David Anderson MP today (May 29th) tabled the following Early Day Motion in the House of Commons:
"That this House notes that unions representing workers in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan face incredible challenges in defending working people and rebuilding democracy and that one of their requests for solidarity to be shown by British trade unionists is in the provision of mobile phones, which are crucial for any union organiser but especially in Iraq, where travel can be dangerous and landlines are not sufficiently reliable or widespread;"
"further notes that mobile phone handsets are expensive to buy in Iraq and that buying new ones could eat up scarce union resources, but that the Iraqi trade union movement has identified a way of easily converting old European mobile phones for use in Iraq;"
"and congratulates the TUC on launching an appeal for unions, their members and concerned members of the public to pass on via the TUC their used mobile phones and chargers to the Iraqi trade union movement as an act of solidarity."
Old mobile phones (and their chargers, of course)
should be sent to the TUC Aid for Iraq appeal at
Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS.
Wednesday, May 31
IRAQI DOCKERS' UNION CLOSED DOWN BY AUTHORITIES
On April 27th the Port Workers' Union in Khour
Al-Zubeir had its offices and committees closed down
by the port authorities - union officers have also
faced intimidation for their role in organising
dockers.
They were deprived of their salaries and kidnapped - taken to a
location 550km away from their homes - and their families
were also threatened. The authorities issued an order
for their arrest under Saddam Hussein's 1987 law
banning public sector workers joining trade unions.
Al-Zubeir had its offices and committees closed down
by the port authorities - union officers have also
faced intimidation for their role in organising
dockers.
They were deprived of their salaries and kidnapped - taken to a
location 550km away from their homes - and their families
were also threatened. The authorities issued an order
for their arrest under Saddam Hussein's 1987 law
banning public sector workers joining trade unions.
Brutal slaying of trade unionist in Iraq
Brussels, 30 May 2006 (ICFTU OnLine): In the latest brutal attack against the Iraqi trade union movement, the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW) has reported the kidnapping and murder of Thabet Hussein Ali, Head of the General Trade Union for Health Sector Workers, on April 27. Ali was taken by a terrorist group as he was leaving his union's headquarters in Baghdad’s Al-Mansour neighborhood.
His body was found the next day riddled with gunshot wounds and showing evidence of brutal torture including by an electric drill.
The ICFTU expresses its deepest condolences to the family and colleagues of Thabet Hussein Ali, and supports the GFIW’s demand that the Iraqi Authorities launch a comprehensive investigation into the wave of assassinations and kidnappings of trade unionists. Those responsible for these atrocities must be brought to justice. Respect for workers’ rights to trade union organisation and representation is an essential foundation for building democracy and for the proper functioning of Iraq’s economy.
His body was found the next day riddled with gunshot wounds and showing evidence of brutal torture including by an electric drill.
The ICFTU expresses its deepest condolences to the family and colleagues of Thabet Hussein Ali, and supports the GFIW’s demand that the Iraqi Authorities launch a comprehensive investigation into the wave of assassinations and kidnappings of trade unionists. Those responsible for these atrocities must be brought to justice. Respect for workers’ rights to trade union organisation and representation is an essential foundation for building democracy and for the proper functioning of Iraq’s economy.
Thursday, May 25
Solidarity with Iraqi and Kurdish women trade unionists: a report of a recent visit by Iraqi/Kurdish trade unionists
Thanks
The visit was funded by the TUC, Unison and Amicus' Nick Burdon and Denis Blockley Trust. GFIW International Representative Abdullah Muhsin, who accompanied the delegation, acted as an interpreter. Elena Crasta and Simon Steyne of the TUC European Union and International Relations Department facilitated the visit.
The logistical assistance of Ralf Erbel, the ICFTU officer in Amman was instrumental to the success of the visit. The assistance of the British Consulate in Basra was very much appreciated in securing a visa for one Iraqi colleague, although the other experienced visa problems in both Baghdad and Basra and had a laborious journey.
Thanks to the British Embassy in Amman, the Kurdish colleagues secured their visas much more easily.
Introduction
Ever since the formation of modern Iraq, Iraqi/Kurdish women have suffered terribly at the hands of successive Iraqi governments and have been socially and economically stigmatised and held back by outdated tribal traditions, beliefs and customs.
In the late 1950s, but only for a while, hopes for women's rights and gender equality rose. Women gained the Civic Status Law, a law that guaranteed women's right to inheritance, divorce and property that distinguished them from other women in Islamic countries. But that hope was soon taken away by the coup of Saddam's Ba'ath Party in 1963-1968 and again Saddam's internal coup in 1979. Saddam's regime was the worst of all. While masquerading a wider secular image, it inflicted on Iraqi/Kurdish women a bloody and brutal repression. They were traumatised by his wars of genocide and mass graves. They were routinely gang raped by his security thugs.
