The 9th issue of the FWCUI news bulletin - November-December 2006
1. Zakho - Iraqi Kurdistan: Workers from Zakho reported discrimination against Arab workers from the centre and the south by paying them less than Kurdish and foreign workers. It is well known that there is a migration to Zakho and the rest of Kurdistani cities because of lack of work and security in the center and south of Iraq.
2. Suleimaniyah, Thursday 16-11-2006: 1800 citizens protest in Raba Rin neighbourhood of Suleimaniyah because the authorities did not distribute fuel (cooking gas tubes), the cost of which has risen 23,000 dinars for each tube(almost 16US$). After the people showed their determination to gather and protest, the fuel was distributed at a cost of 5,000 dinars per tube.
3. Baghdad, mid November 2006: The number of hairdressers killed by militias in the Al Amil and Al Bayaa neighbourhoods has reached 132. This figure was reported by
members of the services’ union residing in those areas.
4. Rise in abduction of workers from their workplaces: a considerable increase in the abductions of workers from their workplaces took place in November and December, especially in the Al Waziriyah district of Baghdad where a large number of factories and companies are located. The recent month saw a large number of kidnappings and killings of workers.
5. Tuesday 5-12-2006, Baghdad, preparatory meeting for general workers’ conference: a meeting of unions and workers’ federations’ leaders took place in the FWCUI Headquarters. The meeting tackled the main issues concerning the workers’ movement in Iraq and the necessity and possibility of holding a general conference for most leading unionists of Iraq in order to discuss the basic issues confronting society, such as the sectarian violence and standing up against the current divisions in the workers’ movement.
Thursday, December 14
Wednesday, December 6
Partnership project delivers fire engines to Iraq
Two fire engines have been successfully delivered to firefighters in Iraq and Kurdistan thanks to a partnership between the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), Perkins Engines Company and the Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service.
A team of FBU officials undertook the humanitarian trip, after securing support from Perkins and Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service.
The team started from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, and from there the two engines were driven across ten different countries and covered a total of nearly 5000 kilometres.
Travelling via the channel tunnel the vehicles were handed over to officials of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers in Du Hok in Kurdistan. From there the fire engines were taken on to Irbil in Kurdistan and Baghdad in Iraq.
Adrian Clarke regional official of the FBU for the East of England said:
“In my experience this was a unique partnership led by a trade union and supported by both a public service and a private industry company to deliver humanitarian help to another part of the world. Fire fighters in Iraq face probably the most dangerous working conditions of any firefighters anywhere in the world at present.”
Previous visits by FBU officials delivering much needed fire kit to firefighters in Iraq had highlighted the desperate need for fire engines and equipment to carry out their duties.
Following consultations between the FBU and Chief Fire Officer Tom Carroll of the Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service an agreement was reached for the FBU to purchase two appliances that had finished their operational service in Cambridgeshire and were due for disposal.
Before travel the Fire and Rescue Service’s vehicle maintenance department serviced both fire engines. Firefighters also helped ready the engines for the trip as well as helping with supplying equipment to go on them. This ensured that the Iraqi and Kurdistan firefighters had a basic firefighting and rescue capacity when they were delivered.
Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service’s Chief Fire Officer Tom Carroll said: “We were only too pleased to be able to support the FBU with their venture. It is good to know that kit and fire engines that have served us well in Cambridgeshire for a number of years and come to the end of their useful life for us, can help our firefighter colleagues in Iraq and Kurdistan provide a better service for their communities.”
As one of the vehicles was powered by a Perkins diesel engine the FBU decided to contact Perkins Engines in Peterborough and request its help. Perkins responded immediately providing support both financially and logistically. Along with a financial donation Perkins supplied a basket of service parts for the engines. The company also gave the team a list of distributors in every country which the vehicles would travel through and instructed these distributors to support any requests for assistance.
The engines proved to be extremely reliable with the only vehicle breakdowns being electrical faults.
Marion King, marketing communications manager at Perkins Engines said: “We were delighted to be able to support such a worthwhile humanitarian project.
“After meeting Adrian Clarke, who explained the background to the trip, we immediately agreed it was something Perkins wanted to support. Our sponsorship committee decided to assist with the cost of the trip but we also wanted to help ensure the vehicles made it to their final destination.
“We spoke to our distributors throughout Europe and the Middle East and they all agreed to provide assistance to the team throughout their trip.
“We were delighted to hear both vehicles had been delivered safely and that the Perkins engine had performed extremely well throughout the journey.”
Mr Clarke added: “The FBU has long been supporting our fellow firefighters in Iraq and without the help of these partners this project would not have happened. Both Perkins Engines and Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service should be congratulated on their support of this life saving project and they should be proud that they employ people who not only talk the talk on diversity issues but that they are also prepared to walk the walk with their individual actions. The fact is that these fire appliances that served the communities of Cambridgeshire are now carrying on what they were designed to do and are helping to save lives once again”.
A team of FBU officials undertook the humanitarian trip, after securing support from Perkins and Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service.
The team started from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, and from there the two engines were driven across ten different countries and covered a total of nearly 5000 kilometres.
Travelling via the channel tunnel the vehicles were handed over to officials of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers in Du Hok in Kurdistan. From there the fire engines were taken on to Irbil in Kurdistan and Baghdad in Iraq.
Adrian Clarke regional official of the FBU for the East of England said:
“In my experience this was a unique partnership led by a trade union and supported by both a public service and a private industry company to deliver humanitarian help to another part of the world. Fire fighters in Iraq face probably the most dangerous working conditions of any firefighters anywhere in the world at present.”
Previous visits by FBU officials delivering much needed fire kit to firefighters in Iraq had highlighted the desperate need for fire engines and equipment to carry out their duties.
Following consultations between the FBU and Chief Fire Officer Tom Carroll of the Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service an agreement was reached for the FBU to purchase two appliances that had finished their operational service in Cambridgeshire and were due for disposal.
Before travel the Fire and Rescue Service’s vehicle maintenance department serviced both fire engines. Firefighters also helped ready the engines for the trip as well as helping with supplying equipment to go on them. This ensured that the Iraqi and Kurdistan firefighters had a basic firefighting and rescue capacity when they were delivered.
Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service’s Chief Fire Officer Tom Carroll said: “We were only too pleased to be able to support the FBU with their venture. It is good to know that kit and fire engines that have served us well in Cambridgeshire for a number of years and come to the end of their useful life for us, can help our firefighter colleagues in Iraq and Kurdistan provide a better service for their communities.”
As one of the vehicles was powered by a Perkins diesel engine the FBU decided to contact Perkins Engines in Peterborough and request its help. Perkins responded immediately providing support both financially and logistically. Along with a financial donation Perkins supplied a basket of service parts for the engines. The company also gave the team a list of distributors in every country which the vehicles would travel through and instructed these distributors to support any requests for assistance.
The engines proved to be extremely reliable with the only vehicle breakdowns being electrical faults.
Marion King, marketing communications manager at Perkins Engines said: “We were delighted to be able to support such a worthwhile humanitarian project.
“After meeting Adrian Clarke, who explained the background to the trip, we immediately agreed it was something Perkins wanted to support. Our sponsorship committee decided to assist with the cost of the trip but we also wanted to help ensure the vehicles made it to their final destination.
“We spoke to our distributors throughout Europe and the Middle East and they all agreed to provide assistance to the team throughout their trip.
“We were delighted to hear both vehicles had been delivered safely and that the Perkins engine had performed extremely well throughout the journey.”
Mr Clarke added: “The FBU has long been supporting our fellow firefighters in Iraq and without the help of these partners this project would not have happened. Both Perkins Engines and Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service should be congratulated on their support of this life saving project and they should be proud that they employ people who not only talk the talk on diversity issues but that they are also prepared to walk the walk with their individual actions. The fact is that these fire appliances that served the communities of Cambridgeshire are now carrying on what they were designed to do and are helping to save lives once again”.
Wednesday, November 22
UN report: life getting tougher for Iraq's nurses
Nissrin Muhammad, 36, sees death every day and worries how her children would survive if she were killed.
The only means this widowed mother-of-five has to support her family is to continue working in the dangerous and deteriorating conditions of a public hospital in the capital, Baghdad.
Nissrin works 13 hours a day to feed her children. Spending her days tending to sick and bullet-ridden bodies, she is increasingly worried that the day will come when she will be the one lying on the operating table.
“I love to help people. I graduated in nursing with the aim of helping to save lives but in the past two years, we are losing more [lives] than improving health conditions,” Nissrin said. “I am stressed and sometimes I go into an empty room behind the hospital’s cafeteria to cry and alleviate the tension that I am living under.”
Iraq is suffering a dearth of nurses. Those who could afford to have already fled to neighbouring countries. Those with working husbands stay at home, afraid of the escalating violence. But the rest must soldier on in their fight against fear and poverty.
“They are our main support. Without their work, doctors cannot do their job because nurses are the ones who maintain the lives of patients after the medical diagnosis. Losing their work means losing lives,” said Dr Yehia al-Mawin, senior official at the Ministry of Health’s strategy department. He added that women represent 80 percent of all nurses.
More than 160 nurses have been murdered since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and more than 400 wounded, according to al-Mawin. In addition, he said thousands had fled the country or were forced to leave their work after receiving threats from insurgents and militia fighters.
Meagre salary
Nissrin said she feels like a warrior herself. With a salary of US $150 a month, she struggles to make ends meet.
“Our salary [nurses’] was always one of the worst in the country but families used to give us extra money when we delivered their children, or when patients had successful operations or treatments. But today, even this extra benefit has disappeared,” Nissrin told IRIN.
“People are getting poorer and cannot afford to [give nurses money]. Often, the [patients’] family does not have money even to buy medicines,” she said.
On the one day off she has each week, she goes in search of food to buy. Most of the shops in her neighbourhood are closed because of ongoing sectarian violence, so she has to walk to another district, and take more risks in the process, to get food. With her meagre salary, she said a typical meal might be some rice, beans and a carrot.
Meat was too expensive, she said, and she had stopped eating it anyway because it reminded her of dead bodies. “After what I see in the hospital with the victims of attacks, it is hard to imagine eating something like that,” she said.
Nissrin starts work at 7am. At lunchtime, she takes a two-hour break to pick her sons up from school, warm up some food for them and then go back to the hospital.
“I prepare the food every night after I return from hospital at 10pm. I check if the children did their homework, clean the house and sleep like a rock,” she said.
If her children fall ill, Nissrin asks a neighbour to help look after them. Once, when they were particularly sick, she asked her boss if she could take time off to tend to them. “He just said that two lives were not more important than the hundreds that come into the hospital on a daily basis in need of my services,” she said.
Weak and disheartened
When she feels weak and disheartened, she pulls out a photo of her children and reminds herself why she endures what she does. She dreams of a day when nurses will be respected and appreciated for what they do. “Sometimes I feel indignation that even with millions of people depending on our work, they still see us as a lowly profession and treat us badly,” she said.
With more than 150 patients to look after on a typical day, Nissrin has the additional burden of having to accept physical and verbal abuse from angry patients, or their friends and relatives, demanding immediate treatment. This sometimes amounts to punches in the face or worse.
“In the most recent incident, a husband of a patient broke a glass over my head because his wife urinated and I was late changing her. I tried to explain that 50 injured patients had just arrived in the hospital and we were just three [nurses] helping the doctors. He told me that I was useless and beat me,” Nessrin said.
The only means this widowed mother-of-five has to support her family is to continue working in the dangerous and deteriorating conditions of a public hospital in the capital, Baghdad.
Nissrin works 13 hours a day to feed her children. Spending her days tending to sick and bullet-ridden bodies, she is increasingly worried that the day will come when she will be the one lying on the operating table.
“I love to help people. I graduated in nursing with the aim of helping to save lives but in the past two years, we are losing more [lives] than improving health conditions,” Nissrin said. “I am stressed and sometimes I go into an empty room behind the hospital’s cafeteria to cry and alleviate the tension that I am living under.”
Iraq is suffering a dearth of nurses. Those who could afford to have already fled to neighbouring countries. Those with working husbands stay at home, afraid of the escalating violence. But the rest must soldier on in their fight against fear and poverty.
“They are our main support. Without their work, doctors cannot do their job because nurses are the ones who maintain the lives of patients after the medical diagnosis. Losing their work means losing lives,” said Dr Yehia al-Mawin, senior official at the Ministry of Health’s strategy department. He added that women represent 80 percent of all nurses.
More than 160 nurses have been murdered since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and more than 400 wounded, according to al-Mawin. In addition, he said thousands had fled the country or were forced to leave their work after receiving threats from insurgents and militia fighters.
Meagre salary
Nissrin said she feels like a warrior herself. With a salary of US $150 a month, she struggles to make ends meet.
“Our salary [nurses’] was always one of the worst in the country but families used to give us extra money when we delivered their children, or when patients had successful operations or treatments. But today, even this extra benefit has disappeared,” Nissrin told IRIN.
“People are getting poorer and cannot afford to [give nurses money]. Often, the [patients’] family does not have money even to buy medicines,” she said.
On the one day off she has each week, she goes in search of food to buy. Most of the shops in her neighbourhood are closed because of ongoing sectarian violence, so she has to walk to another district, and take more risks in the process, to get food. With her meagre salary, she said a typical meal might be some rice, beans and a carrot.
Meat was too expensive, she said, and she had stopped eating it anyway because it reminded her of dead bodies. “After what I see in the hospital with the victims of attacks, it is hard to imagine eating something like that,” she said.
Nissrin starts work at 7am. At lunchtime, she takes a two-hour break to pick her sons up from school, warm up some food for them and then go back to the hospital.
“I prepare the food every night after I return from hospital at 10pm. I check if the children did their homework, clean the house and sleep like a rock,” she said.
If her children fall ill, Nissrin asks a neighbour to help look after them. Once, when they were particularly sick, she asked her boss if she could take time off to tend to them. “He just said that two lives were not more important than the hundreds that come into the hospital on a daily basis in need of my services,” she said.
Weak and disheartened
When she feels weak and disheartened, she pulls out a photo of her children and reminds herself why she endures what she does. She dreams of a day when nurses will be respected and appreciated for what they do. “Sometimes I feel indignation that even with millions of people depending on our work, they still see us as a lowly profession and treat us badly,” she said.
With more than 150 patients to look after on a typical day, Nissrin has the additional burden of having to accept physical and verbal abuse from angry patients, or their friends and relatives, demanding immediate treatment. This sometimes amounts to punches in the face or worse.
“In the most recent incident, a husband of a patient broke a glass over my head because his wife urinated and I was late changing her. I tried to explain that 50 injured patients had just arrived in the hospital and we were just three [nurses] helping the doctors. He told me that I was useless and beat me,” Nessrin said.
Education International union condemns attacks on teachers
"Teachers should be guaranteed a safe and secure working environment," says EI in a letter addressed to the President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, on 16 November.
Since February this year, 180 teachers have been killed and up to 100 have been kidnapped.
The dramatic escalation of violence against education institutions and teachers has prompted an exodus of academics and teachers as well as sharp decrease in school attendance. Currently, only 30 percent of Iraq’s 3.5 million students are currently attending classes compared with 75 percent in the previous school year.
EI General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, urges the Iraqi government to support educational institutions and teachers, and give them the resources to promote peace and tolerance through education.
Below is the content of EI's letter in English:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr Jalal Talabani
President
Convention Centre (Qasr al-Ma’aridh)
Baghdad
Republic of Iraq
Brussels, 16 November 2006
Mr President,
Education International, the global union federation of teachers representing over 30 million members in 169 countries, is very concerned by the continued killings and abductions of Iraqi academics and teachers.
Hundreds of academics have been killed in Iraq since March 2003. The Iraqi Minister of Education has stated that 296 members of education staff were killed in 2005 alone. According to the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, 180 teachers have been killed since February 2006 and up to 100 have been kidnapped. Over 3250 teachers have fled Iraq.
Not only do abductions of teachers constitute serious violations of the right to live and work in a secure environment, but of the right to life itself. Education International does not only refer to the recent mass kidnapping in the Ministry of Higher Education’s scientific research directorate. Abduction and murder ravage families and put at stake the future of Iraq. The killings of teachers and closures of schools punishes the young people and does not give a message of optimism and hope.
Education has a major contribution to make to the future of the country and the current violence prompts an exodus of teachers. The resulting massive brain drain of teachers is a catastrophe which affects the reconstruction and nation-building process significantly, and will continue to do so for years to come.
The violence against teachers also contributes to a dramatic decrease in school attendance rates. According to recent statistics from the Ministry of Education, only 30 percent of Iraq’s 3.5 million students are currently attending classes. This compares to approximately 75 percent of students attending classes in the previous school year.
Educational institutions and teachers should be supported and given the resources to promote peace and tolerance through education, rather than being targets of violence.
Education International therefore urges your Government to ensure a safe and secure environment for lecturers, teachers and students. Education International will contact the United Nations Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to request that the matter be investigated.
Education International sincerely trusts that this message is one your Government can support.
Sincerely yours,
Fred van Leeuwen
General Secretary
cc:
Iraqi Ministries of Defence, Interior and Higher Education
Speaker of Iraq's parliament: Hajim al-Hassani
Kurdistan Teachers Union, KTU
UNCHR Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
Since February this year, 180 teachers have been killed and up to 100 have been kidnapped.
The dramatic escalation of violence against education institutions and teachers has prompted an exodus of academics and teachers as well as sharp decrease in school attendance. Currently, only 30 percent of Iraq’s 3.5 million students are currently attending classes compared with 75 percent in the previous school year.
EI General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, urges the Iraqi government to support educational institutions and teachers, and give them the resources to promote peace and tolerance through education.
Below is the content of EI's letter in English:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr Jalal Talabani
President
Convention Centre (Qasr al-Ma’aridh)
Baghdad
Republic of Iraq
Brussels, 16 November 2006
Mr President,
Education International, the global union federation of teachers representing over 30 million members in 169 countries, is very concerned by the continued killings and abductions of Iraqi academics and teachers.
Hundreds of academics have been killed in Iraq since March 2003. The Iraqi Minister of Education has stated that 296 members of education staff were killed in 2005 alone. According to the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, 180 teachers have been killed since February 2006 and up to 100 have been kidnapped. Over 3250 teachers have fled Iraq.
