and buy computers and office equipment. (www.tuc.org.uk)

3 The left’s retreat from universal human rights by Peter Tatchell (Abridged)

Liberal humanitarian values are under threat. Much of this threat comes not from the far right but from the left's moral equivocation and compromises. Sections of progressive opinion are wavering in their defence of universal human rights. In this era of post-modernism and live-and-let-live multiculturalism, moral relativism is gaining ground.

The Stop The War Coalition was right to oppose the US – UK led invasion, but utterly wrong to ignore Saddam’s terrorization of the Kurds and Shias, and of socialists, democrats and trade unionists. The STWC’s failure to support the democratic and left opposition to Saddam ranks as one of the great moral failures of our era. It’s “do nothing” and “take no sides” policy failed to challenge Saddam’s tyranny. Proposals for a campaign of international solidarity to help the Iraqi people topple the dictatorship and liberate themselves were decisively rejected by the STWC.

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?

4. The great liberal betrayal by Nick Cohen (Abridged). New Statesman Monday 1st November 2004

The left, in the form of the Stop the War Coalition, has fallen out even with Iraqi comrades who opposed the war. Why? Because those comrades don't see hostage-takers and decapitators as resistance fighters.

The British anti-war movement is falling apart, but for a reason that the most cynical observer of the left in the 20th century could never have imagined. The left, or at least that section of it which always manages to get the whip hand, has swerved to the right - to the far right, in fact - and is actively supporting theocrats and fascists: the oppressors of racial minorities, secularists, women, gays and trade unionists.

It is the last item on this list that has proved too poisonous for the democrats in the Stop the War Coalition to swallow. Mick Rix, former general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers' union, has resigned from the coalition and condemned its "stupid and wild accusations" against Iraqi trade unionists. The public sector union Unison is threatening to sever all links after Subji al-Mashadani of the IFTU was screamed down at the recent European Social Forum. "The people who harassed the IFTU general secretary and prevented the meeting from taking place have no interest in genuine debate or the peaceful, democratic future of the people of Iraq," Unison said.

Pro- and anti-war Labour MPs have signed a Commons motion put down by the (anti-war) Harry Barnes in mid-October, which denounced "a scurrilous statement" that "would strongly imply support for the so-called resistance and thereby acquiesce in the murders of more people such as Ken Bigley, as well as hundreds of ordinary Iraqis". The Stop the War Coalition statement in question reaffirmed its "call for an end to the occupation, the return of all British troops in Iraq to this country" and recognised "once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessary, to secure such ends". The organisers of the march through London on 17 October in the name of peace were now supporting the hostage-takers and decapitators, the jihadis and the Ba'athists, in whatever acts of terror they thought necessary to stop elections taking place.

The Stop the War Coalition is dominated by the Socialist Workers Party, the most unscrupulous and unprincipled of the far-left sects. When the SWP takes over a cause, agendas are rigged, meetings are packed, and debate is suffocated. Everyone with experience of the left knows that the SWP is a totalitarian organisation both in theory and in practice, but they rarely say so in public, and nor do the liberal media. Yet the anti-war movement marked a new low, even by the standards of the SWP's grim record. The supposedly Marxist party allied itself with the Muslim Association of Britain, which supports sharia law, with all its difficulties with democracy, women and homosexuals. The unlovely couple then claimed to represent the millions who opposed the war, and those who marched under the slogan "Not in my name" did not go out of their way to contradict them.

What has been disorientating from the start has been the ease with which the opponents of Saddam's 22 years in power have been forgotten. They were victims of a state that was authentically fascist, to use that abused word correctly for once. It was fascist not only because the founders of the Ba'ath Party were inspired by Nazi Germany, but because Iraq had the classic fascist programme of the worship of the great leader, the unprovoked wars of aggression, the genocidal campaigns against impure ethnic minorities, and the suppression of every autonomous element in society, including free trade unions.

While the blanking out of men and women who shared the liberal left's values was understandable before the war - the good reasons for stopping George Bush and Tony Blair had the regrettable but inevitable effect of crowding out the bad - the persistence of denial afterwards has been inexcusable and truly sinister.

If you think the sell-out is just a local problem confined to a few creeps on the far left who believe that anyone who kills Americans is a freedom fighter, consider the case of the Liberal Democrats. Charles Kennedy managed to get through his entire speech to the Liberal Democrat party conference without once mentioning the liberals and democrats in Iraq who face kidnap or murder for fighting for the rights that he takes for granted. I can't remember a single occasion when the Lib Dems have taken up the cause of Iraqi democracy. Nor is denial simply a British phenomenon. Iraqis trying to cope with a criminally incompetent American occupation, and working under threat of assassination by Saddam's supporters or religious fundamentalists, have looked across the liberal west for support - and met indifference.

For the past two years, we have had the eerie sight of a left without comrades. On the face of it, the left has not been so strong for decades: millions have marched under its banners, Blair has been wounded, perhaps fatally, and the BBC and the liberal papers are onside for the first time that anyone can remember. But if you ask on whose behalf the left is pouring out its heart - for whom is all this left-wing outrage? - no one can produce a single reputable ally. The Kurdish victims of Saddam's genocidal campaigns were all the rage on the left when Iraq was America's de facto partner. But they became an embarrassment long ago when Saddam invaded Kuwait and became America's enemy, and have been unmentionables ever since they committed the unforgivable crime of supporting the overthrow of a tyrant who sought to exterminate them.

The Iraqi Communist Party won't do. It opposed the war, but worked with the Americans once it was over. For a while, a group called the Worker-Communist Party was fashionable. It opposed the war and the occupation. However, the WCP, too, has wised up and decided it wants nothing to do with the British anti-war movement's alliance with the far right. Recently, it dissociated itself from "left groups like the SWP [which] want to see Moqtada al-Sadr winning the current conflict. This stand has nothing to do with the socialist movement."

Precisely. The story of how the Iraqi trade unions have rammed this point home offers to British trade unionists and anti-war Labour MPs a small glimmer of hope amid the murk. At any leftish meeting on Iraq, you are likely to meet the IFTU's Abdullah Muhsin, who tactfully points out that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, being on the left isn't simply a pose. You are meant to stick by your comrades, or at least give them a fair hearing.

Muhsin describes the history of Iraqi unions, how their members were executed or driven underground by Saddam, while "yellow" unions were established to do the regime's bidding. The federation opposed the war and wants the occupation to end as soon as possible, but has earned the hatred of the anti-war movement because it has the cheek to regard the Ba'athists and the Islamists who want to kill them as the greater enemy, and the IFTU is winning round to its point of view those who are serious about left-wing politics. As Muhsin explained at the Labour Party conference: "There are grave security problems in Iraq, but those causing them are not, as some have wrongly said, 'the resistance'. They are . . . a mixture of [Saddam loyalists] and foreign fighters, who have, for the first time in Iraq's history, imported the terrible weapon of the suicide bomb."

Three conclusions can be drawn from the long struggle to get the British left to accept the obvious:
1) The people who can be relied on to make a stand in hard times won't be found in the broadsheet opinion pages or on Radio 4 chat shows, but in the boring and perennially unfashionable labour movement.
2) The democratic left should never again allow itself to be led by the supporters of totalitarianism.
3) No one who considers himself a democrat, liberal or socialist can continue to associate with the Stop the War Coalition.

5. John Lloyd (editor FT magazine) on why trade unions offer vital hope for Iraq (Abridged)

Hadi Saleh 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.
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.
6 Hadi's brutal murder. This letter appeared in the Guardian on January 14, 2005. It illustrates the broad revulsion felt in the labour movement.

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, Harry Cohen 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.

Section 4:
Marshalling the arguments

1 The Jubilee Iraq network (www.jubileeiraq.org) is the key body arguing that Saddam’s debts be forgiven: the following is a brief extract from their web site but we urge people to find out more from this independent group, which is not linked to LFIQ.

Jubilee Iraq is a network of groups and individuals (business people, lawyers, economists, politicians, aid workers and others) working to ensure that the Iraqi people - emerging from decades of war, oppression and sanctions - are not unjustly forced to pay Saddam's bills.

The debts which Saddam owes cannot be legitimately passed on to the Iraqi people without assessment by an arbitration tribunal employing the doctrine of odious debts to assess whether the Iraqi people benefited from these loans.

Jubilee Iraq sympathises with the losses of individuals, companies and nations as a result of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. However the Iraqi people (distinct from the regime) were not responsible for these losses.

When Saddam Hussein consolidated his control of Iraq on 11 July 1979, the country had cash reserves of $36bn and no long term foreign debt. Just over a year later, in September 1980, Saddam invaded Iran. The war lasted eight years and cost around a million lives. Debt enabled vast unprecedented military spending to constitute up to three quarters of Iraq’s GDP.

Between 1981-85 oil revenues were just $48.4bn, while military spending was two and half times higher at $120bn. This huge imbalance between earnings and expenditure was possible precisely because many countries made loans and exported goods, including weapons systems, on credit.

Because of the Islamic revolution in Iran both Western and Soviet countries supported Iraq, as did most Arab states.

The subsequent events: the occupation of Kuwait, the Gulf War and 13 years of sanctions not only devastated Iraq but also increased the already critical foreign debt overhang.

Jubilee Iraq has collated all the figures in the public domain and estimates that the total debt is within the range $95-153bn. This excludes outstanding reparations claims, which will probably settle at around $50bn.

If one compares the total of debt and reparations (around $200bn) to Iraq’s GDP ($32bn in 2000) and export earnings ($15bn in 2002) then it becomes clear that Iraq is the world’s most heavily indebted country by a wide margin.

2 Iraq: Questions and Answers for Labour Party members

Why is LFIQ backing the Americans in Iraq?

We aren’t. We are backing the Iraqi people. The fascistic Saddam regime has been removed. UN-backed democratic elections will be held on January 30 2005. Despite tremendous difficulties a free labour movement, a women’s movement and a civil society, including a free press, are blinking into the light, after decades of repression and war.

But we should not have gone into Iraq in the first place!

You might be right. Many Labour Party members agree with you. Many believe that questions still need to be asked about the intelligence and the decision to go to war. But we are where we are. Today, almost everyone wants a sovereign democratic Iraq. The last thing the Iraqi people need is for us to cut and run now. Surely Yvonne Ritchie (GMB) was right when she appealed to Party conference:

‘I opposed the war... However we cannot rewrite history... I do not want to leave the Iraqi people defenceless and vulnerable... The consequences of washing our hands of Iraq, if we could, would be heinous. I am an internationalist, a socialist and a trade unionist committed to a world where fairness, justice and freedom are a basic human right. Iraq has a trade union movement, the IFTU. Conference, we in this movement must stand in solidarity with the IFTU and will work with them to realise their dreams. They need our support. We should not walk away when the going gets tough... With elections due in January 2005, we must do everything we can to help the people build a democratic country’.

Are the elections for real?

Yes! The elections are supported by the United Nations and have widespread support in Iraq across the ethnic groups. The Sunni have now registered as well as the Shia, the Kurds, and the Communists. There are many democratic political parties standing. After the election, the National Assembly will elect a president and two deputies, who will form the Presidency Council, which in turn will nominate the Prime Minister. The National Assembly will also draft a constitution, to be voted on in a referendum planned by October 15, 2005. If adopted, the constitution would form the legal basis for another general election to be held by December 15, 2005, and a new government will take office by Dec. 31, 2005. A fully sovereign Iraqi government will then decide whether it wants the multinational force to stay or go. This democratic process is the best chance of the speedy withdrawal of troops.

But what right has the west to impose democracy on a different culture?

No one is ‘imposing democracy’. Every opinion poll tells us Iraqis want democracy. The leader of the Iraq Pro-Democracy Party, Ali Fahid, has stated ‘the majority of Iraq is facing the little minority's hatred and terrorism on a daily basis’. The leading Shia religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, has told his followers it would be a ‘sin’ not to vote in the January elections. Afghanistan has held successful elections and now three women sit in a democratically elected government.

OK, elections are a good thing. But why can’t the troops just get out now and leave the Iraqis to get on with these elections?

If the multinational force withdrew tomorrow there will be a bloodbath, civil war, the balkanisation of Iraq and the end of the hopes of all democrats and progressives. None of the main Iraqi parties calls for immediate withdrawal.

Why do the Iraqis oppose immediate withdrawal?

Most Iraqi civil society groups have decided to use the UN-backed political process to secure labour rights, sovereignty and build an Iraqi democracy. The IFTU, for example, decided the best way to achieve the swift removal of the coalition troops was to make a success of the political process. That does not mean writing a blank cheque to anyone. But it does mean a refusal to shout 'troops out now!' let alone 'victory to the resistance!' which is what some on the wilder shores of the left say.

In Iraq they have an expression for well-meaning western leftists who call for troops out now: ‘the people of the slogans’.

But don’t the Iraqis want us to get out?

Iraqis want the troops out ‘eventually’, even ‘soon’, but the great majority do not want ‘immediate’ withdrawal. In a recent poll, taken in Baghdad, Mosel and Dehok, and published in Iraq on October 25 63% of Iraqis say that the withdrawal of American and allied forces will not be in the best interest of Iraq, it will undermine the work towards security and control of the country. 27% say that it would be in the best interest of Iraq. 9% had no opinion.

58% say that terrorists do the kidnappings and assassination of police and soldiers. 9% say that patriots fighting for Iraq carry them out. 32% say ignorant Iraqis who have been brain washed & misled carry them out.

89% said that the terrorism, kidnapping, beheadings and assassination of police and security forces do not help the freeing of Iraq and the building of a stable country. 6% said that it would help free Iraq and build stability. 4% had no opinion.

But what about Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners?

The US interrogators’ treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was a disgrace and the culprits must be prosecuted. Wrong in principle, flouting the rule of law also gives ammunition to terrorists. The author Michael Ignatieff argues that to beat terror we must show that we respect the rule of law and human rights. ‘Actions which violate foundational commitments to justice and dignity – torture, illegal detention, unlawful assassination – should be beyond the pale’. Ann Clwyd MP, the Prime Minister’s Special Human Rights Envoy to Iraq and Joint President of Labour Friends of Iraq, has called repeatedly for every prisoner to receive the treatment to which they are entitled.

The ‘war on terror’ is a myth, Bush’s invention to get his own way around the world, isn’t it?

9/11 happened. Bali happened. Madrid happened. The Metropolitan Chief Constable says that a Madrid type incident has been prevented in Britain but that it is inevitable that such an attack will occur. Terrorism is no less real if you put the word in inverted commas and call it 'terrorism'. In the real world there is the gravest terrorist threat. And more often than not that threat is aimed at moderate Muslims. The only question is how the war on terror should be waged and won, not whether it should be waged and won. John Kerry differed from Bush on the ‘how’ question not the ‘whether’ question. Security is not a ‘right wing’ issue. Socialists will never have any credibility with those they seek to represent if they ignore these threats and a society in danger will find it much more difficult to increase opportunity for all.

But isn’t Blair just Bush’s poodle?

No. Tony Blair has opposed President Bush on the Kyoto Treaty and has pushed the US on the Middle East Peace Process. But more than that, Tony Blair’s Chicago speech in 1999 , set out an alternative foreign policy vision of an ‘international community’ that chimes with the very latest strategic thinking of the United Nations issued in December 2004. The former Labour Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, praised Tony Blair’s doctrine of an ‘international community’ as a forerunner of the latest UN thinking.

We might both agree with Robin Cook that the decision to go to war when we did and on the basis we did was a mistake. But the vision he and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown share of an international community protecting the human rights of the individual and promoting global social justice is different to George Bush’s vision. It’s no coincidence that it is Gordon Brown who has led the way on debt relief and that it has been Hilary Benn’s civil society fund at the DfID that has helped sow the seeds of democratic self-organisation in Iraq.

The world has changed. We can’t retreat to the failed doctrines of Henry Kissinger who thought that anyone pro-American dictator would do (‘he may be a bastard but he’s our bastard’). But knee-jerk ‘anti-imperialism’ is no alternative. It is wrong to view every anti-American, even a fascist, as worthy of support. We have to keep developing a foreign policy based on the pursuit of an ‘international community’ through global security, global democratisation, and global development.

But we have only made things worse in Iraq!

Grave mistakes have been made. Christopher Hitchens, the pro-war writer, argues that the level of incompetence and absence of forward planning by the Bush administration were near-impeachable. Hitchens is right. Not enough troops were sent by Donald Rumsfeld. The US failed to secure Baghdad and the sack of the city was a disaster for the Iraqis. Some de-Ba'athification was necessary but disbanding the army overnight put hundreds of thousands of trained men on the streets, unemployed and alienated. Billions of reconstruction dollars allocated by Congress have not been spent. The abuses at Abu Ghraib were a disgrace. The Coalition Provisional Authority was kept going too long. Elections should have happened a year earlier. Yes, the US has a lot to answer for. But you have to also balance that catalogue with these two points.
First, in addition to the legacy of 30 years of totalitarianism and cold fear, the Baa’thists and fundamentalist thugs kept on intimidating the democrats after Saddam’s removal, targeting anyone involved in the reconstruction effort. And infrastructure was sabotaged and technicians murdered by the resistance.
Second, there are many such good news stories to tell. We have seen:

* The removal of Saddam’s regime and the capture and forthcoming trial of him and his henchmen
* The return of the Iraqi Refugees
* The rise of a free Iraqi trade union movement
* The emergence of Iraqi women’s struggles for equality in the form of new organisations, NGOs and new media
* 300,000 Iraqis disappeared under Saddam’s reign of terror, and now their mass graves are being uncovered and forensic investigations are underway, with funding from the UK government, to bring peace to millions of relatives.
* The United States, Germany and other G7 nations agreed to write off up to 80 percent or $33 billion of Iraq's Paris Club debt, which could pave the way for a wider international accord.
* Despite the ‘resistance’ blowing up pipelines the average crude production now is roughly two million barrels a day.
* International NGO’s in partnership with USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance are leading projects supporting well drilling, construction of water storage and distribution networks, provision of household latrines, and are addressing health and hygiene education and awareness and delivering basic health interventions.
* Multinational Forces are spending nearly $20 million to bring 28 Iraqi fire stations up to modern standards.
* Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund has allocated $871 million in 2004 for democracy support and various governance and elections programs throughout Iraq. The European Union is providing an additional 20 million pounds ($38 million) towards technical advice and support for the election.
* USAID's Local Governance Program (LGP), directed at "promoting representative citizen participation in governance” has enabled 750,000 Iraqis to participate in Democracy Dialogue Activities.
* The Iraq Marshlands Restoration Program (IMRP) is achieving good progress on several fronts in an overall effort to restore the social, economic, and environmental systems for Iraq's marsh dwellers, attacked by the old Ba'ath regime.
* More than 32,000 jobs have been created in the southern Iraqi city of Namibia in the past few months while Iraqi Kurdistan is living through something of an economic miracle.
* Elections will be held in January 2005, the first in Iraq’s history. 6,400 candidates on around 100 lists have been registered for the historic vote!

We could go on and on. And just think what will be achieved if the elections are a success and a democratic Iraqi government takes the reins of power in two hands!

But the price is surely too high. Haven’t 100,000 Iraq civilians been killed?

The civilian death toll, whatever figure turns out to be accurate, has been appalling. The Americans have not taken sufficient efforts to avoid all possible civilian casualties. Eyewitnesses to the US assault on Faluja in April claim that civilians were targeted. There should be an investigation of such crimes. The US and UK should have been collecting statistics of civilian casualties in order to guide the humanitarian effort. The UN should fund a full-scale research project to find out the true number of civilian deaths.

But the 100,000 figure claimed in the Lancet report is not reliable. Independent groups have put the number at most in the tens of thousands. Iraq Body Count, an antiwar group based in England that carefully culls reports of civilian deaths from newspaper and eyewitness accounts, puts the maximum figure at 17,000. The 100,000 figure was "so loose as to be essentially meaningless," wrote Slate's Fred Kaplan. "This isn't an estimate. It's a dartboard," he wrote. Only seven Iraqis hired by the researchers did the actual questioning. The report is based on a 95% confidence interval from 8,000 to 194,000, a Margin of Error of ± 93,000. Leading statisticians have questioned the methods used by The Lancet.

