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All-party delegation to Kurdistan Region

British Parliamentarians hail progress in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq and urge deeper and broader relations with the UK.

21st April

“It has been two steps forward but one step back for the Kurdistan Region in the last year. Links with Turkey have improved but relations with Baghdad have declined. Respect for the UK remains very high in Iraqi Kurdistan, thanks to our role in establishing the safe haven in 1991 and in what is commonly referred to as ‘liberation’ in 2003. English is also the second language. But we fear that opportunities for trade, investment and a host of political, cultural and educational exchanges are not being pursued as vigorously as they should for the mutual benefit of the UK and the Kurdistan Region as part of a wider Iraq. We urge the UK to play a bigger role in helping ease tensions between the Region and the federal government in Baghdad over issues such as disputed territories and the hydrocarbon law.”

These are the central conclusions of a week-long fact-finding delegation of British parliamentarians to the Kurdistan Region. The cross-party group visited the three main cities and met senior political leaders including President Masoud Barzani and the Deputy Prime Minister Imad Ahmed, two of the three Governors, the editor of an independent newspaper, trade union and women’s rights activists, university and business leaders and the Christian Bishop of Erbil as well as visits to two major religious minorities.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the Kurdistan Region in Iraq sent a delegation last year and noted “substantial economic and social progress since then.”

“The leaders and people of this beautiful, hospitable and resource-rich region have achieved much since their uprising in 1991 and especially since the shadow of Saddam Hussein was lifted in 2003. There is a clear determination to drive regeneration by creating a vibrant market system with social protections and by creating a transparent model of governance. We are encouraged by the decision of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to bring in outside groups such as the National School of Government and PriceWaterhouseCoopers to shine a light on and counter incompetent and corrupt practices that deter investment.”

The APPG will next compile a detailed report on its meetings with a wide variety of leaders in the Region over the past week. It will also seek meetings with key British ministers to press for “much deeper and broader political, diplomatic and commercial relations between the UK and the Kurdistan Region.

“We believe that UK businesses should capitalise on the clear opportunities for trade and investment in the safest part of Iraq whose stability has already done much and could do much more to help create a viable, pluralist and federal system in Iraq. We specifically urge the Business Secretary to organise a trade mission to the region in the future in a similar way to the one he recently organised to Baghdad and Basra.

Pressure from the APPG has already brought the visa issuing regime in Erbil into line with the rest of Iraq particularly for students and business visitors and there is a strong case for extending the visa regime, particularly for students and business visitors, to facilitate travel between the Region and Britain without compromising UK border security. University and political leaders are also keen that the British Council increases its profile in the region and we will seek to discuss this with the British Council. Longer term, there must be direct flights between London and Erbil.

The APPG provides a parliamentary bridge of friendship between Britain and the Kurdistan Region and celebrates its many achievements without neglecting key problems such as corruption and serious concerns over women’s rights and media freedoms. We commend the KRG for facilitating all our requests for meetings and open and frank discussions.

Whilst we were in the Region, Amnesty International issued a report on illegal detentions and torture which also acknowledged progress in tackling crimes against women. We raised this report with the Deputy Prime Minister and were impressed by his directness. He told us that, like many current political leaders, he had himself been tortured and that torture was intolerable. We will seek a meeting with Amnesty International, visit one or more prisons of our own choice on future visits and monitor this issue. We also note that the leadership of the Region is keen on judicial training and are pleased that the UK is helping them to create better trained judges.

The future is bright for the Kurdistan Region which has considerable potential thanks to its oil and gas reserves as well as possibly plentiful agricultural resources and tourism in bustling cities with increasingly better tourist facilities as well as rugged mountains and verdant and unspoilt plains. We felt completely safe in the Region. The UK should play a bigger role in assisting the Region to tap its potential in all these areas. The Kurdistan Region is vital to the success of Iraq and to British foreign policy objectives.

However, the past also casts a long shadow with the continuing legacy of Baa’thist genocide which claimed 182,000 people’s lives, systematically destroyed thousands of villages and agricultural assets and forced people into the cities. We met the minister responsible for dealing with the “Anfal” genocide and agreed to redouble our efforts to encourage the UK and the wider international community to mark Anfal in order to provide assurances that there will never be a repetition, to mobilise scientific help to exhume the mass graves that are still being uncovered and identify the victims.”

The delegation consisted of Labour MP Derek Wyatt, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood (both for the first half of the week) and Liberal Democrat Peer, Tim Clement Jones, Mark Phillips, Chief of Staff to Baroness Neville-Jones, Shadow Security Minister and Gary Kent, Administrator of the APPG (and Director of Labour Friends of Iraq.) The delegation was also accompanied by Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the UK High Representative of the KRG.

The peaceful Iraqi invasion

Here the Education Guardian examines the growing number of Iraqi students coming here on scholarship programmes and quotes Iraqi PM Maliki in saying that education and culture are the tool and the key that build bridges between nations, and it is on these that the true value of nations is built.

May Day

May Day Greetings from Labour Friends of Iraq

And from the Iraqi Communist Party

Hundreds of millions of workers and people around the world and also in Iraq will celebrate International Workers Day, the1st of May, which has been associated with the revolutionary and democratic movement and the struggle to end all forms of exploitation and subjugation by the classes that control wealth and dominate political power and society. It is an occasion to highlight the pioneering role played the workers, since the dawn of history, as the main force in building human civilization and as the real creators of material wealth.