Not only do abductions of teachers constitute serious violations of the right to live and work in a secure environment, but of the right to life itself. Education International does not only refer to the recent mass kidnapping in the Ministry of Higher Education’s scientific research directorate. Abduction and murder ravage families and put at stake the future of Iraq. The killings of teachers and closures of schools punishes the young people and does not give a message of optimism and hope.
Education has a major contribution to make to the future of the country and the current violence prompts an exodus of teachers. The resulting massive brain drain of teachers is a catastrophe which affects the reconstruction and nation-building process significantly, and will continue to do so for years to come.
The violence against teachers also contributes to a dramatic decrease in school attendance rates. According to recent statistics from the Ministry of Education, only 30 percent of Iraq’s 3.5 million students are currently attending classes. This compares to approximately 75 percent of students attending classes in the previous school year.
Educational institutions and teachers should be supported and given the resources to promote peace and tolerance through education, rather than being targets of violence.
Education International therefore urges your Government to ensure a safe and secure environment for lecturers, teachers and students. Education International will contact the United Nations Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to request that the matter be investigated.
Education International sincerely trusts that this message is one your Government can support.
Sincerely yours,
Fred van Leeuwen
General Secretary
cc:
Iraqi Ministries of Defence, Interior and Higher Education
Speaker of Iraq's parliament: Hajim al-Hassani
Kurdistan Teachers Union, KTU
UNCHR Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
Thursday, November 16
TUC in solidarity with Iraqi teachers
UK unions stand in solidarity with Iraqi workers and educationalists
Responding to the kidnapping of Ministry of Education officials in Baghdad this week (not all of whom have been released as yet), TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has sent the following message of solidarity with Iraqi workers and teachers;
'This cowardly attack on some of the people most involved in keeping the education system going is a terrible reminder of the persistent persecution being suffered by workers and academics in Iraq. Workers in the education sector are in the front line, facing intimidation, harassment and sometimes death, all for the simple reason that they are trying to bring enlightenment, empowerment and education to Iraq's children and young people.
'British trade unionists have little experience of the pressures under which Iraqi workers and educationalists operate every day, but we stand in solidarity with them in their struggle to build a new Iraq - non-sectarian, non-discriminatory and free
Responding to the kidnapping of Ministry of Education officials in Baghdad this week (not all of whom have been released as yet), TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has sent the following message of solidarity with Iraqi workers and teachers;
'This cowardly attack on some of the people most involved in keeping the education system going is a terrible reminder of the persistent persecution being suffered by workers and academics in Iraq. Workers in the education sector are in the front line, facing intimidation, harassment and sometimes death, all for the simple reason that they are trying to bring enlightenment, empowerment and education to Iraq's children and young people.
'British trade unionists have little experience of the pressures under which Iraqi workers and educationalists operate every day, but we stand in solidarity with them in their struggle to build a new Iraq - non-sectarian, non-discriminatory and free
Wednesday, November 15
IFCTU report - academics murdered and kidnapped in Iraq
Up to 150 people kidnapped in Baghdad
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press
Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped up to 150 staff members from a government research institute in downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, the head of the parliamentary education committee said.
Alaa Makki interrupted a parliamentary session to say between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis, had been abducted in the 9:30 a.m. raid. He urged the prime minister and ministers of interior and defense to rapidly respond to what he called a "national catastrophe."
Makki said the gunmen had a list of names of those to be taken and claimed to be on a mission from the government's anti-corruption body.
Those kidnapped included the institute's deputy general directors, employees, and visitors, he said.
Police and witnesses said the raid began with gunmen closing off roads around the institute in the downtown Karradah district.
Police spokesman Maj. Mahir Hamad said the entire operation took about 20 minutes. Four guards at the institute put up no resistance and were unharmed, he said.
A female professor visiting at the time of the kidnappings said the gunmen forced men and women into separate rooms, handcuffed the men, and loaded them aboard about six pickup trucks. She said the gunmen, some of them masked, wore blue camouflage uniforms of the type worn by police commandos.
The abductions appeared to be the boldest in a series of killings and other attacks on Iraqi academics that are robbing Iraq of its brain trust and prompting thousands of professors and researchers to flee to neighboring countries.
Recent weeks have seen a university dean and prominent Sunni geologist murdered, bringing the death toll among educators to at least 155 since the war began. The academics apparently were singled out for their relatively high public stature, vulnerability and known views on controversial issues in a climate of deepening Islamic fundamentalism.
Ali al-Adib, a Shiite lawmaker, said there was little question Tuesday's incident was a mass kidnapping and demanded that U.S. troops be held responsible for the security lapse.
"The detention of 150 people from a government institution without informing the higher education minister ... means this is an abduction operation," al-Adib said.
"There is a political goal behind this grave action," he said.
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press
Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped up to 150 staff members from a government research institute in downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, the head of the parliamentary education committee said.
Alaa Makki interrupted a parliamentary session to say between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis, had been abducted in the 9:30 a.m. raid. He urged the prime minister and ministers of interior and defense to rapidly respond to what he called a "national catastrophe."
Makki said the gunmen had a list of names of those to be taken and claimed to be on a mission from the government's anti-corruption body.
Those kidnapped included the institute's deputy general directors, employees, and visitors, he said.
Police and witnesses said the raid began with gunmen closing off roads around the institute in the downtown Karradah district.
Police spokesman Maj. Mahir Hamad said the entire operation took about 20 minutes. Four guards at the institute put up no resistance and were unharmed, he said.
A female professor visiting at the time of the kidnappings said the gunmen forced men and women into separate rooms, handcuffed the men, and loaded them aboard about six pickup trucks. She said the gunmen, some of them masked, wore blue camouflage uniforms of the type worn by police commandos.
The abductions appeared to be the boldest in a series of killings and other attacks on Iraqi academics that are robbing Iraq of its brain trust and prompting thousands of professors and researchers to flee to neighboring countries.
Recent weeks have seen a university dean and prominent Sunni geologist murdered, bringing the death toll among educators to at least 155 since the war began. The academics apparently were singled out for their relatively high public stature, vulnerability and known views on controversial issues in a climate of deepening Islamic fundamentalism.
Ali al-Adib, a Shiite lawmaker, said there was little question Tuesday's incident was a mass kidnapping and demanded that U.S. troops be held responsible for the security lapse.
"The detention of 150 people from a government institution without informing the higher education minister ... means this is an abduction operation," al-Adib said.
"There is a political goal behind this grave action," he said.
Thursday, October 19
European deputation about Iraqi migrant rights
Activists from the Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq went to the European Parliament in Brussels to talk to Euro MPs about the rights of migrants from Iraq and Kurdistan. For a full report, download dashty.doc.
Friday, October 13
Health workers strike
Latest news from the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq:
Health sector strike - update
1. Kerbala. Health sector workers held sit-in protest, after their strike last week. The workers held the strike calling for better wages, wage system reform, and repayment to those eligible for infection allowance.
The workers' Council in Kerbala hospital led the demonstration and the sit in protest.
A delegation of the health sector committee of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions Kerbala branch have met the authorities, arguing the demands of the workers, headed by Sa'ad Abed – Alkadhem the head of Kerbala branch of FWCUI.
2- Nasiriya. Health sector workers went on strike four times in one month, calling for better salaries and repaying the infection allowances. The committee of health sector workers in Nasiriya distributed copies of the statement of the FWCUI, including the demands of the workers.
The workers held a sit-in protest. One of the leaders of the council of the health sector, Jasim Mohamed, spoke to the workers calling on them to unite in order to realize their demands.
Many provinces in Iraq have seen strikes of health sector workers, calling for better wages and repayment of the infection allowances that stopped/discontinued just after the occupation began.
3- Spread out … The strikes in the health sector have expanded to many provinces in Iraq such as Baghdad , Kerbala, Umara, Nasiriya, Kut and also Suleimania in Kurdistan.
Workers’ Media Center
October 11, 2006
Health sector strike - update
1. Kerbala. Health sector workers held sit-in protest, after their strike last week. The workers held the strike calling for better wages, wage system reform, and repayment to those eligible for infection allowance.
The workers' Council in Kerbala hospital led the demonstration and the sit in protest.
A delegation of the health sector committee of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions Kerbala branch have met the authorities, arguing the demands of the workers, headed by Sa'ad Abed – Alkadhem the head of Kerbala branch of FWCUI.
2- Nasiriya. Health sector workers went on strike four times in one month, calling for better salaries and repaying the infection allowances. The committee of health sector workers in Nasiriya distributed copies of the statement of the FWCUI, including the demands of the workers.
The workers held a sit-in protest. One of the leaders of the council of the health sector, Jasim Mohamed, spoke to the workers calling on them to unite in order to realize their demands.
Many provinces in Iraq have seen strikes of health sector workers, calling for better wages and repayment of the infection allowances that stopped/discontinued just after the occupation began.
3- Spread out … The strikes in the health sector have expanded to many provinces in Iraq such as Baghdad , Kerbala, Umara, Nasiriya, Kut and also Suleimania in Kurdistan.
Workers’ Media Center
October 11, 2006
Wednesday, September 27
USLAW protest US attack on Iraq Freedom Congress
Dear Ambassador Khalizad, and Secretaries Rice and Rumsfeld:
On September 7 and 8, 2006, members of the U.S. military participated
in an aggressive armed raid on the offices of the Iraq Freedom
Congress in Baghdad. During that raid, U.S. military personnel and
others operating with them or at their direction ransacked the
office, destroyed furniture and equipment, and confiscated records
and documents.
The Iraq Freedom Congress is a respected popular civil society
organization that is committed to non-violent methods in support of a
united democratic secular Iraq in which Iraqis can exercise their
sovereignty free of violence, militarism, ethnic and religious
intolerance, and all foreign interference. The IFC includes
participants from across Iraq's civil society, including members from
a number of Iraqi unions, women's organizations, and distinguished
academics and professionals.
This raid is an affront to all those who cherish peace and democracy
for Iraq. It makes a mockery of the stated goal of the United States
to foster and promote democracy and freedom in Iraq.
U.S. Labor Against the War, a network of more than 140 unions, labor
councils, state federations, and other labor organizations with
millions of members vigorously protests this violation of the rights
of Iraqis. We demand that commanding officers and all others
responsible for this outrage against peace, democracy and freedom be
held to account, that a public apology be issued to the IFC, all
records and other property be promptly returned, and compensation be
paid for all damages the IFC suffered.
Democracy will never be established in Iraq at the barrel of a U.S.
gun. Real security for the Iraqis and for the rest of the world can
not be established by military means. We join with the majority of
the people of the U.S., the more than 80% of Iraqis, and 72% of U.S.
troops in Iraq who, when polled, call for the U.S. and all other
foreign troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. All U.S. bases and other
military facilities should be dismantled and abandoned. All U.S.
troops should be immediately returned to their families, homes and
jobs in the U.S. The national treasure now being squandered on the
military occupation of Iraq should be redirected to reparations to
the Iraqis for the destruction our military has wrought and to
meeting the human needs of the people of the U.S. and the world.
Yours truly,
/s/
Gene Bruskin, Maria Guillen, Fred Mason, Bob Muehlenkamp, Nancy Wohlforth
Co-Convenors
On September 7 and 8, 2006, members of the U.S. military participated
in an aggressive armed raid on the offices of the Iraq Freedom
Congress in Baghdad. During that raid, U.S. military personnel and
others operating with them or at their direction ransacked the
office, destroyed furniture and equipment, and confiscated records
and documents.
The Iraq Freedom Congress is a respected popular civil society
organization that is committed to non-violent methods in support of a
united democratic secular Iraq in which Iraqis can exercise their
sovereignty free of violence, militarism, ethnic and religious
intolerance, and all foreign interference. The IFC includes
participants from across Iraq's civil society, including members from
a number of Iraqi unions, women's organizations, and distinguished
academics and professionals.
This raid is an affront to all those who cherish peace and democracy
for Iraq. It makes a mockery of the stated goal of the United States
to foster and promote democracy and freedom in Iraq.
U.S. Labor Against the War, a network of more than 140 unions, labor
councils, state federations, and other labor organizations with
millions of members vigorously protests this violation of the rights
of Iraqis. We demand that commanding officers and all others
responsible for this outrage against peace, democracy and freedom be
held to account, that a public apology be issued to the IFC, all
records and other property be promptly returned, and compensation be
paid for all damages the IFC suffered.
Democracy will never be established in Iraq at the barrel of a U.S.
gun. Real security for the Iraqis and for the rest of the world can
not be established by military means. We join with the majority of
the people of the U.S., the more than 80% of Iraqis, and 72% of U.S.
troops in Iraq who, when polled, call for the U.S. and all other
foreign troops to be withdrawn from Iraq. All U.S. bases and other
military facilities should be dismantled and abandoned. All U.S.
troops should be immediately returned to their families, homes and
jobs in the U.S. The national treasure now being squandered on the
military occupation of Iraq should be redirected to reparations to
the Iraqis for the destruction our military has wrought and to
meeting the human needs of the people of the U.S. and the world.
Yours truly,
/s/
Gene Bruskin, Maria Guillen, Fred Mason, Bob Muehlenkamp, Nancy Wohlforth
Co-Convenors
Wednesday, September 20
IUS Meeting at Manchester Stop the War demo
Iraq Union Solidarity will be holding a meeting after the Stop the War Demo in Manchester on Saturday 23rd December.
We will be screening DVDs about the Iraqi labour movement, and will have a speaker from the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq, alongside Robin Sivapalan, an IUS activist suspended from his teaching-assistant job for protesting against Tony Blair's visit to the school where he works.
Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester from 16.30 to 18.30
We will be screening DVDs about the Iraqi labour movement, and will have a speaker from the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq, alongside Robin Sivapalan, an IUS activist suspended from his teaching-assistant job for protesting against Tony Blair's visit to the school where he works.
Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester from 16.30 to 18.30
Sunday, September 10
Interview with Samir Adil
Samir Adil, president of the Iraq Freedom Congress, a movement initiated by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, spoke to Martin Thomas when he visited London in July.
Oil workers in southern Iraq are planning to strike against the sectarian militias — the Iraq Freedom Congress is asking all its members to support it.
The demands are:
• Abolition of all contracts which include imposed privatisation.
• The disbanding and expulsion of armed militias from Iraqi cities.
• An end to the killing of workers by the armed militias in Iraqi cities.
• Continued distribution of food rations.
• Continued distribution of profit-sharing bonuses to the oil workers.
In our view there is no real government, no real state, in Iraq. But we want to send a message to the occupation and to what is supposed to be the government of Iraq.
The IFC is working for an end to the sectarian militias. But as yet we are not strong enough to eliminate them. The strike is very important to unite workers and to show that there is another power in Iraq, independent from the occupation and the sectarian militias.
The southern oil union had put out a much longer and different list of demands (www.basraoilunion.org), but we now have agreement on the new demands.
We worked hard to get three of the leaders of the southern oil workers into IFC. In the end we convinced them that we need a secular government.
We know that previous statements from the southern oil union have been headed: “In the name of God, the most beneficent, the most merciful”. We are working to change that. We tell the union leaders that the workers have all sorts of views - Christian or atheist as well as Muslim - and the union should not impose on them statements “in the name of God”.
The positive thing is that in the oil union there is strong resistance to ethnic conflict and ethnic cleansing. There is no sectarian conflict among the workers in the workplaces.
IFC’s aim is to unite the workers. Our statement after the 22 February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra - “no Shia, no Sunni” - was very popular.
But there is a financial problem. We could open IFC offices, but we have no money. Because of our policy against Iran, against Syria, against the Gulf states, and against the occupation, we get no money from any state.
We know that in the past the southern oil workers have been mobilised in support of the provincial authorities in Basra in their conflicts with Baghdad over shares of the oil revenue. Among the leaders of the oil union there are also members of the Fadila party [a dissident Sadrist, Shia-Islamist group], which runs the provincial government.
The IFC decided to oppose meetings between the oil union and the provincial government. Our demands are not just demands for oil workers, but for all the workers in Iraq. Now we have Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister of the Baghdad government, negotiating with the oil union leaders.
There is political conflict inside the leadership of the oil union. To find the union’s statements referring approvingly to the “legally elected government” is not strange. But we are working hard to bring the whole union under IFC influence.
Three years ago Hassan Jumaa, the southern oil union leader, was pro-occupation. Last year, in the negotiations about a joint statement by Iraqi union leaders at the end of their speaking tour of the USA, he was against secularism. Now he has joined the IFC, which takes its stand against both political Islam and the occupation.
Against the Shia sectarian militias, the Sunni sectarian militias, and forces like Iyad Allawi’s, IFC represents another political pole.
Other unions have joined IFC, for example the General Federation of Trade Unions of Iraq, a grouping in Baghdad which comes from a split from the pro-Jaafari Iraqi Workers’ Union, has joined IFC.
The participants in the joint committee of Iraqi trade union organisations set up in January 2006 at a meeting sponsored by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions are Hassan Jumaa’s Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions of Iraq, and the Iraqi Workers’ Federation (formerly Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions). The FWCUI supports the oil workers’ strike call. We have sent a delegation to the IWF. We have had no response from them.
We asked about the programme and strategy of the IFC project — it is similar to the programme of the Worker-communist Party, but without any of the “worker” or “communist” social and economic demands. How can the IFC gain the forces to overpower both the US/UK and the Islamist militias without mobilising on the social, economic, class questions?
We have had elections in Iraq — nobody respects the results of those elections. There is no state, no law.
The IFC is working to establish a state and law. Where we have strength, we take responsibility for security and for distributing supplies. We say “no Shia, no Sunni” - you can believe what you want individually, but you should allow no discrimination. We want to pull people away from the sectarian groups and to end the occupation. The IFC represents our way to end the occupation. If the militias kill one US or British soldier, they kill ten Iraqi people at the same time. Actions like the planned strike in the oil industry show a better way.
By mobilising millions of people under the IFC banner we can easily become the government. How to deal with social problems of education, health, electricity supplies, and so on, is clear. The profits from oil exports should be distributed equally to the Iraqi people.