Second, as Norman Geras has observed, ‘according to Human Rights Watch, during 23 years of Saddam's rule some 290,000 Iraqis disappeared…the majority of these reckoned to be now dead. Rounding this number down by as much as 60,000 to compensate for the 'thought to be', that is 230,000. It is 10,000 a year. It is 200 people every week’. On December 14 2004 Iraqi labourers, while building the foundations for a new hospital, found yet another mass grave believed to contain some 500 bodies in Debashan, north of Sulaimaniya, Iraq. Workers building a new hospital in the new Iraq discovered a mass grave of the old Iraq.

What about Fallujah?

Before the recent assault by the US on Fallujah Labour Friends of Iraq circulated this model resolution:

November 05, 2004. LABOUR FRIENDS OF IRAQ MODEL MOTION ON MILITARY ACTION AND FALLUJA

This CLP is alarmed that military action against the terrorists in Faluja 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.

Look, I opposed the war so I would look daft if I now supported the UN-backed political process and the reconstruction effort!

Of course you wouldn’t! You’d be joining hands with thousands of Labour Party members and trade unionists who have done just that, as well as all Iraqi democrats and socialists. Decide to work for the democrats in Iraq and help the transition to peace and democracy. The Iraqi democrats need you in their hour of need. By committing yourself to grassroots Iraq you are not changing your position on the war. Listen to these appeals to you and make the decision to support the Iraqi democrats:

Hilary Benn MP (Secretary of State for International Development)
I’ve been to Iraq three times in the last year…And I simply want to say that whatever people think about what has happened in the last twenty or so months, though we will continue to debate and discuss it, but frankly whatever you think about that, what needs to be done now in the interests of building a democratic and free Iraq is very clear. It is to give support to people who are working very hard in difficult circumstances for that to happen. And the trade union movement which suffered so much under Saddam’s regime, is as we know one of the essential components of a free and democratic society for Iraq.

Tony Blair, The Prime Minister

"What I am trying to say to people in the western world is, whatever you thought about getting rid of Saddam, there is only one side to be on, and that is the side of democracy and liberty." (…)We have a process, blessed by the United Nations, to get Iraq towards democracy and elections coming up in January. There is no doubt at all the former regime elements and the outside terrorists are trying to stop that happening and are killing people in a completely indiscriminate manner who try to help the country get better. So I am simply saying in that struggle there is only one side to be on, and it is not that I am making very optimistic or wildly optimistic noises about it all, there is a real fight going on, there is no doubt about that. My purpose is simply to say to people, the terrorists and others stopping, or trying to stop democracy in Iraq, they know what they are doing and why they are doing it, because they know that if we succeed and Iraq becomes a stable democracy, that is a huge defeat for them. So I am simply saying to people whatever your views about the wisdom of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, in this struggle there is only one side to be on.

Harry Barnes MP

I support the progressive democratic forces in Iraq and give full backing for people such as Abdullah Muhsin, the British representative of the IFTU and whom I am proud to be associated with and to be working with... Whether we supported or opposed the invasion... one thing is clear: we support a viable democratic peaceful Iraq. And who is it that struggles for that? The women in their organisations, the youth groups, community groups, national bodies in culture and bodies such as the IFTU... We can never force people to be free but we can help comrades on the ground struggle for rights, recognition and influence. The TUC has recognised this. Individual unions have recognised this... so let us help our brothers and sisters to achieve their dreams.

Tony Woodley, General Secretary, TGWU

I make no apology for listening to the representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Brighton [at the Labour Party Conference, 2004]. Our traditions of solidarity and internationalism could not let us do otherwise. And let me make it clear that, as far as the T&G was concerned, it was clear advice from Abdullah Muhsin which tipped the balance. He made a compelling case about the disasters which might follow if troops withdrew before the Iraqi trade union movement felt their country was secure. So I am happy with how the T&G voted, and I am confident that we deserted neither our proud traditions nor our conference policy in so doing.

Hashimia Muhsin Hussein (Woman President of the Basra Electricity and Energy Union, Iraq)

Thank you all, and a special thank you to the TUC for its support, not only for the trade union movement in Iraq and the IFTU, but also for its support for the people of Iraq as they struggle now in its most difficult time, to reconstruct and to build a new politics.

We have to tell you that we are passing through a critical and difficult time now, though this is nothing new to us as we have lived through the brutal dictatorship that governed Iraq for 35 years, the war and the occupation.

In addition to our role as trade unionists, campaigning for the welfare of working people through decent working conditions, we are also active participants in building a new politics, and working towards the elections that will take place on 30th January to elect a new democratic government that will represent the views of Iraqis.

The warm reception that I have had from you and from UK trade unionists that I have met, has given me a new impulse to return to my country, not only to bring this international solidarity back to Iraqis, but with inspiration for our task of constructing a new and genuinely independent trade union movement. Thank you.

But what about the resistance? The leaders of the Stop the War Coalition say we should back the resistance ‘by whatever means they find necessary’.

The resistance are killers who want to stop the transition to democracy in Iraq. Yes, the US botched reconstruction and this led some desperate people to join the ‘resistance’. But the core is anything but desperate innocents. There are three components to the ‘resistance’.

First, Sunni elements that operate in an area starting from Latifiya south of Baghdad and upwards reaching Mosul, this also includes both the Anbar and the Diyala governorates, west and east of Baghdad, respectively, where insurgent activities are the most intense. This group loosely consists of former regime loyalists, ex-Ba'athists, former army and Mukhabarat (secret police) officers, Iraqi extremist Salafi groups, and militant tribesmen.

Second, foreign fighters who continue to pour into Iraq to join small isolated terrorist cells in several Sunni areas, such as the serial killer and psychopath, Al-Zarqawi.

Third, Sadr's Al-Mahdi militia (which has now laid down its arms).

What are the politics of the resistance?

They never declare their politics. Their actions show them to be people who hate democracy, hate trade unions, hate women’s right, hate human rights, hate Shia. They are trying to stop the transition to democracy in Iraq. That’s why they kill election workers. They are trying to foment civil war. That’s why they massacre the Iraqi Shia. For thirty years these people kept the Iraq people in a state of terrible fear. They want their power back. They want to intimidate and brutalise again. They want to fill the mass graves again. We should get on with the real job of extending international solidarity to the democrats in Iraq and making the January elections a success.

* The ‘resistance’ bombed the reopened Water Treatment Plant at al-Ummal on 30 September 2004 killing at least 41 people, among them 34 children celebrating alongside the US troops who had rebuilt the plant.

* The ‘resistance’ murdered the Iraqi Communist Party leader Wadhah Hassan Abdul Amir (Saadoun), a member of the Interim National Assembly, on 13th November 2004, along with two of his comrades, while travelling from Baghdad to Kirkuk.

* The ‘resistance’ attacked the train on the railway line between Mosel and Baghdad murdering, and mutilating, the IFTU members aboard, on 27 October 2004.

Harry Barnes, Lynne Jones, David Taylor, Tony Banks, John Austin and Harry Cohen tabled the following Commons motion on the issue.

“That this House notes with horror that four members of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) were murdered in cold blood on the night of Wednesday 27th/Thursday 28th October when their train, which was carrying consumer goods, was attacked by mortar fire on the railway line between Mosul and Baghdad and that the bodies of two train drivers, a guard and a security guard working for Iraqi Railways were mutilated and burnt by terrorists; strongly supports the statement issued by the IFTU Executive Committee which condemns this heinous crime against workers employed by Iraqi Railways and shows clearly that these terrorists are the enemies of all the Iraqi people; notes that they are the same criminals who had attacked and killed Iraqi children in Al-Amel district in Baghdad in early October, and also killed women, men and elderly people in previous acts of terror and sabotage; joins with the IFTU in conveying its heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and comrades of these martyrs, Kasim Shahin, train driver, Maithem Shaker Obeid, train driver, Ahmed Ibrahim, train controller and Zeyad Tarig. railway security guard; and endorses the IFTU view that the blood of our martyred workers will not go in vain and their call to the Iraqi Government and security authorities to take legal measures to bring the murderers to justice, and to ensure the safety of Iraqi railway workers and all workers, in defence of their homeland, people and working class.”

The leaders of four important British trade unions 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 and pledging 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, ASLEF Acting General Secretary and Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary all wrote to the IFTU with messages of solidarity.

Tony Woodley, General Secretary of the TGWU, wrote to Abdullah Muhsin and expressed his condolences in these terms, ‘It is horrifying to learn that four of your members have been killed and mutilated by terrorists while driving and working on a freight train carrying consumer goods’.

* The ‘resistance’ murdered two election workers on the streets of Mosul, shooting each in the head from point blank.

* The resistance has repeatedly massacred the Shia in an attempt to spark civil war.

But don’t the Iraqi people support the resistance?
Of course they don’t! Listen to Abdullah Muhsin, Foreign Representative of the IFTU: “Iraq is not another Vietnam; the so-called resistance are no maquis. The resistance offers at best another dictatorship modelled on Saddam's regime, at worst an al-Zarqawi-inspired mediaeval theocracy using Iraq, rather than Afghanistan, as a base for its war against the US and Arab regimes. These forces offer only hell to Iraqis and harbour some of the world's most dangerous ideas. They have no open social or political programme and no popular base, and are feared by most Iraqis. Widespread, popular sentiment against the foreign occupation of our country does not translate into legitimation of these forces. With the support of the British and international labour movement, and others, we have a duty to ensure that the voice of Iraqi civil society is heard” (Abdullah Muhsin, Guardian, October 23rd 2004.)”

Why don’t we hear this from the Stop the War Coalition?
In 1994, when Iraqi democrats were being tortured, shot and thrown in mass graves, George Galloway MP infamously, and on film, hailed Saddam Hussein, saying to the tyrant, ‘Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability. And I want you to know we are with you until victory, until Jerusalem’. Galloway was a personal friend of the deputy Prime Minster Tariq Aziz. Galloway attacks the emerging free Iraqi labour movement as ‘quislings’ in the Arab press where it is noted by the killers. But Galloway is not an isolated man, spurned by the anti-war movement. He is the leader of the anti-war movement and his political views are widely shared by the anti-war leaders, even though most peace activists would not share his views.

Galloway, Respect and the Stop the War Coalition leaders led vicious attacks on the IFTU as ‘quislings’ and a ‘fake union’. In this climate it was no surprise that the IFTU leaders were intimidated and no-platformed by a mob at the European Social Forum in London this year, an attack condemned by the TUC, Unison, and many other trade unions.

But the StWC organised the February 2003 march of over one million?

Yes, and many LFIQ supporters participated, and although the speakers at those marchers failed to speak up for the Iraqi people by condemning Saddam’s regime, they did represent the hopes of millions for a peaceful outcome. But since then the StWC has turned into a pro ‘resistance’ organisation. In October 2004 the StWC released a statement that made this clear:

“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 StWC, signed by Lindsey German, Convenor, and Andrew Murray, Chair of the StWC.

Why have some leading members been leaving the StWC?

The truth about the StWC was exposed by Mick Rix, the ex-General Secretary of ASLEF. Rix wrote to Andrew Murray, Chair of StWC, 21 October 2004, to resign from the StWC. Here are just some of the truths that Mick Rix told about the StWC:

‘If you think I am going to sit back and agree with beheadings, kidnappings, torture and brutality, and out right terrorization of ordinary Iraqi and others, then you can forget it’.

“I don’t think you also realise the danger that your actions and those of the Respect colleagues in the StWC have placed [the Foreign Representative of 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, StWC or Respect such as extreme nationalists, or religious fundamentalists. It is you who have attacked the IFTU and Abdullah”.

‘I will not stand by and say or do nothing, when decent trade unionists, and socialists in the UK, and good committed socialists and trade unionists in Iraq or elsewhere are being attacked, by people who politically have made alliances with and are supporting religious fanatics and people who are basically against everything that our movement really stands for.”

For full exchange of correspondence between Rix and Murray go to here and here.

What about the Iraqi Kurds?

There are some 4 million Kurds in northern Iraq who share the area with smaller populations of Assyrians, (Christians) and Turkomans, (ethnic Turks).

In 1991 between a quarter and a half of the total population fled in the face of the onslaught from the Iraqi armed forces in the wake of the first Gulf War, mostly to Turkey and Iran. The response was to intervene to create a safe haven inside Iraq which would allow the Kurds in Turkey at least, to return.

Under the authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688, forces from the UK, the US, Turkey and France entered Iraqi Kurdistan supported by US and British air patrols based at Incerlik in Turkey. The response of the Iraqi armed forces was to withdraw from both the area of the safe haven and effectively all of Iraqi Kurdistan, including the capital, Arbil.

The political vacuum left by withdrawal was swiftly filled by the Kurdistan Front, an alliance of seven parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, (The Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdistan People’s Democratic Party, the Kurdistan Socialist Party (PASOK), the Kurdistan Communist Party (Iraq), the Assyrian Democratic Movement and the Toilers’Party).

The Kurdistan Front determined that there would be a democratic election. In July 1992 eight parties contested seats in the 100 seat assembly and a further five seats were reserved for the Christian minority. The observers of the election judged them to be generally fair and free from intimidation, with estimates of up to 90% participation.

Iraqi Kurds in the 1990’s

During the 1990’s the peoples(s) of Iraqi Kurdistan were subject to a double embargo. They were unable to trade with the outside world because of the UN sanctions. Any trade under UN auspices had to be conducted with the approval of Baghdad. But they were additionally subject to an embargo from Baghdad.

At its height this included a limitation of foodstuffs and medicines, cuts in electricity supplies and a ban on heating and fuel oil.

It was a period when the two main political parties, the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) and the KDP, (Kurdistan Democratic Party), took their political differences out of the political arena and into armed conflict.

Both parties found themselves under pressure from their large external neighbours, (Iran and Turkey) each of which sought to pursue their own agendas in the region and neither of which had much sympathy with the democratic experiment, nor indeed with the concept of Kurdish autonomy.

The region was effectively divided into a north-western area under the auspices of the KDP and a south-eastern area under the control of the PUK. The only way that either administration could raise revenue was by ‘informal’ trade across the borders, which flourished.

Despite the breakdown in the consensus and the outbreaks of violence, the Kurds did maintain a working civil administration in which people were fed, in which there was little civil disorder, which had a working education and medical system and in which there was a large amount of political freedom.

One of the most telling statistics of the period concerned child mortality, which had been much higher for the Kurds than Arabs in 1990. During the 1990’s they suffered a double embargo, from the UN and Baghdad. Nonetheless, by the end of the decade their figures had not only improved but had outstripped those for Iraq as a whole. This also applies to other indicators of social progress. Iraqi Kurdistan is far better off economically and socially than the rest of the country.

The Kurdish Alliance and the Iraqi Elections

At the end of January there will be two elections in Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurds will have the opportunity to take part in the Iraqi national election and in an election for the Kurdistan Parliament.

The two the major Kurdish parties, (the KDP and PUK) have joined forces to form the Kurdistan Alliance, alongside a number of other smaller parties, not unlike the former Kurdistan Front.

If the experience of the 1990’s is repeated, he two major parties are likely to split a proportion of the seats in the new Kurdistan Parliament for themselves and give another fixed proportion to the remainder of the smaller parties.

By combining together the Kurdish parties will maximise their vote in an election based on PR. They are likely to sit in the Iraqi National Assembly as one bloc and give one voice to the whole Kurdish population.

The other major electoral alliances standing in the elections will be the Unified Iraqi Alliance (Shias, with the support of ayatollah Sistani and headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of SCIRI. It includes in its number the secular Shia, Ahmed Chalabi), the Iraqi Independent Democrats Party, (Sunnis led by Adnan Pachachi) People’s Unity (Communists and Left Democrats).

It is worth noting that the Kurdish Referendum Movement has collected 1.7 million signatures in support of an independent Kurdistan. There are clearly Kurds who remain anxious about staying in a nation which has shown such long term hostility towards them. As a political demand, however, it is unlikely to be achieved. Neither of the two major Kurdish parties backs the call for a referendum on independence, and for good reason. Iraqi Kurdistan is bordered by Turkey and Iran. Neither have shown themselves to be supportive of any form of self-determination for their own Kurdish populations and both have felt able to enter northern Iraq as and when their security concerns demanded. An independent Iraqi Kurdistan would be the subject of considerable hostility from its two large neighbours and possibly seen as an (oil rich) plum, ripe for the picking, albeit on the pretext of protecting their national security.

Footnotes in the hard copy cannot be transferred.

Iraq: Counter-attack by the liberals

According to a report in today's Guardian "secular and liberal groups have launched a counter-attack against what they say is the undue influence of hardline Shia Islamists and Iran's theocracy on the formation of Iraq's new government".

Peter Hain on the LibDem illusion

Peter Hain writes in the Guardian that Vote for the Lib Dems and you will risk a Tory victory. He says that “I am only too personally aware that there is something deeper about today's disillusion among Guardian readers, and others. I understand and respect those, including family and friends, who are critical about Iraq and the non-existent weapons of mass destruction. All I say is that, right or wrong, ministers like me acted in good faith. Accepting this honest disagreement, surely the priority is to support the fragile fledgling democracy taking the place of Saddam's murderous tyranny - the Iraqi political parties, the free media and free unions that are trying to establish themselves against merciless violent attacks?”

He writes “You don't have to agree with us on Iraq, or support every one of our policies, still to vote Labour. The truth is, even our most ardent Guardian critics agree with 95% of what Labour has done, in particular building the strongest economy in living memory and record public investment.”

He warns that “A vote for the Lib Dems in these seats, from Dorset South to Braintree, from Monmouth to Kettering, won't achieve a Liberal Democrat government. It won't even deliver a Lib Dem MP. The result will be another rightwing Tory MP in Westminster. Moreover, the Lib Dems on their own admission have shifted rightward, with crypto-Thatcherite policies - such as abolishing the New Deal (which has brought 1 million into work) and the Child Trust Fund (to give poor youngsters an asset for their adult lives), and promoting privatisation of health services. Add the fact that the Lib Dems have accepted the continuing presence of British troops in Iraq and opposed early withdrawal, and it makes no sense for Labour supporters to back them over public services or Iraq.“

Back us, anti-war MPs tell disaffected canvassers

From today's Guardian.

Note this passage in particular: "However, Labour Against the War itself suffered a high-profile defection last month, when founding member Harry Barnes - who is standing down at the election - left the group, accusing it of 'giving succour to terrorists' by demanding the immediate withdrawal of British troops."

Where Stop the War went wrong

Over at Normblog, there is a link to a very useful piece called “Don't stop the war” by Andrew Mueller on Open Democracy. Andrew had been on the big Stop the War march in 2003 but refused to join the recent one because of “Stop The War's failure to engage constructively with anything that has happened in the last three and a half years. Its sole stock response has been to complain about any and every deployment of American or British military force, whatever the circumstances, whatever the reality. In Iraq right now, the reality is that despite a rebellion by a ruthless and unpleasant assortment of Ba'athist holdouts, foreign adventurers and religious dingbats masquerading as a "resistance", elections have been held, a government is being formed, institutions are being built. There is absolutely no plausible way that any of this indisputable progress would survive the withdrawal that Stop The War are demanding.”

Australian Foreign Minister hails LFIQ to have a pop at Australian Labour Party

The colourful right-wing Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has found an unlikely political pin up in left-wing British MP and serial rebel Harry Barnes.

Downer has hailed Barnes in the Australian Parliament to bash Labour down under and told Labour MPs that "Having been a very passionate anti-war MP, he has now done the honourable thing. He has set up a group called Labour Friends of Iraq. I would like to feel that our own Labor Party could think about Labor friends of Iraq as well, and take a leaf out of Harry Barnes's book."

Downer even offered to ring his own parents-in-law who live in Barnes' North East Derbyshire constituency to suggest that they vote for him.

A rather surprised Harry Barnes said: "I'm standing down but Mr Downer can suggest that people vote for the Labour candidate Natascha Engel."

Mr Barnes added: "The Liberal Foreign Minister seeks, for obvious partisan advantage, to use us as a stick to beat the Australian Labour Party. That's part of the usual political knock about. But I wish to make it clear that Labour Friends of Iraq wish to work with fellow members of the Socialist International to build solidarity with the emerging Iraqi labour movement. The comments by Mr Downer have spurred us into making contact with the Australian Labour Party to seek to work together. Solidarity with Grassroots Iraq is far too important to be used as a tactical weapon. People's lives are at stake."