The 1st of May entered the annals of the history of international class and political struggle after the strike organised by trade unions in Chicago on 1st May 1886, when protesters clashed with the police that were acting on behalf of big business, resulting in large numbers of casualties among the workers, with many arrested and several of them sentenced to death.

Since that day, the1st of May has become a symbol of the struggle against poverty, hunger, unemployment, social injustice and marginalization in all its forms, and to raise the standard of living, improve working conditions, reduce working hours, regulate wages and enjoy social security.

In Iraq, the workers celebrated this glorious day openly for the first time after the 14th July 1958 Revolution, when the 1st of May was declared a national holiday. Baghdad still remembers, to this day, that million-strong demonstration organised by the Iraqi workers and their trade unions, supported and backed by the Iraqi Communist Party, on the 1st of May 1959. That historic event was echoed in towns and provinces all over Iraq with carnivals and celebrations unparalleled in the history of our country.

Before the 14th July 1958, Iraqi workers used to celebrate this occasion, dear to their hearts, in clandestine conditions, away from the eyes of the secret police of the monarchic regime. Since the formation of the first trade union organisations and the birth of the Iraqi Communist Party in 1934, the emerging Iraqi working class led the struggles of the people and their strikes, economic, social, political and class battles and courageous uprisings. These struggles have become shining landmarks in Iraq's contemporary history and a memory that haunts dictatorial rulers, parasitic elements and the enemies of freedom, democracy and social justice. The role played by the Iraqi Communist Party in those demonstrations and uprisings, by coordinating with the patriotic and democratic forces, was instrumental in deepening the content of those battles and giving them a broad national and democratic character.

Under Saddam's dictatorial regime, the Iraqi working class was subjected to various forms of exploitation, political repression and the falsification of its will. Trade unions and professional associations were turned into "yellow" organizations and empty fronts for the ruling Baath party and its security and intelligence organs. In the aftermath of the war and collapse of the dictatorship on 9th April 2003, despite the extremely difficult and complex conditions that existed under occupation, trade union work and other forms of political and social activity began to emerge and develop. But exceptional circumstances, especially the vicious terrorist campaign waged against our country and the presence of occupation forces, curtailed that promising start and prevented the Iraqi workingn class and people from reaping its fruits on the level of organisation and in the broad arena of labour.

In addition, government interference in the affairs of the General Federation of Trade Unions in Iraq, and other associations and unions, played a negative role that hampered its activities in defense of the rights of workers. For example, successive governments have continued to give a deaf ear to persistent workers' demands for abolishing Decree No. 150 (1987) that was issued by the so-called "Revolution Command Council" under Saddam's dictatorship, which turned state sector workers into government employees, prohibiting them from setting up their own trade unions.

Decree No. 45 (2003), issued by Bremer's occupation authority, which suspended the election activities of trade unions and put them under the mercy of a ministerial committee, is still in force. Furthermore, the government is still insisting, till this day, on its unjust Decree No. 8750 (2005) that called for freezing the movable and immovable assets of the unions, in a blatant manifestation of interference in their affairs that resulted in paralysing unions' work and activities. The position of the government has regrettably remained unchanged in spite of many appeals and several meetings between the representatives of the General Federation of Trade Unions in Iraq and key government officials, and despite the many promises given by these officials to find quick solutions to these outstanding issues.

Iraqi workers and our people in general have been following closely the positive steps witnessed by our country in terms of pursuing the networks of terrorism and acts of sabotage and tightening the noose around criminal elements and outlaws. They are also aware of increased stability, the acceptance of the peaceful political process, and Iraq's expanding regional and international relations. While expressing support for these developments, they also look forward to practical, quick solutions to the problems of unemployment, high prices, health and education, providing protection for national products, restoring the status of industry and agriculture in Iraq, finding solutions to the crisis of housing, transport, water and electricity, developing social welfare programs and the laws of retirement and health insurance, and addressing the disparity between the salaries of senior officials and those of government employees.

In addition, millions of workers are looking forward to bold steps to be taken by the government in order to strike with an iron fist at the corrupt, big and small, who are stealing people's food and wealth, and who are hostile to the aspirations of the poor, the widows and orphans, and the families of martyrs and the "disappeared".

Today, as the spectre of unemployment creeps and the gains made by broad strata of the population in advanced capitalist societies are eroded because of the nature of the capitalist system and its mechanisms, and as a result of the new global financial and economic crisis, the struggle of workers' unions and professional associations in the developed capitalist countries is intensifying. This struggle enjoys broad support and active participation of all the forces that are opposed to savage capitalist globalization and are calling for a truly humanitarian globalization. There is an escalation of struggles to preserve the gains that the workers, those with low income and wage-earners in general, had achieved through struggles for more than a century, particularly the gains made in the areas of reducing working hours, increasing wages, obtaining health and social security and to strive to enrich these achievements in line with the development of society and the requirements of modern life. We have great confidence that the workers and toilers of our country, Iraq, will spare no effort to contribute to these struggles, for a better future for themselves and for all mankind.

We salute, once again, the Iraqi working class people, as well as the workers of the world, on their International Day.. the 1st of May.
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** Excerpts from the editorial of "Tareeq Al-Shaab" (People's Path), the central organ of the Iraqi Communist Party .. issued on 27th April 2009.