If we can do it, we will go on to socialism. But today Iraqi society is not a normal society. There is no state. The IFC aims to rebuild civil society and establish a government that will give a normal life to the Iraqi people. But if we can go forward to socialism, we will not hesitate.
Oil workers in southern Iraq are planning to strike against the sectarian militias — the Iraq Freedom Congress is asking all its members to support it.
The demands are:
• Abolition of all contracts which include imposed privatisation.
• The disbanding and expulsion of armed militias from Iraqi cities.
• An end to the killing of workers by the armed militias in Iraqi cities.
• Continued distribution of food rations.
• Continued distribution of profit-sharing bonuses to the oil workers.
In our view there is no real government, no real state, in Iraq. But we want to send a message to the occupation and to what is supposed to be the government of Iraq.
The IFC is working for an end to the sectarian militias. But as yet we are not strong enough to eliminate them. The strike is very important to unite workers and to show that there is another power in Iraq, independent from the occupation and the sectarian militias.
The southern oil union had put out a much longer and different list of demands (www.basraoilunion.org), but we now have agreement on the new demands.
We worked hard to get three of the leaders of the southern oil workers into IFC. In the end we convinced them that we need a secular government.
We know that previous statements from the southern oil union have been headed: “In the name of God, the most beneficent, the most merciful”. We are working to change that. We tell the union leaders that the workers have all sorts of views - Christian or atheist as well as Muslim - and the union should not impose on them statements “in the name of God”.
The positive thing is that in the oil union there is strong resistance to ethnic conflict and ethnic cleansing. There is no sectarian conflict among the workers in the workplaces.
IFC’s aim is to unite the workers. Our statement after the 22 February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra - “no Shia, no Sunni” - was very popular.
But there is a financial problem. We could open IFC offices, but we have no money. Because of our policy against Iran, against Syria, against the Gulf states, and against the occupation, we get no money from any state.
We know that in the past the southern oil workers have been mobilised in support of the provincial authorities in Basra in their conflicts with Baghdad over shares of the oil revenue. Among the leaders of the oil union there are also members of the Fadila party [a dissident Sadrist, Shia-Islamist group], which runs the provincial government.
The IFC decided to oppose meetings between the oil union and the provincial government. Our demands are not just demands for oil workers, but for all the workers in Iraq. Now we have Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister of the Baghdad government, negotiating with the oil union leaders.
There is political conflict inside the leadership of the oil union. To find the union’s statements referring approvingly to the “legally elected government” is not strange. But we are working hard to bring the whole union under IFC influence.
Three years ago Hassan Jumaa, the southern oil union leader, was pro-occupation. Last year, in the negotiations about a joint statement by Iraqi union leaders at the end of their speaking tour of the USA, he was against secularism. Now he has joined the IFC, which takes its stand against both political Islam and the occupation.
Against the Shia sectarian militias, the Sunni sectarian militias, and forces like Iyad Allawi’s, IFC represents another political pole.
Other unions have joined IFC, for example the General Federation of Trade Unions of Iraq, a grouping in Baghdad which comes from a split from the pro-Jaafari Iraqi Workers’ Union, has joined IFC.
The participants in the joint committee of Iraqi trade union organisations set up in January 2006 at a meeting sponsored by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions are Hassan Jumaa’s Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions of Iraq, and the Iraqi Workers’ Federation (formerly Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions). The FWCUI supports the oil workers’ strike call. We have sent a delegation to the IWF. We have had no response from them.
We asked about the programme and strategy of the IFC project — it is similar to the programme of the Worker-communist Party, but without any of the “worker” or “communist” social and economic demands. How can the IFC gain the forces to overpower both the US/UK and the Islamist militias without mobilising on the social, economic, class questions?
We have had elections in Iraq — nobody respects the results of those elections. There is no state, no law.
The IFC is working to establish a state and law. Where we have strength, we take responsibility for security and for distributing supplies. We say “no Shia, no Sunni” - you can believe what you want individually, but you should allow no discrimination. We want to pull people away from the sectarian groups and to end the occupation. The IFC represents our way to end the occupation. If the militias kill one US or British soldier, they kill ten Iraqi people at the same time. Actions like the planned strike in the oil industry show a better way.
By mobilising millions of people under the IFC banner we can easily become the government. How to deal with social problems of education, health, electricity supplies, and so on, is clear. The profits from oil exports should be distributed equally to the Iraqi people.
If we can do it, we will go on to socialism. But today Iraqi society is not a normal society. There is no state. The IFC aims to rebuild civil society and establish a government that will give a normal life to the Iraqi people. But if we can go forward to socialism, we will not hesitate.
Victory for Iraqi oilworkers
On 29 August, oil pipeline workers in Basra and in Nassiriyah, in southern Iraq, announced victory in their 48-hour strike of 22-23 August, which stopped oil supplies from the south to central Iraq.
The General Union of Oil Employees said that the strikers had won their demands:
1. Wages must be paid in due time.
2. Overtime work must be paid
3. Increase workers' allowances
4. Ambulances at workplaces to transfer sick workers to hospital when needed.
Union leader Hassan Jumaa said that the oil ministry was discussing a pay rise and restoration of the profit-sharing bonuses previously paid to oil workers.
But he warned that the workers would strike again if remaining grievances about management practices are not resolved.
The Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions was more upbeat, declaring that "a general strike by union workers could soon follow the Basra oil workers' strike", the FWCUI said. "Union leaders will meet next week to finalize demands and set a deadline for the authorities' response. The demands currently under discussion include housing the workers, raising minimum salaries, expanding limits of promotion and salary, converting contracted workers into full-time workers, and curbing bureaucracy and corruption.
"A joint national protest is being planned by oil workers in Basra, cement workers in Sulaimaniyah, employees of the Baghdad Municipality, and workers in the Central Oil Fields in Baghdad and the vicinity, the Al Dora Refinery, Al Taji Gas, Oil Projects, Engineering Oil Industries and the Oil Institution".
A two-hour meeting of leaders of the technicians' unions of the oil sector at FWCUI offices on 29 August 2006, says the FWCUI, decided "to hold an inclusive gathering for the leading unionists with the workers on Monday 4 September in order to finalise the demands and decide a deadline for the authorities. Otherwise, a general strike will be held to join the previous oil strike of the south".
The FWCUI also comments that "some political forces attempted to hijack and take advantage of the demands of the [Southern oil] workers for their own interests and objectives such as emphasising the division of the country based on the federalism in the south".
Southern oil workers have previously struck to back demands for more oil revenues to go to the Basra provincial government rather than Baghdad, demands promoted by the Fadila party, an Islamist party which controls the Basra provincial government. But this time, it seems, such demands were sidelined in favour of a united workers' stand to improve conditions for all workers.
At this time, the workers insist to have all of their demands met in full, otherwise the pipelines will not be opened and work will not continue.
The oil workers' strike was a tremendously important step in the revival of the new Iraqi labour movement after a long period, since early 2005, when it has been very much on the defensive. The recent social protests in Iraqi Kurdistan point the same way.
There is still a long way to travel between the workers gaining the confidence for limited action to improve their immediate conditions - a vital first step - and the workers' movement acquiring sufficient strength to pull Iraq out of its spiral into ever-hotter sectarian civil war.
Barham Salih is the official Iraqi government's deputy prime minister in charge of the economy. If he will not claim the Iraqi economy is going well, who will? On 29 August he had some good news to announce - an alleged deal (no details yet) between the major Iraqi parties over the distribution of oil revenue.
Yet in announcing the deal, Salih commented, deadpan: "Iraq is a devastated economic wasteland".
It is pretty much a devastated social and political wasteland too, three and a half years since the US/UK invasion - and getting worse.
On 1 September a Pentagon report to the US Congress said sectarian violence had worsened over the past three months
"Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife"... The Sunni-supremacist insurgency remains "potent and viable".
According to the Pentagon, attacks rose 24 per cent to 792 per week, and Iraqi casualties 51 per cent to nearly 120 per day, over the three months.
Is the official Iraqi government is in any condition to deal with this? Another deadpan US report tells us why not. US general William Caldwell has proudly announced the first of the 10 Iraqi divisions will be transferred from "coalition" (US) command to at least notional Iraqi government control at the start of September. "This is a significant step in the Iraqi path to self-reliance and security", Caldwell said. "What this means is that the Iraqi Minister of Defence is prepared to begin assuming direct operational control over Iraq's armed forces."
So the Iraqi armed forces were not even nominally under Iraqi government control before! Whether those armed forces - large parts of which are recycled Shia and Kurdish militias - will now do what Iraqi government ministers say, and whether they will have the logistic capability to do anything significant without heavy US cooperation, is yet to be seen.
The underlying story of the last few months is that USA has tacitly conceded defeat in its drive, over the last year or so, to make its military position in Iraq more manageable by "Iraqisation" - reducing troop numbers, and troop activity on the ground, and relying more on bombing from the air in support of Iraqi government forces cooperating with the USA.
US troop numbers are now rising rather than falling. In early August up to 7000 US troops went on to the streets of Baghdad in an effort described as "retaking the city". Without success.
Both the US/UK occupation, and the sectarian Islamist militias, are driving towards disaster. The Iraqi workers' movement now tentatively re-raising its head is the only hope for a democratic, livable, free Iraq. Solidarity with it is our first duty.
(Article by Martin Thomas from Solidarity 3/98)
The General Union of Oil Employees said that the strikers had won their demands:
1. Wages must be paid in due time.
2. Overtime work must be paid
3. Increase workers' allowances
4. Ambulances at workplaces to transfer sick workers to hospital when needed.
Union leader Hassan Jumaa said that the oil ministry was discussing a pay rise and restoration of the profit-sharing bonuses previously paid to oil workers.
But he warned that the workers would strike again if remaining grievances about management practices are not resolved.
The Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions was more upbeat, declaring that "a general strike by union workers could soon follow the Basra oil workers' strike", the FWCUI said. "Union leaders will meet next week to finalize demands and set a deadline for the authorities' response. The demands currently under discussion include housing the workers, raising minimum salaries, expanding limits of promotion and salary, converting contracted workers into full-time workers, and curbing bureaucracy and corruption.
"A joint national protest is being planned by oil workers in Basra, cement workers in Sulaimaniyah, employees of the Baghdad Municipality, and workers in the Central Oil Fields in Baghdad and the vicinity, the Al Dora Refinery, Al Taji Gas, Oil Projects, Engineering Oil Industries and the Oil Institution".
A two-hour meeting of leaders of the technicians' unions of the oil sector at FWCUI offices on 29 August 2006, says the FWCUI, decided "to hold an inclusive gathering for the leading unionists with the workers on Monday 4 September in order to finalise the demands and decide a deadline for the authorities. Otherwise, a general strike will be held to join the previous oil strike of the south".
The FWCUI also comments that "some political forces attempted to hijack and take advantage of the demands of the [Southern oil] workers for their own interests and objectives such as emphasising the division of the country based on the federalism in the south".
Southern oil workers have previously struck to back demands for more oil revenues to go to the Basra provincial government rather than Baghdad, demands promoted by the Fadila party, an Islamist party which controls the Basra provincial government. But this time, it seems, such demands were sidelined in favour of a united workers' stand to improve conditions for all workers.
At this time, the workers insist to have all of their demands met in full, otherwise the pipelines will not be opened and work will not continue.
The oil workers' strike was a tremendously important step in the revival of the new Iraqi labour movement after a long period, since early 2005, when it has been very much on the defensive. The recent social protests in Iraqi Kurdistan point the same way.
There is still a long way to travel between the workers gaining the confidence for limited action to improve their immediate conditions - a vital first step - and the workers' movement acquiring sufficient strength to pull Iraq out of its spiral into ever-hotter sectarian civil war.
Barham Salih is the official Iraqi government's deputy prime minister in charge of the economy. If he will not claim the Iraqi economy is going well, who will? On 29 August he had some good news to announce - an alleged deal (no details yet) between the major Iraqi parties over the distribution of oil revenue.
Yet in announcing the deal, Salih commented, deadpan: "Iraq is a devastated economic wasteland".
It is pretty much a devastated social and political wasteland too, three and a half years since the US/UK invasion - and getting worse.
On 1 September a Pentagon report to the US Congress said sectarian violence had worsened over the past three months
"Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife"... The Sunni-supremacist insurgency remains "potent and viable".
According to the Pentagon, attacks rose 24 per cent to 792 per week, and Iraqi casualties 51 per cent to nearly 120 per day, over the three months.
Is the official Iraqi government is in any condition to deal with this? Another deadpan US report tells us why not. US general William Caldwell has proudly announced the first of the 10 Iraqi divisions will be transferred from "coalition" (US) command to at least notional Iraqi government control at the start of September. "This is a significant step in the Iraqi path to self-reliance and security", Caldwell said. "What this means is that the Iraqi Minister of Defence is prepared to begin assuming direct operational control over Iraq's armed forces."
So the Iraqi armed forces were not even nominally under Iraqi government control before! Whether those armed forces - large parts of which are recycled Shia and Kurdish militias - will now do what Iraqi government ministers say, and whether they will have the logistic capability to do anything significant without heavy US cooperation, is yet to be seen.
The underlying story of the last few months is that USA has tacitly conceded defeat in its drive, over the last year or so, to make its military position in Iraq more manageable by "Iraqisation" - reducing troop numbers, and troop activity on the ground, and relying more on bombing from the air in support of Iraqi government forces cooperating with the USA.
US troop numbers are now rising rather than falling. In early August up to 7000 US troops went on to the streets of Baghdad in an effort described as "retaking the city". Without success.
Both the US/UK occupation, and the sectarian Islamist militias, are driving towards disaster. The Iraqi workers' movement now tentatively re-raising its head is the only hope for a democratic, livable, free Iraq. Solidarity with it is our first duty.
(Article by Martin Thomas from Solidarity 3/98)
Tuesday, September 5
Homophobic terror: The Talibanisation of Iraq
Peter Tatchell reveals the targeted execution of gay Iraqis by Islamist death squads. (As published in Tribune - London, UK - 1 September 2006). Parts of Iraq, including some Baghdad neighbourhoods, are now under the de facto control of Taliban-style fundamentalist militias.
They enforce a savage interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for ‘crimes’ like listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling videos, working in a barber’s shop, homosexuality, dancing, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.
Iraq is sliding fast towards theocracy and is likely to end up similar to Iran. The power and influence of fundamentalist militias is growing rapidly. Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Blair-backed Iraqi government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad’s ruling coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship.
Despite this goal of clerical fascism, the Socialist Workers Party and the Stop The War Coalition support Muqtada al-Sadr. They invited his representative to speak at the anti-war rally in London on 18 March. Not to be outdone, the July issue of the left-wing monthly Red Pepper gave over a whole page to white-washing al-Sadr’s crimes against humanity.
The terrorisation of gay Iraqis by these Islamist death squads is symptomatic of the fate that will befall all Iraqis if the fundamentalists continue to gain influence.
Under Saddam Hussein discrete homosexuality was usually tolerated. Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of gay people is commonplace. It is actively encouraged by Iraq’s leading cleric, the British and US-backed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He issued a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis. His followers in the Islamist militias are now systematically targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, as indicated by the following reports received from my clandestine gay activist contacts inside Iraq:
Wissam Auda was a member of Iraq’s Olympic tennis team. His dream was to play at Wimbledon this year. He had been receiving death threats from religious fanatics on account of his homosexuality. On 25 May, his vehicle was ambushed by fundamentalist militias in the al-Saidiya district of Baghdad. Wissam, together with his coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid and team mate Nasser Ali Hatem, were all summarily executed in the street. Their crime? Wearing shorts. An Iraqi National Guard checkpoint was about 100m from the site of the ambush, but the soldiers did nothing, according to eye-witnesses.
The father of 23 year old Baghdad arts student, Karzan, has been told by militias that his son has been sentenced to death for being gay. If his father refuses to hand over Karzan for execution, the militia has threatened to kill the family one by one. This has already happened to Bashar, 34, an actor. Because his parents refuse to reveal his hiding place, the Badr militia murdered two of his family members in retribution.
Nyaz is a 28-year old dentist who lives in Baghdad. She is terrified that her lesbian relationship will be discovered, and that both she and her partner will be killed. They have stopped seeing each other. It is too dangerous. To make matters worse, Nyaz is being forced by the fundamentalist Mahdi militia to marry an older, senior Mullah with close ties the Mahdi leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. If she does not agree to the marriage, or tries to run away, Nyaz and her family will be targeted for ‘honour killing’ by Sadr’s men.
Gay Iraqis cannot seek the protection of the police. Iraq’s security forces have been infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. They have huge influence in the Interior Ministry and the police, and can kill at will and with impunity.
Fourteen year old Ahmed Khalil was accused of corrupting the community because he had sex with men. According to his Baghdad neighbour, in April four men in police uniforms arrived at Ahmed’s house in a four-wheel-drive police pick-up truck. They wore the distinctive face masks of the Badr militia. The neighbour saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into the rest of his body.
In the chaos and lawlessness of post-war Iraq, hundreds of young boys are being blackmailed into the sex industry. The sex ring operators lure the boys into having gay sex, photograph them and then threaten to publish their photos unless they work as male prostitutes. If their gayness was publicly revealed, the boys would be executed by the Islamist militias. They are trapped.
Wathiq, aged 29, a gay architect, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March. Soon afterwards, the Badr militia sent his parents death threats, accusing them of allowing their son to lead a gay life and demanding a £11,000 ransom. The parents paid the money, thinking it would save Wathiq’s life. But he was found dead a few days later, with his body mutilated and his head cut off.
The UK gay rights group OutRage! is working to support our counterpart organisation in Baghdad, Iraqi LGBT. Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has established a clandestine network of gay activists inside Iraq’s major cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra. These courageous activists are helping gay people on the run from fundamentalist death squads; hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad, and helping them escape to Syria and Lebanon. The world ignores the fate of LGBT Iraqis at its peril. Their fate today is the fate of all Iraqis tomorrow.
* Iraqi LGBT is appealing for funds to help the work of their members in Iraq. They don’t yet have a bank account. The UK gay rights group OutRage! is helping them. Cheques should be made payable to “OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT.