The Director of Labour Friends of Iraq, Gary Kent said: "We'd already been approached about the possibility of an Australian branch of Labour Friends of Iraq (LFIQ) . Like the UK branch, it could do much to bring together people who took different positions on the war to unite behind Grassroots Iraq, the new unions, women's groups, self-help organisations, democratic parties, newspapers and associations of former prisoners of Saddam Hussein. Mr Downer has done us a favour. He may have a short-term tactical gain but the most important prize is the international labour movement acting together to support our brothers and sisters in Iraq."

"There is a concerted campaign to physically eliminate the leaders of the new Iraqi Labour Movement. One target is Nozad Ismail, the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk who has twice escaped assassination but who receives daily death threats. LFIQ has launched an urgent Global Appeal to highlight his case and seek to avert his murder. Support is coming from ordinary trade unionists from across the world, including Australia."

The beginning of the end?

The Observer’s Jason Burke writes that “The Iraqi resistance has peaked and is 'turning in on itself', according to recent intelligence reports from Baghdad received by Middle Eastern intelligence agencies.The reports are the most optimistic for several months and reflect analysts' sense that recent elections in Iraq marked a 'quantum shift'. They will boost the government in the run-up to the expected general election in May.” But he concludes that “violence in Iraq is still expected to continue for the long-term. The reports were unanimous that, even in a decade, some kind of continuing low-level insurgency is likely. They also agreed that criminal violence, the major threat to most Iraqis, was likely to remain at 'current very high levels'.”

Lessons from Baghdad and Beirut

Dexter Filkins, in the New York Times (registration required) examines comparisons between Baghdad and Beirut. He quotes Chibli Mallat, a Beirut lawyer and opposition leader, who “believes that for years, Iraq stood as both a positive and malevolent symbol to others in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein's survival following the Persian Gulf war in 1991, Mr. Mallat said, froze the status quo in the region for more than a decade. The Iraqi dictator's prolific human rights abuses had the perverse effect of making every other unelected leader in the Middle East look tame by comparison. The result, he said, was political stasis,”that Saddam’s “removal became a precondition for change in the region" and “when millions of Iraqis risked their lives to cast ballots in January, the country emerged as a symbol for change across the region.”

Marx in Iraq

Hamid Majid Moussa, leader of the Iraqi Communist Party, is interviewed in Al-Ahram, where he says that “Iraq's problems are of a magnitude and complexity that no single party or list alone can resolve all of them. Cooperation is a fact of life that imposes itself on every political force, regardless of its share of seats.” He adds that “We will try to restore calm and stability to the Iraqi street, so that the people may live normally, stand firmly, and -- with the backing of the international, Arab and Islamic communities -- force foreign forces to leave.”

IFTU reports workers protesting against terror

Iraqi electricity workers march through the streets of Baghdad against terror.

The preparatory committee of the Electricity Workers Union, an IFTU affiliate, organized a protest on Thursday 24 March 2005 against terror. Hundreds of protesters supported by many more Iraqis gathered at al-Wazeria district in Baghdad and marched towards the Ministry of Electricity shouting "No, no to terrorism!" Once protesters reached the Electricity Ministry, they delivered a petition calling on the authority to provide security and safety for workers while carrying out their duties and to take serious steps to safeguard the wealth of the nation from criminal acts and sabotage.

IFTU executive committee
24 March 2005

Solidarity with Basra students

The IFTU web site carries statements from the Iraqi Democratic Youth Federation’s External relations Committee and the General Union of Students in the Iraqi Republic (GUSIR) - Basra branch on Solidarity with Basra University Students

More support for globall appeal on Nozad Ismail

Labour MPs Ann Clwyd and Ian Davidson have also signed up for the global appeal to publicise the threat to Nozad Ismail’s life. Ann is the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to Iraq on Human Rights – and Joint President of LFIQ - and Ian is a key trade union supporter in the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Girls' schooling

Niaz Muhamed in Sulaimaniyah reports at the web site of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting that “Village girls want to continue their studies at high school, but are disadvantaged by their parents’ traditional way of thinking.”

Cross-Party Commons Committee draws lessons

The House of Commons Defence Select Committee last week published its investigations into Pre-war Planning for the Post-Combat Phase. The report does not pull punches, recognising that the insurgency should have been foreseen, that priority should have been given to developing locally validated security services and there should have been far closer working between the army and those NGOs able to support reconstruction and national building.

Headline conclusions include:

a. Until such time as the private sector is confident that the necessary security can be provided by the Iraqi Security Forces, British troops are likely to be invited by the Iraqi Government to stay in Iraq. This may be a substantial period of time.

b. In light of the state of the insurgency and the condition of the Iraqi Security Forces, and subject to the continuing agreement of the Iraqi Government, it seems likely that British forces will be present in Iraq in broadly similar numbers to the current deployment into 2006. We support this commitment and believe that calls for a withdrawal of British forces are premature. Experience has taught us that, if nation-building exercises, such as that in Iraq, are to succeed, they must have a serious commitment of time, energy, financial resources and political resolve.

c. It is difficult to avoid concluding that the Coalition, including British forces, were insufficiently prepared for the challenge represented by the insurgency. A wide range of predictions for the post-conflict situation in Iraq were made in advance of the conflict. We are concerned that there is some evidence that the extensive planning, which we know took place in both the US and the UK, did not fully reflect the extent of that range. We also believe that the Coalition should have foreseen that its presence would be resented by some Iraqis, particularly Sunni Arabs and some Shia nationalist elements, and portrayed as cultural and economic imperialism.

d. We note that the scale of the anti-Coalition, anti-Iraqi Government insurgency movements was underestimated by the Coalition.

e. In the foreseeable future, … the Iraqi Government will continue to be attacked, but the various insurgency movements have not developed into a genuine national war of liberation and are unlikely to do so in the future.

f. We are concerned at the continued influx of foreign fighters into Iraq through neighbouring countries, particularly Syria and Iran, and note that this was probably facilitated by the inadequate attention paid to border security by the Coalition immediately following the invasion. More broadly, it appears to us that the Coalition failed to appreciate the potential for an insurgency in Iraq to attract foreign fighters, both from the Middle East and further afield (e.g. Chechnya).

g. We accept that circumstances in Iraq currently call for the limited use of internment of civilians…We believe, however, that this extraordinary power needs to be reviewed regularly and should only be maintained for as long as there is a compelling operational need for it. MNF-I should, as matter of priority, assist the Iraqi Government in developing the capabilities to detain, prosecute and imprison those who are judged to present a serious threat to the country.

h. We believe that Security Sector Reform should have been given greater priority by Coalition and British forces before and immediately after the invasion in March 2003. Only belatedly, did the Coalition begin building the Iraqi Security Forces. Even then, a bottom-up, numerically-focused approach meant that the Iraqi military, security, and police did not develop in a well-coordinated manner. We are pleased to see that a more realistic approach to the build-up of the Iraqi Security Forces is now being taken with much greater emphasis on capability, effectiveness and long term sustainability.

i. Non-governmental organisations, the private sector, international organisations, all have a crucial role to play in addressing matters of governance, justice and reconciliation, and economic and social needs in Peace Support Operations.

j. We strongly urge the United Nations to expand its presence in Iraq especially in the southern governorates, and engage actively in the reconstruction effort.

The Crisis of the ‘Resistance’ (and why it will amaze but not change the delusional Left)

Alan Johnson’s weekly column. Part two of this will appear next week.

Is the Iraqi ‘resistance’ in decline? The signs have been accumulating. The first was the report of secret discussions between the leaders of the Sunni Ba’athist insurgency and the Coalition. The senior insurgent negotiator told Time magazine that his message to the US had been "We are ready to work with you".

Time reported: “Senior Iraqi insurgent commanders said several "nationalist" rebel groups--composed predominantly of ex--military officers and what the Pentagon dubs "former regime elements"--have moved toward a strategy of "fight and negotiate." Although they have no immediate plans to halt attacks on U.S. troops, they say their aim is to establish a political identity that can represent disenfranchised Sunnis and eventually negotiate an end to the U.S. military's offensive in the Sunni triangle”. (Time, February 2005)

As a direct result the strains between the Ba’athist and Islamist components of the Resistance have increased. You don’t negotiate a Caliphate. Time reported a Western observer close to the discussions as saying "Al-Zarqawi keeps pulling the process away from 'fight and negotiate' to 'pure mayhem.'"

The Sunni Ba’athist terrorists are seeking negotiations because they are isolated. Their’s was always a sectarian and authoritarian insurgency with the goal of reimposing Sunni/ Ba’athist power in the centre of Iraq. It still is. It was never – whatever the useful idiots said – a national liberation movement. The killers were resisting what they had always resisted: the freedom and self-determination of the Iraqi people as a whole.

The January elections showed this underlying reality in sharp relief and was always going to have a positive impact on security. But those concerned only to give Bush a bloody nose contrived not to see this. The day after the January Poll, Sidney Blumenthal, President Clinton’s Advisor, wrote a Guardian column in which he sneered, ‘The morning after the Iraqi state received the nod of legitimacy it is no more capable than before of providing security’. To which I responded, ‘My question is this: how did a man who thinks being elected makes no difference to a government’s ability to enforce security ever get to advise anyone on anything anyway? Of course it will make a difference. You just see’.
Now we may be seeing. Since the election the tide may have begun to turn. Four reasons stand out.

1. The Iraqi Army and Police are getting organised and have developed a will to fight. The so-called ‘tiny heart syndrome’ (always unfair) is being replaced by a new grit. Last Tuesday Iraqi Interior Ministry troops attacked an insurgent training camp on the edge of central Iraq's Tharthar Lake, northwest of Baghdad. Seven Interior Ministry soldiers and an undetermined number of insurgents were killed in the clash. And there are two further reports from Falluja and Baghdad:

‘In Falluja…six Iraqi Army battalions and two security battalions that arrived after November's battle are functioning so well that the Marines have been able to reduce their presence to two battalions, from four, and turn over more security duties to the Iraqis’ (New York Times, 19 March).

‘Last month, an Iraqi brigade with two battalions garrisoned along Haifa Street became the first homegrown unit to take operational responsibility for any combat zone in Iraq. The two battalions can muster more than 2,000 soldiers, twice the size of the American cavalry battalion that has led most fighting along the street. So far, American officers say, the Iraqis have done well, withstanding insurgent attacks and conducting aggressive patrols and raids, without deserting in large numbers or hunkering down in their garrisons.’ (New York Times 21 March).

The Iraqi Army has been helped by better supply. Since last summer $5 billion of American money has bought Iraqi fighting units ‘more than 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 100,000 flak jackets, 110,000 pistols, 6,000 cars and pickup trucks, and 230 million rounds of ammunition. In place of the single Iraqi battalion trained last June, there are more than 90 battalions now, totalling about 60,000 army and special police troops’. (New York Times, 21 March)

2. New tactics have been devised that have put the resistance on the back foot. Foot patrols have replaced humvee drive-throughs in Haifa Street (paid for by US soldiers with their lives. Haifa Street is now nicknamed Purple Heart Boulevard). Multiple random check-points now spring up daily across Iraq. The results: increased intelligence and increased capture of munitions and ‘resistance’ leaders.

3. Reconstruction proceeds with glacial slowness nonetheless it does proceed and more people can see a future. In one area of Baghdad it is reported that ‘Ties [between coalition troops and local people] improved with a special $2 million reconstruction program - part of the wider reconstruction in the district - that has brought 12,500 Showaka families their first indoor toilets, buried sewage pipes and modernized the electricity grid. Gone, for these people, are the centuries when sewage ran down open channels in the alleys into the Tigris’. (New York Times 21 March)

4. Ordinary Iraqis have had enough. We may be approaching the tipping point when they turn on the Ba’athist/Islamist terrorists, arms in hand. It is just possible that the marvellous stories that are emerging since the elections - of ordinary Iraqis turning on the ‘resistance’ - represent the future for the killers and the killers know it.

On March 22 the New York Times reported this inspiring story. ‘Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon today, a carpenter named Dhia saw a troop of masked gunmen with grenades coming towards his shop and decided he had had enough. As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia and his young relatives shouldered their own AK-47's and opened fire, police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed, and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's young nephews and a bystander were injured, the police said. "We attacked them before they attacked us," Dhia, 35, his face still contorted with rage and excitement, said in a brief exchange at his shop a few hours after the battle. He did not give his last name. "We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen. I am waiting for the rest of them to come and we will show them."’ (New York Times, March 22)

When a suicide bomber killed 136 people in Hilla last month hundreds of residents protested in front of the city hall every day for a week. They shouted out their slogans against terrorism at the top of their lungs and a new voice was heard in Iraq. It is rarely reported on the BBC but it will only get louder.

Another anti-terrorism rally took place in Baghdad and more are scheduled.
These four reasons may be combining to produce a decline in Resistance activity. Of course this should not be overstated. There may still 12,000 to 20,000 insurgents including foot soldiers, safe-house operators, organizers and financiers. The Iraq Body Count website continues to chart terrible death tolls. As I write news of the attacks of Thursday 24 March are being confirmed. 16 people killed, 11 Police officers and 5 female translators. Nonetheless, the attacks on US troops in the Sunni-dominated western Iraq have dropped. It is possible that US Army claims that the 25 attacks per day of November 2004 have fallen to 10 attacks per day are more than news management. The New York Times is reporting ‘American officers say there have been signs that the tide may be shifting. On Haifa Street, at least, insurgents are attacking in smaller numbers, and with less intensity; mortar attacks into the Green Zone have diminished sharply; major raids have uncovered large weapons caches; and some rebel leaders have been arrested or killed’ (New York Times 21 March). Whereas 11 mortars were fired from Haifa Street into the Green Zone in the first two weeks of September 2004 the figure for the last six months is only three.

Even if I am being optimistic about the decline of the Resistance one thing is clear: the pro-resistance left view is fantasy. That view was expressed most candidly by Michael Moore when he said ‘The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not “insurgents” or “terrorists” or “The Enemy.” They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win’.

Friends of Labour Friends of Iraq praise our work

We are collating views on our work and launching a major fund-raising campaign so that we can maintain and expand our work in boosting solidarity with Grassroots Iraq. Please send your views to our e mail at the bottom left of this page. With thanks, Gary Kent, Director

What people say about us

Many trade unionists opposed the war. But since the fall of Saddam the priority has been to make solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Iraq and to hold the occupying powers to account. Labour Friends of Iraq have made an important contribution to both tasks. They have got on with extending practical aid to the fledgling Iraqi unions and blistering criticism to Bush. I hope they go from strength to strength.

Kevin Curran, GMB General Secretary (personal capacity)

Good luck to Labour Friends of Iraq! We value the work they do for the democrats in Iraq. We hope their influence will spread. They help publicise democratic voices from Iraq and with better funding there will be able to expand this important work. Please consider giving generously. In almost a year and a half writing on my blog on the Internet and working to promote democracy in Iraq I was offered help from many organizations. Most were American and only two were from outside America. Labor Friends of Iraq was one of those two. Ali Fadhil, Iraq Pro-Democracy Party

The left too often defines itself by negative anti-Americanism and so ends up backing the most reactionary forces. Labour Friends of Iraq have shown that it is possible to avoid that trap while holding up the left traditions of internationalism, solidarity and human rights. Linda Grant, novelist. Guardian writer (personal capacity)

Labour Friends of Iraq is doing invaluable work building practical solidarity with democrats and trade unionists in Iraq. It has challenged some of the unhealthy impulses of parts of the western left. I urge support for LFIQ's work. Norman Geras, Professor Emeritus, University of Manchester.

Labour Friends of Iraq has upheld the honour of the decent left in scoundrel times. I can think of no better campaign to support." Nick Cohen, Observer (personal capacity)

Labour Friends of Iraq offer a way for Labour Party members to make a real difference. They have been stalwart defenders of the rights of trade unionists, women and democrats in the new Iraq. John Mann MP

Socialists should hardly need reminding of the need for international labour solidarity. But at a time when some on the Western Left seem to have forgotten this abiding principle the work of Labour Friends of Iraq is more necessary than ever in helping those courageous Iraqi workers who are striving to build a new democracy. Francis Wheen, author of a highly acclaimed biography of Karl Marx. His collected journalism, Hoo-Hahs and Passing Frenzies, won the George Orwell prize in 2003. Francis Wheen's new book, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions, is published by Fourth Estate.

In contrast to the opportunistic 'anti-imperialists' who support the former Ba'athists and religious reactionaries 'resisting' the establishment of the institutions of democracy and civil society in Iraq, which include strong and independent trade unions, Labour Friends of Iraq are proof that there is still a left which maintains the tradition of anti-fascism, and moreover, a left which still understands the meaning of the words "international working class solidarity". They are worthy of the support of all who call themselves international socialists. Hak Mao (Australian blogger)

While sections of the left have abandoned the principles of universal human rights and international solidarity, Labour Friends of Iraq is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Iraqi trade unionists, democrats and socialists in their battle to secure democracy, human rights, equality and social justice. LFIQ's concrete, practical solidarity with the left and progressive movements inside Iraq deserves our admiration and support. Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner

Labour Friends of Iraq supports the labour movement and democracy in Iraq. It is as vital for the Left in Britain as it is for the people of Iraq. It shows that there is more to politics than taking sides between America and 'the resistance'. It shows that there is more to the left than the so-called 'anti-imperialism' of those who attack trade unionists. This group belongs to the best traditions of international solidarity. I urge you to support it. Robert Fine, Professor, Warwick University

Labour Friends of Iraq are an example of the kind of international solidarity so many parts of the left seem to have forgotten about. What I like about LFIQ above all is that they believe in giving concrete and political support to people involved in a vital struggle - for the establishment of a vibrant labour movement in a new, democratic Iraq. This is exactly the kind of solidarity that left-internationalist bloggers have been calling for - not lecturing, not taking sides on the basis of our own domestic concerns or 'adopting causes' for other reasons but solidarity in the real sense of the world - political, moral and material support and assistance. They deserve the support of all progressives.
Harry's Place (blog)

Taliban-type actions in Basra

Peter Tatchell has asked us to post this letter concerning the fight back by Basra students against religious extremists who attacked a picnic party because it was comprised of male and female students.

The letter says that it holds British troops responsible. We do not yet know if this is a fair charge and note the very fair point made on Harry’s Place that “British troops are in and around Basra but are not supposed to be involved in policing work unless asked to by local authorities. Which raises a question - While the transition process involves restoring power to domestic Iraqi institutions should not British troops be asked to defend basic human rights in the city they are based in? A supplementary question - should we demanding that they do so?”

LFIQ has posted on this before (see link to IFTU site a few posts below) and will be raising this question with the British Government at the earliest possible opportunity because secular, free and democratic civil society in Iraq needs protection from these brutal wannabe Taliban forces and that there should, of course, be no tolerance of armed militias.

Gary Kent

Campaign to support the courageous demonstrations by students at Basra
University in Iraq!

Join our campaign to strengthen the protest movement of Basra students!

Since March 15th there have been massive and courageous student
demonstrations in the southern Iraqi city of Basra against the Islamist
militants led by Moqtada al-Sadr.

The students anger and outrage are a direct response to the a brutal attack
on students from the Engineering Faculty of Basra University, in which
al-Sadr's thugs, aided by Iranian agents, started beating up the students
and destroying their belongings, as well as ripping off the clothes of
female students and singling out in particular one young Christian woman.
The students fought back and, when a male student tried to defend his female
friend, he was shot dead. The authorities, meanwhile, have turned a blind
eye.

As a result, the students of this faculty have been joined by many other
faculties and high schools and thousands of other Basra citizens on the
streets. Despite the threats of al-Sadr and tribal groups in the environs of
the city demanding that the students issue an apology for insulting Islam or
face bombardment of their university, the protest is growing and has
generated a lot of support among the people, particularly young people.
Since the war, Basra has been dominated by Islamist groups backed by the
Iranian regime. By demonstrating against al-Sadr's repression, the students
are taking a lead in fighting back against the Islamists for freedom and
democratic rights.

-We call on all student groups, workers organizations and progressive
campaigners to join our campaign to defend the student movement in Iraq and its fight for freedom, equality and secularism. The Basra students need
international solidarity urgently to win this battle.

-We demand separation of religion from the state and from education

-We demand unconditional freedom of speech, association and protest for
students-and for all Iraqis.

-We want the Islamist criminals to be brought to justice.

-We hold the British troops responsible ignoring the barbarisms of political
Islamists in Basra.

-We demand that armed militias of political parties are banned from
university campuses.