Like the fate of Iraqi/Kurdish trade union movement, women's movements that were (relatively) democratically formed in the 1950s were totally suppressed and brutally crushed and were replaced with state-run fronts. Those who survived Saddam's repression were forced to flee abroad, or escape to the remotest Iraqi Kurdistan mountains to stay alive. Many Iraqi/Kurdish women joined the Peshmerga.
After April 2003 women's hope for democracy and gender equality rose again. Iraqi/ Kurdish women began to organise themselves in unions and in wider women's movements. Their main objective was and is to intervene actively in the development of a free, democratic and federal Iraq where women's rights are guaranteed not only by legislation but also by culture.
Iraqi women have, theoretically, managed to secure a reasonable position in the new polity of Iraq. They have a fair number of women MPs in Iraq's Assembly, in the government ministries and in its departments and in wider civil society organisations.
However, despite this modest gain, the persistence of violence that often results in the death of women continues to occur on regular basis. So-called 'honour killings' persist despite legislation banning it at least in Iraqi Kurdistan.
It is a disappointing reality that needs to be challenged and re-addressed.
Sadly, as Iraq continues to battle against the danger posed by sectarian violence and the onslaught of extremists, trade union and women's issues are left unresolved by Iraq's new political elites.
The union delegation
The TUC hosted four women members from the Iraqi/Kurdish trade unions from 4-12 March 2006. The delegates attended the TUC Women's Conference in Eastbourne from 8-10 March, took part in the TUC International Women's Day celebration and met with relevant British trade unions. The delegation consisted of two Iraqi women from Baghdad and Basra and two from Iraqi Kurdistan: they were from four sectoral trade unions representing the main Iraqi/Kurdish federations, the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate (KWS) and the General Federation of Iraqi Workers/Iraqi Workers Federation (GFIW/IWF - we use the abbreviation GFIW throughout): the Oil and Gas Workers Union; the Mechanics, Metal and Printing Workers Union; the Kurdistan Service Workers Union and the Journalists' Union in Kurdistan.
The delegation consisted of:
Nazanin T. Ali, Head of Women's Affairs at the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate, Member of the Service Workers Union;
Hoda S Rafiq, Member of the Kurdistan Journalists' Union, who works for the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate newspaper;
Hassana Abdulsatar, member of the Mechanics, Metal and Printing Workers Union and a member of her union's Women's Committee; and
Violet Issa Qalaab, President of the Oil and Gas Workers Union Al Zubair Branch and member of the Iraqi Women's League.
Aims of the visit
The TUC believes strongly that women's participation in public life, and in particular in trade unions, is vital to the development of a free, democratic and open society. Given the fact that Iraqi/Kurdish women today make up half of Iraq's population and some 35% of the workforce (in some industries, they are the majority, including some parts of heavy industry as a result of the need to draft women into the labour force to replace men sent to the front or killed during Iraq's bloody war with Iran) they are a key part of the development of Iraq's pluralist polity and social stability. Releasing their potential and freeing them from the shackles of outdated cultural tribal customs and traditions will not only benefit Iraqi/Kurdish women but will help Iraq's development and prosperity. For without their active participation Iraq will suffer huge social and economic deficit and probably prolonged political instability.
Despite the positive rhetoric of Iraq's new political elites towards women, there is persistence of negative cultural expectations that sees a woman's place at home, and that seeks to regulate women's rights to work to a narrow range of jobs. In other words, tribal customs dictate what work is not appropriate for Iraqi/Kurdish women.
The TUC has hosted several delegations of Iraqi/Kurdish trade unionists, including a recent visit by the Iraqi/Kurdish Teacher Unions (see www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-11305-f0.cfm). All delegations have urged the TUC to assist them by offering training and education, in particular for women who are constrained by gender issues and workplace discrimination.
The TUC has sought, and in line with Congress policy on Iraq to encourage and support the building of free, independent and democratic Iraqi unions, with particular reference to women's involvement and women's rights as enshrined in ILO conventions.
This visit sought to contribute to the above objectives and was also designed to:
increase awareness of women's issues in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan such as equal access to jobs, equal pay, and maternity pay and leave;
identify issues that hinder women's progress and seek to encourage them to campaign for legislation that guarantees their rights and increases their participation in the decision making bodies of unions and the state;
support the campaign and activities of organised labour in Iraq for a Labour Code that adheres to the ILO core conventions, and to show solidarity with the Iraqi labour movement against Decree 8750 [1] ;
assist Iraqi/Kurdish unions to develop practical programmes of trade union education; and
strengthen links and effective cooperation between the TUC Women's Committee and Iraqi/Kurdish trade union women's committees.
The programme
The TUC agenda for the Iraqi/Kurdish women's delegation consisted of five full working days, which included: taking part in the TUC International Women's Day celebration, the TUC Women's Conference and meeting with relevant British unions. It also included:
a meeting in the House of Commons with MPs and Ministers;
a meeting at the FCO's Iraq policy unit;
a seminar on women's rights and gender issues hosted by the FCO;
a formal dinner hosted by the TUC for the delegation; and
two free days over the weekends at either end of the visit for sightseeing and rest.