More info on Iraqi LGBT: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/
They enforce a savage interpretation of Sharia law, summarily executing people for ‘crimes’ like listening to western pop music, wearing shorts or jeans, drinking alcohol, selling videos, working in a barber’s shop, homosexuality, dancing, having a Sunni name, adultery and, in the case of women, not being veiled or walking in the street unaccompanied by a male relative.
Iraq is sliding fast towards theocracy and is likely to end up similar to Iran. The power and influence of fundamentalist militias is growing rapidly. Two militias are doing most of the killing. They are the armed wings of major parties in the Blair-backed Iraqi government. Madhi is the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr, and Badr is the militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which is the leading political force in Baghdad’s ruling coalition. Both militias want to establish an Iranian-style religious dictatorship.
Despite this goal of clerical fascism, the Socialist Workers Party and the Stop The War Coalition support Muqtada al-Sadr. They invited his representative to speak at the anti-war rally in London on 18 March. Not to be outdone, the July issue of the left-wing monthly Red Pepper gave over a whole page to white-washing al-Sadr’s crimes against humanity.
The terrorisation of gay Iraqis by these Islamist death squads is symptomatic of the fate that will befall all Iraqis if the fundamentalists continue to gain influence.
Under Saddam Hussein discrete homosexuality was usually tolerated. Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of gay people is commonplace. It is actively encouraged by Iraq’s leading cleric, the British and US-backed Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He issued a fatwa ordering the execution of gay Iraqis. His followers in the Islamist militias are now systematically targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, as indicated by the following reports received from my clandestine gay activist contacts inside Iraq:
Wissam Auda was a member of Iraq’s Olympic tennis team. His dream was to play at Wimbledon this year. He had been receiving death threats from religious fanatics on account of his homosexuality. On 25 May, his vehicle was ambushed by fundamentalist militias in the al-Saidiya district of Baghdad. Wissam, together with his coach Hussein Ahmed Rashid and team mate Nasser Ali Hatem, were all summarily executed in the street. Their crime? Wearing shorts. An Iraqi National Guard checkpoint was about 100m from the site of the ambush, but the soldiers did nothing, according to eye-witnesses.
The father of 23 year old Baghdad arts student, Karzan, has been told by militias that his son has been sentenced to death for being gay. If his father refuses to hand over Karzan for execution, the militia has threatened to kill the family one by one. This has already happened to Bashar, 34, an actor. Because his parents refuse to reveal his hiding place, the Badr militia murdered two of his family members in retribution.
Nyaz is a 28-year old dentist who lives in Baghdad. She is terrified that her lesbian relationship will be discovered, and that both she and her partner will be killed. They have stopped seeing each other. It is too dangerous. To make matters worse, Nyaz is being forced by the fundamentalist Mahdi militia to marry an older, senior Mullah with close ties the Mahdi leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. If she does not agree to the marriage, or tries to run away, Nyaz and her family will be targeted for ‘honour killing’ by Sadr’s men.
Gay Iraqis cannot seek the protection of the police. Iraq’s security forces have been infiltrated by fundamentalists, especially the Badr militia. They have huge influence in the Interior Ministry and the police, and can kill at will and with impunity.
Fourteen year old Ahmed Khalil was accused of corrupting the community because he had sex with men. According to his Baghdad neighbour, in April four men in police uniforms arrived at Ahmed’s house in a four-wheel-drive police pick-up truck. They wore the distinctive face masks of the Badr militia. The neighbour saw the police drag Ahmed out of the house and shoot him at point-blank range, pumping two bullets into his head and several more bullets into the rest of his body.
In the chaos and lawlessness of post-war Iraq, hundreds of young boys are being blackmailed into the sex industry. The sex ring operators lure the boys into having gay sex, photograph them and then threaten to publish their photos unless they work as male prostitutes. If their gayness was publicly revealed, the boys would be executed by the Islamist militias. They are trapped.
Wathiq, aged 29, a gay architect, was kidnapped in Baghdad in March. Soon afterwards, the Badr militia sent his parents death threats, accusing them of allowing their son to lead a gay life and demanding a £11,000 ransom. The parents paid the money, thinking it would save Wathiq’s life. But he was found dead a few days later, with his body mutilated and his head cut off.
The UK gay rights group OutRage! is working to support our counterpart organisation in Baghdad, Iraqi LGBT. Despite the great danger involved, Iraqi LGBT has established a clandestine network of gay activists inside Iraq’s major cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra. These courageous activists are helping gay people on the run from fundamentalist death squads; hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad, and helping them escape to Syria and Lebanon. The world ignores the fate of LGBT Iraqis at its peril. Their fate today is the fate of all Iraqis tomorrow.
* Iraqi LGBT is appealing for funds to help the work of their members in Iraq. They don’t yet have a bank account. The UK gay rights group OutRage! is helping them. Cheques should be made payable to “OutRage!”, with a cover note marked “For Iraqi LGBT”, and sent to OutRage!, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT.
More info on Iraqi LGBT: http://iraqilgbtuk.blogspot.com/
Friday, September 1
Sign the petition for human rights in Kurdistan
Please sign the petition at the web address below, to protest against the massive human rights violations perpetrated by the PUK-KDP government of Iraqi Kurdistan. http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ifir2006/petition.html
Kurdistan unsafe but Home Office still intent on sending people back there
Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq press release: An increasing number of Iraqi Kurds have been detained in the past month.
We estimate the Home Office may have 40 or more Iraqi Kurds in detention in Colnbrook, Campsfield, Harmonsworth and Dover. We understand that the Home Office plans to restart forced removals to Iraq in September.
All over Britain Iraqis are living in fear of a dawn raid on their home, or of arrest at their place of work or when they go to report at the Home Office signing centre. They fear losing even the precarious position they have found in British society.
Kurdistan unsafe
The dangers of central and southern Iraq are well-known. Less well-known are conditions in Northern Iraq / South Kurdistan. But news from there shows that contrary to what Tony Blair and his Home Office would have us believe, Northern Iraq too is not free, safe and democratic.
In the last 3 weeks some 400 people have been arrested and 60 people injured.
It is reported that about 2000 young people have fled the country within a week.
Security forces from the two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the PUK, regularly shoot demonstrators.
Investigative journalists are routinely arrested by the security forces.
Honour killings and suicides by women have reached epidemic levels.
Many people arrested in March 2006 in Halabja after protests about lack of health care and services in the town, and the way the PUK leadership cash in on Halabja’s suffering, are still in prison.
At the end of July cement factory workers, striking because they had not been paid, were shot at and 13 were injured by the security forces in Suleimanyia.
On 7 August 1000 people took part in a demonstration in Chamchamal, and the PUK arrested ten of them.
In Darbandixan south of Suleimanyia on 7 August during a demonstration the PUK arrested 100 protesters and wounded 11.
Protests have also taken place in Kalar, Kifri, Zarayan, Kirkuk.
Why the protests in Kurdistan?
People are fed up with seeing rampant official corruption and incompetence and the luxurious lifestyles of the party leaders and their hangers-on. This all contrasts painfully with run-away inflation, high unemployment rates, petrol shortages, water shortages, power cuts, a losing battle to make ends meet for ordinary people, and persecution if you overstep the narrow bounds of acceptable criticism.
European Council for Refugees opposes forced and mandatory returns
The European Council on Exiles and Refugees said in its March 2006 report, “ECRE believes that the current situation in Iraq is such that the mandatory or forced return of Iraqis is unacceptable, and recommends a continued ban on forced return to any part of the country, including the Kurdish Autonomous Region.”
Our demands
We have said before, and we repeat now, that Iraq, including Kurdistan, is dangerous, and that it is wrong to return people there. People who had problems with the KDP or PUK or Islamist groups in the past will still be at risk of the same problems if they are sent back now – the KDP and PUK are still in power, and the Islamists are still active. Plus the general security situation is not good.
Once again we call on the Home Office to
recognise that Iraq is not safe, and that people should not be returned there.
to regularise the status of asylum seekers from Iraq to whom they have so far refused protection, by giving them leave to remain, and the right either to work or to decent levels of benefits, in line with the recent proposals made by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in their document “Recognising Rights, Recognising Political Realities” published on 13 July.
For more information contact Sarah Parker on 0207– 809 - 0633 or 0793-211-6615 sarahp107@hotmail.com or Dashty Jamal, International Federation of Iraqi Refugees 0785 603 2991or d.jamal@ntlworld.com or sarahp107@hotmail.com.
See also the website www.csdiraq.com
No Deportations to Iraq!
We estimate the Home Office may have 40 or more Iraqi Kurds in detention in Colnbrook, Campsfield, Harmonsworth and Dover. We understand that the Home Office plans to restart forced removals to Iraq in September.
All over Britain Iraqis are living in fear of a dawn raid on their home, or of arrest at their place of work or when they go to report at the Home Office signing centre. They fear losing even the precarious position they have found in British society.
Kurdistan unsafe
The dangers of central and southern Iraq are well-known. Less well-known are conditions in Northern Iraq / South Kurdistan. But news from there shows that contrary to what Tony Blair and his Home Office would have us believe, Northern Iraq too is not free, safe and democratic.
In the last 3 weeks some 400 people have been arrested and 60 people injured.
It is reported that about 2000 young people have fled the country within a week.
Security forces from the two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the PUK, regularly shoot demonstrators.
Investigative journalists are routinely arrested by the security forces.
Honour killings and suicides by women have reached epidemic levels.
Many people arrested in March 2006 in Halabja after protests about lack of health care and services in the town, and the way the PUK leadership cash in on Halabja’s suffering, are still in prison.
At the end of July cement factory workers, striking because they had not been paid, were shot at and 13 were injured by the security forces in Suleimanyia.
On 7 August 1000 people took part in a demonstration in Chamchamal, and the PUK arrested ten of them.
In Darbandixan south of Suleimanyia on 7 August during a demonstration the PUK arrested 100 protesters and wounded 11.
Protests have also taken place in Kalar, Kifri, Zarayan, Kirkuk.
Why the protests in Kurdistan?
People are fed up with seeing rampant official corruption and incompetence and the luxurious lifestyles of the party leaders and their hangers-on. This all contrasts painfully with run-away inflation, high unemployment rates, petrol shortages, water shortages, power cuts, a losing battle to make ends meet for ordinary people, and persecution if you overstep the narrow bounds of acceptable criticism.
European Council for Refugees opposes forced and mandatory returns
The European Council on Exiles and Refugees said in its March 2006 report, “ECRE believes that the current situation in Iraq is such that the mandatory or forced return of Iraqis is unacceptable, and recommends a continued ban on forced return to any part of the country, including the Kurdish Autonomous Region.”
Our demands
We have said before, and we repeat now, that Iraq, including Kurdistan, is dangerous, and that it is wrong to return people there. People who had problems with the KDP or PUK or Islamist groups in the past will still be at risk of the same problems if they are sent back now – the KDP and PUK are still in power, and the Islamists are still active. Plus the general security situation is not good.
Once again we call on the Home Office to
recognise that Iraq is not safe, and that people should not be returned there.
to regularise the status of asylum seekers from Iraq to whom they have so far refused protection, by giving them leave to remain, and the right either to work or to decent levels of benefits, in line with the recent proposals made by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in their document “Recognising Rights, Recognising Political Realities” published on 13 July.
For more information contact Sarah Parker on 0207– 809 - 0633 or 0793-211-6615 sarahp107@hotmail.com or Dashty Jamal, International Federation of Iraqi Refugees 0785 603 2991or d.jamal@ntlworld.com or sarahp107@hotmail.com.
See also the website www.csdiraq.com
No Deportations to Iraq!
Sunday, August 27
Oil Strike in Iraq
Under the leadership of the Southern Oil Union, the workers of the Oil Pipes Company in Shoayba in the southern Iraqi city of Basra began a general strike at 8.00 AM on 22 August 2006. The strike has completely paralysed pumping oil from all Iraqi ports in Basra.
This strike came after months of protests by workers against their working condition and low wages. The workers' demands are as follow:
1. Wages must be paid in due time.
2. Overtime work must be paid
3. Increase workers' allowances
4. Provide ambulances at working places to transfer sick workers to hospital when needed.
The government and its administrations have turned a blind eye to the demands raised by workers for months. Therefore the workers were forced to resort to the weapon of strike to impose their demands on the government and South Oil Company.
We express our support for the workers and their demands. We ask the government and its administrations to immediately meet the workers' demands. We hold the occupation and the government installed by it responsible for the consequences of this strike.
We call on all labour organisations, trade unions and all freedom loving people to support this strike and to exert pressure on the Iraqi government to meet the demands of Basra oil workers.
From the "Abroad Organisation of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq".
This strike came after months of protests by workers against their working condition and low wages. The workers' demands are as follow:
1. Wages must be paid in due time.
2. Overtime work must be paid
3. Increase workers' allowances
4. Provide ambulances at working places to transfer sick workers to hospital when needed.
The government and its administrations have turned a blind eye to the demands raised by workers for months. Therefore the workers were forced to resort to the weapon of strike to impose their demands on the government and South Oil Company.
We express our support for the workers and their demands. We ask the government and its administrations to immediately meet the workers' demands. We hold the occupation and the government installed by it responsible for the consequences of this strike.
We call on all labour organisations, trade unions and all freedom loving people to support this strike and to exert pressure on the Iraqi government to meet the demands of Basra oil workers.
From the "Abroad Organisation of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq".
Friday, July 28
PUK attacks striking workers in Iraqi Kurdistan
This morning (27th July) the PUK injured 13 workers at a factory in Tasloja in Sulaimaniya in Iraq.
The workers' only crime was to be taking part in a picket of a cement factory calling for an increase of wages. This is a clear infringement of democratic rights and basic freedom of expression.
Protest in front of PUK’s office on Tuesday 1st August - from 12:00 to 14:00
At 5 Glass House Walk
London SE5. Nearest tube station: Vauxhall (Victoria line)
-----------------------------
We the undersigned call on Trade Union Branches and human rights organisations to send messages to Jalal Talabani who was selected as president of Iraq in April. condemning this action.
Appeals to:
Mr. Jalal Talabani
President
Republic of Iraq
Convention Centre (Qasr al-Ma’aridh)
Baghdad, Iraq
If you have a fax, please send appeals via the PUK offices abroad and ask them to be forwarded to President Talabani:
- PUK office in United Kingdom: fax: +44 20 7 840 0630
- PUK office in United States: fax:+1 202 637 2723
- PUK office in Germany: fax: +49 30 863 987 94
- PUK office in France: fax:+33 1 409 00282
- PUK office in Italy: fax:+39 06 50 37120 (if someone answers ask for the fax line)
- PUK office in the EU: fax:+31 703 895832 (if someone answers ask for the fax line)
- PUK office in Sweden: fax: +46 8 917693 (if someone answers ask for the fax line)
COPIES TO: International Federation of Iraqi Refugees-d.jamal@ntlworld.com, TEL: 07856 032991
Dashty Jamal IFIR
David Broder Convenor of Iraq Union Solidarity
Karen Johnson No Sweat
The workers' only crime was to be taking part in a picket of a cement factory calling for an increase of wages. This is a clear infringement of democratic rights and basic freedom of expression.
Protest in front of PUK’s office on Tuesday 1st August - from 12:00 to 14:00
At 5 Glass House Walk
London SE5. Nearest tube station: Vauxhall (Victoria line)
-----------------------------
We the undersigned call on Trade Union Branches and human rights organisations to send messages to Jalal Talabani who was selected as president of Iraq in April. condemning this action.
Appeals to:
Mr. Jalal Talabani
President
Republic of Iraq
Convention Centre (Qasr al-Ma’aridh)
Baghdad, Iraq
If you have a fax, please send appeals via the PUK offices abroad and ask them to be forwarded to President Talabani:
- PUK office in United Kingdom: fax: +44 20 7 840 0630
- PUK office in United States: fax:+1 202 637 2723
- PUK office in Germany: fax: +49 30 863 987 94
- PUK office in France: fax:+33 1 409 00282
- PUK office in Italy: fax:+39 06 50 37120 (if someone answers ask for the fax line)
- PUK office in the EU: fax:+31 703 895832 (if someone answers ask for the fax line)
- PUK office in Sweden: fax: +46 8 917693 (if someone answers ask for the fax line)
COPIES TO: International Federation of Iraqi Refugees-d.jamal@ntlworld.com, TEL: 07856 032991
Dashty Jamal IFIR
David Broder Convenor of Iraq Union Solidarity
Karen Johnson No Sweat
Monday, July 24
Health workers in Kurdish north demand more benefits
Health workers in Iraq's northern Kurdish Region have said they would stage a mass strike unless the regional authorities pay them extra benefits.
Earlier this month, five of the region’s health-related professional unions announced their intention to go on strike on 9 July if the government failed to pay benefits to their members. The strike was averted, however, until 19 July, after government officials held talks with union representatives.
Physicians and dentists currently receive 150,000 Iraqi Dinars (roughly US $100) because they are subject to daily contact with sick people, some of whom have transmittable diseases. They argue that some other professionals, like police, receive similar benefits for risks taken to their wellbeing.
Health unions complain that they have already set several deadlines for the government, which has so far failed to respond to their demands. “Consequently, we were obliged to take a decision to go on strike if the government doesn’t accept our demands for restoring the benefits of health employees,” said Khunaw Hassan, secretary-general of the syndicate for health professionals.
Prior to the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003, health employees received regular monthly benefits. These were decreased considerably, however, in the wake of the war.
But since early this year, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has restored the work benefits of its physicians, dentists and pharmacists, but not for lower-ranking health employees. This infuriated health unions, which now insist that all staff be paid equitably.
Talks between government and union representatives – with the aim of resolving the crisis – are currently underway. “Things are going positively, and some sort of agreement has been reached between the two sides,” KRG health minister Dr Ziryan Othman Yunes told IRIN. “I hope there won’t be any strikes, as there is now some common ground.” He declined, however, to reveal details about ongoing negotiations.
Yunes went on to warn that a major strike by health employees would negatively impact the lives of the local population, although he added that planned strikes would not include the staffs of hospitals or health clinics.