-We hold the "so called" Iraqi police responsible for ignoring this Islamist
repression.

We urge you to show solidarity add your name and the name of your
organization to this appeal.

Campaign Co-ordinators:

Houzan Mahmoud (Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq- UK Representative)
E-mail: houzan73@yahoo.co.uk Tel: 079 56 88 3001

Alan Clarke (UK National Union of Students national executive member)
E-mail: alan.clarke@nus.org.uk Tel: 07976 000 940

Dashti Jamal (Head of UK organization of Worker Communist Party of Iraq)
E-mail: d.jamal@ntlworld.com Tel: 077 34 704742

Members of the campaign:

Daniel Randall (Alliance for Workers liberty) Mick Duncan (No Sweat
Campaign) Peter Tatchell (Human right activist) Claire Bilby & Louise Gold
(National Union of Student- women's committee) OutRage! (the gay human
rights campaign!)

More MPs back Nozad Ismail appeal

Diane Abbott, Julie Morgan, David Lepper, Glenda Jackson, Ann Cryer, John Austin and Jeremy Corbyn are the latest Labour MPs to back the Nozad Ismail campaign. They all opposed military action and their support for this urgent appeal provides a good example to others who opposed the war but who haven’t yet given sufficient priority to solidarity with Iraqi unions and other civil society groups. It's vital that we unite, despite strongly held differences on the war, if we are to carry out the elementary aim of any decent labour movement - internationalism and solidarity with "our side" in Iraq - what we call Grassroots Iraq. And the most vital issue is how we can do al that is possible to stop the murder of an Iraqi union leader. Please do all you can to spread word of this campaign. With thanks, Gary Kent for LFIQ.

Basra students reject religious extremism

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions reports that students in Basra are striking in protest after religious extremists murder a man defending a colleague at a picnic.

Thomas Friedman on deaths in US custody

Thomas Friedman, in today’s New York Times (registration required) examines the “inexcusable outrage” of the death of at least 26 prisoners in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 – “in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide.”

More Labour MPs back Commons motion in support of LFIQ appeal for Nozad Ismail

MPs David Taylor, Bob Wareing, Rudi Vis, Lynne Jones, Martin Caton, Syd Rapson, Ernie Ross and Win Griffiths (five opposed and three backed military action) are the latest to back the Commons motion in support of the LFIQ Global Appeal on Nozad Ismail and support continues to come from around the world. The Commons adjourns today for Easter and probably only has a few days left until it is dissolved before the election, when all Commons motions fall. We may revive this motion in the next Parliament. The motion has been backed in roughly equal numbers by those who took different positions before the invasion. This symbolises a key aim of LFIQ: to unite party members in favour of post-war solidarity.

Insurgents resisted

Robert Worth in the New York Times

MPs back LFIQ Global Appeal on Nozad Ismail

MPs Harry Barnes, Mike Gapes, John Mann and Kevin McNamara are the first to support an Early Day Motion in the Commons backing the LFIQ appeal.

That this House supports the Labour Friends of Iraq global appeal, which has been supported by numerous rank and file trade unionists and others across the world, to publicise the severe threat to the life of Nozad Ismail, the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk, who has twice escaped assassins and who receives regular death threats; believes that the self-styled resistance in Iraq is deliberately targeting the leadership of the Iraqi labour movement and, therefore, the prospects for a united, secular and democratic Iraq, as was exemplified when Hadi Saleh, the International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) was tortured and strangled before his house was ransacked for his comrades' contact details, when Ali Hassan Abd of the IFTU's Oil and Gas Union, was gunned down in front of his children, and when Ahmed Adris Abbas of the Transport and Communication Workers Union was also assassinated in Baghdad; and appeals for the widest possible support for the Labour Friends of Iraq initiative not only from supporters of the British Labour movement but from anyone with an interest in nurturing Iraqi democracy.

New NGO Association (NA) formed

More than 35 Iraqi NGOs participated at the NGO meeting held at the Palestine Hotel on Saturday the 19th of March 2005. With the intention of holding the first in a series of meetings to establish an umbrella group, NGO representatives from across Iraq were invited to discuss the role and structure of the Association. Each NGO was given the opportunity to introduce its field of work, air its concerns, and advance its ideas. NGOs represented work in areas of focus such as human rights, agriculture, civil society, gender issues, children, etc. Their web site is being constructed but will be at www.ngoassociation.org

Australian solidarity

Andrew Casey gives an Australian perspective on solidarity with the Iraqi Labour Movement in an article for an Australian Labor Party journal, Challenge

The vicious torture and murder of a leading Iraqi trade union leader, Hadi Saleh, in early January was the lowest and ugliest point in the growing pattern of attacks on Iraqi trade union offices, and trade union members, over the last two years.

There is very little reported about these attacks on a fast growing, but fledgling, independent union movement - largely because it doesn't fit into an easy formula of "good guys and bad guys".

The attacks on the trade unions and workers come from everywhere - supporters of the Saddamists, the Al-Qaeda related Islamist resistance as well as from the US-led occupiers.

A masked gang broke into Saleh's home bound him hand and foot and blindfolded him. They beat and burned his flesh. Once they had finished torturing him they strangled him with an electric cord and then riddled his body with bullets. The murder of Saleh bore all the hallmarks of the Saddamist regime's hated secret police the Mukhabarat.

Hadi Saleh's crime was that he had become a leading figure helping in the creation of an independent trade union movement in post-Saddam Iraq - campaigning for decent wages and basic health and safety conditions in the workplace.

Just weeks after his murder the President of the metal and printworkers union, Talib Khadim Al Tayee, was kidnapped threatened and then released. And in Mosul both the Secretary and President of the IFTU offices have been kidnapped, threatened, tortured and released in separate incidents in late January and, as I write, in late February.

Saleh had been active in reaching out to union people across the globe calling for their support for the creation of a democratic, socialist and secular society in which trade unions played a vital role.

He had addressed the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions Congress in Tokyo last year and called on them to play a role in helping to regenerate Iraq. He'd been to the UK, Europe and the USA where he had garnered significant support from the major Left and progressive unions.

On a visit to Europe last year, Saleh outlined the problems facing Iraqi trade unionists including lack of funds, the lack of training, the continued implementation of anti-union laws brought in by the Ba'athist dictatorship and attacks from US forces on IFTU offices.

The IFTU certainly seems to have received the most international support, across the political spectrum of trade unions in the developed world, but there are about a dozen different trade union groupings in Iraq now organising huge numbers of workers.

It was largely the work of Saleh which resulted in a major conference sponsored by the British TUC in mid-February this year, bringing together about 70 trade unionists from 16 British trade unions to discuss practical solidarity.

Importantly the Iraqi unions attending the conference represented all points of view : including Saleh's IFTU, the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate, the Iraqi Teachers Union, the Iraqi Journalists' Union, the Federation of Workers Councils and - Unions of Iraq, and - surprisingly - the General Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions (GFITU), the national trade union centre controlled by the former Saddamist dictatorship

The split between Iraqi union groupings in their response to the US-presence in Iraq was reflected at the conference.

The IFTU and the Kurdish Workers Syndicate, both of whom had opposed the
invasion, supported participation in the recent election so as to build a new civil society. They saw the election as an important first step to ending the US-led occupation.

Their union opponents, such as the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions of Iraq, damned the IFTU especially as collaborationists with the US-invaders.

The Basra Oil Workers' Union has also kept themselves at arms length from the IFTU. They argue their role is to be independent of all political factions and defend Iraq's oil bounty from the grasping hands of the US invaders.

This union, formed within two-weeks of the fall of the Saddam regime, has successfully organised wage and conditions strikes against the US-imposed administrators of the oil fields.

Unfortunately this split within the Iraqi unions is now also reflected in a number of progressive forums across the globe. At a recent meeting of the European Social Forum a far-left Trotskyite group orchestrated the booing, hissing and slow-handclapping effort ensuring an IFTU representative was forced off the stage.

There is a struggle to create independent unions going on now in Iraq - and there are real victories to be reported.

It should be the role of progressives to support all groups who are legitimately organising among working people for free and independent unions - without picking sides based on political prejudices or fractional loyalties.

Iraq Poll: Attitudes of Iraqi University Students Towards Democracy Reveals Mixed Picture

March 21, 2005: A poll released today reveals that 75% of Iraqi university students view democracy positively and 58% believe Iraq will be a democratic state within 5 years.

The poll, conducted by the Iraqi Prospect Organisation (IPO) among 834 students in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, said that many of Iraq’s youth have a poor understanding of democracy coloured by years of dictatorship and today’s widespread instability.

“The results demonstrate that on the one hand Iraq is a fertile ground for democracy to take root,” explained Ahmed Shames, IPO Chairman, “On the other hand there are many non-democratic ideas which are held by a sizeable minority of Iraq’s youth. The long-term success of democracy in Iraq will be dependent on efforts that tackle these misunderstandings.”

The poll is available online and the Iraqi Prospect Organisation is a network of young Iraqi men and women working to promote democracy in Iraq.

David Hirsh looks at cleavages on the left on democracy, reform and anti-imperialism

He writes that “I am for democracy movements, trade union movements, women’s and lesbian and gay movements, wherever they are and even if George Bush says that he is in favour of them too.”

Gary Younge’s column in today’s Guardian begins by saying that there was an anti-American demonstration in Iraq in April 2003 and that the coalition forces have still not left Iraq. He ridicules George Bush’s response, which was to say, ‘In Iraq, there's discussion, debate, protest - all the hallmarks of liberty’. How does he ridicule it? Well, he doesn’t, actually. He just quotes it. That is enough. But it is not ridiculous, is it? It is true, that in April 2003 it was possible to organise demonstrations against the government of Iraq whereas under Saddam, this would have ended in certain death. There are people in Iraq organising free trade unions, there are people in Iraq fighting for democracy, and there are people in Iraq fighting for women’s rights. But the anti-war leadership do not feel, any longer, that they have to argue their case. They just rely on a set of ‘commonsense’ truths and they think that all they have to do is to show how other people contradict this anti-imperialist commonsense.

Younge turns to events in Lebanon. He downplays the series of demonstrations that called for Syria to withdraw its troops. Younge slips in an accusation of racism and sexism against magazine editors who showed pictures of pretty young Lebanese women carrying flags on that demo: ‘at least some Arabs editors could fancy’. I thought that the point of these pictures was to show that some women in the Lebanon chose to demonstrate their empowerment by showing a bit of cleavage, wearing a vest top, smiling, and demonstrating for the sovereignty of Lebanon’s parliament over Syrian troops. The editors showed these pictures in order to challenge the Islamist contention that all Arab women think that it is necessary to hide not only their cleavage but also their faces and their wrists and their arms. In such a world, showing a bit of cleavage is a feminist act. It is a manifestation of freedom, Gary. That is why those pictures were worth showing.

Younge then says that the anti-American demonstration organised by Hizbollah was bigger than the ones calling for democracy in Lebanon. The US, says Younge, has ‘branded’ Hizobllah a terrorist organisation. People carried banners, he tells us, saying ‘Death to America’. ‘But editors didn’t find them pretty’ he says. You can be sure that on the Hizbollah demonstration women were forced to dress modestly, apparently in line with Gary Younge’s conception of feminist propriety.

There is already a pattern emerging in this piece. Gary Younge is not really interested in Iraq or Lebanon – he is centrally interested in attacking the US, Britain and western magazine editors. The possibility of protest in Iraq is less important than the hypocrisy of George Bush. The protest movement in Lebanon is only important because it demonstrates the sexist and racist attitudes of American magazine editors and their readerships. What does Younge think of the pro-Syrian demonstration? Does he think that Hizbollah is a terrorist organisaiton? What does he think of the banner ‘Death to America’? What does he think of the religious enforcement of ‘modesty’ onto demonstrators? He doesn’t say. He is not interested. He is only interested in showing the hypocrisy of the West. As though hypocrisy was the greatest crime. Things that happen in the Middle East are only interesting insofar as they constitute a battle in the global and universal war against America. You are on the same side as those who say ‘Death to America’, Gary, but what are you for?

Now Younge quotes George Orwell. ‘The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.’ What does he mean? I think what he means is that the western media and Bush and Blair thought that a series of huge demonstrations in favour of the Lebanese parliament and Lebanese self-determination was more interesting and significant than a mobilisation by Hizbollah of its ‘Death to America’ forces. Well didn’t we all? Younge feels a duty to deny that the American defeat of the Saddam regime in Iraq might have had something to do with a new mood across the Middle East. He thinks we must deny that trade unions and elections in Iraq could have anything to do with movements for such things in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or Lebanon. We must deny this because those who were in favour of the war are asserting it. Not, you understand, because it isn’t true. Younge prefers the ‘Death to America’ mobilisation.

But Gary Younge should be more careful if he intends to rely on George Orwell as an authority for his global ‘anti-imperialist’ war. George Orwell worked for the BBC world service during the Second World War because he thought that people in India had something to be more afraid of than the British Empire – and that was totalitarianism. Orwell had experienced totalitarian movements at close quarters in Spain during the civil war – both the fascist-religious movement that had organised a military coup against a socialist government and the Stalinist machine that killed the revolutionary spirit of the anti-fascists (it killed a good number of anti-fascists too) and allowed the Generalissimo to remain in power.

But it’s true, isn’t it, that the nationalist does not disapprove of the atrocities committed by his own side? Gary Younge’s side is the ‘anti-imperialist’ side. He writes as though the world is divided into two camps – the imperialist camp and the anti-imperialist camp. The only important struggle in the world, according to this bizarre framework, is the universal struggle of masses everywhere against imperialism. Anyone who claims to be against imperialism, anyone who says ‘Death to America’ is on Gary Younge’s side. Anyone who opposes these ‘anti-imperialists’, for whatever reason, is not on Gary Younge’s side.

Some forces that oppose American imperialism: Saddam Hussein; Hizbollah; Hamas; the government of the People’s Republic of North Korea; the Iraqi ‘resistance’; the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.'

Some forces that Younge thinks are on the same side as American imperialism: pro democracy campaigners in Iraq, in Iran, in North Korea, anywhere, in fact, where the government is ‘anti-imperialist’; trade unionists where the government is ‘anti-imperialist’; feminists where the government is ‘anti-imperialist’; lesbian and gay activists where the government is ‘anti-imperialist’; Kurdish nationalists in Iraq and in Iran but not in Turkey;demonstrators for democracy and independence in Lebanon (particularly if they show too much cleavage).

Well, I can hear Gary Younge saying, which side are you on? I do not think that we can understand every struggle in the world, Gary, in the framework of some global struggle against America. I do not think that the defeat of America is the most important thing in every place and in every struggle. I am for democracy movements, trade union movements, women’s and lesbian and gay movements, wherever they are and even if George Bush says that he is in favour of them too.

And the ‘anti-imperialists’ are as guilty as any of George Orwell’s nationalists of closing their eyes to the atrocities committed by those on their own side. If Gary Younge gets his way in Iraq and in Lebanon it would be a huge disaster for those countries and also, secondarily, a setback for American foreign policy. Iraq and Lebanon, Younge hopes, will sacrifice themselves in the struggle against imperialism. And those pretty young women who exposed their shoulders to the Beirut sunshine had better get used to covering up when Hizbollah comes to power to the sound of Gary Younge’s anti-imperialist cheering.

Fred Halliday on Middle East myths

The Times today carries extracts from the ever-readable Professor Fred Halliday’s new book 100 Myths about the Middle East (published by Saqi Books on April 14, £8.99; offer £7.64, call 0870 1608080). Please take a look for yourself but this brief extract gives food for thought.

“The region has, in common with other parts of the world, seen wave on wave of reform — some cautious, some revolutionary, in the decades of the 20th century, including during the Cold War, the rival projects of Arab socialism and the monarchical White Revolution in Iran. This historical record is not designed to deny the possibility of or need for reform, but rather to suggest that any such project has to be generated from within the region itself and may take rather longer to bear fruit than the attention span of external administrations and their speechwriters.”

Alan Johnson’s Weekly Column

The Respect Coalition versus Trade Unionism

Consider these two statements:

The first statement was issued to Respect members this week by Jonathan Walker (Press Officer, Cambridge Respect), Tom Woodcock (Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Cambridge Respect) and Jo Robbins (Chair, Cambridge Respect). “The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions can not be regarded as a legitimate trade union movement… it is our job to call for an end to the occupation, and to support the right of Iraqis to resist. At the Labour Party Conference, Muhsin of IFTU, always referred to the "so-called Iraqi resistance". We can only ask Campeace members to repudiate the so-called Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions… it has effectively transferred its loyalty from one murderous tyrant to another, from Saddam Hussein to George W. Bush.”

The second statement is Faleh A. Jabar writing on the torture and murder of his friend and comrade Hadi Saleh, IFTU leader, by the ‘resistance’. “A group of five, most probably, ex-security men, broke into his house in Baghdad, waited for him in the dark and preyed on him the moment he stepped in. They killed three times: first they strangled him with a wire; second they riddled his body with bullets; lastly they burnt him. This was not an ordinary killing. Unlike show beheadings that mark ‘resistance’ in Iraq, this was a triple vengeance: in the 1970s Saleh was condemned to death for clandestine unionism, he was amnestied years later, now the Ba’ath security men working in clandestine for restoration reneged on their amnesty. They also took vengeance for the successes Saleh achieved in rebuilding trade unions (The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, IFTU) that stand now at some 200,000 membership, a formidable democratic social movement defying all sorts of fundamentalist, communal or other parochial identities. Lastly, they wanted to hush him and his colleagues who pursue a twin line of peaceful action for the restitution of Iraq’s sovereignty and building an all-inclusive, federal democracy”.

Trade unionists in Respect think of themselves as democratic socialist, defenders of union rights, and fearless in the protection of workers’ interests against governments and employers. So some questions seem to be begged by the extraordinary statement of Cambridge Respect:

Do you also ‘repudiate’ the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions like your comrade Tom Woodcock, the Respect Parliamentary candidate for Cambridge? Or do you repudiate Tom Woodcock and Respect?

Do you believe that the IFTU has “transferred its loyalty to George W. Bush”? Or do you understand that Respect have made a foul smear on the free trade unionists of Iraq? (And do you understand the import of this smear? Do you know of the wave of murders of IFTU members by the ‘resistance’, of the RPG attacks on IFTU headquarters, of the murder of rail workers in Basra?)

Do you defend the charge by Respect National Council Member George Galloway that the IFTU are ‘quislings’?

Do you defend the charge by Respect National Council Member Lindsey German’s newspaper that the IFTU are a ‘fake union’?

Do you defend Respect member Alex Callinicos who sneered at the international labour movement outcry against the murder of Hadi Saleh as a ‘hullabaloo’ about a ‘communist’?

Do you feel no responsibility at all as Respect trade unionists to speak out loud and clear against these attacks by leading Respect members on your brother and sister trade unionists in Iraq? None at all?

Do you agree with your Respect comrades in Cambridge that the IFTU militants are people who were ‘loyal to Saddam’? Or are you , like us, aghast that heroic trade unionists who were jailed and tortured under Saddam, who kept the flame of trade unionism alight in exile and in the underground, at tremendous personal risk in the face of the violence of Saddam’s Ba’ath Party thugs, have been slandered by the Cambridge Respect Parliamentary candidate in this way?

Will you demand the Cambridge Respect Parliamentary candidate issue a retraction?

Do you not see the black humour involved in this? Your own party leader, George Galloway, travelled to Baghdad and hailed Saddam Hussein’s courage, strength and indefatigability”, standing inside his palace. Militants who later formed the IFTU were fighting for trade union rights outside the palace in the then clandestine Workers’ Democratic Trade Union Movement. Yet the political party you have chosen to support, Respect, is led by Galloway and has set itself up as the tormentors of the IFTU!

Is this the ‘political voice’ you hoped Respect would become?

And then there is the question of how all this stacks up alongside your official union policy towards the IFTU! For instance, Respect claims solid support in the Public and Commercial Services Union. The leader of the PCS, Mark Serwotka has long been identified as a supporter of Respect. How on earth do PCS members square their support for Respect and their silence toward the Respect leaders who slander and vilify and finger the IFTU, with their own trade union’s official policy toward the IFTU? But at the PCS conference several motions were passed pledging PCS support for the IFTU! According to the IFTU’s own website, “The outgoing assistant general secretary of the PCS presented the executive's agreed position on the motion on Iraq and referred to a meeting that took place in May 2004 between the PCS General Secretary, Mark Serwotka, himself and Abdullah Muhsin of the IFTU in which the Union pledged practical support for the IFTU”.