The delegation's itinerary
Monday 6 March 2006
TUC
Simon Steyne, TUC International Officer and Worker Member of the ILO Governing Body, welcomed the Iraqi/Kurdish women's delegation formally to the TUC's Congress House headquarters. The delegation also briefly met TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber. Caroline Smith from the TUC Organisation and Services Department outlined briefly the TUC's policy on women's vocational education and training.
Simon then introduced the TUC's history - unlike other trade union centres, the TUC had enjoyed an uninterrupted period of development ever since its creation in the 19th century, which accounted for some of its characteristics. The TUC played a significant role in the development of public policy post 1945. It has also supported technical and educational programmes that encouraged and supported the development of democratic and independent unions in all continents after the end of World War II, especially in Germany. He outlined the challenges facing the TUC of declining membership, privatisation and globalisation.
Simon concluded by referring to Decree 8750. He informed the delegation of the continuing TUC efforts to provide solidarity and support in cooperation with ICFTU, and at the request of the Iraqi labour movement, in taking a leading role to mobilise the international labour movement to exert pressure on the Iraqi Assembly and the incoming Iraqi government to repeal this anti-union Decree. He also informed delegates that the TUC supported the ILO complaint filed against this Decree by the GFIW.
PCS
The PCS women's forum invited the delegation for lunch and a meeting. Pat Compel and Sue Bond greeted the delegation formally to the PCS women's forum and reiterated their union's opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq. They affirmed their union's commitment, working with the TUC, to assist Iraqi unions in their endeavour to build genuinely independent and democratic unions.
The forum listened to a brief introduction by each of the delegates, and then Sue Bond opened the meeting for questions and comments. Questions about the privatisation of Iraqi oil, the presence of foreign troops and how the PCS and the wider British labour movement can help were asked.
Violet said: 'the Oil and Gas Workers Union want to encourage foreign investment in the Iraqi oil industry in order to bring very much needed new technology and machinery, to train and re-skill oil workers.' But she added that oil must remain publicly owned property in order to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq. She said we oppose privatisation but we support foreign investment, as we see them as two completely different things.
On the question of the presence of foreign troops, the delegation said that Saddam is to blame for the war and occupation of Iraq. Iraqi and Kurdish unions want to see Iraq fully sovereign and free from foreign troops. But they said this must happen with approval of the UN and in consultation with Iraqi Assembly. No other authority has the right to sanction such decision.
The delegation thanked the PCS for its moral and political support.
TUC Women's Reception
TUC Assistant General Secretary Kay Carberry opened the International Women's Day reception at Congress House that evening. She welcomed the Culture Minister Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP and international guests. Sister Sarah Mansaray, from the Sierra Leone teacher's union spoke to meeting and applauded the TUC for solidarity and support of the trade unions in her country. Then Sisters Violet Eassa Qalaab and Nazanin Ali were called to address the reception (see annex for speeches).
Messages of support from the Canadian and Nigerian and many other trade union centers, including the AFL-CIO, were read by Rajeswari Raman from the Malaysian Trade Union Congress and Assumpta Clikamba from the Zimbabwe Council of Trade Unions. The reception was concluded with music and songs from the Mercury prize nominee Suheela Ramen.
Tuesday 7 March
Unison
Unison invited the delegation for a meeting and lunch. Nick Crook and Mairin Power of the International Department and Liz Snape, Head of the Policy Unit at Unison, welcomed the delegation to Mabledon Place. A brief introduction to Unison's history and structure was provided. Unison has since 2004 been actively involved in assisting Iraqi fledging unions with practical support and training programmes. Nick informed the delegation of Unison's wish to continue in its solidarity work with Iraqi/Kurdish unions and asked the delegation what kind of programme they wished to see being conducted in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan? Literacy classes for women workers and assistance in producing materials highlighting women's issues and rights were raised by the delegation. Nick Crook and Polly Jones took the delegation for lunch before seeing them to Amicus Head Office.
Amicus
Tony Burke, Amicus Assistant General Secretary, and Simon Dubbins and Harriet Eisner from Amicus' International Department welcomed the delegation to their Head office. After brief greetings and introductions Simon explained the union's history and structure, which he said, consists of 23 sectors ranging from printing and finance to energy with membership at over one million. Simon also touched on the on-going negotiations of a merger between Amicus and two other major British unions. He talked about the union's European and international engagement and international solidarity work with unions in Colombia, Burma and Venezuela. Then Brother Tony Burke presented Sisters Huda and Hassan with posters of 150-year-old certificates of the union's membership card. Brief discussion and questions followed. The delegation asked why Amicus feels the need to create a big British union. The answer was having greater bargaining power when negotiating with governments or big business (both local or global). They were asked in turn about the daily life of ordinary workers in Iraq and how Amicus could assist.