Earlier this month, five of the region’s health-related professional unions announced their intention to go on strike on 9 July if the government failed to pay benefits to their members. The strike was averted, however, until 19 July, after government officials held talks with union representatives.
Physicians and dentists currently receive 150,000 Iraqi Dinars (roughly US $100) because they are subject to daily contact with sick people, some of whom have transmittable diseases. They argue that some other professionals, like police, receive similar benefits for risks taken to their wellbeing.
Health unions complain that they have already set several deadlines for the government, which has so far failed to respond to their demands. “Consequently, we were obliged to take a decision to go on strike if the government doesn’t accept our demands for restoring the benefits of health employees,” said Khunaw Hassan, secretary-general of the syndicate for health professionals.
Prior to the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003, health employees received regular monthly benefits. These were decreased considerably, however, in the wake of the war.
But since early this year, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has restored the work benefits of its physicians, dentists and pharmacists, but not for lower-ranking health employees. This infuriated health unions, which now insist that all staff be paid equitably.
Talks between government and union representatives – with the aim of resolving the crisis – are currently underway. “Things are going positively, and some sort of agreement has been reached between the two sides,” KRG health minister Dr Ziryan Othman Yunes told IRIN. “I hope there won’t be any strikes, as there is now some common ground.” He declined, however, to reveal details about ongoing negotiations.
Yunes went on to warn that a major strike by health employees would negatively impact the lives of the local population, although he added that planned strikes would not include the staffs of hospitals or health clinics.
Wednesday, July 12
Public Meeting - Samir Adil President of Iraq Freedom Congress
Date: Thursday 13 July 2006
Time: 6.30-10.00PM
Venue: Room 3E Union of London University (ULU), Malet Street, London WC1
Nearest Tubes: Goodge Street and Warren Street underground stations.
Samir Adil, the President of Iraq Freedom Congress will travel to London from Iraq to offer a first hand account of the real life and situation on the ground in Iraq.
This is a good opportunity to hear and find out about life under the occupation and at the mercy of the Islamic terrorists.
Samir Adil has been living in Iraq like many millions of Iraqis experiencing the daily risks on his life, especially when he has attempted to organise people in their neighbourhoods to provide security for themselves. He has first hand information about the appalling situation in Iraq and would share his experience of mobilising secular progressive Iraqis to bring some sense of normality and security to their lives.
For further information please contact Houzan Mahmoud the head of Iraq Freedom Congress abroad.
houzan73@yahoo.co.uk Tel: 07956883001 for info on IFC www.ifcongress.com
Time: 6.30-10.00PM
Venue: Room 3E Union of London University (ULU), Malet Street, London WC1
Nearest Tubes: Goodge Street and Warren Street underground stations.
Samir Adil, the President of Iraq Freedom Congress will travel to London from Iraq to offer a first hand account of the real life and situation on the ground in Iraq.
This is a good opportunity to hear and find out about life under the occupation and at the mercy of the Islamic terrorists.
Samir Adil has been living in Iraq like many millions of Iraqis experiencing the daily risks on his life, especially when he has attempted to organise people in their neighbourhoods to provide security for themselves. He has first hand information about the appalling situation in Iraq and would share his experience of mobilising secular progressive Iraqis to bring some sense of normality and security to their lives.
For further information please contact Houzan Mahmoud the head of Iraq Freedom Congress abroad.
houzan73@yahoo.co.uk Tel: 07956883001 for info on IFC www.ifcongress.com
Tuesday, July 11
Support the Oil Workers Strike for a Secure, Prosperous and Free Iraq
The IFC Executive Bureau decided in an emergency session following the July 1, 2006, meeting of IFC and southern oil workers’ trade union leaders (who hold positions on the IFC Central Council) to provide full support to the oil workers’ strike. The oil workers will strike for the following demands:
· Abolishment of all contracts including privatization imposed on the workers of Iraq, particularly oil workers.
· The disbanding and repulsion of armed militias from Basra and all other Iraqi cities.
· An end to the killing of workers committed by the armed militia in the Iraqi cities.
· Redistribution of the ration food without taking away any item listed in the ration coupon.
· Redistribution of the profits among the workers in the oil sector.
To all organizations and trade unions in the world…
To all libertarian parties and organizations in the world…
The upcoming strike of the oil workers aims to bring security and build a free and democratic society in Iraq. IFC stands in the forefront to defend the struggle of the oil workers. The demands put forward by the oil workers are the demands of all Iraqis. IFC has issued its instructions to all affiliate organizations and IFC branches in Iraq to support this strike. Strikes will be staged, mass demonstrations will be held, and union protests in the various sectors will be carried out in the areas where IFC is influential.
Iraq Freedom Congress appeals to you to support and uphold the struggle of the southern oil workers. This strike will hit the occupation and its puppet government hard. It is the struggle that will unite the Iraqis against the sectarian gangs who aim to plant discrimination among the workers and the rest of the society.
Your support and assistance is another way to resist the occupation and further empower our front in Iraq.
Stand up for the oil workers’ strike. Your support will strengthen Iraq Freedom Congress.
Samir Adil
Iraq Freedom Congress/President
Baghdad
July 2, 2006
· Abolishment of all contracts including privatization imposed on the workers of Iraq, particularly oil workers.
· The disbanding and repulsion of armed militias from Basra and all other Iraqi cities.
· An end to the killing of workers committed by the armed militia in the Iraqi cities.
· Redistribution of the ration food without taking away any item listed in the ration coupon.
· Redistribution of the profits among the workers in the oil sector.
To all organizations and trade unions in the world…
To all libertarian parties and organizations in the world…
The upcoming strike of the oil workers aims to bring security and build a free and democratic society in Iraq. IFC stands in the forefront to defend the struggle of the oil workers. The demands put forward by the oil workers are the demands of all Iraqis. IFC has issued its instructions to all affiliate organizations and IFC branches in Iraq to support this strike. Strikes will be staged, mass demonstrations will be held, and union protests in the various sectors will be carried out in the areas where IFC is influential.
Iraq Freedom Congress appeals to you to support and uphold the struggle of the southern oil workers. This strike will hit the occupation and its puppet government hard. It is the struggle that will unite the Iraqis against the sectarian gangs who aim to plant discrimination among the workers and the rest of the society.
Your support and assistance is another way to resist the occupation and further empower our front in Iraq.
Stand up for the oil workers’ strike. Your support will strengthen Iraq Freedom Congress.
Samir Adil
Iraq Freedom Congress/President
Baghdad
July 2, 2006
Wednesday, June 28
A Reply To Owen Tudor on Decree 8750
Dear Friend,
Please treat this as an open letter and feel free to circulate.
The head of the TUC European Union and International Department, Owen Tudor, has written a letter criticising Iraq's oil workers' union, for not building links with certain international union federations, and lambasting solidarity organisations for issuing statements alerting the trade unions and general public to the escalating anti-trade union measures and oil privatisation plans in Iraq. [Copies of Owen Tudor's statement, and the Naftana (Arabic for "our oil") and US Labour Against the War (USLAW) statements are reproduced below this email.]
Instead of directing his fire at the anti-trade union measures in occupied Iraq, Owen Tudor prefers to level a false accusation against a besieged trade union representing impoverished workers, languishing under a ruthless occupation. He also takes a swipe at "small" solidarity organisations in Britain and USA, and engages in diversionary nitpicking and making light of the grave problems facing the Iraqi people and trade unions.
But despite Owen Tudor's attempt to cloud the issues and downplay the seriousness of the problems facing Iraq's genuinely independent trade unionists, the facts are plain and simple to understand. The Iraqi government has, in the past few months, accelerated the implementation of decree 8750. The Iraqi Ministerial Council approved decree 8750 in August 2005 (probably not published in the official gazette till September) promising "a new paper on how trade unions should function, operate and organise," dissolving one government committee and replacing it with a new ministerial committee that includes the minister for National Security, to be in charge of Labour and Social Rights, and stating that the new committee would control all trade union funds. Using wording rivalling the deviousness of the Saddam regime's 1987 anti-trade union law, decree 8750 does not ban trade unions. In 2004 US administrator Paul Bremer issued a notorious directive, still in effect, reviving Saddam's 1987 anti-union decree, which also did not ban trade unions as such, but merely deemed all workers in the state sector to be civil servants. Civil servants were of course banned from joining trade unions.
Similarly, decree 8750 is worded such that it effectively makes all union activity illegal. The decree states that the new ministerial committee "must take control of all monies belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies." How trade unions can function legally when it is illegal to dispense a penny on their activities, only Owen Tudor knows. He also knows how to stay calm and not resort to "hyperbole" when "Unions in Iraq are clearly still functioning, and have been since the Decree was announced." In English, this means that his TUC department will not launch a serious campaign to defend Iraq's independent trade unionists until they all stop functioning.
While the country burned and cities were at the receiving end of trigger-happy US Marines, US air and land bombardment, and occupation-induced terrorist attacks, the government proceeded this year with the implementation of the anti-union policies and decrees. As if it was not bad enough that his TUC department did not campaign to defend the Iraqi lawyers' and writers' unions, Owen Tudor tries to downplay nakedly anti-union measures by describing properly constituted unions, with elected officers, as "more professional associations than trade unions."
In April the government accelerated the implementation of its 8750 anti-union decree. Contrary to Tudor Owen's accusations of "hyperbole," the Naftana statement below understates the scale of the problem facing Iraqi trade unions by highlighting the actual freezing of the accounts of only the oil workers' union. The government decree in fact ordered control over the accounts of all trade unions (including those close to the government).
I find it astonishing that he chooses to accuse the oil workers union, whom the TUC officially invited to Britain last year, of not communicating with international union federations. He knows very well that the oil workers' union has been trying very hard to establish such contacts in the face of insidious, but polite and patronising disregard. He also knows that this union is financially strapped -(the price of true independence under occupation)- and relies heavily on its supporters in Britain to communicate its news in English to the British and world trade union movement. Instead of publicly criticising the union, he should be writing to them expressing concern at the news of freezing their account, ascertaining the full facts and offering financial and other help. He should also be asking them how the TUC could help the union's planned second anti-privatisation conference in Basra.
It is deeply regrettable that some in the TUC international department prefer to turn a blind eye to certain international events, which are seriously threatening trade unionists abroad, if such events are deemed to be politically embarrassing to Blair's government. For them Iraq is building a democracy, and strangling independent trade union activity does not fit in with that fictitious Blairite image of Iraq, an image designed to lull trade unionists into silence about the gravity of the situation in Iraq, and thwart calls for the swift withdrawal of the US and British occupation forces.
In the name of supporting a fictitious democratic process, they are in effect helping to crush democratic activity. And by not exposing the consequences of the Blairite (Thatcherite) alliance with the Bush administration, some in the TUC international department are, probably with good intentions, helping prolong the occupation of Iraq and privatisation and theft of Iraqi oil and other wealth by the transnationals. In doing this, they are also damaging the reputation and proud record of most of Britain's unions, strongly opposed to the war and continuing occupation of Iraq. Instead, Tudor Owen should also be alerting Britain's unions to the fact that the Iraq's oil minister is preparing the ground for signing privatisation agreements, deceptively called Production Sharing Agreements, with the transnational oil barons.
The TUC is perhaps not aware that the occupation authorities have spent millions of dollars on so called civil society and other 'sweetheart' organisations to prop up activities designed to draw attention away from the war crimes of the occupation forces and plans to privatise Iraq's oil and main industries. The implementation, probably selectively, of decree 8750 will hit the genuinely independent organisations hardest, because they rely heavily on the pennies they collect from impoverished workers and donations collected by solidarity organisations .
Decree 8750 is aimed at strangling the truly independent trade unions and other mass organisations. International solidarity helps them stay independent and to resist pressures to turn them into 'sweetheart' unions, docile apologists of the occupation and the transnationals.
Best wishes,
Sami Ramadani
26 June 2006
**************************************************
Sami Ramadani,
Department of Applied Social Sciences,
London Metropolitan University, City Campus,
Old Castle Street, London, E1 7NT
Tel: 020 7320 1280
Email:Sami.Ramadani@londonmet.ac.uk
**************************************************
1. Statement by the TUC's Owen Tudor
"The TUC is unaware of what has happened to the Oil Workers Union (it
doesn't help that they seem only to communicate with small campaigning
organisations rather than the global oil workers federation (ICEM) or
the global trade union movement (ICFTU), but it is certainly true that
Decree 8750 has been used to intervene in the lawyers union and others
(note that this organisation and others affected are more professional
associations than trade unions, not that that makes the government's
actions any better).
However, it is a massive exaggeration to describe Decree 8750 as "the
September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal", and
things are bad enough without exaggerating and giving completely the
wrong impression. Unions in Iraq are clearly still functioning, and have
been since the Decree was announced (in August by the way).
This is not intended to stop people protesting about Decree 8750, as the
TUC, ICFTU and Iraqi unions have been for nearly a year. But hyperbole
doesn't help, it sends people off in the wrong direction.
Owen Tudor, Head of TUC European Union and International Relations
Department
Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7467 1325 -- Fax: +44 (0) 20 7436 2830 -- Mobile: +44
(0) 7788 715261 "
2. Naftana Statement (a very similar statement was also issued by US Labor Against the War (USLWA))
OIL UNION BANK ACCOUNT FROZEN
IRAQI GOVERNMENT ATTACKS OPPONENTS OF OIL PRIVATISATION
We have just confirmed reports that the Iraqi regime has frozen all
the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers' union, both abroad and
within Iraq.
Wave of anti-union activity by government
The Iraqi regime's decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures,
including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers' union,
freezing the writers' union accounts and the September 2005 decree
making all trade union activity illegal. For that anti-union act the
regime used the pretext of promising the promulgation of a future law
to 'regulate' trade union organisations and their activities.
This action follows in the footsteps of US administrator Paul Bremer
In 2004 Paul Bremer, the occupation's then pro-consul in Iraq,
declared trade union activity in the state sector illegal. That
decision re-enacted Saddam Hussain's 1987 decree banning workers'
unions in the state sector by declaring them to be 'civil servants'
rather than 'workers'.
Hamstringing opponents of oil rip-off
Iraq's enormous oil wealth is being groomed for Production Sharing
Agreements, which would transfer effective control over all aspects
of oil policy, production and marketing to multination oil
companies. The oil workers' union is one of the most effective
opponents of this policy, organising an anti-privatisation conference
last year and another one to come this year.
Notes for journalistss
The GUOE organises over 23,000 oil and gas industry workers Naftana
(Arabic: 'our oil') was set up by UK activists after contact with the
GUOE. We are in regular contact with the leadership of the union.
In August 2003 the union halted oil exports for two days as a protest
over low wages.
The GUOE is independent of any political party or union federation.
GUOE executive committee members, including its President, were part
of the opposition against Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and many
were imprisoned by the regime. The GUOE is opposed to the military
occupation of Iraq and to the privatisation of the oil and industrial
sectors of Iraq.
The GUOE is a successor to the Southern Oil Company Union (SOCU), set
up immediately after the fall of the Saddam regime.
In October 2003 union activists kicked US company KBR out of oil
industry workplaces.
Sign up to the Naftana email alerts system at
naftana-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
For news of the oil workers union, visit the union's website:
Please treat this as an open letter and feel free to circulate.
The head of the TUC European Union and International Department, Owen Tudor, has written a letter criticising Iraq's oil workers' union, for not building links with certain international union federations, and lambasting solidarity organisations for issuing statements alerting the trade unions and general public to the escalating anti-trade union measures and oil privatisation plans in Iraq. [Copies of Owen Tudor's statement, and the Naftana (Arabic for "our oil") and US Labour Against the War (USLAW) statements are reproduced below this email.]
Instead of directing his fire at the anti-trade union measures in occupied Iraq, Owen Tudor prefers to level a false accusation against a besieged trade union representing impoverished workers, languishing under a ruthless occupation. He also takes a swipe at "small" solidarity organisations in Britain and USA, and engages in diversionary nitpicking and making light of the grave problems facing the Iraqi people and trade unions.
But despite Owen Tudor's attempt to cloud the issues and downplay the seriousness of the problems facing Iraq's genuinely independent trade unionists, the facts are plain and simple to understand. The Iraqi government has, in the past few months, accelerated the implementation of decree 8750. The Iraqi Ministerial Council approved decree 8750 in August 2005 (probably not published in the official gazette till September) promising "a new paper on how trade unions should function, operate and organise," dissolving one government committee and replacing it with a new ministerial committee that includes the minister for National Security, to be in charge of Labour and Social Rights, and stating that the new committee would control all trade union funds. Using wording rivalling the deviousness of the Saddam regime's 1987 anti-trade union law, decree 8750 does not ban trade unions. In 2004 US administrator Paul Bremer issued a notorious directive, still in effect, reviving Saddam's 1987 anti-union decree, which also did not ban trade unions as such, but merely deemed all workers in the state sector to be civil servants. Civil servants were of course banned from joining trade unions.
Similarly, decree 8750 is worded such that it effectively makes all union activity illegal. The decree states that the new ministerial committee "must take control of all monies belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies." How trade unions can function legally when it is illegal to dispense a penny on their activities, only Owen Tudor knows. He also knows how to stay calm and not resort to "hyperbole" when "Unions in Iraq are clearly still functioning, and have been since the Decree was announced." In English, this means that his TUC department will not launch a serious campaign to defend Iraq's independent trade unionists until they all stop functioning.
While the country burned and cities were at the receiving end of trigger-happy US Marines, US air and land bombardment, and occupation-induced terrorist attacks, the government proceeded this year with the implementation of the anti-union policies and decrees. As if it was not bad enough that his TUC department did not campaign to defend the Iraqi lawyers' and writers' unions, Owen Tudor tries to downplay nakedly anti-union measures by describing properly constituted unions, with elected officers, as "more professional associations than trade unions."
In April the government accelerated the implementation of its 8750 anti-union decree. Contrary to Tudor Owen's accusations of "hyperbole," the Naftana statement below understates the scale of the problem facing Iraqi trade unions by highlighting the actual freezing of the accounts of only the oil workers' union. The government decree in fact ordered control over the accounts of all trade unions (including those close to the government).
