Report from Basra conference

Tuesday 21st June, 7.30pm
Room 3C, University of London Union
Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY
(nearest tube: Goodge Street or Russell Square)

Last month in Iraq, the General Union of Oil Employees held a
historic conference in Basra against the privatisation of Iraq's
public sector. The conference resolved to continue the struggle to
resist any future privatisation of Iraq's oil resources and called
for the cancellation of Iraq's odious debts.
The conference gained support from a whole range of international
civil society groups from trade unionists in Venezuela, to radical
NGOs such as Focus on the Global South and academics such as Noam
Chomsky and shows that resistance to the neo-liberal occupation of
Iraq is growing and needs to be supported.

This meeting offers a unique opportunity to hear from members of the
UK delegation who attended the conference and to discuss how best the
anti-occupation movement in the UK can offer solidarity with Iraqi's
resisting privatisiation.

Speakers include:

Ewa Jasiewicz - Iraq Occupation Focus activist, freelance journalist
and UK representative of the General Union of Oil Employees. Ewa
spent nine months living in Iraq June 2003-February 2004 working with
trade unions, women's groups, Iraqi families, and human rights groups.

Greg Muttitt - a researcher at PLATFORM, a London-based organization
working on issues of environmental and social justice. Greg
specializes in the impacts of multinational oil corporations of human
rights, development and environment. Since 2003 he has monitored and
worked to expose the hidden plans to open Iraq's oil reserves to
western corporations for the first time since 1972.

Dr Martha Mundy - Reader in Anthropology at the London School of
Economics. As an academic she is a specialist in studies of kinship,
law in society, and the anthropology of the Arab world. Martha has
long worked with civil society associations working for social
justice in Iraq and Palestine.