House of Commons
The delegation visited the House of Commons for a Labour Friends of Iraq briefing chaired by Dave Anderson MP, former President of Unison and Chair of LFIQ, in which Sisters Huda and Violet spoke to the meeting. The Rt Hon Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sent a message of support. The Rt Hon Ann Clwyd MP, the Prime Minister's Envoy to Iraq on Human Rights attended and addressed the meeting (see Annex). In welcoming the delegation, she said in reference to Decree 8750, 'the new government of Iraq, when it is formed, must understand that strong trade unions are vital in Iraq.'
Violet talked about the formation of her union in Basra after the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003 and her union's determination to build a genuinely independent and democratic union that can contribute to Iraq's economic and political stability. She also stated her union's commitment to a secular, federal and fully sovereign Iraq. She concluded by referring to the impact of corruption and terrorism and emphasised the need to expose the former and eradicate the later.
Huda talked about women's experience in Iraqi Kurdistan. She said that Iraqi Kurdistan is relatively safe and more secure than the rest of Iraq. But she said Kurdistani women are often held back by stigma and prejudice. This prejudice is sustained by tribal traditions and customs.
The Women's Minister Meg Munn MP spoke and backed the call to increase women's representation in the Iraqi Assembly and wider fields. Former Labour MP Harry Barnes asked the delegation how Iraqi unions could tackle religious and gender divisions?
Wednesday 8 March
TUC
The delegation met Maggie Foy, the TUC's South East Regional Education Officer who gave an introduction to the work of the TUC educational programme for women. The TUC provides training for 14,000 women a year in her region alone, she said. She made special reference to the TUC Education Work Book for working women. In addition to highlighting the TUC agenda in defending women's rights for equal pay, against sex discrimination and for pension, maternity and childcare rights, she mentioned the TUC's courses for union representatives and the campaign 'Breaking the Silence on Domestic Violence'.
FCO International Women's Day Seminar
The delegation was invited to attend an International Women's Day seminar organized by the FCO. The Rt Hon Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, opened the seminar and it was closed by Kim Howell MP who made special reference to the presence of Iraqi/Kurdish women trade unionists. The seminar talked about the UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and the leading role the UK is taking to implement it.
The delegation then travelled by train to Eastbourne for the TUC Women's Conference.
Thursday 9 March
TUC Women's Conference
At the conference, the delegation made contact with delegates and forged many links - teachers' union NASUWT took them to dinner one night. The delegation also addressed the conference as official guests and spoke at a TUC fringe meeting. End Violence Against Women was the appropriate Conference slogan.
Both Violet and Nazanin addressed Conference and received a warm reception. Nazanin, wearing Kurdish traditional clothes spoke in her native language. Their speeches are reproduced in the Annex.
Sue Rogers, Chair of the TUC Iraq Solidarity Committee, chaired a TUC Fringe meeting on solidarity with women trade unionists in Iraq. In welcoming the delegation she drew attention to the long history of trade union activity in Iraq, which had been suppressed by Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and was now hindered again by Decree 8750.
Sister Hoda from the journalists noted that due to the relative stability of Kurdistan since 1991, trade unions have had the opportunity to flourish and grow. However, she said that there were nonetheless major problems for women due to the persistence of traditional 'tribal customs' and traditions which curtail women's freedoms. At the extreme end of this spectrum she referred to the persistence of 'honour killings', which despite legislation banning them, result in the death of women on a regular basis in rural areas.
Hassana explained that her union, formed in 2003, has a high percentage of women members and an active women's committee. The high number of male deaths in the wars initiated by Saddam Hussein has resulted in many women entering non-traditional skilled jobs such as printing and engineering. Wages and conditions are the major issues in the printing industry. Outdated and dangerous machinery is the norm and has resulted in major health and safety problems - one of the union demands is for danger money. Thus while the union is strongly opposed to privatisation, they are very much in favour of foreign investment to improve and modernise machinery. In addition they demand protection from a labour code and are campaigning for Iraq to sign up to the ILO's conventions. She added that her union is aware of the possibility of anti-unionism on the part of potential foreign investors, which is why they are committed to working with the ICFTU and relevant Global Union Federations to forestall union busting activities.
Both speakers emphasised the enormous threat to the trade union movement posed by decree 8750 and also to the sectarian violence, which threatens the lives of ordinary workers. They urged British trade unionists to do all in their power to campaign for the repeal of Iraq's anti union legislation and at the same time to offer assistance in the training and education of Iraqi women trade unionists.
Friday 10 March
FCO
Niki Velamati of the Iraq Policy Unit welcomed the delegation to the FCO. She asked about life generally in Iraq and about their week's programme in the UK. She asked them whether they knew of UNSCR 1325 and about issues facing Iraqi/Kurdish women. In reference to Decree 8750, Velamati informed the delegation that the FCO has contacted the Minister of Civil Society to protest.