I find it astonishing that he chooses to accuse the oil workers union, whom the TUC officially invited to Britain last year, of not communicating with international union federations. He knows very well that the oil workers' union has been trying very hard to establish such contacts in the face of insidious, but polite and patronising disregard. He also knows that this union is financially strapped -(the price of true independence under occupation)- and relies heavily on its supporters in Britain to communicate its news in English to the British and world trade union movement. Instead of publicly criticising the union, he should be writing to them expressing concern at the news of freezing their account, ascertaining the full facts and offering financial and other help. He should also be asking them how the TUC could help the union's planned second anti-privatisation conference in Basra.
It is deeply regrettable that some in the TUC international department prefer to turn a blind eye to certain international events, which are seriously threatening trade unionists abroad, if such events are deemed to be politically embarrassing to Blair's government. For them Iraq is building a democracy, and strangling independent trade union activity does not fit in with that fictitious Blairite image of Iraq, an image designed to lull trade unionists into silence about the gravity of the situation in Iraq, and thwart calls for the swift withdrawal of the US and British occupation forces.
In the name of supporting a fictitious democratic process, they are in effect helping to crush democratic activity. And by not exposing the consequences of the Blairite (Thatcherite) alliance with the Bush administration, some in the TUC international department are, probably with good intentions, helping prolong the occupation of Iraq and privatisation and theft of Iraqi oil and other wealth by the transnationals. In doing this, they are also damaging the reputation and proud record of most of Britain's unions, strongly opposed to the war and continuing occupation of Iraq. Instead, Tudor Owen should also be alerting Britain's unions to the fact that the Iraq's oil minister is preparing the ground for signing privatisation agreements, deceptively called Production Sharing Agreements, with the transnational oil barons.
The TUC is perhaps not aware that the occupation authorities have spent millions of dollars on so called civil society and other 'sweetheart' organisations to prop up activities designed to draw attention away from the war crimes of the occupation forces and plans to privatise Iraq's oil and main industries. The implementation, probably selectively, of decree 8750 will hit the genuinely independent organisations hardest, because they rely heavily on the pennies they collect from impoverished workers and donations collected by solidarity organisations .
Decree 8750 is aimed at strangling the truly independent trade unions and other mass organisations. International solidarity helps them stay independent and to resist pressures to turn them into 'sweetheart' unions, docile apologists of the occupation and the transnationals.
Best wishes,
Sami Ramadani
26 June 2006
**************************************************
Sami Ramadani,
Department of Applied Social Sciences,
London Metropolitan University, City Campus,
Old Castle Street, London, E1 7NT
Tel: 020 7320 1280
Email:
**************************************************
1. Statement by the TUC's Owen Tudor
"The TUC is unaware of what has happened to the Oil Workers Union (it
doesn't help that they seem only to communicate with small campaigning
organisations rather than the global oil workers federation (ICEM) or
the global trade union movement (ICFTU), but it is certainly true that
Decree 8750 has been used to intervene in the lawyers union and others
(note that this organisation and others affected are more professional
associations than trade unions, not that that makes the government's
actions any better).
However, it is a massive exaggeration to describe Decree 8750 as "the
September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal", and
things are bad enough without exaggerating and giving completely the
wrong impression. Unions in Iraq are clearly still functioning, and have
been since the Decree was announced (in August by the way).
This is not intended to stop people protesting about Decree 8750, as the
TUC, ICFTU and Iraqi unions have been for nearly a year. But hyperbole
doesn't help, it sends people off in the wrong direction.
Owen Tudor, Head of TUC European Union and International Relations
Department
Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7467 1325 -- Fax: +44 (0) 20 7436 2830 -- Mobile: +44
(0) 7788 715261 "
2. Naftana Statement (a very similar statement was also issued by US Labor Against the War (USLWA))
OIL UNION BANK ACCOUNT FROZEN
IRAQI GOVERNMENT ATTACKS OPPONENTS OF OIL PRIVATISATION
We have just confirmed reports that the Iraqi regime has frozen all
the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers' union, both abroad and
within Iraq.
Wave of anti-union activity by government
The Iraqi regime's decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures,
including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers' union,
freezing the writers' union accounts and the September 2005 decree
making all trade union activity illegal. For that anti-union act the
regime used the pretext of promising the promulgation of a future law
to 'regulate' trade union organisations and their activities.
This action follows in the footsteps of US administrator Paul Bremer
In 2004 Paul Bremer, the occupation's then pro-consul in Iraq,
declared trade union activity in the state sector illegal. That
decision re-enacted Saddam Hussain's 1987 decree banning workers'
unions in the state sector by declaring them to be 'civil servants'
rather than 'workers'.
Hamstringing opponents of oil rip-off
Iraq's enormous oil wealth is being groomed for Production Sharing
Agreements, which would transfer effective control over all aspects
of oil policy, production and marketing to multination oil
companies. The oil workers' union is one of the most effective
opponents of this policy, organising an anti-privatisation conference
last year and another one to come this year.
Notes for journalistss
The GUOE organises over 23,000 oil and gas industry workers Naftana
(Arabic: 'our oil') was set up by UK activists after contact with the
GUOE. We are in regular contact with the leadership of the union.
In August 2003 the union halted oil exports for two days as a protest
over low wages.
The GUOE is independent of any political party or union federation.
GUOE executive committee members, including its President, were part
of the opposition against Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and many
were imprisoned by the regime. The GUOE is opposed to the military
occupation of Iraq and to the privatisation of the oil and industrial
sectors of Iraq.
The GUOE is a successor to the Southern Oil Company Union (SOCU), set
up immediately after the fall of the Saddam regime.
In October 2003 union activists kicked US company KBR out of oil
industry workplaces.
Sign up to the Naftana email alerts system at
For news of the oil workers union, visit the union's website:
Tuesday, June 27
Sexualised violence against Iraqi women by US forces
A letter to TUC international coordinator Owen Tudor.
Greetings Mr. Tudor.... I just wanted to let you know that my colleagues who are attorneys in San Francisco had helped an intern produce this paper below re sexualized violence against Iraqi women by US occupying forces. My question remains as to what kind of 'action' had been taken up by the UN following this important paper. The issues presented on these papers I believe have Not been satisfactorily addressed . I believe it is time that our perpetrators be made accountable for their crimes, regardless of their nationality, creed or political alliances. It seems that political alliances and nationalities 'save' certain groups from accountability. I believe strongly that this must not continue for the long term health of children and women. Thank you kindly and hope to hear from you soon..... Cheers. B Kawamura, Oslo .
A Briefing Paper of International Educational Development
Prepared by Kristen McNutt, Researcher, Association of Humanitarian Lawyers. Presented to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights 2005 Session, Geneva. Contact: ied@igc.org
Iraqi female detainees have been illegally detained, raped and sexually violated by United States military personnel. Women who stay at home in traditional roles are more likely to be imprisoned as bargaining chips by US troops seeking to pressurize male relatives, according to the New Statesmen (UK)[i]. In December 2003, a woman prisoner, "Noor", smuggled out a note stating that US guards at Abu Ghraib had been raping women detainees and forcing them to strip naked. Several of the women were now pregnant.[ii] The classified enquiry launched by the US military, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed the note by "Noor" and that sexual violence against women at Abu Ghraib took place. Among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there were, according to Taguba's report, images of naked male and female detainees; a male Military Police guard "having sex" with a female detainee; detainees (of unspecified gender) forcibly arranged in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; and naked female detainees.[iii] The Bush administration has refused to release photographs of Iraqi women prisoners at Abu Ghraib, including those of women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although these have been shown to Congress). [iv] UK Member of Parliament Ann Clwyd (L) has confirmed a report of an Iraqi woman in her 70s who had been harnessed and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre after being arrested last July. Clwyd said: "She was held for about six weeks without charge. During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey."[v]
The Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, reports that In the middle of the night, American soldiers broke into the home of Mithal al Hassan and arrested both her and her son. "The soldiers later ransacked the apartment. Denounced as part of a vendetta, Mithal was condemned without trial to eighty days of horror in the company of other women prisoners who, like her, were subjected to abuse and torture. She has since spotted her tormentors on the internet." [vi] A culture of honor prevents many women from telling stories of rapes. The account given by "Selwa", illustrates this. In September 2003, Selwa was taken by US military personnel to a detention facility in Tikrit, where an American officer lit a mixture of human feces and urine in a metal container and gave Selwa a heavy club to stir it. She recalls, "The fire from the pot felt very strong on my face." She leans forward and sweeps her hands through the air to show how she stirred the excrement. "I became very tired," she says. "I told the sergeant I couldn't do it." "There was another man close to us. The sergeant came up to me and whispered in my ear, 'If you don't, I will tell one of the soldiers to fuck you.'" Selwa could not continue with the story.[vii] An Iraqi girl, Raghada, reports that her mother, imprisoned at Abu Ghraib, was forced to eat from a toilet and was urinated on[viii]
Iman Khamas, head of the International Occupation Watch Center, a nongovernmental organization which gathers information on human rights abuses under coalition rule, has said; "one former detainee had recounted the alleged rape of her cell mate in Abu Ghraib." According to Khamas, the prisoner said; "she had been rendered unconscious for 48 hours." She claimed; "She had been raped 17 times in one day by Iraqi police in the presence of American solders".[ix]
Another woman, "Nadia," reported that she was raped by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. She continues to be "imprisoned" by painful memories that left her psychologically and physically scarred. [x]
Late last year, attorney Amal Kadham Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq". Amal Kadham Swadi states that "sexualized violence and abuse committed by US troops goes far beyond a few isolated cases." [xi] It is unknown as to exactly how many female detainees there are. 'The International Committee of the Red Cross reports that 30 women were housed in Abu Ghraib last October, 2003, which was reduced to 0 by May 29, 2004".[xii]
Swadi visited a detainee held at the US military base a Al-Khakh, a former police compound in Baghdad. The detainee disclosed that, "Several American solders had raped her and that she had tried to fight them off and they had hurt her arm".[xiii]
These and other incidents are being covered up for US domestic consumption. President G W Bush has insisted that these were the actions of a few and were not the result of military policy. However, a fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, points to complicity to sexual torture by the entire Army prison system. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib.[xiv]
The cover-up by the Bush Administration appears to include the silencing of victims. Professor Huda Shaker al-Nuaimi, a political scientist at Baghdad University, who is interviewing female prisoners as a volunteer for Amnesty International, reports that the woman, called "Noor," who smuggled the letter out of Abu Ghraib, is now presumed dead. "We believe she was raped and that she was pregnant by a US guard. After her release from Abu Ghraib, I went to her house. The neighbors said that her family had moved away. I believed that she was killed".[xv]
It is well known that the US has a culture of rape: one in six women in the United States has experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault.[xvi] Reinforcing the climate of sexual violence, photos purporting to be of raped Iraqi women by US troops are surfacing on the web[xvii], with some are later removed. [xviii] Actual pictures can be viewed, as of this writing, at the La Voz de Aztlan website [xix] which reports that many of the pictures are now on pornographic sites.
Women Civilian War Casualties
In October 2004, the Iraq Body Count (IBC) website counted casualties of the US attack against Fallujah. IBC concluded that 572 and 616 of the approximately 800 reported deaths were of civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children. [xx] The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that dozens of Iraqis, including 20 medics, were killed when the US bombed a medical clinic in Fallujah. The clinic was just erected to substitute for the main hospital which was seized by the U.S. on Monday. One doctor told Reuters "There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."[xxi] Because of the serious assault on medical neutrality, on 18 November 2004 the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers filed an emergency petition at the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of "unnamed, unnumbered patients and medical staff, both living and dead, of the Falluja General Hospital and a trauma clinic." International Educational Development, Inc, joined this action immediately thereafter.
According to the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, napalm appears to have been used on women and children during the US attack on Fallujah. [xxii]
U.S. Military Prevents the Delivery of Medical Care to Women Civilians
The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids attacks on emergency vehicles and the impediment of medical operations during war. The main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah was raided twice by US soldiers and the Iraqi National Guard; first on November 29, 2004 at 5:40 am and again the next day. Staff reported; "In the first raid about 150 soldiers and at least 40 members of the Iraqi National Guard stormed the small hospital".[xxiii] Staff reported; "They divided into groups and were all over the hospital. They broke the gates outside, they broke the doors of the garage, and the raided our supply room where our food and supplies are".[xxiv] Staff members were then handcuffed and interrogated for several hours about resistance fighters. One staff member recounts; "The Americans threatened that they would do what they did in Fallujah if I didn't cooperate with them".[xxv]
Medical care for civilians was blocked by snipers that are set up along the roads to Fallujah that fire on ambulances. Doctors from the main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah are reporting; "The Americans have snipers all along the road between here and Fallujah. They are shooting our ambulances if they try to go to Fallujah".[xxvi] In addition, medical supplies are being blocked from being sent to hospitals by US troops. In nearby Saqlawiyah, Doctor Abdulla Aziz reported that supplies were being blocked from reaching or leaving Amiriyat al-Fallujah; "They won't let any of our ambulances go to help Fallujah. We are out of supplies and they won't let anyone bring us more".[xxvii]
Obstruction of medical care to the civilian population of Iraq seems to be a pattern that has persisted. Dr. Abdul Jabbar, orthopedic surgeon at Fallujah General Hospital claims that; "The marines have said they didn't close the hospital, but essentially they did. They closed the bridge, which connects us to the city, and closed our roads. They prevented medical care reaching countless patients in desperate need. Who knows how many of them died that we could have saved?".[xxviii]
In addition to blocking supplies and aid to victims, hospital staff has been handcuffed and interrogated and patient care has been violently disrupted. "We were tied up and beaten despite being unarmed and having only our medical instruments," reported Dr Asma Khamis al-Muhannadi present during the raid on Fallujah General Hospital. She reported abuse to civilian patients as well; "troops dragged patients from their beds and pushed them against the wallŠI was with a woman in labor, the umbilical cord had not yet been cut," she said. "At that time, a U.S. soldier shouted at one of the [Iraqi] National Guards to arrest me and tie my hands while I was helping the mother to deliver".[xxix]
[i] Hilsum, Lindsey, "Worldview" New Statesman, October 4, 2004, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4708_133/ai_n6258533
[ii] Hassan, Ghali, "Colonial Violence against Women in Iraq" 31 May, 2004
Countercurrents.org , online, Internet, http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-hassan310504.htm. Also see, Bazzi, Mohammed, U.S. using some Iraqis as bargaining chips, Newsweek, 26 May 2004.
[iii] "Executive summary of Article 15-6 investigation of the 800th
Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba"
NBC News, March 4, 2004, online, Internet, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/
[iv] Luke Harding, "The Other Prisoners," The Guardian U.K. 20 May 2004, online, Internet: www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/9/4566/printer.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Sgrena, Giulana, "Interview with an Iraqi woman tortured at Abu Grhaib", Il Manifesto, July 21, 2004, online, Internet, http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/420dc5a37ba4d.html
[vii] McKelvey, Tara, "Unusual Suspects, What happened to the women held at Abu Ghraib? The government isn't talking. But some of the women are" . American Prospect Online, February 1, 2005, http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9044
[viii] Ciezadlo, Annia, "For Iraqi women, Abu Grhaib's taint", Christian Science Monitor, May 24, 2004, http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0528/p01s02-woiq.html
[ix] Gail Hassan, "Colonial violence Against Women in Iraq," Counter Currents.org 31 May 2004, online, Internet: www.countercurents.org/iraq-hassan310504.htm.
[x] " Iraqi Woman Recalls Abu Graib rape ordeal", July 21 (no year), Islam Online, online, Internet: http://islamonline.net/English/News/2004-07/21/article06.shtml
[xi] Luke Harding, "The Other Prisoners," The Guardian U.K. 20 May 2004, online, Internet: www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/9/4566/printer.
[xii] Luke Harding, "The Other Prisoners," The Guardian U.K. 20 May 2004, online, Internet: www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/9/4566/printer
[xiv] Hersh, Seymour, The New Yorker, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact
[xv] Gail Hassan, "Colonial violence Against Women in Iraq," Counter Currents.org 31 May 2004, online, Internet: www.countercurents.org/iraq-hassan310504.htm.
[xvi] US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, quoted in "V-Day Statistics",Women's Center, Duke University, March 16, 2005, http://wc.studentaffairs.duke.edu/vdaystats.html
[xvii] "Photos on the net - Iraqi woman raped" Islamic Online, May 3 (no year), online, Internet, http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-05/03/article03.shtml
[xviii] "The rape of Iraqi women and girls by US soldiers", Black Oklahoma Today, March 16, 2005, online, Internet, http://www.blackoklahoma.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=335"
[xix] See http://www.aztlan.net/iraqi_women_raped.htm and http://www.aztlan.net/nineyearoldrapevictim.htm .
[xx] IBC Press Release, 26 October 2004, http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/index.php#pr9
[xxi] Democracy Now, Headlines for November 10, 2004, : http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/10/1536241
[xxii] Sgrena, Guiliana, "Napalm Raid on Falluja, 73 charred bodies - women and children - were found" 23 November 2004, http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/420dd721e0ff0.html
[xxiii] Dahr Jamail, "US Military Obstructing Medical Care in Iraq," Antiwar.Com 14 December 2004, www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=4158.
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Ibid.
[xxvi] Ibid.
[xxvii] Ibid.
[xxviii] Ibid.
[xxix] Ibid.
Greetings Mr. Tudor.... I just wanted to let you know that my colleagues who are attorneys in San Francisco had helped an intern produce this paper below re sexualized violence against Iraqi women by US occupying forces. My question remains as to what kind of 'action' had been taken up by the UN following this important paper. The issues presented on these papers I believe have Not been satisfactorily addressed . I believe it is time that our perpetrators be made accountable for their crimes, regardless of their nationality, creed or political alliances. It seems that political alliances and nationalities 'save' certain groups from accountability. I believe strongly that this must not continue for the long term health of children and women. Thank you kindly and hope to hear from you soon..... Cheers. B Kawamura, Oslo .