Enough is enough. As trade unionists in Respect you have a moral duty to challenge the tormenters of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions who sit in the leadership of his own party. Your silence acts as a green light to those tormentors. You have a unique moral authority within Respect and can take a stand against this disgraceful activity if you will act.

Stand up for your own union’s policy towards the IFTU. Stand up for the trade unionists of Iraq under assault from the ‘resistance’ and from the Respect leaders. Time to act.

Cambridge Respect members were refusing to sign a petition expressing support for Nozad Ismail the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk who has survived two assassination attempts by the ‘resistance’.

Over 500 trade unionists from all around the globe have signed so far. See Global Appeal on left of this web site.

Vanessa Yardley, Australian Services Union Delegate told LFIQ, “I note that Nozad Ismail, has twice survived assassination attempts by the so-called resistance and is subject to daily death threats. I call upon the international labour movement to extend solidarity to Nozad in the hope that these acts of solidarity and resulting publicity may make the cost of murdering him too high. We believe that increased solidarity with Iraqi democrats like Nozad will also contribute to the success of the forthcoming elections which can secure a sovereign and democratic Iraqi government, which can best tackle the so-called resistance, from which these threats emanate.”

That is the voice of internationalist trade unionism. Will you add your own voice to it, joining a chorus of over 500 trade unionists (and counting) from all over the globe? Or will you echo the slanders of Mr Tom Woodcock of Cambridge? Or will you just stay quiet?

Remembering Halabja

The Iraqi ambassador to Canada, Howar Ziad wrote this important and moving piece in the National Post of Canada on March 17, 2005. (GK)

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was the only contemporary nation to use chemical weapons against civilians. During 1987 and 1988 -- while Iraq was at war with Iran -- Saddam gassed dozens of villages in the Kurdistan region. The worst of these attacks devastated the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988. About 5,000 civilians were killed. Thousands more were blinded or maimed, and would die later. Wednesday marked the 17th anniversary of that horrible day.

Halabja stands as a symbol for the larger genocide campaign -- often called the Anfal -- that Saddam inflicted on Iraqi Kurdistan in 1987-1988. And that genocide is itself part of the constellation of cruelties imposed by Saddam's murderous Ba'athist regime.

This is a time we remember not only the fallen Kurds, but also our brothers and sisters among the Madan, the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq, whose ancient habitat was destroyed by Saddam, and is only now being rebuilt. We also remember our brothers and sisters in the Shi'a Arab community, whose courageous intifada in the wake of the first Gulf War was so viciously repressed by Saddam's troops. And we remember the Christians whose villages were razed in 1988 as part of the same campaign that slew so many Kurds.

The people of Kurdistan knew well Saddam's murderous nature even before Halabja. Kurds had already been slaughtered by the thousands in the Anfal campaign. And many more had passed through the paramilitary camp of Topzawa, near Kirkuk, on their way to remote execution sites that even now have yet to be found. Still, March 16, 1988, managed to create a new standard in cruelty. It marked a defining turning point in the history of the Kurdish people.
We must ask ourselves how it was that the truth of Halabja was so long denied by much of the world. And how was it that its perpetrator managed to escape justice for more than 15 years? These are important questions to answer if we are to prevent the next Halabja. As with other genocides, we must do our best to make good on the words "never again."

The horror of Halabja, the sickening pictures of children murdered by chemical weapons, should have forced world leaders to question whether Saddam was just another leader to be dealt with in the world's geo-strategic chess game. Instead, most capitals responded with denial or equivocation. The murder of thousands of innocents was minimized and marginalized so as not to disrupt relations with Saddam.

The route of silence was also embraced by numerous Middle Eastern pundits -- the same men who denounced the liberation of Iraq but rarely found a bad word to utter about Saddam. The late Edward Said, the Columbia University professor widely lionized for his support of the Palestinian cause, cast doubt on Saddam's use of chemical weapons at Halabja. One former CIA analyst, Stephen Pelletierre, made a career of spouting propaganda on Saddam's behalf. Pelletierre most recently plied his shameful trade in a New York Times op-ed that attempted to blame Iran for Halabja. Not surprisingly, al-Jazeera has recently peddled similar lies.

A brave few, from across the political spectrum, told the truth. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Medecins Sans Frontieres and Physicians for Human Rights spared no effort on behalf of Halabja's victims. The same was true of writers such as William Safire, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Ignatieff, Edward Mortimer and Gwynne Roberts.

Politicians and personalities such as U.S. Senators Claiborne Pell, Jesse Helms and Al Gore, British MP Anne Clywd, Madame Danielle Mitterrand and Dr. Bernard Kouchner stood up for the victims with compassion and outrage. In the United States, Dr. Najmaldin Karim, and Ambassador Peter Galbraith, then a congressional staffer, battled the indifference of the foreign policy elite.
The Halabja genocide perfectly reflected Ba'athism. Like Nazism, which inspired the early Baathists, Saddam's ideology embraced ethnic cleansing. Just as the Nazis planned to change the ethnic map of Eastern Europe by exterminating Jews and decimating Poles, and by dispatching Germans to colonize newly conquered territories, Baathists sought to wipe out the Kurds who inconveniently lived near Iraq's northern borders.

Indeed, the Holocaust, the greatest crime in human history, was the ideal to which the Baathists aspired. If they could have, the Baathists would have eliminated not only the Kurds, but also everyone else who opposed their fascistic Arab nationalist ideology. Saddam's uncle and political mentor, Khairullah Talfah, was a Nazi sympathizer who wrote a pamphlet entitled Three Whom God Should Not Have Created: Persians, Jews and Flies. This manifesto of hate was reissued by Saddam Hussein in 1981. Indeed, the gassing of Halabja and other Kurdish communities is now known to have been part of a larger experiment to test the effectiveness of Saddam's poisons.

In Iraq today, we are determined to create a pluralistic nation in which such crimes are unthinkable. That is why we voted in such large numbers on Jan. 30 -- because we are determined to create a democracy, because we will never again allow the power of the state to be vested in the hands of a dictator.
The mission of Iraq's Kurds is to remind Iraq and the world of the crime of Halabja, and by doing so to show what can happen when evil is permitted to flourish.

Howar Ziad is Iraq's ambassador to Canada. This essay is adapted from a speech delivered on March 16 at Carleton University in Ottawa.

LFIQ letter in today's Guardian

Andrew Murray (Comment, March 16) wants "full sovereignty restored to
the Iraqi people", but rubbishes the election in which 8.5 million Iraqis defied the bombers. It was right to oppose the invasion, but wrong for the anti-war movement to ignore solidarity with the new and independent labour movement, women's groups and democratic political parties that desperately need our support.

Alan Johnson
Labour Friends of Iraq

The letter was slightly edited. Alan here describes his own position on the invasion. LFIQ has no collective view and seeks to unite those who took different positions on the invasion.

26 Deaths in US Custody: Rumsfeld Must Resign

The New York Times (registration required) reports that “At least 26 prisoners have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide, according to military officials. The number of confirmed or suspected cases is much higher than any accounting the military has previously reported.” Only one of these deaths occurred at Abu Ghraib. James D. Ross, senior legal adviser for Human Rights Watch in New York "This number to me is quite astounding. This just reflects an overall failure to take seriously the abuses that have occurred." In addressing that failure, the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld would be a powerful symbol. (AJ)

An assessment of the sectarian strategy for civil war of the "resistance"

Over at Normblog Jeff Weintraub assesses the sectarian strategy of the “resistance” in Iraq: “the targets of its attacks are overwhelmingly Iraqi Shiite Arabs - not just political figures, government workers, policemen, members of the Iraqi National Guard, people accused of working with the Americans, doctors, and other educated professionals, but also Shiite religious leaders, pilgrims, funeral processions, and random ordinary civilians.” He rightly concludes that “Non-Iraqis who support the insurgency and describe it as a legitimate national 'resistance' should ask themselves whether they really favour mass murder of civilians carried out in order to restore fascist dictatorship (or an Islamist replacement) and rule by the traditionally dominant ethnic minority.”

Women’s rights and the new Iraqi constitution

This Editorial in the Washington Post examines women’s rights in Iraq. It says that “What Westerners think of as fundamental rights for women -- to own money and property and to work outside the house -- can be established only if the constitution guarantees all Iraqis the right to religious freedom. But if the constitution establishes an extreme form of sharia law, either directly or by implication, then clerics will be able to set the rules not only for women but eventually for everyone, men and women, in Iraq's Christian, Kurdish and secular communities. Any clause or formula that enables unelected clerics to veto laws passed by the elected legislature will, over time, erode whatever fragile democracy is in place at the time the constitution takes effect.”

mile after mile of empty petrol tankers

Brian Joyce, a member of the National Executive Commitee of the Fire Brigades Union gives a moving account of a recent trade union visit to Iraqi Kurdistan. The FBU has been at the forefront of practical solidarity with the iraqi labour movement and its example should be followed by others. (GK)

My journey through Turkey was coming to an end, signified by mile after mile of empty petrol tankers, hundreds of the hungry beasts queuing for hours on the Turkish Kurdistan border; our reliance and need for petroleum became extremely visual after passing nearly 400 petrol tankers.

Abdullah Muhsin, the IFTUs international representative was once again acting as my interpreter as we travelled to Duhok with Jalal Kayef President of the Kurdistan General Syndicate Workers Union (KSWU) for the province of Duhok. We had been joined by him and several other officials including my old friend Subdi Al-Mashadani, the General Secretary of the IFTU at the border.

Having been to Baghdad and Basra, I now found myself having the opportunity of extending our relationship to the trade union movement in Kurdistan. The Kurdistan General Workers Syndicate Union is the equivalent to the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and has unions within Kurdistan affiliated to it. These unions range from the building industry, mechanics, public services, to transport, textiles and agricultural workers.

Meetings had been arranged in Duhok, Arbil and Sulaimania, each of these provinces having its own KWSU President. The unions affiliated also having their own President in each of the three provinces. The structure of the KWSU is currently under discussion, the debate being that of unification, many believing this to be the way forward and future for the KWSU

I was warmly welcomed at each meeting; officials were eager to explain the issues, problems and needs of their unions. Training and education being a priority, recognised by all as imperative for the future of not only their officials and members but for the unions themselves. Computers, printers and faxes were high on the list of requirements as well as financial funding. These requests and needs are vitally important, but so is the necessity of a trade union delegation going to Iraqi Kurdistan this year, in fact it is essential.

My visit was also to assist in facilitating the first meeting of KWSU and IFTU; this has led to successful discussions between the two unions.

I felt safe and secure as I travelled through Kurdistan, armed security being apparent and check points frequent. But with the history and relationship with Saddam’s Iraq, it is not only understandable but desirable.

Kurdistan lies across the top of Iraq in a blanket of beautiful mountains and forms northern Iraq. The Kurdish people have suffered imprisonment, torture and death at the hands of Saddam’s Baath’ist party and military power. In the provinces of Duhok and Arbil over 5000 villages were destroyed, thousands of people made homeless, countless numbers missing and killed, bombed, machined gunned, gassed, and poisoned by chemicals.

Since 1991 due to the intervention of the United Nations and the courage of the Kurdish people, the country has had the opportunity to build, improve and modernise. The difference those years have made is remarkable, and can only pay tribute to the people of Iraqi Kurdistan and give hope to the people of Iraq for the future.

During my days and time in Kurdistan I visited fire stations in all the provinces. Personal protective clothing was limited. On one station, there were six sets of ppc shared amongst the whole station of thirty firefighters.

There were requests from each brigade visited for technical information, fire kit, equipment and the need for all types of training was identified as a priority.

None of the stations I visited had breathing apparatus, although I was proudly shown some new appliances recently delivered. As in Iraq these firefighters are not allowed to join a trade union due to existing legislation, and little appears to be going to change in the near future.

We have, as a union, arranged for approximately 1250 sets of fire kit to be sent to Kurdistan, and should be distributed over the following weeks.

But there is still a desperate need for further support and assistance, above all we must maintain and continue our relationship with those to whom we have held out the hand of trust and friendship. However, there were no expectations from those I met, for these were not people who simply talk about freedom and democracy, most have physically fought to achieve it and all have suffered under the regime of Saddam’s Iraq for it.

The KWSU also arranged for me to meet with the Governor of Duhok Nejerfan Ahmed and the political leader of the PDK Khader Abdel-Aziz Rashied; I also met Abdul Razag, minister for humanitarian aid and a member of the PUK.

This series of meetings gave me the opportunity to question and explore the views of these officials over a variety of issues, one of which being the future of a federal Iraq with specific reference to the role of and political relationship with the trade union movement. The war and occupation created debate with views being expressed freely and openly by all. Further discussions included the unjust and totally unnecessary legislation in relation to firefighters and their right to join a trade union, as well as the function and responsibilities of the fire service.

Interviews were arranged with two national television networks and several national newspapers. Television coverage of my trip appeared on the news for two nights, and was transmitted by satellite over all the Arab states.

As I travelled back from Suliamania, I couldn’t help but notice the regeneration of the countryside, burnt beyond recognition by Saddam’s air force ten years past but now young saplings stood four foot high, and the blackened scorched earth replaced by fresh green. Yet my mind was still at the Red House in Suliamania.

Simply called the Red House due to its colour, quite unassuming in appearance, you could easily be forgiven for thinking it was an office block. But for thousands of those who walked across its courtyard, the Red House meant imprisonment, torture and execution. Now it is a museum, its walls displaying a pictorial history to those who had to flee their homes and escape to the mountains of Kurdistan. Many died in the freezing snow, both young and old. There were also pictures of families, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons who were murdered simply because they were born Kurdish.

Two days before Kurdish partisans attacked this building; all those held within its walls were executed.

Life for many in Iraq is still unsafe; this is certainly the case for trade union official Nuzad Ismail President of the IFTU in Kirkuk. Nuzad, has survived two assassination attempts on his life over recent months.

Each day he and his family receive death threats, as Nuzad said “If they can’t get to me they will get to my family, that’s the way they work”. He was referring to Saddam loyalists.

Sadly whilst writing this article I was made aware of the death of my friend Hadi Saleh, International Secretary for the IFTU, assassinated on Tuesday night the 4th of January in Baghdad. Masked assassins broke into his home bound his feet and hands blindfolded him, and then tortured, burnt and finally strangled Hadi with electric cord.

Not surprisingly there is the belief that Hadi’s murder was carried out by Saddam’s Mukhabarat, the Baathist KGB. Sadly there are those in this country who, not only give credibility to these murderers and cowards, but support them. Called or being named the “new resistance” by those who seem blinkered to the irony of that statement. The political amnesia of these individuals and organisations is quite breathtaking.

Hadi Saleh was a trade unionist, a man with a wish for a free and democratic federal Iraq. He worked through the trade union movement to achieve his beliefs for the people of Iraq.

Seized at the age of 21 by Saddam’s secret police and sentenced to summary execution for forming a trade union at his work place. Hadi spent five years of his life in the filth of one of Saddam’s prisons, tortured and beaten but still alive, he had his sentence by some miracle commuted to permanent exile.

He opposed the war, and continued his work to unite the people of his country. But he never gave up his fight against Baathism, and for that he was murdered.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who assisted in making my trip possible, especially those brigades who made the vital contributions of fire kit to the firefighters of Kurdistan. Equally my thanks goes to all those who I met during my travels but have not named, and my special thanks to Jalal Kayif and his family for the particular friendship and kindness they showed me during my short time in their country.

Gary Kent examines some hard left arguments on Iraq

Stop the War Chairman Andrew Murray recently wrote a piece in the Morning Star (12th February) seeking to mobilise support for the coming troops out demonstration.

He argues that the anti-war alliance "has withstood all efforts to divide it" and will focus on two demands – "bringing British troops home from their illegal and disastrous occupation of Iraq and opposing any British involvement in further wars that may be launched by the US government."

Later, he mentions that other countries are in the American frame. "The most immediate target is Iran, with "weapons of mass destruction" being trotted out once more as an excuse. The threat is that Iran will be bombed into submission, either by the US directly or by its Israeli surrogate."

Let's try to unpick this mixture of spin and assertion.

Iran's parliamentary democracy and the desire of most of its youthful citizens for reform is being gerrymandered and obstructed, often with great repression, by the fundamentalist and minority guardians of the Islamic revolution.

There is, many think with good reason, fear that this elite is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Given that they place rather less emphasis on the sanctity of human life than others, is there not a smidgeon of a problem with their possession of weapons of mass destruction which are not made less lethal or destabilising to millions simply by placing these words in inverted commas.

Of course, we could just say that any country can acquire nukes in some bizarre free market arrangement and add that because America and others possess them by what right is anyone else denied them.

There are differences of approach on the Iranian nuclear problem between the European troika of the UK, Germany and France, which favours diplomatic means to prevent a crisis and the US, which is apparently keen on direct military action.

The added problem is how to support Iranian reformers, some of whom may wish to have the bomb for nationalist reasons and for self-protection (although this is highly dubious). Some external actions could shore up the minority of Mullahs and disadvantage the majority who seek freedom and are, as it happens, quite pro-western.

It is, at least, odd that a figure who leads an alliance that includes CND offers no concerns about nuclear proliferation.

This is, by no means, a comprehensive analysis of the Iranian question and, notwithstanding that Andrew is writing a propagandist puff for a march, it surely behoves any responsible left analysis to at least acknowledge that there are issues with Iran other than the suggestion that the US has trumped up charges for reasons that are left unexplained but probably just come down to Oil.

As if that were not a burning issue for its own people and all those who rely on secure supplies of a staple and strategic asset and are concerned that it will be used as a weapon of mass destitution by those who appear keen on maintaining a fundamentally anti-democratic settlement in Iran.

Andrew then turns to Syria which, he says, "is also being menaced, on the grounds of its alleged support for the armed resistance to the occupation of Iraq. Both Syria and Iran are attacked for "interfering in Iraq's internal affairs" - and this coming from the British and US governments!"

Again, there is no acknowledgement that the one party Ba'athist state in Syria is alleged by Iraqis to be fomenting the insurgency for its own reasons and, Andrew was writing before the recent assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, which mobilised Lebanese resentment against Syrian imperialism. Nor does it mention how Syria seeks to scupper a lasting settlement between Israel and Palestine.

Syria, it seems, can do no wrong and presents no problems for progressive politics.

Andrew continues: "Other states are also in Washington's sights - North Korea, Cuba and Zimbabwe among them. It is a programme for endless war to make the world safe for the neocons."

Note that there is no mention of these countries' democratic oppositions. Andrew may wish to defend the one-party states in these countries but most decent left-wingers would concede that these regimes are either deadly to their own people or to others.

North Korea has consistently swindled the international community by ratting on agreements and has developed nukes. It is run by an isolated regime with little hold on reality. Cuba's economic and political isolation by the US should be ended but Cuba's human rights record must be challenged by democrats. And most people understand the terrible reality of Zimbabwe. But again, there is no acknowledgement of this and a flourish that it's all about making the world safe for neo-cons. One big US plot. No issues to deal with. No security concerns. Human rights don't enter the picture.

Andrew has no truck with the notion that UK forces could ever support American soldiers anywhere. It is, therefore, not surprising that no mention is made of the genocide in Darfur or the possibility that US and UK troops may well be needed, and called for by left-wingers, to intervene to prevent humanitarian disaster. After all, his threadbare analysis is that US imperialism is seeking to impose a new world order on the planet. And that's it.

Back to Iraq, he adds that "The responsibility of the movement in Britain is not to pontificate about who in Iraq should do what, but instead to create the essential precondition for Iraqi self-determination by demanding the withdrawal of the troops."

You do not have to have backed the war to understand that things have changed. It is now up to the Iraqi people to decide how to exercise their self-determination. There is an elected government and a process of nation-building that many Sunni groups which boycotted the election are now trying to buy into.

Of course the movement in Britain must decide with whom it wants to make solidarity. We should, most certainly, take sides with democratic authority against an alliance of anti-democrats and Al Qaeda allies, Saddamite refuseniks and some Sunni supremacists.

It is then only natural that western Conservatives, Liberals, Socialists will support their equivalent forces. And trade unionists will and should take sides with Iraqi brothers and sisters. And leave the decision on the troops up to them.