Fire Brigades Union (FBU)
Brian Joyce, the FBU's Treasurer and Executive Member, and Val Salmon, also a Member of the FBU Executive met the delegation at Congress House. Val asked whether women earn the same wage as men in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. The delegation answer was that Iraqi/Kurdish women are campaigning to achieve equal pay for women both in the private and public sector. Val and Brian asked about the conditions of Iraqi/Kurdish firefighters, who need more modern protective clothing, appliances and most importantly training in practical firefighting and operational procedures. Brian and Val informed the delegation of several projects that are currently being organised by the FBU which will support firefighters and the trade union movement in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. They asked about the current political situation within Iraq including their views on a federal Iraq, the war/occupation and withdrawal of British troops. The message from the delegation was the wish for peace combined with a free and democratic, federal and fully sovereign Iraq free of foreign troops. The FBU then hosted a farewell dinner for the delegation.
Conclusion
The aim of the delegation was to raise the profile of women in the Iraqi/Kurdish trade union movements, both among British trade unions and in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. It also provided four Iraqi/Kurdish women trade unionists with the chance to see how women in the British trade union movement organise themselves.
The TUC will continue to support women trade unionists in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, but in particular, this delegation has led the TUC to conclude that:
there is a pressing need to provide trade union training for women in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a wider programme of trade union training;
men in the Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish trade union movements need to be trained about equality and women's rights - why they are important and how to deliver them;
help is needed for literacy classes for women and in particular for young women, targeting those especially in rural areas;
there is a need for assistance in producing materials highlighting women's issues and rights; and
the TUC should take up the issue of honour killings as part of its campaigns on violence against women, in association with Amnesty International's 'Stop Violence Against Women' campaign.
Annex: speeches and messages
Speech by Violet Issa Qalaab of the Oil and Gas Union/South of Iraq
On behalf of Iraqi women and the struggling women in all fields of work I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you on the celebration of Women's Day and your Conference.
First allow me to give a brief history of misery and pain that Iraqi women had to endure.
Before Saddam's regime and all the wars that he caused, Iraqi women were enjoying rights that distinguished them from other women in the Islamic countries.
According to the Iraqi Civil Affairs Law of 1959, women had the right to assume any post in trade unions, judiciary, factories, universities and diplomatic core.
This right was achieved through years of struggle and perseverance, but wars and Saddam's dictatorial regime changed all this.
The amount of suffering Iraqi women had endured and their marginalization from the workplace, as well as family responsibilities had made Iraqi women move away from achieving their goals.
This occurred despite the fact that Iraq was one of the first countries to sign international treaties ending discrimination against women.
The former regime prevented Iraqi women from continuing their education and gave them immense responsibility as the main breadwinner in the family.
With the country in deep crisis and with a shattered economy Iraqi women were forced to take any work to feed her family.
This situation left women confused and desperate and forced the engineer to leave her profession and the doctor to accept being the second wife.
The situation in post-Saddam Iraq has not improved a great deal because of lack of security.
Women began to leave their work for fear of terrorism and frequent and random attacks.
And the rise in prices of goods and rent and fuel, put more pressure on women and their families. Many Iraqi women now live in abandoned and destroyed buildings while living in desolation, scarcity and poor health.
However, despite all these difficulties they are nevertheless still active and play their role to develop the society.
Many Iraqi women became members of trade unions to defend the rights of women workers and women in particular.
Many began to attend international meetings so they gain some experience and the knowledge from the women in the developed world.
Iraqi women also took part in awareness campaigns which have been organised by civil society organisations in order make known their suffering and their rights to officials.
Iraqi women need all moral help to enable them to regain a sense of initiative and will, to solve their problems.
There is an immediate need to have workshops to look into issues regarding Iraqi women specifically and women's rights, health issues, etc
I hope the day will soon come when the world will witness the motivation, determination, and resolve of Iraqi women in the process rebuilding Iraq.
To end my speech, please allow me to say a few words about my union, the Oil and Gas Workers Union and its struggles:
for a Labour Code that adheres to the ILO International Standards;
for social provision such as health, housing and pensions;
to keep oil publicly owned although we support foreign investment to bring technology and skills;
to see Iraq fully sovereign and free from foreign troops;
alongside other forces, to build a democratic, united and federal Iraq; and
we seek your support to reverse Decree 8750.
Speech by Nazanin T Ali , of the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate
I extend to you warm greetings from Kurdistani women workers and we wish you a successful conference.
The invitation you have extended to us, the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate, to take part in this conference, which began on the 8th of March, International Women's Day, conveys a message of solidarity, unity and the shared aims of women around the world in general and women trade unionists in particular.
The universal message that unites us all is our struggle to improve better living conditions for workers and to realise their rights through securing the rights of women to equality and eliminate social injustice, though its advancement differs between one society and others.
The courageous and tireless Kurdistani women have been relentless in their contribution to the national liberation movement of the people of Kurdistan.
Every Kurdistani woman played a heroic role in the long struggle of the Kurdistani people for federalism with Iraq. As a mother or a peshmerga or an activist, Kurdistani women endured political repression, imprisonment and torture.
Kurdistani women suffered untold tragedies brought upon them by Saddam's wars of genocide such as the Anfal operation, chemical attacks and the mass graves.
