Labour Friends of Iraq

Mixed reactionsin Iraq to the report that defense minister, Sadoun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab, has ordered the Iraqi army to stop raiding mosques, arresting clerics and “terrifying worshipers.” Some point out raids have led to the capture of large hauls of weapons and ammunition, including bomb-making equipment and antitank rockets. “The holy places must not be violated by the security forces, nor religious leaders arrested, and that will not happen anymore” said al-Dulaimi. In a related move Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told reporters that Ayatollah Sistani “insisted on the need for brotherhood between Shiites and Sunnis, and the need to include our Sunni brothers in the constitution-drafting process.” (AJ)

Support for Iraqi unions
Phil Lenton (Letters, May 10), doubts the credibility of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. I was part of a delegation that recently visited Iraqi Kurdistan. The IFTU and its Kurdish counterparts are militant trade unionists whose affiliates not only participate in strike action but, in the teeth of savage attacks by fundamentalist and Ba’athist groups, are building a strong trade union movement – the bedrock of civil society. The teachers’ union alone has more than 300,000 members and is growing.
Rather than belittle such a process, Mr Lenton should, as does the TUC and many of its allied unions, welcome the development of genuine unions. Iraq is a dangerous place to be a trade unionist. IFTU members are particular targets – they risk their lives every day, not just their “jobs and livelihoods”. Our duty is to show solidarity, not to sneer from the sidelines. This is why we now have a TUC-Iraq solidarity committee. But perhaps Mr Lenton thinks the British trade union movement is also compromised, since the vast bulk of its training and education programmes are financed by the British state?
Prof Mary Davis, London Metropolitan University
Phil Lenton says Britain is “no model” for Iraq. Well, we don’t have mass graves or genocide. Videos of our tortured children aren’t left at our front door. And we can laugh at our leaders without fear and are free to write idiotic letters to the Guardian.
Alan Johnson, Labour Friends of Iraq

As homicide bombers continue to devastate Iraq the
Washington Post is reporting that “Officers here said they knew of no documented case
in which a suicide attacker turned out to have been an Iraqi”. So it now seems that George Galloway was right when he said “actually, the Iraqi Resistance does not target its own civilians”. What price Tariq Ali’s ‘national liberation movement’ now? (hat tip HP) (AJ)

Christopher Hitchens on the ‘outrages’ of Abu Ghraib (AJ)

Mohammed over at Iraq the Model tells of an important shift in Sunni opinion toward embracing politics and the 2006 elections.

Continue reading Democratising Iraq (15) 96 percent of Sunnis want a Political Process not Suicide Bombs

Michael Yon explains how he came to take this iconic photograph in Mosul.

Friday May 6, 2005, Guardian Letters
Some Iraqis (Letters, May 4) remind voters about the negative consequences of the war, which I and my colleagues also opposed. But positive changes are taking place in Iraq. Unions were repressed brutally by Saddam Hussein. Now a small clandestine network has been turned into a federation with more than 200,000 members. We want the same things as British people do and are trying – through political pressure, as part of the democratic process being supervised by the UN, negotiations with employers and strike action, where necessary – to improve workers’ pay and conditions, as part of a new civil society that is determined to build a united, federal, secular and democratic Iraq and end military and economic occupation.
We are the real democratic resistance, not those who seek to foment sectarian civil war and who target trade unionists for murder and intimidation. With solidarity from the British and international labour movement, our free unions can help isolate them and unite Iraqis for social justice in a sovereign Iraq.
Abdullah Muhsin, Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions

Akbar asks which side are you on?

Once a rescuer always a rescuer? Denmark’s government has decided to increase aid for Iraq’s reconstruction by an additional 100 million kroner ($17 million), officials said on Wednesday. Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said the Scandinavian country would extend its troop mandate in Iraq for another eight months. In words that Charles Kennedy (and Robin Cook for that matter) should ponder long and hard Moeller has refused to set a date for a final pullout of Danish troops from the war-torn country, claiming that “if we did that we would risk seeing the terrorists putting their ammunition on ice until the foreign troops have left the country, and then let loose hell against the Iraqi democratic government.” (AJ)

On May 3th Hoshyar Zebari, Minister of Foreign affairs of Iraq discussed arrangements for the Brussels International Conference to be held in late June, 2005 with the participation of Iraqi and US governments and the European Union. The conference will discuss how to handle Iraq’s needs of political and economic support, reconstruction programs and maintaining the rule of law. See here and here