He takes a swipe at those who have criticised the Stop the War leaders "for one trumped-up reason or another, but basically for having had the cheek to be right at every turn." It's fair to assume he means us, amongst others, for our criticism of the Stop the War leaders for their attacks on impudent Iraqi trade unionists who dared to speak the truth, when the Leninist leaders of the STWC claimed that independent trade unions were not possible. Perhaps he means those who criticised him and others for failing to condemn the heinous murder of Hadi Saleh, without being forced into it.

He then jibes that "It would be a sobering experience for those stuck inside the London media parliamentary village to attend the huge meetings that the coalition organises in all parts of the country and realise how their arguments find absolutely no echo at all."

It would be a sobering experience to try organising a trade union or a women's movement in Iraq.

Many people are still angry with this government for what they see as deception rather than error shared by nearly all intelligence agencies. I am sure that many resent, for British nationalist - protecting "our boys" rather than foreigners - as well as more classically anti-imperialist reasons, the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq. The demand of troops out often comes to pivot on such
emotions.

The troops out march may or may not attract creditable numbers. It will inevitably be smaller than previous demonstrations because most people reckon that the war is over and that the issue is now how democratic authority can defend its democratic gains, however they originated, against vile forces which create sectarian carnage and target trade unionists and many others.

There is an alternative narrative that should unite those who honourably differed on the war and mobilise the labour movement and win wider public sympathy – that of backing Grassroots Iraq as it seeks to play its part in building a new Iraq.

It may not have the simple-minded basis that America is the root cause of all evil but it will certainly do more to advance democracy and freedom and other left-wing values in Iraq and more widely.

Two weeks later, Andrew penned another piece for the Morning Star and there is an apparent change of line in this one. The man who wrote that trade unionism was impossible now salutes Hassan Jumaa, the leader of the Southern Oil Company Union who "detailed his union's struggle against the privatisation of the oil industry and its efforts to establish itself in the face of hostility from the US occupiers. He also expressed all-out support for resistance to the occupation, saying: "We are fighting to drive the occupiers out and to build democracy as the Iraqis see it."

Andrew adds that "At the very least, Hassan Jumaa's arguments allow British trade unionists to appreciate that there is a diversity of trade union views in Iraq and that not all are in support of the Allawi government and the continued occupation."

It's a shame he's not brave enough to be specific but it's a fair assumption that this is a swipe at the IFTU and an incorrect one to boot.

Andrew praises the unity of his Coalition and argues that this "confirms the failure of the efforts launched by some within the Labour Party to use the issue of support for Iraqi trade unionists as a wedge to split British trade unions from the Stop the War Coalition."

Under pressure from various trade unions, the Coalition passed resolutions expressing unequivocal condemnation of the murders of Hadi Salieh, the international secretary of the IFTU, and of hostages Kenneth Bigley and Margaret Hassan.

The Coalition leadership is in an ideological pickle over this issue. Last year, the officers wrote that they were in favour of the resistance, by whatever means they find necessary. A blank cheque if ever I saw one. They were forced to withdraw this and now say that "Such killings (Saleh, Bigley, Hassan) can play no legitimate part in any struggle for national emancipation," according to the steering committee's own resolution. But the approved resolution also recognises that international law upholds the right of peoples to resist an unlawful foreign occupation and that "the continuing violence in Iraq is the responsibility of this occupation and that Iraqis have the right to resist it."

And delegates overwhelmingly rejected demands by ultra-left groups to adopt the slogan "victory to the resistance," to oppose British union links with the IFTU or to limit solidarity with Iraqis to exclusively secular or socialist political forces.

The Stop the War Coalition once played an honourable role but its leaders zig-zags and various dalliances with the "resistance" have now discredited it. What is most important is that those who support the Coalition and those who don't unite to provide solidarity to Grassroots Iraq.

Alan Johnson’s weekly column

Enormity and Self-Emancipation: A response to Norman Geras

In this week's column Alan Johnson discusses the balance that must be struck between the principle of self-emancipation - the long-standing socialist belief that the liberation of the oppressed must be the act of the oppressed themselves - and what he calls the 'duty to rescue', the humanitarian imperative to act immediately in situations of enormity and mass harm-doing. Alan is responding to a post written by the political philosopher, and blogger, Norman Geras.

Some opponents of the Iraq war, me included, spoke in these terms: ‘regime change is vital but it is a task for the Iraqi people acting for themselves and from below, not for the US and UK military, from above. Our job is to support the Iraqi people in this popular-democratic task’. Norman Geras has written a long post on his blog which, amongst other things, challenges the soundness of this ‘self-emancipation’ argument as a basis for opposing the war.

I will summarise Norman’s argument and then offer a response (I will only discuss this one aspect of the post, which I urge readers to read it in full).

Norman Geras’s Argument

The ‘primary choice structure’ in early 2003 was to support the war or to oppose the war. Though both choices involved uncertainties and mixed consequences the former certainly involved the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime while the latter its prolongation.

Some opponents of the war, unable to face the moral burden of their choice, opted for one or other version of a ‘get-out clause’ with which they could ‘protect themselves against the idea of having lent their efforts towards the survival of a regime like Saddam’s’. Each version of the ‘get-out clause’ claimed to support an alternative end to the regime rather than its prolongation.

The first version of the get out clause discussed by Norman – the only one I will discuss in this article, as it was mine - claimed to be working not for a prolongation of the Saddam regime but for an alternative way to get rid of that regime: the self-emancipation of the Iraqi people (or ‘regime change from below’, as some of us labelled our position at the time).

Now, Norman Geras, it should be said, has written more regularly and with greater power on the question of popular self-emancipation than most socialists. And he has done so across the fields of socialist theory and history, normative political philosophy, socialist organisation, and, in his marvellous essay on Trotsky’s prose, a kind of politico-literary criticism. There are few bodies of writing richer in the consideration of the place of self-emancipation in democratic and socialist theory and practice.

The history of socialism can be told as the history of a war between the principle of self-emancipation and various forms of socialist elitism. Any politics based on the manipulation of the mass of the people from above, by sentiment or by Wise Administrators, or The Party, must divide the world into two, manipulators and manipulated. The principle of self-emancipation - which was summed up by Marx as ‘the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves - leaves sentimentalism behind at the same moment that the mass of the people become subjects not objects of change. Echoing Marx, the great US socialist Eugene Debs wrote “Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he never will come. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds that there is nothing you can’t do for yourselves”.

Norman remains committed to the general principle of self-emancipation but is suggesting that we stop treating that principle as self-sufficient. In certain situations it is grossly inadequate as a basis for political judgement. Norman argues that while self-emancipation is without question ‘the best, the politically most fruitful and authoritative, kind of emancipation from oppression’ nonetheless, when it was applied to the pre-war situation in Iraq, it was ‘merely hand-waving’.

As I see it, Norman offers three kinds of reasons for rejecting the ‘self-emancipation’ argument for the case of Iraq in 2003 (the three terms used to characterise these reasons are mine not Norman’s).

First, social-scientific or evidence-based kinds of reasons. Self-emancipation was invoked by us ‘without any evidence whatever that such a process was imminent or, in truth, anywhere visible on the horizon’.

Second, ethical kinds of reasons (with some further social scientific judgements being implicated). Once ‘unfreedom and despotism’ reach a certain ‘threshold’ then it was ‘a cruel joke’ to invoke self-emancipation, a ‘terrible deadly kind of self-emancipation purism’.

Third – this an insight into the function that the self-emancipation argument served for the opponent of the war rather than a further reason to oppose that argument - psychological or psychoanalytic kinds of reasons. The function of such ‘self-emancipation’ talk, argues Norman, was not for the Iraqis but for the marchers. Its function was ‘distracting attention, especially their own, from what it was their marching and other agitation would have achieved had it prevailed’. In other words the self-emancipation argument was serving the ends of what Freud would call denial and repression. Talk of self-emancipation was a form of hallucinatory wish-fulfilment which facilitated the denial of a particularly painful aspect of the self, a manic defence against the inner significance of an experience, a form of repression of what could not be acknowledged. Now, I should say straight up that Norman does no more than make the basic point quoted, about ‘distraction’. The rest, the Freud talk, concerning which I doubt he would be very interested or sympathetic, is purely my extrapolation. But I do think the question of denial and repression is at stake here. Denial is now a mass phenomenon not only on the contemporary liberal-left but also on the right (witness Simon Jenkins, the man who wrote a column in the Times mocking Tony Bair for scaremongering about a non-existent terrorist threat…on the day of the Madrid bombing. And who, after an indecently short interval, has simply carried on writing the same column ever since).

Towards a response to Norman Geras

Each of these three arguments lays down a challenge to the self-emancipation left, has much truth to it, and, in toto, they bear the implication that the left needs to reformulate the self-emancipation argument for our times.

What follows are some thoughts ‘towards’ a reformulation, some initial points for discussion. We might respond to each reason at two levels: the merits of the general reformulations of the self-emancipation principle proffered, and the specific judgement on their application to Iraq in early 2003. My main interest is on the former, the general reformulations of the principle, which I think are important and true. Perhaps frustratingly I am going to be more vague about the specific judgement concerning Iraq. I claim there is, logically, not much alternative.

The Argument from evidence

This, to me, seems right. In situations of enormity and ongoing mass harm-doing the short-term is the relevant time frame. More precisely, while other longer time frames remain relevant, the duty to rescue dictates that the short term trumps all others. We might (I think should) remain convinced that only long-term solutions – I suggest global social democracy - can rip up the roots of mass harm-doing, and we might (I think absolutely should) carry on working for those long term goals. But Geras is telling us, I think, that we should stop counterposing that long term to the short term in situations in which ‘unfreedom and despotism’ have passed a certain ‘threshold’. We should stop pretending that talk about global social justice or environmental sustainability, or ‘world socialism’ is an answer for those targeted for death.

The question of time frame has political implications for the question of agency. The left is only beginning to emerge from a disastrous history so weakened that it does not represent a decisive force around which genuine alternative form of rescue could be organised in the short term. Agencies other then those of the left, agencies which the left will frequently find itself in bitter opposition to on many questions, from the environment to trade rules, debt relief to a women’s right to choose, will be the only viable short-term means to rescue the threatened as an enormity unfolds or to deal with certain threats.

This was the case during World War Two. Had the arguments of some socialists prevailed in 1940 (that this was ‘the Second Imperialist War’ - predatory on both sides, and so to be opposed by socialists in the name of anti-capitalism) then the Nazi death camps would certainly not have been liberated in 1945. Given even another two or three years to operate then the surviving third of European Jewry would have perished. The same logic applied to Rwanda. And to the Balkans. It applies today in Darfur. To continue talking of ultimate causes and working for ultimate solutions remains vital but not as a covert means to do nothing to rescue those targeted for death in the short term.

Is Norman right when he argues that there was ‘no evidence’ that self emancipation was possible in Iraq in the short or medium term? At the time, in early 2003 I said this to a school student walk out. “We are for regime change in Iraq. Now. But regime change from below, by the people. Not regime change from above by cruise missiles and cluster bombs. This is not pie in the sky. How did regime change happen in the old Latin American military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile and Brazil? Regime Change from Below by popular rebellion! How did regime change happen in the old Stalinist dictatorships? Regime Change from Below by popular rebellion!”

Was this hand waving? It was certainly optimistic, perhaps recklessly so, in retrospect. But then again, it is the case that when dictatorships crack they do so suddenly and in unpredictable ways. Subterranean tensions accumulate, hidden from view, especially to those outside that country, and then explode. The Argentina Generals did not look vulnerable either. It was also true that the Inspectors were in Baghdad (yes, only because the US Army was massed on the border, but in Baghdad they were). The League of Nations was not in Berlin in 1938 dismantling Panzers with the US army massed in France. And there were the voices of exiled Iraqi democrats and trade unionists who opposed the war (others supported it, for sure) arguing in more or less the same vein for regime change from below, enabled by measures of coercive containment from above. I did not feel myself at the time to be merely hand-waving. But I don’t know. And I am not sure, today, after one option has been closed off - so removing the basis on which we might know - what ‘knowing’ would look like.

The argument from Ethics

Norman argues that when despotism steps over a certain threshold then humanitarian intervention is justified. When genocide, crimes against humanity, and harm-doing at a certain threshold of scale and intensity is taking place then humanitarian-based reasons for intervention trump ‘anti-imperialist’ and ‘anti-war’ arguments. That ethical fact needs to be built into our theory and practice.

Again, Norman seems to me to be right here, and to have identified a real lacunae in socialist theory. We need an authentically and self-consciously left wing politics of humanitarian interventionism.

The problem in this regard is not, fundamentally the rampant and embarrassing anti-Americanism of the old left. Crass anti-Americanism is only the by-product of a deeper problem concerning the very categories of socialist theory. Developed in the late 19th century the categories of ‘Imperialism’, ‘anti-imperialism’, ‘revolutionary defeatism’, ‘revolutionary defencism’, ‘self-determination of nations’ – seem almost calculated to leave their bearers talking past situations of great enormity, distorting the realities on the ground (recall the rubbish written on the left about the Balkans!), and engaging in the kind of ‘cruel jokes’ that Geras criticises. As for the category of ‘barbarism’, it is, frankly, in this regard at least, useless; too large and all-embracing to be any kind of guide to our thinking about when or how to support humanitarian interventions; too much founded on a theory of inevitable capitalist collapse and death agony (the opposite of what has happened to that mode of production) to do service.

A pivotal moment for me in realising something was rotten with the existing socialist categories, that they were becoming the basis for ‘cruel jokes’, was an argument I had with a comrade about Rwanda. I was making the (banal, as I saw it) point that of course if we had had a crystal ball we would have favoured 2000 US Marines parachuting in to stop the genocide of 800,000 people. The comrade, shocked, replied, ‘no, we would not, we would never support US troops going anywhere, we remain irreconcilable opponents and the 800,000 dead would be a price worth paying for our political independence’.

Speaking for myself, things have never really stopped unravelling since the day of that argument. It has been just like Tom Paine said it would be. “It seldom happens that the mind rests satisfied with the simple detection of error or imposition. Once put in motion, that motion soon becomes accelerated; where it had intended to stop, it discovers new reasons to proceed, and renews and continues the pursuit far beyond the limits it first prescribed to itself (Thomas Paine, Letter Addressed to the Addresses on the Late Proclamation, 1792).

The author of The Rights of Man was talking, a little wishfully perhaps, about the people of England and their detection of the errors of the conservative Edmund Burke. Paine hoped that once they saw through Burke’s ‘incoherent rhapsodies and distorted facts’ about the horror of the French Revolution of 1789, then the people of England would move on naturally to ‘an enquiry into the first principles of government’ and the practical task of turning their country upside down.

The Rwanda argument put me in motion. Seeing through an ‘incoherent rhapsidy’ I changed my view about a ‘first principle’. It is best summed up by Sidney Hook. He argued, ‘At certain times and in respects to certain crucial issues, instead of saying "neither- nor" and looking for viable alternatives, we must recognize an "either-or" and take one stand or the other’. I used to think Hook was wrong, invoking the principle of self-emancipation. I now think Hook was right though I want to preserve an amended principle of self-emancipation (I do not agree, of course, with all the ‘stands’ the old Sidney Hook made, I am talking merely of his general formulation, that there are indeed times when neither/nor has to give way to either/or. There was nothing inevitable about his journey from that thought to supporting the Contras).

But valuable as it is this sensibility remains only that. We need categories able to grasp the dynamics realities of situations of enormity and mass harm-doing and guide our political response. Currently we even lack much of a sense of what these new categories would be. I would suggest three lines of thinking worth pursuing.

First, a ‘duty to rescue’ should be fought for by the left in the 21st century as we fought for labour rights in the 19th and the welfare state in the 20th.

Second, ‘democratiya’. Without dropping our support for democratic socialism, we must be plain: the idea, widespread on the left, that the presence of capitalist companies in Iraq is an evil comparable to the victory and return to power of the ba’athists or the victory of the Islamist Terrorists is obscene. It certainly has nothing to do with the thought of Karl Marx. The relevant divide today is between the democracy that will enable the maturation of the new labour movements and democratic movements - who may, later on, we hope, progress beyond capitalism - and various forms of totalitarianism. Democratiya and positive social reconstruction is the trelliswork on which the shoots of a better world will grow. Inchaote ‘anti-capitalist’ violence and nihilism is not.

Third, the careful decoupling of ‘self-determination’ from ‘national sovereignty’ in situations of the absence of democracy and the presence of enormity. During Milosovic’s long war on the non-Serbs Alice Mahon MP attacked the Kosovans for undermining the territorial sovereignty of Yugoslavia! And then there is the case of the Red Professor, Alex “Hullabaloo” Callinicos who defends a ba’athist-Islamist sectarian theocratic insurgency against the Iraqi people as a legitimate war of ‘self-determination’, sneering at the outcry at the torture and murder of the trade unionist and socialist Hadi Saleh by these killers as a ‘hullabaloo’ about a ‘communist’.

When you see idiocies of that order you know that the old categories are finished. In each case the actual self-determination of the actual people hinged on the defeat of the rhetorical claim – backed by arms - made by Milosovic and the ‘resistance’ to embody the unity of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘self-determination’. In each case the left, in the shape of Mahon and “Hullabaloo”, ended up, after shuffling of the categories of ‘imperialism’ and ‘anti-imperialism’, backing those false claims. The plain truth is that the old categories are, more and more, in a changed world, putting the left, so to speak, ‘on the wrong side of the barricades’

The difficult question of the threshold

But was the Iraq of early 2003 a country that had passed the ‘threshold’ Norman writes of, such that war was warranted? Was there, in Iraq, the ‘certain conditions’ Sidney Hook writes of, such that neither/nor had to give way to either/or? This is where I am not yet persuaded.

(Norman makes the argument here)

This is what I argued when making a street corner speech in early 2003. “So we say make solidarity, give practical support, increase the inspectors, send in human rights monitors, tighten the military sanctions, but lift the economic sanctions which have caused according to the UN 500,000 deaths in Iraq since 1990. Lifting the economic sanctions and the people will be able to breathe again; the people will not be reliant upon the Saddam regime for food and so will begin to organise to overthrow Saddam”.

Again I am not persuaded this was just hand-waving. Yes, it was an optimism that bordered on the reckless but I was already moving away from a pure self-emancipation position, calling for more weapons inspectors, a tightening of military sanctions, UN human rights monitors, as well as practical solidarity. I was, I think, influenced by Michael Walzer’s notion of ‘coercive containment’, though I can’t recall if I had read Walzer’s position at that point or developed a similar notion independently. Anyway, the perspective depended on a combination of ‘from above’ and ‘from below’ thrusts to topple Saddam without the war that we feared would kill, not as its intention but as its unintentional consequence, many many thousands of Iraqi civilians, as it has. I think that the ‘coercive containment’ perspective could well have developed over time into a more multilateral and internationally understood military effort to remove Saddam (and these are not small considerations in the context of the war on terror).

Again we can try to separate the specific judgement about Iraq in early 2003 from the general principle. The important point, I think, is that Geras has identified what the decent left should be debating: what is the threshold when; what are the conditions under which; what are the criteria by which interventions can be judged; what normative principles and evidentiary bases should guide such judgements; what national and international institutional mechanisms might enable this notion of a humanitarian threshold to take on real practical import? If we could stop buying books by Michael (‘There is no Terrorist threat’, ‘The Resistance are just like the Minutemen’) Moore and start seriously discussing those questions the left might do better.

So what is to be done about self-emancipation?

Self-emancipation can only develop as a political process in real political time and that means in the given circumstances and given balance of political forces. The maturation of a new organised working class and democratic movement over decades is the only serious and sober perspective around which a new decent left can be built. In Iraq that meant using the breathing space offered by the coalition, for now, to build up the progressive political forces that would be capable of sustaining a politics of self-emancipation (trade unions, democratic parties, women’s groups, a free press), to wrap this new force in a blanket of international solidarity and to support the spread of democratiya throughout the region. That perspective has, I think, been spectacularly vindicated in recent weeks.

We can only preserve an (amended) version of the perspective of self-emancipation in our time by seeing plain that there are two versions of self-emancipation - the propagandistic and the political.

The propagandist type lives a time of perpetual futurity when present day actualities are denied, bracketed, or obscured in favour of the shiny future vision. No tough political choices ever have to be made and certainly no compromises. At its best this kind of self-emancipation purism holds open a space for a future socialist alternative. But the price is high: an abstract propagandism, an inability to relate the values of the left to present-day realities, the loss of our capacity to act as a fructifying political lever.