Husbands and sons were taken away never to be seen again and women were left on their own with no support. Kurdistani women suffered untold oppression from Saddam's fascist policies and chauvinistic rule.
Successive Iraqi regimes have set Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq years back and stopped any advancement in science, culture and education and above all women's rights.
In 1991, a popular uprising swept across Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan in protest against the tyranny of Saddam's regime. Kurdistani women took a leading role along with the rest of society.
It has been 15 years to this day since the people of Kurdistan have proudly been living under the auspices of their hard earned self-rule. During this time Kurdistan saw the election, the founding of the Kurdistan National Assembly and formation of the Kurdistan regional government.
Following the downfall of Saddam, a political process was adopted to create a federal Iraq governed by parliamentary democracy. Kurdish women played a key role during the referendum and in the free and democratic election in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Women participate in the Kurdistan assembly and the Iraqi National Assembly. Women have 25% seats in the Iraqi National Assembly.
Iraqi Kurdistan has just elected a president. His Excellency Masud Barzani. After his election as a president, a decision was taken with his support to set up an agency that deals with affairs of the families of martyred Kurds.
To this day the agency provides a monthly income to families and relatives of those who were killed in Anfal, irrespective of their political persuasion and beliefs, and by allocating plots of land.
Women in Iraqi Kurdistan are free to take part in political work, parliament, government, administration, judiciary and media and in wide civil society organisations.
Kurdistani women have assumed higher posts within all different agencies of the state.
But despite these achievements, women still have to address social issues such as honour killing- which is banned by law- but is still practiced in rural areas.
Finally, we would like to reaffirm the need for unity and accord between women workers and to reiterate our stance that we stand against any form of discrimination.
Yes to the struggle for working rights, better life, equality and social justice!
From the podium of your conference we send our best wishes on the occasion of International Women's Day and solidarity with workers of the world and we wish you all success in your conference.
Jack Straw's message to the House of Commons meeting with Iraqi women trade unionists
I am sorry that I cannot attend your meeting this evening. I wanted though to send you my very best wishes. I know from my regular visits to Iraq of the vital role people such as yourselves are playing in building a new future for the country. You can be assured that in your historic mission you have the support of the UK Government. I do not delude myself about the challenges faced by the people of Iraq. But just as millions of people showed what sort of future they want by voting in December's elections, so the trade union movement in Iraq is showing its determination to defy those who seek to destroy the process of rebuilding your country. In that we offer you solidarity and wish you well.
Ann Clwyd's speech to the House of Commons meeting with Iraqi women trade unionists
As the Prime Minister's Envoy to Iraq on Human Rights I am very pleased to see you all here - particularly women from Iraq - because I have a long association with you and it is important that you are here in the week of International Women's Day because you are examples of how much has been achieved in Iraq and the determination of the women of Iraq, despite all the difficulties, to fight for what you believe to be worthwhile.
Some of us were associated for a long period of time with CARDRI - the Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq.
When I was in Iraq 18 months ago I met representatives of the free trade unions and I showed them a CARDRI newsletter from 1987 that had several articles on the crushing of unions by Saddam.
They said to me, oh, we used to hand that out, translated into Arabic, on the streets of Baghdad.
We in CARDRI did not then know that our newsletters were reaching the streets of Baghdad but unfortunately one if not two of those brave men who we met were subsequently killed.
It was very sad that those fighting to restore trade unions in Iraq were being attacked in that way.
That's one of the many reasons why we admire you for standing up for the thing you believe in despite the threats.
And when I was in Basra for the first election it was amazing to see so many women turn out to vote.
The polling stations were being attacked by mortars and many women were present at this particular polling station. I asked the polling clerk what did the women do. He said that they stood there and sang a song of defiance.
So we understand what problems face you and your difficulties and we obviously want to do everything we can to help you.
We know that bodies such as the TUC and the ICFTU have protested against, for example, Decree 8750 and the new government of Iraq, when it is formed, must understand that strong trade unions are vital in Iraq, in all professions, and in consolidating the freedoms and rights which Iraqis are beginning to enjoy for the first time.
On International Women's Day we say in this country that women must be represented at all levels and have equal rights with men.
We who are elected as MPs also understand how difficult the struggle is for women not only in your country but in ours too. For example, for 17 years I was the only woman MP from Wales. So because we have had to struggle ourselves in different circumstances to you, we want you to know that you have our support and solidarity and would be happy to give any assistance we can.
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[1] The Government of Prime Minister al Jaafari issued this Decree in September 2005, restricting trade union control over their finances and authorising a virtual state takeover of the trade union movement. The TUC and the ICFTU immediately protested to the Iraqi government, and the TUC has led (at the request of the GFIW) a worldwide protest against the decree. In January 2006, the ICFTU and the TUC supported an ILO complaint filed by the GFIW against this Decree.