A Briefing Paper of International Educational Development
Prepared by Kristen McNutt, Researcher, Association of Humanitarian Lawyers. Presented to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights 2005 Session, Geneva. Contact: ied@igc.org
Iraqi female detainees have been illegally detained, raped and sexually violated by United States military personnel. Women who stay at home in traditional roles are more likely to be imprisoned as bargaining chips by US troops seeking to pressurize male relatives, according to the New Statesmen (UK)[i]. In December 2003, a woman prisoner, "Noor", smuggled out a note stating that US guards at Abu Ghraib had been raping women detainees and forcing them to strip naked. Several of the women were now pregnant.[ii] The classified enquiry launched by the US military, headed by Major General Antonio Taguba, has confirmed the note by "Noor" and that sexual violence against women at Abu Ghraib took place. Among the 1,800 digital photographs taken by US guards inside Abu Ghraib there were, according to Taguba's report, images of naked male and female detainees; a male Military Police guard "having sex" with a female detainee; detainees (of unspecified gender) forcibly arranged in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; and naked female detainees.[iii] The Bush administration has refused to release photographs of Iraqi women prisoners at Abu Ghraib, including those of women forced at gunpoint to bare their breasts (although these have been shown to Congress). [iv] UK Member of Parliament Ann Clwyd (L) has confirmed a report of an Iraqi woman in her 70s who had been harnessed and ridden like a donkey at Abu Ghraib and another coalition detention centre after being arrested last July. Clwyd said: "She was held for about six weeks without charge. During that time she was insulted and told she was a donkey."[v]
The Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, reports that In the middle of the night, American soldiers broke into the home of Mithal al Hassan and arrested both her and her son. "The soldiers later ransacked the apartment. Denounced as part of a vendetta, Mithal was condemned without trial to eighty days of horror in the company of other women prisoners who, like her, were subjected to abuse and torture. She has since spotted her tormentors on the internet." [vi] A culture of honor prevents many women from telling stories of rapes. The account given by "Selwa", illustrates this. In September 2003, Selwa was taken by US military personnel to a detention facility in Tikrit, where an American officer lit a mixture of human feces and urine in a metal container and gave Selwa a heavy club to stir it. She recalls, "The fire from the pot felt very strong on my face." She leans forward and sweeps her hands through the air to show how she stirred the excrement. "I became very tired," she says. "I told the sergeant I couldn't do it." "There was another man close to us. The sergeant came up to me and whispered in my ear, 'If you don't, I will tell one of the soldiers to fuck you.'" Selwa could not continue with the story.[vii] An Iraqi girl, Raghada, reports that her mother, imprisoned at Abu Ghraib, was forced to eat from a toilet and was urinated on[viii]
Iman Khamas, head of the International Occupation Watch Center, a nongovernmental organization which gathers information on human rights abuses under coalition rule, has said; "one former detainee had recounted the alleged rape of her cell mate in Abu Ghraib." According to Khamas, the prisoner said; "she had been rendered unconscious for 48 hours." She claimed; "She had been raped 17 times in one day by Iraqi police in the presence of American solders".[ix]
Another woman, "Nadia," reported that she was raped by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. She continues to be "imprisoned" by painful memories that left her psychologically and physically scarred. [x]
Late last year, attorney Amal Kadham Swadi, one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq". Amal Kadham Swadi states that "sexualized violence and abuse committed by US troops goes far beyond a few isolated cases." [xi] It is unknown as to exactly how many female detainees there are. 'The International Committee of the Red Cross reports that 30 women were housed in Abu Ghraib last October, 2003, which was reduced to 0 by May 29, 2004".[xii]
Swadi visited a detainee held at the US military base a Al-Khakh, a former police compound in Baghdad. The detainee disclosed that, "Several American solders had raped her and that she had tried to fight them off and they had hurt her arm".[xiii]
These and other incidents are being covered up for US domestic consumption. President G W Bush has insisted that these were the actions of a few and were not the result of military policy. However, a fifty-three-page report, obtained by The New Yorker, written by Major General Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, points to complicity to sexual torture by the entire Army prison system. Specifically, Taguba found that between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at Abu Ghraib.[xiv]
The cover-up by the Bush Administration appears to include the silencing of victims. Professor Huda Shaker al-Nuaimi, a political scientist at Baghdad University, who is interviewing female prisoners as a volunteer for Amnesty International, reports that the woman, called "Noor," who smuggled the letter out of Abu Ghraib, is now presumed dead. "We believe she was raped and that she was pregnant by a US guard. After her release from Abu Ghraib, I went to her house. The neighbors said that her family had moved away. I believed that she was killed".[xv]
It is well known that the US has a culture of rape: one in six women in the United States has experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault.[xvi] Reinforcing the climate of sexual violence, photos purporting to be of raped Iraqi women by US troops are surfacing on the web[xvii], with some are later removed. [xviii] Actual pictures can be viewed, as of this writing, at the La Voz de Aztlan website [xix] which reports that many of the pictures are now on pornographic sites.
Women Civilian War Casualties
In October 2004, the Iraq Body Count (IBC) website counted casualties of the US attack against Fallujah. IBC concluded that 572 and 616 of the approximately 800 reported deaths were of civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children. [xx] The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that dozens of Iraqis, including 20 medics, were killed when the US bombed a medical clinic in Fallujah. The clinic was just erected to substitute for the main hospital which was seized by the U.S. on Monday. One doctor told Reuters "There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah. We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."[xxi] Because of the serious assault on medical neutrality, on 18 November 2004 the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers filed an emergency petition at the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of "unnamed, unnumbered patients and medical staff, both living and dead, of the Falluja General Hospital and a trauma clinic." International Educational Development, Inc, joined this action immediately thereafter.
According to the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, napalm appears to have been used on women and children during the US attack on Fallujah. [xxii]
U.S. Military Prevents the Delivery of Medical Care to Women Civilians
The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids attacks on emergency vehicles and the impediment of medical operations during war. The main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah was raided twice by US soldiers and the Iraqi National Guard; first on November 29, 2004 at 5:40 am and again the next day. Staff reported; "In the first raid about 150 soldiers and at least 40 members of the Iraqi National Guard stormed the small hospital".[xxiii] Staff reported; "They divided into groups and were all over the hospital. They broke the gates outside, they broke the doors of the garage, and the raided our supply room where our food and supplies are".[xxiv] Staff members were then handcuffed and interrogated for several hours about resistance fighters. One staff member recounts; "The Americans threatened that they would do what they did in Fallujah if I didn't cooperate with them".[xxv]
Medical care for civilians was blocked by snipers that are set up along the roads to Fallujah that fire on ambulances. Doctors from the main hospital in Amiriyat al-Fallujah are reporting; "The Americans have snipers all along the road between here and Fallujah. They are shooting our ambulances if they try to go to Fallujah".[xxvi] In addition, medical supplies are being blocked from being sent to hospitals by US troops. In nearby Saqlawiyah, Doctor Abdulla Aziz reported that supplies were being blocked from reaching or leaving Amiriyat al-Fallujah; "They won't let any of our ambulances go to help Fallujah. We are out of supplies and they won't let anyone bring us more".[xxvii]
Obstruction of medical care to the civilian population of Iraq seems to be a pattern that has persisted. Dr. Abdul Jabbar, orthopedic surgeon at Fallujah General Hospital claims that; "The marines have said they didn't close the hospital, but essentially they did. They closed the bridge, which connects us to the city, and closed our roads. They prevented medical care reaching countless patients in desperate need. Who knows how many of them died that we could have saved?".[xxviii]
In addition to blocking supplies and aid to victims, hospital staff has been handcuffed and interrogated and patient care has been violently disrupted. "We were tied up and beaten despite being unarmed and having only our medical instruments," reported Dr Asma Khamis al-Muhannadi present during the raid on Fallujah General Hospital. She reported abuse to civilian patients as well; "troops dragged patients from their beds and pushed them against the wallŠI was with a woman in labor, the umbilical cord had not yet been cut," she said. "At that time, a U.S. soldier shouted at one of the [Iraqi] National Guards to arrest me and tie my hands while I was helping the mother to deliver".[xxix]
[i] Hilsum, Lindsey, "Worldview" New Statesman, October 4, 2004, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4708_133/ai_n6258533
[ii] Hassan, Ghali, "Colonial Violence against Women in Iraq" 31 May, 2004
Countercurrents.org , online, Internet, http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-hassan310504.htm. Also see, Bazzi, Mohammed, U.S. using some Iraqis as bargaining chips, Newsweek, 26 May 2004.
[iii] "Executive summary of Article 15-6 investigation of the 800th
Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba"
NBC News, March 4, 2004, online, Internet, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4894001/
[iv] Luke Harding, "The Other Prisoners," The Guardian U.K. 20 May 2004, online, Internet: www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/9/4566/printer.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Sgrena, Giulana, "Interview with an Iraqi woman tortured at Abu Grhaib", Il Manifesto, July 21, 2004, online, Internet, http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/420dc5a37ba4d.html
[vii] McKelvey, Tara, "Unusual Suspects, What happened to the women held at Abu Ghraib? The government isn't talking. But some of the women are" . American Prospect Online, February 1, 2005, http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=9044
[viii] Ciezadlo, Annia, "For Iraqi women, Abu Grhaib's taint", Christian Science Monitor, May 24, 2004, http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0528/p01s02-woiq.html
[ix] Gail Hassan, "Colonial violence Against Women in Iraq," Counter Currents.org 31 May 2004, online, Internet: www.countercurents.org/iraq-hassan310504.htm.
[x] " Iraqi Woman Recalls Abu Graib rape ordeal", July 21 (no year), Islam Online, online, Internet: http://islamonline.net/English/News/2004-07/21/article06.shtml
[xi] Luke Harding, "The Other Prisoners," The Guardian U.K. 20 May 2004, online, Internet: www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/9/4566/printer.
[xii] Luke Harding, "The Other Prisoners," The Guardian U.K. 20 May 2004, online, Internet: www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/9/4566/printer
[xiv] Hersh, Seymour, The New Yorker, 2004, http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact
[xv] Gail Hassan, "Colonial violence Against Women in Iraq," Counter Currents.org 31 May 2004, online, Internet: www.countercurents.org/iraq-hassan310504.htm.
[xvi] US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, quoted in "V-Day Statistics",Women's Center, Duke University, March 16, 2005, http://wc.studentaffairs.duke.edu/vdaystats.html
[xvii] "Photos on the net - Iraqi woman raped" Islamic Online, May 3 (no year), online, Internet, http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2004-05/03/article03.shtml
[xviii] "The rape of Iraqi women and girls by US soldiers", Black Oklahoma Today, March 16, 2005, online, Internet, http://www.blackoklahoma.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=335"
[xix] See http://www.aztlan.net/iraqi_women_raped.htm and http://www.aztlan.net/nineyearoldrapevictim.htm .
[xx] IBC Press Release, 26 October 2004, http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/index.php#pr9
[xxi] Democracy Now, Headlines for November 10, 2004, : http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/10/1536241
[xxii] Sgrena, Guiliana, "Napalm Raid on Falluja, 73 charred bodies - women and children - were found" 23 November 2004, http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/420dd721e0ff0.html
[xxiii] Dahr Jamail, "US Military Obstructing Medical Care in Iraq," Antiwar.Com 14 December 2004, www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=4158.
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Ibid.
[xxvi] Ibid.
[xxvii] Ibid.
[xxviii] Ibid.
[xxix] Ibid.
Thursday, June 22
Iraqi Government Freezes Oil Workers Union Bank Accounts: USLAW calls for solidarity actions by U.S. labor movement.
The Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers' union, both abroad and within Iraq.
The decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers' union, freezing the writers' union accounts and the September, 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal. For that anti-union act the regime used the pretext of promising the promulgation of a future law to 'regulate' trade union organizations and their activities.
This action follows in the footsteps of US administrator Paul Bremer. In 2004 the occupation's then pro-consul in Iraq declared trade union activity in the state (public) sector illegal by continuing to enforce Saddam Hussein's 1987 decree banning workers' unions in the state sector by declaring public employees to be 'civil servants' rather than 'workers'.
From Day One of the occupation, the U.S. has aimed to put Iraq's vast oil resources in the hands of multinational energy corporations, if not through direct privatization (the preferred route) then through Production Sharing Agreements. The oil workers' union is one of the most effective opponents of this policy, organizing an anti-privatization conference last year and another one to come this year. In October, 2003, union activists forced KBR out of oil industry workplaces. KBR had been given a no-bid contract to get the oil industry back into production after the invasion.
The General Union of Oil Employees represents 23,000 oil industry workers in Iraq. It is independent of any political party or sectarian group. It is an affiliate of the Iraq Freedom Congress. Its President Hassan Juma'a was among the Iraqi labor leaders who toured the U.S. last June at the invitation of U.S. Labor Against the War.
Here's what you can do now:
USLAW asks unions, labor councils, state federations and labor and other social justice activists across the U.S. to protest the Iraqi regime's interference with and harassment of the GUOE and other unions that are fighting to defend the rights of Iraqi workers in their workplaces and the interests of Iraq's working people in society. Demand that the GUOE bank accounts be unfrozen, that Saddam Hussein's Law 150 be repealed and that labor rights be immediately recognized and fully respected in Iraq in accordance with internationally accepted ILO standards.
Send your protests to:
Jalal Talabani, President
Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister
Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, Parliament Speaker
Jawad Bulani, Minister of the Interior
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Iraq
1801 P St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036 or
Fax: (202) 462-5066 or admin@iraqiembassy.org
With copies to:
Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary
U.S. State Department
2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520
Fax: 202-647-5733
Kindly provide USLAW with a copy which we will pass on to the GUOE in Iraq.
U.S. LABOR AGAINST THE WAR. 1718 M Street, NW, PMB 153, Washington, DC 20036. www.uslaboragainstwar.org; info@uslaboragainstwar.org.
The decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers' union, freezing the writers' union accounts and the September, 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal. For that anti-union act the regime used the pretext of promising the promulgation of a future law to 'regulate' trade union organizations and their activities.
This action follows in the footsteps of US administrator Paul Bremer. In 2004 the occupation's then pro-consul in Iraq declared trade union activity in the state (public) sector illegal by continuing to enforce Saddam Hussein's 1987 decree banning workers' unions in the state sector by declaring public employees to be 'civil servants' rather than 'workers'.
From Day One of the occupation, the U.S. has aimed to put Iraq's vast oil resources in the hands of multinational energy corporations, if not through direct privatization (the preferred route) then through Production Sharing Agreements. The oil workers' union is one of the most effective opponents of this policy, organizing an anti-privatization conference last year and another one to come this year. In October, 2003, union activists forced KBR out of oil industry workplaces. KBR had been given a no-bid contract to get the oil industry back into production after the invasion.
The General Union of Oil Employees represents 23,000 oil industry workers in Iraq. It is independent of any political party or sectarian group. It is an affiliate of the Iraq Freedom Congress. Its President Hassan Juma'a was among the Iraqi labor leaders who toured the U.S. last June at the invitation of U.S. Labor Against the War.
Here's what you can do now:
USLAW asks unions, labor councils, state federations and labor and other social justice activists across the U.S. to protest the Iraqi regime's interference with and harassment of the GUOE and other unions that are fighting to defend the rights of Iraqi workers in their workplaces and the interests of Iraq's working people in society. Demand that the GUOE bank accounts be unfrozen, that Saddam Hussein's Law 150 be repealed and that labor rights be immediately recognized and fully respected in Iraq in accordance with internationally accepted ILO standards.
Send your protests to:
Jalal Talabani, President
Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister
Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, Parliament Speaker
Jawad Bulani, Minister of the Interior
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Iraq
1801 P St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036 or
Fax: (202) 462-5066 or admin@iraqiembassy.org
With copies to:
Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary
U.S. State Department
2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520
Fax: 202-647-5733
Kindly provide USLAW with a copy which we will pass on to the GUOE in Iraq.
U.S. LABOR AGAINST THE WAR. 1718 M Street, NW, PMB 153, Washington, DC 20036. www.uslaboragainstwar.org; info@uslaboragainstwar.org.
Thursday, June 15
Iraq: The deadliest media war in history
A global campaign has been launched to end the terrifying ordeal of journalists in Iraq, where at least 129 media staff have been killed and hundreds more injured or disabled in what has become the deadliest media war in modern history. On 15 June – Iraq’s National Day of the Press – there will be demonstrations in Iraq and around the region to highlight what the International Federation of Journalists says is the “unspeakable suffering” of media in a country where press freedom is close to extinction because of ruthless extremists and targeting of journalists by warring factions.
Conference of Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq
NO DEPORTATIONS TO IRAQ!
Do not deport us back to such an unsafe country as Iraq
End detention, deportation, vouchers and dispersal
Sat 24 June 2006
Venue: The Peel Centre, Percy Circus,
London WC1X 9EY
Nearest station: King’s Cross (Tube and Rail)
10.30 am Registration
11.00 First Session
John McDonnell MP: opening remarks, including invitation to conference to discuss possible national demonstration against deportations.
Dashty Jamal: (International Federation of Iraqi Refugees) – situation in Iraq, why people should not be deported to Iraq
Sawsan Salim: (Kurdistan Refugee Women’s Organisation) Kurdish women and deportation
Speaker from Institute of Race Relations – understanding the situation in Britain and Europe, how to campaign for solidarity and against racism to asylum seekers
Sara Cutler (BID)
Discussion and questions, speakers reply
12.45 Lunch and networking opportunity
2.00 Workshops
2.00 – 3.00 pm
1. Where we come from, how we campaign, communities of resistance: asylum seekers’ own histories, - Iraq, plus Burhan Fatah from Federation of Iraqi Refugees Manchester, Sherzad (Brides without Borders), Emma Ginn (National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, Doug Holton (Stop Deporting of Children)
2. Film showing: the campaign’s activities
3.00 – 3.30 pm
3. How asylum seekers can best approach their MP for help
3.30 - 4.00 pm Nominations and elections to Steering Committee
4 – 4.30 pm Afternoon Plenary
George Binette: how campaign can move forward
Jean Lambert MEP: solidarity from a Green perspective, links across Europe
Jeremy Corbyn MP(invited)
5.00 pm conference closes
Other speakers for workshops to be confirmed
For more information please contact Sarah Parker on 0208 809 0633, email sarahp107@hotmail.com or Dashty Jamal (International Federation of Iraqi Refugees) on 07734-704742, email d.jamal@ntlworld.com. Federation of Iraqi Refugees – Manchester, Burhan Fatah: 07866-757213, office number: 0161 2342784, email: burhanfatah@aol.com . Nottingham: Jasm Ghafor, 07739 – 338178, email: jasm rg@yahoo.co.uk
Do not deport us back to such an unsafe country as Iraq
End detention, deportation, vouchers and dispersal
Sat 24 June 2006
Venue: The Peel Centre, Percy Circus,
London WC1X 9EY
Nearest station: King’s Cross (Tube and Rail)
10.30 am Registration
11.00 First Session
John McDonnell MP: opening remarks, including invitation to conference to discuss possible national demonstration against deportations.