The political type wants to be a political lever doing the difficult and messy work of building an alliance of democratic and progressive political forces in a situation of extreme weakness, attending urgently to what we might call ‘real political time’, developing a political programme by its lights.

The perspective of the maturation of a democratic and progressive movement through the fight for reforms is not glamorous. But it is positive, it is based on self-activity, and it is based on values. As such it is an alternative to the inchoate negative ‘anti-ism’, the smart-alec sneering, and the cult of violence that passes for a left today. For those who would take it is a route out of the cul-de-sac into which the old leaders and new comedians have driven them. And it gives us a fixed firm point of critical distance from the forces with which we may well have to extend critical support but to which we do not and should not extend political trust.

Jack Straw on democracy in the Middle East

Talk to Fabian Society on 10 March

I want to talk today about the emergence of democracy in the Middle East. It’s clear that something very important is going on.

Ten days ago, the new, democratically-elected Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, came to London and set out his plans for reform and for building a democratic state of Palestine.

In Lebanon, we have seen the power of people in action, particularly the young; and we have seen the diversity of views on the street. The international community is united in calling on the government of Syria to comply with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 and withdraw from Lebanon. We want to see a new government chosen without foreign interference, and acting in the interests of the Lebanese people in preparing for free and fair elections in line with the Lebanese constitution.

In Iraq, 8½ million people defied terrorism and intimidation to vote in their country's first democratic elections for more than a generation – a turnout of 58%, comparable, despite the enormous risks, to that in the UK at the last election.

In Afghanistan, President Karzai, himself newly-elected through a democratic process, is preparing for legislative elections later this year.

Saudi Arabia held municipal elections last month – a small but important step on a process which the Saudi Government has said it will expand, most importantly to women.

Countries such as Morocco, Qatar, Algeria, Jordan and Bahrain are moving ahead with reform. Egypt is debating an amendment to its constitution that would allow contested and direct Presidential elections, potentially opening up political life to a degree unprecedented in its national history.

It will be for historians to judge – at greater distance and detachment than I can offer – just how much the end of the Saddam regime in Iraq, and the free elections there in January, have contributed to what is now happening. But I do not buy the claim that all this has nothing to do with Iraq, or America, or the west; or that, as some seem to be arguing, it could even be the dawn of a new dark age.

A combination of factors is clearly at work, amongst which are also the changes in the Palestinian leadership, and the explosion of information through stations such as Al-Jazeera and through the Internet.

But more important than the question of what is behind this wave of change, is that of how best we can support it.

For this is a process which is greatly in the interests of the Middle East, of the UK and of the whole international community.

Reform is urgently needed if the Middle East is to meet the enormous challenges which it faces.

The World Bank has estimated that the region needs 100 million new jobs by 2020, as young and rapidly-growing populations move into a labour force which by that date will be almost twice as numerous as it is today. Despite its oil wealth, the Middle East has one of the lowest regional rates of foreign investment in the world. To turn that around and promote domestic growth will require both political and economic reform, so as to entrench stability, transparency and the rule of law, and to reduce corruption.

This is a security challenge too. Terrorists and extremists exploit any sense of disenfranchisement and discontent to win new recruits for their hideous violence in the Middle East and around the world. They thrive where people's faith in politics based on dialogue is weak.

So political reform in the Middle East is the best long-term recipe available for allowing the people of an enormously-important region to realise their potential; and for defeating the threats to their and our security.

In other words, realism and idealism coincide. It’s a reflection of the inter-dependent world in which we live, where others’ security and prosperity directly affect our own. Realism and principle came together in this Government’s decision to take action against ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, civil war in Sierra Leone, and tyranny in Afghanistan – because those situations both outraged our morality and threatened Britain's interest. They coincide in our doubling of the UK's aid to the poorest nations, for poverty is both a scar on the world’s conscience and a brake on its progress. And realism comes together with Labour’s strong internationalist tradition in the powerful imperative of supporting the emergence of democracy in the Middle East.

So let me return to the question which I posed at the outset: how best can we support that process of change?

Let me make five points.

First, we must come to this with a good deal of humility.

Change is rarely quick, or simple. We know well from our own history that the constitutional arrangements which we have today in the United Kingdom are the result of a long and often passionate struggle. And it is in the nature of democracy to be always a work in progress.

We cannot come with a model to impose. Democracy comes from within, and the shape it takes will depend on the circumstances and traditions of the country concerned. That is clear from the variety of arrangements in democracies around the world today. In supporting change, we must respond to the needs and aspirations of the governments and people of the Middle East themselves.

I have set up in the Foreign Office a special unit to do that – engaging with the Islamic World and promoting reform. I am doubling its budget for the coming year, to support projects focusing on the rule of law, good governance and the advancement of women. And we have put human rights and democracy at the centre of our dialogues with the countries of the Middle East.

Humility and responding to the needs of the region are vital. But they are not to be confused with a misguided angst about what some caricature as the “imperialism of ideas”.

We’re sometimes told that democracy is a Western value; and that promoting it reflects a Western agenda which we are seeking to impose on others.
I utterly reject that. My second point is that the aspiration for democracy is universal; and the benefits which it brings should be open to all.

The claim that Arabs don’t want democracy simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Many of those Iraqis at polling stations attacked by terrorists on 30 January simply helped the wounded, and then went back to their place in the line. There could be no more powerful and moving sign of their determination to have a say in the decisions which affect their lives. And that same enthusiasm for is clear across the region. Those who watch on Al-Jazeera their brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq going to vote seek a share of that freedom for themselves.

Nor is there any justification in the idea that it is the Islamic religion itself which is a block on the growth of democracy.

The United Kingdom's two million Muslims play a full and energetic part in our democratic process. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, made a peaceful transition from dictatorship in 1998 and held democratic, peaceful Presidential and legislative elections last year, widely-praised by the European Union and former US President Carter. Turkey, under an Islamic Democratic Party, has enacted a truly remarkable programme of reform leading to its opening EU membership negotiations. It is not Islam which is incompatible with change – but rather those who use it to justify an opposition to the change which so many of their fellow Muslims seek.

The West’s share of responsibility for the lack of democracy in the Middle East to date is not down to too much enthusiasm for promoting democracy, but too little. The approach has often been tactical rather than strategic, preferring a known status quo to an unknown process of change.

Today we realise that this is a false choice. We heard the same fears about democracy in southern Europe, and in South Africa. History has shown them to be misplaced. Change in the Middle East won’t always be easy or smooth. Democracy involves difficult choices for governments between short-term and long-term aims. But the West cannot go back to the days of supporting unsatisfactory stasis over unpredictable change. We must set democracy as our compass, both in that region and with our friends and partners elsewhere including Russia and China.

For democracy is the best possible guarantee of sustainable, long-term security and prosperity there is.

No two full democracies have ever made war on each other – astonishing, but true. And the development of democracy can create the conditions for sustained peace in even the most entrenched conflicts – as over the Falklands during the 1980s, or in Southern Africa and then Indonesia and East Timor in the 1990s.

The economist Amartya Sen has demonstrated that there are many other benefits. Famine and similar catastrophes are far rarer in even the poorest democracies than in countries where power is in the hands of the few – as the tragic examples of Zimbabwe, Burma and North Korea demonstrate. Moreover, democracy and the open societies which support it foster dialogue, inquiry and innovation, essential ingredients for economic success. Greater freedom leads to better policies; allows entrepreneurs to flourish; and creates dynamism and jobs.

Those who claim that promoting democracy is a Western imposition should look to its success around the world, from Latin America to South-East Asia. It is not democracy which is an imposition, but tyranny.

My third point is that democracy is about more than elections.

I have said that it will differ from country to country. But there are basic tenets and values which help to foster a democratic culture – one in which democracy is not just the holding of regular votes, but a stable and strong set of institutions and norms.

Democracy must be based on the respect for individuals' basic human rights. It requires government to be transparent and fair, adhering to international treaties and institutions, functioning courts, and police and armed forces under civilian control. And it requires open societies, with free media, fair treatment of minorities, equal access to education and opportunity, open markets and free trade unions.

My fourth point is that to promote democracy requires the UK, and Europe as a whole, to work closely with the United States.

Here is where some on the Left start to object.

Faced with an American Government of the Right promoting a vision of how to change the world for the better, many on the Left have become the staunchest advocates of the status quo. For them, President Bush's commitment to promoting freedom and democracy is simplistic; misguided; or as simply a veil for more sinister motives. The traditional positions of realists and idealists seem to have been reversed.

The background, of course, is the question of Iraq – which remains the subject of passionate debate and indeed of deep division.

But whatever the differences of opinion over Iraq, it would be highly dangerous for the Left to settle into a comfort zone as the opponent and critic of American power and American objectives in the world.

The Left has always believed in the power of politics to change things for the better – and in the extension of freedom and democracy. Today we have a better chance than ever to promote that in the Middle East. When an American President states that “the best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world”, we should hear the continuing of the great tradition of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy and many others. And we should see an enormous opportunity to work with and to channel America’s will to promote change and to pursue aims which have long inspired us.

The Left should be seizing this opportunity, leading the drive to bring Europe and America together in support of democracy and freedom.

But I am not arguing that we should be tacit partners. The UK and Europe as a whole have a lot to bring to the table, and an important role to play in shaping a common agenda.

America did not bring democracy to Europe on its own; rather American guarantees of security helped to create the conditions where Europeans could build democracy for themselves. The spread of democracy and freedom across our continent, a process continuing today in the Turkey, Ukraine and the Balkans, has come about not least through the magnetic power of Europe’s values and achievement. The challenge of spreading those values to the Middle East is perhaps as important, though different, as Europe’s mission to entrench democracy to the East in the 1990s.

Europe brings strong practical links with the Middle East through a common history, and through the ties of trade, of aid – €1 billion a year from the EU alone – and of political cooperation today. We need to be using those links and those resources better to support a commitment to democracy, good governance and human rights. As we review the EU’s relationship with the region under the UK’s EU Presidency, at the tenth anniversary of the Barcelona Process later this year, we will look to strengthen that emphasis further.
Already Europe, with France in the lead, is working closely with the US on Lebanon. Through the G8, which the UK chairs this year, we will be building on the partnership for reform in the Middle East agreed last year which involves not just governments but civil society and business.

I am determined that the United Kingdom play our full part in uniting Europe and the United States in a single common purpose, supporting modernisation and reform in the Middle East.

My fifth and final point is in the form of a challenge.

I have spoken a good deal about the Government’s views.

But democracy is not built by governments from the top down. It is achieved and supported by people themselves, by the society which they shape and the institutions which they create and maintain.

Civil society, politicians, parties, and the media in the Middle East are crying out for nurture and support. My challenge to progressives everywhere is to offer that support – by building networks and dialogues, by explaining our own political frameworks and processes, by offering your own experience and support as the Middle East seeks to build the culture in which democracy can flourish.

Change and reform in the Middle East will not happen overnight. And, as in Lebanon, they must be led from within.

But progressives know better than anyone the power of democracy as an instrument of social justice, and as a tool for the realisation of human potential. And we know the Middle East’s importance to our foreign policy and to the international community as a whole.

Supporting the emergence of democracy in the Middle East and around the world must be a central part of a progressive foreign policy, and a task for all of us. This is the time to re-affirm our commitment to that.

Ann Clwyd learns how past solidarity was useful against Saddam’s tyranny

This is an article from Iraq Solidarity Voice, November 1987, published by the CARDRI (the Campaign Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq). When I met leading Trade Unionists in Iraq at the end of November 2004, including Hadi Saleh, I showed them this article. They immediately showed recognition and told me that they used to get CARDRI publications translated into Arabic and handed out secretly on the streets of Baghdad. That was certainly news to me and showed how useful CARDRI was to both Iraqis in exile and those who remained within the country. The article was written by an Iraqi friend of mine, who is now back in Baghdad running his own radio station – Radio Annas.

Ann Clwyd MP

Saddam’s Fight Against Workers

Democratic trade unionists in Iraq have called for increased solidarity with Iraqi workers in the wake of dictator Saddam Hussein’s latest decree ‘abolishing’ workers.

Saddam first announced his decision on 11th March 1987 during a televised meeting with the “leaders” of the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) and the members of the “Central Workers Office” of the Ba’th Party.

During the meeting Saddam asked his astonished audience “instead of calling those who work for the state ‘workers’, why not call ALL who work for the state ‘civil servants’, and get rid of the term worker?”. He then continued his argument saying “from now on the Labour Law is annulled and the Civil Servant’s Law takes its place”. So now the wife of a worker is the same as the wife of a general manager, and the same as the wife of the President”!!

The dictator then announced that “the term ‘worker’ is abolished, the Labour Law is abolished, GFTU is abolished and all workers become civil servants@. He saw no need for trade unions now that, in his view, workers did not exist any more!

Saddam’s audience lost no time in praising his latest orders. In the days following the meeting the announcement was trumpeted in the press, and by the GFTU “leaders” themselves, as a “revolution” that was removing class structures from Iraqi society. Telegrams of congratulations poured into the Presidential Office and numerous public celebrations were held. Writing in the regime’s daily newspaper Al-Thawra on 13th March, GFTU “President” Ahmad Dulaimi proclaimed that they were “celebrating this great historic achievement”, and he thanked God and Saddam Hussein for it.

Decree No. 150 from the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) followed on 19th March to formalize Saddam’s decision. This decree, in addition to the measures described above, also announced that the Labour Pension and Social Security Fund was to be handed over to the treasury – i.e. workers had even been robbed of their pension funds! Workers in the state sector (“civil servants”!) were also decreed not to be eligible for resolving their disputes in the Labour Courts.

The decree announced the annulment of Labour Law No. 151 of 1970. This law contained many provisions to safeguard worker’s rights and was passed as a result of the pressure put on the regime by the worker’s struggle. The regime never implemented this law fully.

Saddam Hussein, in an article published by the Iraqis press on 31st March, said that he abolished the Labour Law because it was “causing serious problems to production”.

Since them the working day has been extended to 12 hours in many civilian and military factories. Travel and food allowances have been stopped.

Trade union organization was also decreed to be confined to the “private, mixed and cooperative sectors”. This only covers 20% of Iraq’s workforce. Since then the regime has reorganized GFTU as the trade union for the private sector. “Elections”, directly supervised by the security apparatus, were held on 26th July for the “new” GFTU “leaders”. This move was taken purely for international consumption in order to maintain international trade union contacts.

Saddam’s solution has revealed the nature of his regime quite clearly. In one fell swoop he has abolished an organization that was no longer useful to him. He has unmasked the puppet organisations he has tried to present to the world as genuine trade unions. His actions are also a desperate attempt to trample the growing opposition of Iraqi workers to his brutal rule.

One of the very first actions of the Ba’th regime after the 1968 coup was to arrest trade union leaders, occupy their headquarters and impose its grip on the organisations through its own appointments.

In this way it succeeded in converting GFTU into a yellow trade union structure, whose job became to police workers on behalf of the security services, and to act as a conveyor belt for the management and Ba’th Party decisions.

Workers were thus deprived of effective organisations to defend their interests. The situation became more acute as Ba’thist terror worsened in the late 1970s. GFTU was turned into a systematic information-gathering centre for the security services - indeed, its own leaders perished in the purge of Ba’thist officials after Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979.

Workers have suffered terribly over the last few years. Wages have been frozen and the working hours extended while the cost of living has increased dramatically. ‘Donations’ for the war effort were extracted forcibly from workers’ wage packets. About 60% of the Iraqi workforce was at the warfront. Their places in the factories were taken up by women forced into becoming bread-winners through the loss of their men folk in the war, as well as by migrants who number over 2 million. These have been used as a source of cheap labour.

Against this background the underground Worker’s Democratic Trade Union Movement in the Iraqi Republic (WDTUMIR) was formed in Iraq in 1980. It has become increasingly successful in organising workers clandestinely and in the organisation of actions to defend worker’s rights.

Solidarity with the trade unionists is all the more vital in the present situation. One of the GFTU “leaders” remarked to Saddam during the March 11th meeting: “Sir… your historic decision has rid us of the problem of the British T.U.C. not working with us. They always told us that we were working for the government”. There are many in the British trade union movement who have campaigned actively in solidarity with the Iraqi people.

(Taken from Iraq Solidarity Voice No 17, November 1987)

IFTU celebrates International Women's Day

Every year, women across the globe celebrate International Women's Day on 8th March, a day of global struggle and solidarity for women's freedom and equal rights. The IFTU executive committee issued a statement today saying:

"We celebrate International Women’s Day with Iraqi women and women across the globe and pledge to continue our support for Iraqi women as they continue the struggle for building of free and democratic trade unions where they are at the heart of it; to achieve better wages and working conditions and for equal rights.

"The IFTU also support their demands for secular legislation that guarantees womens' rights to social provision in health, education and to create incentives to encourage women to enter work so as they could help to build a new and democratic Iraq and to eradicate illiteracy among women workers.

"The IFTU also supports Iraqi women as they struggle to enforce the International Human Rights Declaration and the ILO Declaration and standards of work as part of Iraq's new legislation.

"The IFTU is holding a celebration today at its headquarters

Mental health issues in Iraq

The Guardian’s Ghaith Abdul-Ahad examines the state of psychiatric treatment in post-war Iraq. He quotes Dr Hashim Zaini who says: "We are witnessing a gradual change in the psychology of the children - they are living in a state of constant fear. When the teacher comes every few days and tells the children, 'Don't come to school tomorrow, there is a terrorist threat,' what do you think will happen to those kids? This is why the best business in town is the market for toy guns.’

In remembrance of Anfal and Halabja

On 16th March 1988, over 5,000 Kurdish civilians were gassed to death by Saddam Hussein’s forces as part of the ethnic cleansing campaign known as the Anfal operations. Lest we forget, the Joint Kurdish Committee for Anfal and Halbja are organising a must visit event on 13th March at the Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, 10 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H OCG from 2-7pm. Admission is free and includes distinguished speakers such as Dr Salah Al-Shaikhly, Iraqi Ambassador to the UK and Ms Helen Bamber, Founder of the Medical Foundation. The Programme will also include pieces of traditional and contemporary Kurdish music and songs. Light refreshments and snacks will be provided.

LFIQ support for women’s rights: International Women’s Day message

LFIQ believes that it is essential that full equality between men and women is enshrined in the Iraqi constitution and supports the IFTU and others in their commitment to women’s rights, the basis for all human rights being peace and security.

It is possible that women’s rights will now and at long last start to come to the fore in the wider Middle East and it may be highly significant that, according to the BBC, “Kuwait's parliament has agreed to speed up moves towards a law to grant women the same political rights as men. The decision came amid noisy street rallies by women activists, who were also permitted to watch the debate.”

The UK branch of the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq is organising a vigil at the Iraqi Embassy “For a secular, democratic Iraq - No clerical tyranny” at noon on Tuesday which Peter Tatchell has asked us to advertise here. The Iraqi Embassy is at 169 Knightsbridge London SW7 (nearest tube Knightsbridge)

Supporting a new Iraq

This article by Harry Barnes MP appears in the current edition of Socialist Campaign Group News

Although the Iraqi elections took place in circumstances not of anyone's choosing, millions of Iraqis relished the chance to vote in what was a magnificent display of defiance against those who threatened to kill them.

The Iraqis' long delayed struggle for democratic reform has only just begun. The open question is whether the next votes, on the constitution and the election of a new government, attract more voters in more peaceful and better organised conditions.

Marginalising the "resistance" and reassuring the broad mass of Iraqi people will be made easier if three conditions prevail.

First, Iraqi sovereignty must be fully restored, with foreign troops staying or going strictly on Iraqi terms.

Second, federalism and Iraqi unity must be protected in the formation of the new government and the framing of the new constitution.

Third, the growth of a just and non-sectarian civil society, including independent trade unions.

It is argued by many that the presence of foreign troops fuels the insurgency. There is some truth in this, but it is not the whole picture. Most Iraqi parties recognise that the premature withdrawal of the occupation forces, without a sufficient Iraqi security capability, would benefit those who wish to reinstate Baathist rule or to turn Iraq into a medieval theocracy.

Most Iraqis would like to see the back of foreign troops. Who can blame them? That does not, however, translate into their supporting violence or "troops out now." We should listen to all Iraqi voices, not just the ones that fit our own prejudices.