Report (5,500 words) issued 21 May 2006
The visit was funded by the TUC, Unison and Amicus' Nick Burdon and Denis Blockley Trust. GFIW International Representative Abdullah Muhsin, who accompanied the delegation, acted as an interpreter. Elena Crasta and Simon Steyne of the TUC European Union and International Relations Department facilitated the visit.
The logistical assistance of Ralf Erbel, the ICFTU officer in Amman was instrumental to the success of the visit. The assistance of the British Consulate in Basra was very much appreciated in securing a visa for one Iraqi colleague, although the other experienced visa problems in both Baghdad and Basra and had a laborious journey.
Thanks to the British Embassy in Amman, the Kurdish colleagues secured their visas much more easily.
Introduction
Ever since the formation of modern Iraq, Iraqi/Kurdish women have suffered terribly at the hands of successive Iraqi governments and have been socially and economically stigmatised and held back by outdated tribal traditions, beliefs and customs.
In the late 1950s, but only for a while, hopes for women's rights and gender equality rose. Women gained the Civic Status Law, a law that guaranteed women's right to inheritance, divorce and property that distinguished them from other women in Islamic countries. But that hope was soon taken away by the coup of Saddam's Ba'ath Party in 1963-1968 and again Saddam's internal coup in 1979. Saddam's regime was the worst of all. While masquerading a wider secular image, it inflicted on Iraqi/Kurdish women a bloody and brutal repression. They were traumatised by his wars of genocide and mass graves. They were routinely gang raped by his security thugs.
Like the fate of Iraqi/Kurdish trade union movement, women's movements that were (relatively) democratically formed in the 1950s were totally suppressed and brutally crushed and were replaced with state-run fronts. Those who survived Saddam's repression were forced to flee abroad, or escape to the remotest Iraqi Kurdistan mountains to stay alive. Many Iraqi/Kurdish women joined the Peshmerga.
After April 2003 women's hope for democracy and gender equality rose again. Iraqi/ Kurdish women began to organise themselves in unions and in wider women's movements. Their main objective was and is to intervene actively in the development of a free, democratic and federal Iraq where women's rights are guaranteed not only by legislation but also by culture.
Iraqi women have, theoretically, managed to secure a reasonable position in the new polity of Iraq. They have a fair number of women MPs in Iraq's Assembly, in the government ministries and in its departments and in wider civil society organisations.
However, despite this modest gain, the persistence of violence that often results in the death of women continues to occur on regular basis. So-called 'honour killings' persist despite legislation banning it at least in Iraqi Kurdistan.
It is a disappointing reality that needs to be challenged and re-addressed.
Sadly, as Iraq continues to battle against the danger posed by sectarian violence and the onslaught of extremists, trade union and women's issues are left unresolved by Iraq's new political elites.
The union delegation
The TUC hosted four women members from the Iraqi/Kurdish trade unions from 4-12 March 2006. The delegates attended the TUC Women's Conference in Eastbourne from 8-10 March, took part in the TUC International Women's Day celebration and met with relevant British trade unions. The delegation consisted of two Iraqi women from Baghdad and Basra and two from Iraqi Kurdistan: they were from four sectoral trade unions representing the main Iraqi/Kurdish federations, the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate (KWS) and the General Federation of Iraqi Workers/Iraqi Workers Federation (GFIW/IWF - we use the abbreviation GFIW throughout): the Oil and Gas Workers Union; the Mechanics, Metal and Printing Workers Union; the Kurdistan Service Workers Union and the Journalists' Union in Kurdistan.
The delegation consisted of:
Nazanin T. Ali, Head of Women's Affairs at the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate, Member of the Service Workers Union;
Hoda S Rafiq, Member of the Kurdistan Journalists' Union, who works for the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate newspaper;
Hassana Abdulsatar, member of the Mechanics, Metal and Printing Workers Union and a member of her union's Women's Committee; and
Violet Issa Qalaab, President of the Oil and Gas Workers Union Al Zubair Branch and member of the Iraqi Women's League.
Aims of the visit
The TUC believes strongly that women's participation in public life, and in particular in trade unions, is vital to the development of a free, democratic and open society. Given the fact that Iraqi/Kurdish women today make up half of Iraq's population and some 35% of the workforce (in some industries, they are the majority, including some parts of heavy industry as a result of the need to draft women into the labour force to replace men sent to the front or killed during Iraq's bloody war with Iran) they are a key part of the development of Iraq's pluralist polity and social stability. Releasing their potential and freeing them from the shackles of outdated cultural tribal customs and traditions will not only benefit Iraqi/Kurdish women but will help Iraq's development and prosperity. For without their active participation Iraq will suffer huge social and economic deficit and probably prolonged political instability.
Despite the positive rhetoric of Iraq's new political elites towards women, there is persistence of negative cultural expectations that sees a woman's place at home, and that seeks to regulate women's rights to work to a narrow range of jobs. In other words, tribal customs dictate what work is not appropriate for Iraqi/Kurdish women.