Dashty Jamal: (International Federation of Iraqi Refugees) – situation in Iraq, why people should not be deported to Iraq
Sawsan Salim: (Kurdistan Refugee Women’s Organisation) Kurdish women and deportation
Speaker from Institute of Race Relations – understanding the situation in Britain and Europe, how to campaign for solidarity and against racism to asylum seekers
Sara Cutler (BID)
Discussion and questions, speakers reply
12.45 Lunch and networking opportunity
2.00 Workshops
2.00 – 3.00 pm
1. Where we come from, how we campaign, communities of resistance: asylum seekers’ own histories, - Iraq, plus Burhan Fatah from Federation of Iraqi Refugees Manchester, Sherzad (Brides without Borders), Emma Ginn (National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, Doug Holton (Stop Deporting of Children)
2. Film showing: the campaign’s activities
3.00 – 3.30 pm
3. How asylum seekers can best approach their MP for help
3.30 - 4.00 pm Nominations and elections to Steering Committee
4 – 4.30 pm Afternoon Plenary
George Binette: how campaign can move forward
Jean Lambert MEP: solidarity from a Green perspective, links across Europe
Jeremy Corbyn MP(invited)
5.00 pm conference closes
Other speakers for workshops to be confirmed
For more information please contact Sarah Parker on 0208 809 0633, email sarahp107@hotmail.com or Dashty Jamal (International Federation of Iraqi Refugees) on 07734-704742, email d.jamal@ntlworld.com. Federation of Iraqi Refugees – Manchester, Burhan Fatah: 07866-757213, office number: 0161 2342784, email: burhanfatah@aol.com . Nottingham: Jasm Ghafor, 07739 – 338178, email: jasm rg@yahoo.co.uk
Wednesday, June 14
Iraq solidarity conference
Iraq Union Solidarity has joined together with Solidarité Irak (France), the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, and the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, to sponsor a conference to discuss and coordinate international activity in solidarity with the workers' and women's movements in Iraq. Please consider sending a delegate from your organisation. Details below and attached.
Iraq Union Solidarity
c/o David Broder (convenor), 4 Freelands Drive, Fleet, GU52 0TE.
Email: iraqunionsolidarity@yahoo.com.
Web www.iraqunionsolidarity.org.
Phone: (+44) 7798 754 927.
8 June 2006
Dear Friend,
Solidarity with the Iraqi workers’ and women’s movements
Conference 1 July 2006, London
Please come to the conference on "Solidarity with the Iraqi workers’ movement" on Saturday 1 July, 13:00 to 18:00 at the Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Road, London N7.
The purpose of this conference is to bring together groups from across Europe which are campaigning in support of the workers’ and women's movements in Iraq, fighting for an egalitarian and secular politics against both the US/UK occupation and the sectarian militias. It is open to all groups which share these basic priorities.
We can exchange information about our campaigning activities; discuss developments in Iraq and establish points of agreement and common understanding; and discuss possible international initiatives and campaigns.
The provisional agenda is:
1. Reports on the situation in Iraq, by activists recently returned from Iraq.
2. Reports on activity from campaigns represented at the meeting, including IUS and Solidarité Irak.
3. Presentation of and discussion on the Iraq Freedom Congress initiative.
4. Discussion on follow-up activities, including the possibility of a further, larger conference at a later date.
5. Exchange of views on the situation in Iran and activities in solidarity with the workers’ and women’s movements in Iran, against both the US war threat and the Islamic regime.
You may be interested to know that immediately following the conference and also in the Resource Centre, at 18:30, the well-known American writer Greg Palast will be speaking on his new book "Mad House", about big business and the Iraq war, as part of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty summer school going on in the Resource Centre that same weekend, 1-2 July.
Best wishes,
David Broder, for Iraq Union Solidarity
Nicolas Dessaux, for Solidarité Irak
Houzan Mahmoud, for the Abroad Organisation of Worker-communist Party of Iraq
Martin Thomas, for the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty
Iraq Union Solidarity
c/o David Broder (convenor), 4 Freelands Drive, Fleet, GU52 0TE.
Email: iraqunionsolidarity@yahoo.com.
Web www.iraqunionsolidarity.org.
Phone: (+44) 7798 754 927.
8 June 2006
Dear Friend,
Solidarity with the Iraqi workers’ and women’s movements
Conference 1 July 2006, London
Please come to the conference on "Solidarity with the Iraqi workers’ movement" on Saturday 1 July, 13:00 to 18:00 at the Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Road, London N7.
The purpose of this conference is to bring together groups from across Europe which are campaigning in support of the workers’ and women's movements in Iraq, fighting for an egalitarian and secular politics against both the US/UK occupation and the sectarian militias. It is open to all groups which share these basic priorities.
We can exchange information about our campaigning activities; discuss developments in Iraq and establish points of agreement and common understanding; and discuss possible international initiatives and campaigns.
The provisional agenda is:
1. Reports on the situation in Iraq, by activists recently returned from Iraq.
2. Reports on activity from campaigns represented at the meeting, including IUS and Solidarité Irak.
3. Presentation of and discussion on the Iraq Freedom Congress initiative.
4. Discussion on follow-up activities, including the possibility of a further, larger conference at a later date.
5. Exchange of views on the situation in Iran and activities in solidarity with the workers’ and women’s movements in Iran, against both the US war threat and the Islamic regime.
You may be interested to know that immediately following the conference and also in the Resource Centre, at 18:30, the well-known American writer Greg Palast will be speaking on his new book "Mad House", about big business and the Iraq war, as part of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty summer school going on in the Resource Centre that same weekend, 1-2 July.
Best wishes,
David Broder, for Iraq Union Solidarity
Nicolas Dessaux, for Solidarité Irak
Houzan Mahmoud, for the Abroad Organisation of Worker-communist Party of Iraq
Martin Thomas, for the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty
Sunday, June 11
ICFTU 2006 Survey of Trade Union Rights Violations in Iraq
The draft legislation which it was hoped would restore trade union rights had not come into force by the end of 2005. Instead, a proscriptive government decree controlling all union finance was passed. During the year, three trade unionists were murdered, several others were the victims of assassination attempts and many were kidnapped.
TRADE UNION RIGHTS IN LAW
New draft labour code
A new labour code was being drafted with input from the ILO. By the end of 2005, however, it had still not been implemented. The draft Transitional Administrative Law included freedom of association and the right to strike.
Old laws still in force
Until a new Labour Code is adopted, the Saddam-era labour laws are technically still in force. Hence, there are still many obstacles to trade union rights, including the ban on organising and the right to strike in the public sector.
Government moves to control trade union finance
In August 2005, the Council of Ministers passed Decree 875. This handed responsibility for labour and social rights to a new committee comprising government ministers. Decree 875 stipulated that the committee "must take control of all monies belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies." This gave the government total control of the existing unions' finances, violating the principles of freedom of association.
Decree 875 also speaks of the government's plans for a new paper on how trade unions should "function, operate and organise". In response to criticisms, the government said its only concern was that Iraqi unions were able to operate free of corruption and control, and were fully transparent and democratic.
TRADE UNION RIGHTS IN PRACTICE
Rebirth of the trade union movement
Less than six months after the collapse of the Saddam regime, 12 national democratic unions had been formed, including the Oil and Gas Workers' Union and the Railway Workers' Union, together with trades' councils in eleven Iraqi cities. Many Iraqi trade unionists returned from exile. Organising took place in workplaces where unions were forbidden under Saddam's laws. Unions even succeeded in notching up some successes in defending their workers' rights, such as negotiating pay increases.
The first woman trade union leader in Iraq's history was elected in August 2004 to lead the Electricity and Energy Workers' Union in Basra.
Official recognition - for one union only
There is only one recognised trade union centre, the Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions (IFTU). This grew out of the (previously underground) Workers' Democratic Trade Union Movement (WDTUM). By the end of 2004, the IFTU had over 300,000 members.
Full freedom of association not yet restored
While there is only one recognised trade union, several other (non-recognised) national-level trade union organisations have been formed, The Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI), for example, claims 300,000 members across Iraq, but has been denied recognition as a representative workers' organisation.
The fact that only one national trade union has been granted official recognition severely limits freedom of association. Employers have reportedly used this to refuse to acknowledge other unions in the workplace unless they join the IFTU. They also refused to recognise unions because they were not registered, although there were no offices where they could do so.
Threats to workers trying to take strike action
Many employers have reportedly used the existence of the old laws to threaten any workers seeking to take strike action in public enterprises.
TRADE UNION RIGHTS IN LAW
New draft labour code
A new labour code was being drafted with input from the ILO. By the end of 2005, however, it had still not been implemented. The draft Transitional Administrative Law included freedom of association and the right to strike.
Old laws still in force
Until a new Labour Code is adopted, the Saddam-era labour laws are technically still in force. Hence, there are still many obstacles to trade union rights, including the ban on organising and the right to strike in the public sector.
Government moves to control trade union finance
In August 2005, the Council of Ministers passed Decree 875. This handed responsibility for labour and social rights to a new committee comprising government ministers. Decree 875 stipulated that the committee "must take control of all monies belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies." This gave the government total control of the existing unions' finances, violating the principles of freedom of association.
Decree 875 also speaks of the government's plans for a new paper on how trade unions should "function, operate and organise". In response to criticisms, the government said its only concern was that Iraqi unions were able to operate free of corruption and control, and were fully transparent and democratic.
TRADE UNION RIGHTS IN PRACTICE
Rebirth of the trade union movement
Less than six months after the collapse of the Saddam regime, 12 national democratic unions had been formed, including the Oil and Gas Workers' Union and the Railway Workers' Union, together with trades' councils in eleven Iraqi cities. Many Iraqi trade unionists returned from exile. Organising took place in workplaces where unions were forbidden under Saddam's laws. Unions even succeeded in notching up some successes in defending their workers' rights, such as negotiating pay increases.
The first woman trade union leader in Iraq's history was elected in August 2004 to lead the Electricity and Energy Workers' Union in Basra.
Official recognition - for one union only
There is only one recognised trade union centre, the Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions (IFTU). This grew out of the (previously underground) Workers' Democratic Trade Union Movement (WDTUM). By the end of 2004, the IFTU had over 300,000 members.
Full freedom of association not yet restored
While there is only one recognised trade union, several other (non-recognised) national-level trade union organisations have been formed, The Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI), for example, claims 300,000 members across Iraq, but has been denied recognition as a representative workers' organisation.
The fact that only one national trade union has been granted official recognition severely limits freedom of association. Employers have reportedly used this to refuse to acknowledge other unions in the workplace unless they join the IFTU. They also refused to recognise unions because they were not registered, although there were no offices where they could do so.
Threats to workers trying to take strike action
Many employers have reportedly used the existence of the old laws to threaten any workers seeking to take strike action in public enterprises.
Sunday, June 4
IRAQ LABOUR MOVEMENT FILM SHOWING - THIS TUESDAY
On Tuesday (6th June) at 19:30 Iraq Union Solidarity
will be holding a public meeting at the Marchmont
Street Community Centre - showing 2 new short films
about the Iraqi trade union movement.
IFC GOES FORWARD
A film about the Iraq Freedom Congress, a democratic
and secular initiative supported by the Federation of
Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq, as well as the
General Union of Oil Employees. The film includes
extensive footage of workers' struggles going on in
Iraq, as well as of a 2005 strike where Basra's
students protested against murderous attacks carried
out by Islamist militias against fellow students. *23
mins
MEETING FACE TO FACE
In June 2005 six senior Iraqi trade union leaders
toured the United States, hosted by U.S. Labor Against
the War, visiting 25 cities and speaking to several
thousand trade unionists, peace activists, and others.
This documentary describes the workers' movement in
Iraq while expressing the message they want to convey
to the world: opposition to the occupation; oppose the
privatisation of Iraq's resources; and support the
right of all Iraqi workers to organize free and
independent trade unions. *27 mins
The meeting will be held @ Marchmont Street Community
Centre, Marchmont St., WC1 (Nearest tube Russell
Square).
will be holding a public meeting at the Marchmont
Street Community Centre - showing 2 new short films
about the Iraqi trade union movement.
IFC GOES FORWARD
A film about the Iraq Freedom Congress, a democratic
and secular initiative supported by the Federation of
Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq, as well as the
General Union of Oil Employees. The film includes
extensive footage of workers' struggles going on in
Iraq, as well as of a 2005 strike where Basra's
students protested against murderous attacks carried
out by Islamist militias against fellow students. *23
mins
MEETING FACE TO FACE
In June 2005 six senior Iraqi trade union leaders
toured the United States, hosted by U.S. Labor Against
the War, visiting 25 cities and speaking to several
thousand trade unionists, peace activists, and others.
This documentary describes the workers' movement in
Iraq while expressing the message they want to convey
to the world: opposition to the occupation; oppose the
privatisation of Iraq's resources; and support the
right of all Iraqi workers to organize free and
independent trade unions. *27 mins
The meeting will be held @ Marchmont Street Community
Centre, Marchmont St., WC1 (Nearest tube Russell
Square).
USLAW statement on the IFC
Dear Brother Adil and Sister Mahmoud,
The March 18, 2006 announcement of the formation of the Iraq Freedom Congress should be heralded by the peace and democracy-loving people around the world as an important step in Iraq to a just, stable, democratic and peaceful resolution of the tragic circumstances into which the U.S. and its allies have thrust the Iraqi people. U.S. Labor Against the War welcomes this important development.
IFCs commitment to establishing a free, secular and non-ethnic government in Iraq, one that is independent, democratic, and non-religious is a welcome alternative to the chaos and division that followed in the wake of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq an aggression that exacerbated, exploited and created religious, ethnic and tribal conflict as an instrument of divide and conquer.
The only solution to this crisis is one that is based upon and rooted in the exercise by all the Iraqi people of their right to sovereignty and self-determination based on principles of respect and tolerance for differences in ethnic identity, religious beliefs, political allegiance, and tribal origin. This is a solution that is first and foremost political, not military.
Only with the end of the occupation will real reconstruction of Iraq be possible. The occupation is now the single greatest obstacle to both peace and democratic self-governance for the Iraqi people, and security for the people of Iraq, the U.S. and the world. As we declared in the Final Declaration signed by leaders of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq, the General Union of Oil Employees, the Iraq Federation of Trade Unions and U.S. Labor Against the War at the conclusion of the historic 25-city U.S. tour by Iraqi labor leaders last June, The occupation is the problem, not the solution. Iraqi sovereignty and independence must be restored. The occupation must end in all its forms, including military bases and economic domination.
The occupation has played a major (though not the only) role in strengthening reactionary elements in Iraq, and creating a situation that may lead to sectarian civil war. The ending of the occupation is a precondition for consistent democracy in Iraq.
The independent labor movement, secular and democratic forces that could create a more positive outcome above all, the unions - must be allowed to survive and develop. We are committed to deepening labor solidarity with Iraqs independent labor movement, its womens and other civil society organizations.
We are committed to our common goal of ending the occupation, withdrawal of all the occupation forces and dismantling of all foreign military bases, including those of the U.S., so that the right of the Iraqi people to make an informed and free decision on the future of their country and its system of governance can be guaranteed.
U.S. Labor Against the War Co-Convenors & Steering Committee
The March 18, 2006 announcement of the formation of the Iraq Freedom Congress should be heralded by the peace and democracy-loving people around the world as an important step in Iraq to a just, stable, democratic and peaceful resolution of the tragic circumstances into which the U.S. and its allies have thrust the Iraqi people. U.S. Labor Against the War welcomes this important development.
IFCs commitment to establishing a free, secular and non-ethnic government in Iraq, one that is independent, democratic, and non-religious is a welcome alternative to the chaos and division that followed in the wake of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq an aggression that exacerbated, exploited and created religious, ethnic and tribal conflict as an instrument of divide and conquer.
The only solution to this crisis is one that is based upon and rooted in the exercise by all the Iraqi people of their right to sovereignty and self-determination based on principles of respect and tolerance for differences in ethnic identity, religious beliefs, political allegiance, and tribal origin. This is a solution that is first and foremost political, not military.
Only with the end of the occupation will real reconstruction of Iraq be possible. The occupation is now the single greatest obstacle to both peace and democratic self-governance for the Iraqi people, and security for the people of Iraq, the U.S. and the world. As we declared in the Final Declaration signed by leaders of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq, the General Union of Oil Employees, the Iraq Federation of Trade Unions and U.S. Labor Against the War at the conclusion of the historic 25-city U.S. tour by Iraqi labor leaders last June, The occupation is the problem, not the solution. Iraqi sovereignty and independence must be restored. The occupation must end in all its forms, including military bases and economic domination.
The occupation has played a major (though not the only) role in strengthening reactionary elements in Iraq, and creating a situation that may lead to sectarian civil war. The ending of the occupation is a precondition for consistent democracy in Iraq.
The independent labor movement, secular and democratic forces that could create a more positive outcome above all, the unions - must be allowed to survive and develop. We are committed to deepening labor solidarity with Iraqs independent labor movement, its womens and other civil society organizations.
We are committed to our common goal of ending the occupation, withdrawal of all the occupation forces and dismantling of all foreign military bases, including those of the U.S., so that the right of the Iraqi people to make an informed and free decision on the future of their country and its system of governance can be guaranteed.
U.S. Labor Against the War Co-Convenors & Steering Committee
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