A clear understanding that all foreign troops will go when requested is vital to undermining the notion that Iraq is just a military base and/or petrol pump.

Iraq was dominated for decades by a minority of the minority Sunni population. Those who abused power, privilege and wealth are loath to
lose it but the new Iraq and Ayatollah Sistani seem keen to develop an
inclusive society.

This is why so much rides on winning Sunni participation in the new government and protecting Sunnis within the new constitution. Some Sunni groups now regret their electoral boycott and wish to participate in the UN-sanctioned political process.

A key issue will be the role of religion in the constitution. Those who say that Islam should not be the only source of wisdom ought to be heeded.
Stabilising Iraq's fledgling democracy is not merely a military matter; after years of totalitarianism, it requires a new kind of politics.

An Iraqi friend once told me that oil was a bane rather than a boon to Arab society, because it allowed ruling elites to rely on terror and ignore civil society. But we have seen an appreciable growth in Grassroots Iraq in the last year or so.

A key part of Iraq's new civil society is the free trade union movement, in which the biggest component is the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). It has put down deep roots within Iraq and has won support from major national and international trade union centres.

It has built 12 individual unions and attracted at least 200,000 members - no mean feat against a background of massive unemployment, dislocation and terrorist intimidation and murder.

Trade unions in Iraq can help activate civil society and, by uniting workers on class and economic grounds, increase the force of non-sectarian influences.

They can also ensure that the new Iraq isn't fleeced and that the workers enjoy a fair share of the country's wealth and decent welfare provision.

Solidarity shouldn't be seen as doing favours for Tony Blair and George Bush. It is supporting our natural allies in Iraq. Left-wingers should examine for themselves what different Iraqi labour movement forces say. But we should not be found wanting when it comes to solidarity. A new Iraq is being born and the unity and strength of its labour movement is a vital concern to us all.

We should respect the Iraqi voters, unite to pour in huge moral and material solidarity to Iraqi unions, including via the TUC's appeal.

Harry Barnes is a Joint President of Labour Friends of Iraq
(www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk)

Iraqi Debt: Parliamentary Question and Answer

Harry Cohen: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will match the United States' commitment to top up the Paris Club deal in respect of Iraq's debt by a bilateral agreement taking the debt write-off to 100 per cent.; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Timms: The UK has been at the forefront of efforts to help rehabilitate Iraq's economy. The UK fully supported a generous debt treatment for Iraq at the Paris club meeting of 21 November at which it was agreed to write off 80 per cent. of Iraq's debt in order to provide a robust exit from debt unsustainability. Under the Paris Club deal, no payments are due from Iraq to Paris Club creditors until 2008. In addition to supporting the IMF and World Bank in providing assistance, the UK has pledged £544 million in direct aid over three years to March 2006, of which over £331 million has been committed. These funds are bringing immediate benefits to the Iraqi people. We continue to keep options to support Iraq's economy under review.

US Democrats and the War

E. J. Dionne Jr.in the Washington Post examines the debate within the US Democrats about how to respond to apparent good news from the Middle East and says that “Even strong opponents of the Iraq war are displaying a wary willingness to imagine that events may be taking a turn for the better.”

IFTU reports success for strike at Baghdad Hotel

The IFTU web site reports today that workers at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad staged a successful strike action in which they won a wage increase and that union officials have resumed negotiations with the management to better working conditions, wages and pensions.

Dilip Hiro on the ripple of democracy

Dilip Hiro examines the “ripple of democracy” in the Middle East in today’s Observer. He concludes that “So the source of the movement that some detect sweeping the Middle East is varied and complex. Some ascribe it to President Bush's vigorous championing of democracy in the region. Others point to long standing social and political currents, even suggesting that America's strategic interests have themselves inhibited reform among its loyal yet autocratic Gulf allies. But of the fact that a revolution is in train, Walid Jumblatt is in no doubt: 'The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say something is changing. The (Arab) Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.'”

In Defence of Freedland

David Hirsh defends Jonathan Freedland against Guardian readers who ignore but attack his arguments

Jonathan Freedland, in his Guardian column, has consistently opposed the American and British invasion of Iraq.

In yesterday’s Guardian he observed that unexpectedly, there appears, for the moment, to be a ‘ripple of change’ spreading through the Middle East. The toppling of the Saddam regime just might have been a catalyst, setting off a benign chain reaction, he argued. Mass demonstrations in Lebanon against Syrian troops in that country leading to the resignation of the Lebanese government; this year’s presidential election in Egypt may have more than one name on the ballot paper; a vague commitment in Saudi Arabia that women will be allowed to vote in the next elections; Libya halting its programme of building weapons of mass destruction; Iran promising to halt the production of enriched uranium; a new apparent mood in the Israel/Palestine conflict.

‘Of course, each one of these hopeful developments has its own origins and dynamics, distinct from the Iraq war’ says Freedland. ‘Even so, it cannot be escaped: the US-led invasion of Iraq has changed the calculus in the region.’

Freedland is not saying that he was wrong to oppose the war; but he is saying that the war might, even if it is was wrong, have had some good consequences.

And he also says that ‘we cannot let ourselves fall into the trap of opposing democracy in the Middle East simply because Bush and Blair are calling for it. Sometimes your enemy's enemy is not your friend.’

In today’s Guardian there are two letters reacting to this column with an unexpected ferocity.
Abdulhadi Ayyad says that Freedland understands Bush and Blair’s invasion as ‘altruistic’. Bizzarely, he claims to speak for all Arabs, as though all Arabs had the same opinion, the same politics, the same experience. ‘Could it be that democracy is a hard-won right which the Arab people have paid for dearly? Was it really necessary to kill a few more of us in Iraq to make this happen?’ But Freedland does not think that Bush and Blair’s invasion was ‘altruistic’; he does think that Arab struggles for democracy have been pivotal; he does not think that it was necessary to kill Arabs in Iraq.

And Khaled Diab writes in a letter that these tentatively good consequences of the invasion do not vindicate the invasion of Iraq. He argues that it is the anti-war movement that has emboldened democracy activists. ‘we cannot allow ourselves,’ he adds, ‘to fall into the trap of believing Bush and Blair's call for democracy legitimises their invasion of a sovereign state and [the] killing of thousands of innocent civilians.’ Freedland, however, clearly argued that the ‘silver lining’ did not justify the invasion.

The problem for those of us who opposed the war is this: many of our predictions and our fears did not in fact materialise. An unexpected consequence of the war is, at the moment, a wave of hope sweeping across the Middle East, the emergence and strengthening of democracy movements and a situation in Iraq where it is sometimes possible for people to organise, to discuss and to think openly about a better future.

Either we can recognise the truth of what is happening in the Middle East or we can turn our eyes away and pretend that our predictions and fears came true when they didn’t. Jonathan Freedland chooses truth and an effort to make sense of a complex and contradictory situation.

Some of the anti-war movement cannot bear truth, complexity and understanding. They opt instead for narratives that tell half of the story and narratives that tell an untrue story. Nothing good is possible, they say, in an Iraq oppressed by a bloodthirsty imperialist occupation. This just does not reflect the reality of what is going on in Iraq today.

The two letters attacking Freedland cannot even bear to face up to the words that Freedland writes, preferring to critique a different position, one that Freedland did not write. Its easier.

And as for Freedland’s most important point – that those of us who are really for consistent democracy in the Middle East must not allow the hypocritical rhetoric of Bush and Blair to be the only voices for democracy – this is missed altogether.

Khaled Diab says that ‘it is the pro-Intifada and anti-war movement that has emboldened activists to challenge’ the undemocratic regimes in the Middle East. Well, the truth is that while some pro-Intifada and anti-war activists are part of the struggle for democracy in the Middle East while others are either silent on the question of democracy, or are actively supporting forces that are trying to drown pro-democracy movements in blood.

Contrary to Abdulhadi Ayyad’s claim that all Arabs think the same thing, the truth is that politics rather than ethnicity is what makes people act. And different politics makes people act differently.

Most Palestinians who support the Intifada are currently supporting their newly elected president’s ceasefire and his efforts to find a political way to oppose the Israeli occupation. A minority of Palestinians who support the Intifada are currently supporting Jew-hating religious movements who think that the best way forward is to send Palestinians to blow themselves up in Tel Aviv nightclubs.
Some activists in the anti-war movement, such as Jonathan Freedland, are supporting struggles for democracy; other activists in the anti-war movement are supporting the Iraqi ‘resistance’ that executes people struggling to build trade unions, executes lawyers working on the trial of Saddam Hussein and guns down people queuing up to vote in elections.

Two views on how the wind is blowing in the Middle East after the Iraqi elections

Richard Cohen in the Washington Post says that there are unmistakeable signs of change and surveys these from Saudi to Egypt: “Even in Syria, the regime -- maybe the region's most goonish -- has recently showed signs of accommodation. It first announced that it would someday pull its troops out of Lebanon (just not yet, if you please) and then arrested Saddam Hussein's half-brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, and 29 other desperados who allegedly have been financing and directing the insurgency in their native Iraq.” But his conclusion contains a warning that celebration may be premature for the change may not be what we expect. The intrepid New York Times writer Thomas Friedman concedes that “America has treated the Arab-Muslim states for 50 years as a collection of gas stations” but is more hopeful that Arab-Muslim youth want real change and he profiles Irshad Manji whose book "The Trouble With Islam Today," and her web site www.muslim-refusenik.com call for a reformation of Islam: "There's no bigger idea for the Muslim world today - and consequently for all of us - than reopening the gates of independent thinking, or 'ijtihad,' " she said. "That's the main point of my book - to show that Islam once had a pluralistic tradition of critical debate and dissent, and that we Muslims need to rediscover this tradition to update Islam for the 21st century. That's not being radical. That's being faithful."

David Hirsh examines the trial of Saddam Hussein

Why would someone want to shoot a judge who is working on the trial of Saddam Hussein? ‘Barwez Marwan and his close relative - who was also working at the tribunal - were gunned down outside their home on Tuesday, police said.’

Was the Iraqi ‘resistance’ angered by the slowness of the tribunal to build a case against the old dictator? Were the gunmen disgusted at the secrecy that surrounds the Iraqi tribunal? Were they incredulous that the Americans had refused to recognise the global significance of Saddam’s crimes against humanity by allowing an international court to organise the trial?

No. It would seem not. Some elements of the ‘resistance’, it would appear, are nostalgic for the Saddam regime. Some, no doubt, even now, would wish to salute the courage, strength and indefatigability of the man who oversaw the wholesale gassing of Kurdish villages, the killing of hundreds of thousands of Shia’s and the torturing to death of the enemies of the regime and their families. The murder of Barwez Marwan was an act of solidarity with Saddam Hussein.

Following the Second World War, an international tribunal was set up at Nuremberg to prosecute the Nazi leadership for crimes committed during the war. At Nuremberg two principles were recognised and enacted. Firstly, that individuals are responsible for what they do, even when they are part of a state machine, whether they are only obeying orders or whether they are only giving orders. Secondly, with the formulation of the new charge of ‘crimes against humanity’, that mass killing is understood as the business of humanity as a whole rather than as just the business of particular nations or states. Such crimes are, as Edgar Faure called them, criminal enterprises against the human condition. Or as Hannah Arendt said, “an attack upon human diversity as such, that is, upon a characteristic of the ‘human status’ without which the very words ‘mankind’ or ‘humanity’ would be devoid of meaning.” These principles have been further entrenched by the more genuinely international tribunals that were responsible for prosecuting crimes committed in the Former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

After the capture of Saddam, the UN Security Council could have set up an ad hoc tribunal for Iraq to try the leading figures of the Saddam regime in an international court. An ad hoc tribunal would have been best placed to organise the trials, both from a practical point of view and also from the point of view of strengthening the principle that heads of state are subject to international humanitarian law. Practically, an international tribunal could have drawn on the significant experience, expertise and personnel that have been building the institutions of international criminal justice with modest but significant success; issues of the openness of the court and its security, as well as the safety of witnesses could have best been addressed by an international tribunal. And the principle of international justice would also have been best strengthened by that course of action.

Instead the Bush regime insisted on an Iraqi tribunal. Saddam’s initial public hearing as a prisoner, on 1 July 2004, was amateurishly organised. Saddam was allowed to make speeches from the dock; the hearing was not public; television footage was controlled by American forces and the hearing appeared to be timed for the American evening news; only American journalists were allowed into the court room.

President Bush announced the end of major combat in the Iraq war on 1 May 2003. Twenty-two months later, the only hint of an actual tribunal for anyone involved in the Saddam regime was one short formal preliminary hearing of Saddam himself. In contrast, Germany formally surrendered in May 1945, to allied powers that were serious about holding the Nazi regime legally and publicly to account for its crimes. Five months later the main trial started at Nuremberg, in a city that was still in ruins, and it was completed Seventeen months after the end of the war in Europe. The Bush regime has also been waging an explicit battle to prevent the new International Criminal Court from functioning.

Given that the opportunity to try Saddam and his leadership in an international court has already been lost, there can be no principled objection to Saddam going on trial in an Iraqi court. The crimes against humanity trials of Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie, for example, were successfully held in Israel and in France. Belgium has convicted people for genocide in Rwanda.

The trial must be public. The trial must be based on the principles of international humanitarian law and generally accepted legal norms of due process. Saddam must have the right to, and the resources for, a proper legal defence. The tribunal must rely, at least in part, on the experience and expertise that has been gathered together by the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals and the new ICC. Saddam should not be subjected to the death penalty.

Why? Why should Saddam be afforded so many rights that he denied to so many people? Because a trial is about justice. Because this trial is about drawing a line under the old regime and promising something better in the future for Iraq. Because a trial is about finding and publicising the truth of what happened, and proving it ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Because Saddam is a criminal and should be treated as one. There is no better way to strip an individual of his aura of satanic greatness than by subjecting him to the passionless and daily rigours of a criminal trial. He will be forced to hear the case against him, to face witnesses, to undergo cross-examination, in a context in which he is no longer the boss. He should be treated politely but firmly by the judge, and forced to answer for his crimes.

Signs of rethinking at the Guardian

The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland is commendably open in his article, The war's silver lining, that “the US-led invasion of Iraq has changed the calculus in the region.” He says “this leaves opponents of the Iraq war in a tricky position, even if the PM is not about to rub our faces in the fact. Not only did we set our face against a military adventure which seems, even if indirectly, to have triggered a series of potentially welcome side effects; we also stood against the wider world-view that George Bush represented. What should we say now?” And he draws two conclusions from this: “First, we ought to admit that the dark cloud of the Iraq war may have carried a silver lining. We can still argue that the war was wrong-headed, illegal, deceitful and too costly of human lives - and that its most important gain, the removal of Saddam, could have been achieved by other means. But we should be big enough to concede that it could yet have at least one good outcome.

Second, we have to say that the call for freedom throughout the Arab and Muslim world is a sound and just one - even if it is a Bush slogan and arguably code for the installation of malleable regimes. Put starkly, we cannot let ourselves fall into the trap of opposing democracy in the Middle East simply because Bush and Blair are calling for it. Sometimes your enemy's enemy is not your friend.” Well said, and is it time urgently for the left to engage in solidarity with Iraq’s free unions and reformers in the Middle East.

Christopher Hitchens on the myths and realities of the "Arab Street."

Over at Slate Christopher Hitchens examines “The Arab Street - A vanquished cliché” and concludes that “In Iraq, Muslim militants place bombs in the mosques of those Muslims they regard as heretics. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, too, the Salafi and Wahhabi extremists commit murder against Muslims they deem unclean or unorthodox. And in the West, there are non-Muslims who excuse such atrocities as "resistance." These are often the same as those who hailed what they thought of as the "street." I don't think they should be indicted for hate crimes, but they should be made to understand that what they say is hateful and criminal, as well as sectarian. The battle for clarity of language is a part of this larger contest, and it is time for the opponents of terror and bigotry to become very much less apologetic and defensive on this score.”

David Hirsh examines Gary Younge’s inadequate arguments in the Guardian

Gary
Younge is quite right when he expresses outrage in today's Guardian that British soldiers have engaged in the physical and sexual humiliation of Iraqis at 'Camp Breadbasket'. He is also right that the trial which ended this week, finding three low ranking British soldiers guilty, while exonerating higher ranking officers and while failing to connect these incidents of abuse to wider allied policy, is seriously problematic.

Younge's explanation for these failings is a straightforward one. Imperialist occupation has always been like this and always will be like this. Such occupation is based on nothing but the economic and strategic interests of the imperialist powers and racism is the oil that lubricates the imperialist machine. The imperialists talk about human rights, but that talk is nothing but cover to hide a reality of the negation of human rights. For the anti-war supporters of the
'resistance' that is all you need to know.

Since the beginning of the 'war against terror' the allied leadership has been fighting an ideological battle against international humanitarian law and it has set up systems of dealing with prisoners that flout international humanitarian law.

The Bush regime has insisted that the Geneva Conventions, which lay down standards for the treatment of prisoners of war and civilians, be obeyed by their enemies, while they have themselves refused to abide by them. At Guantanamo Bay the Bush regime has been employing a regime of low level torture, humiliation and control. The methods of Guantanamo Bay were purposefully imported into Iraq by the Bush regime. The scandals of Abu Ghraib and Camp Breadbasket were caused by systematic policy decisions, and by the fact that responsibility for pressuring prisoners was given to soldiers who were untrained and uninitiated into the techniques of pressure that are being routinely employed by those in charge.

If a part of the reason for the invasion of Iraq was about the liberation of Iraq, if any of Bush and Blair's rhetoric concerning a new beginning for Iraq is serious, then the denial of democratic standards in the way that the coalition operates constitutes both a moral outrage and also a huge strategic and political error.

Most Iraqis, however, while they may well be disgusted and angered by particular human rights abuses that the coalition forces are committing, are not in favour of the immediate withdrawal of coalition forces. This is an uncomfortable and surprising fact for those, like Gary Younge, who tell a simple story of an imperialist occupation being opposed by a national liberation struggle. Why, Gary, do most Iraqis think that there is some value, for a limited time, in having foreign troops (who are, in some key ways disrespectful of human rights) in Iraq?

The reason, of course, is that the Gary Younge story is not the whole story and it is also increasingly, a false story. The strange truth is that Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, so far, are much more hopeful places after imperialist invasion than they were before. Yesterday there was a sign that people power in Lebanon was beginning to grow, beginning to assert itself, and beginning to get results in the struggle for democracy. The recent elections in Iraq are
reverberating around the Middle East. How are the regimes in Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Syria and Iran going to resist the pressure for free elections, for free trade unions, for women's liberation?

The Gary Younge story is silent about human rights abuses under the Saddam regime. Young is forced to take the side of the 'resistance', who yesterday blew up 125 Iraqis, because he understands the 'resistance' as the legitimate anti-imperialist national liberation struggle. It does not matter what you are for, as long as you are against the only real enemy to freedom in the world, which is American imperialism. The Gary Younge story is silent on the fact that this
bombing and much other 'resistance' activity is motivated by an extremist ideology of Sunni Supremacism called Al-Salefih, which is held by a minority of Sunnis.

It aimed as much to strike a sectarian blow against the Shia community and to provoke inter-ethic violence, as it did to prevent Iraqis building a new police force which could make them less reliant on foreign troops in the war against those who are trying to destroy the newly created, if limited, space for freedom.

The Gary Younge story puts him in opposition to Iraqi democrats, trade unionists and feminists who are filling and creating the cracks of the possibility of civil society by organising, by debating, by campaigning. Young has nothing to say in the current struggle between Republican ultra-free market ideology and a more inclusive egalitarian and social democratic possibility for re-building Iraq. This is because when American imperialism is treated as the one great
monolithic evil in the world, its victory is assumed. Either the Americans will get what they want – which is in the Younge story, free access to Iraqi resources and markets, or they will be defeated by the 'resistance'. No other outcome is possible.

Younge ridicules the idea that there is a real difference between "democracy" and "tyranny" (he puts the words in quotes), saying that the difference between the two may be lost on a man suspended from a forklift truck by a foreign occupier. The compatriots of that man, who was disgracefully and unforgivably tortured, however, have a much clearer view of the distinction than does Gary Younge. Most Iraqis are ready to seize the opportunity to build a better country and are not prepared to sacrifice themselves in Gary Younge's universalising
war against American and British imperialism.