The TUC has hosted several delegations of Iraqi/Kurdish trade unionists, including a recent visit by the Iraqi/Kurdish Teacher Unions (see www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-11305-f0.cfm). All delegations have urged the TUC to assist them by offering training and education, in particular for women who are constrained by gender issues and workplace discrimination.
The TUC has sought, and in line with Congress policy on Iraq to encourage and support the building of free, independent and democratic Iraqi unions, with particular reference to women's involvement and women's rights as enshrined in ILO conventions.
This visit sought to contribute to the above objectives and was also designed to:
increase awareness of women's issues in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan such as equal access to jobs, equal pay, and maternity pay and leave;
identify issues that hinder women's progress and seek to encourage them to campaign for legislation that guarantees their rights and increases their participation in the decision making bodies of unions and the state;
support the campaign and activities of organised labour in Iraq for a Labour Code that adheres to the ILO core conventions, and to show solidarity with the Iraqi labour movement against Decree 8750 [1] ;
assist Iraqi/Kurdish unions to develop practical programmes of trade union education; and
strengthen links and effective cooperation between the TUC Women's Committee and Iraqi/Kurdish trade union women's committees.
The programme
The TUC agenda for the Iraqi/Kurdish women's delegation consisted of five full working days, which included: taking part in the TUC International Women's Day celebration, the TUC Women's Conference and meeting with relevant British unions. It also included:
a meeting in the House of Commons with MPs and Ministers;
a meeting at the FCO's Iraq policy unit;
a seminar on women's rights and gender issues hosted by the FCO;
a formal dinner hosted by the TUC for the delegation; and
two free days over the weekends at either end of the visit for sightseeing and rest.
The delegation's itinerary
Monday 6 March 2006
TUC
Simon Steyne, TUC International Officer and Worker Member of the ILO Governing Body, welcomed the Iraqi/Kurdish women's delegation formally to the TUC's Congress House headquarters. The delegation also briefly met TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber. Caroline Smith from the TUC Organisation and Services Department outlined briefly the TUC's policy on women's vocational education and training.
Simon then introduced the TUC's history - unlike other trade union centres, the TUC had enjoyed an uninterrupted period of development ever since its creation in the 19th century, which accounted for some of its characteristics. The TUC played a significant role in the development of public policy post 1945. It has also supported technical and educational programmes that encouraged and supported the development of democratic and independent unions in all continents after the end of World War II, especially in Germany. He outlined the challenges facing the TUC of declining membership, privatisation and globalisation.
Simon concluded by referring to Decree 8750. He informed the delegation of the continuing TUC efforts to provide solidarity and support in cooperation with ICFTU, and at the request of the Iraqi labour movement, in taking a leading role to mobilise the international labour movement to exert pressure on the Iraqi Assembly and the incoming Iraqi government to repeal this anti-union Decree. He also informed delegates that the TUC supported the ILO complaint filed against this Decree by the GFIW.
PCS
The PCS women's forum invited the delegation for lunch and a meeting. Pat Compel and Sue Bond greeted the delegation formally to the PCS women's forum and reiterated their union's opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq. They affirmed their union's commitment, working with the TUC, to assist Iraqi unions in their endeavour to build genuinely independent and democratic unions.
The forum listened to a brief introduction by each of the delegates, and then Sue Bond opened the meeting for questions and comments. Questions about the privatisation of Iraqi oil, the presence of foreign troops and how the PCS and the wider British labour movement can help were asked.
Violet said: 'the Oil and Gas Workers Union want to encourage foreign investment in the Iraqi oil industry in order to bring very much needed new technology and machinery, to train and re-skill oil workers.' But she added that oil must remain publicly owned property in order to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq. She said we oppose privatisation but we support foreign investment, as we see them as two completely different things.
On the question of the presence of foreign troops, the delegation said that Saddam is to blame for the war and occupation of Iraq. Iraqi and Kurdish unions want to see Iraq fully sovereign and free from foreign troops. But they said this must happen with approval of the UN and in consultation with Iraqi Assembly. No other authority has the right to sanction such decision.
The delegation thanked the PCS for its moral and political support.
TUC Women's Reception
TUC Assistant General Secretary Kay Carberry opened the International Women's Day reception at Congress House that evening. She welcomed the Culture Minister Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP and international guests. Sister Sarah Mansaray, from the Sierra Leone teacher's union spoke to meeting and applauded the TUC for solidarity and support of the trade unions in her country. Then Sisters Violet Eassa Qalaab and Nazanin Ali were called to address the reception (see annex for speeches).
Messages of support from the Canadian and Nigerian and many other trade union centers, including the AFL-CIO, were read by Rajeswari Raman from the Malaysian Trade Union Congress and Assumpta Clikamba from the Zimbabwe Council of Trade Unions. The reception was concluded with music and songs from the Mercury prize nominee Suheela Ramen.
Tuesday 7 March
Unison
Unison invited the delegation for a meeting and lunch. Nick Crook and Mairin Power of the International Department and Liz Snape, Head of the Policy Unit at Unison, welcomed the delegation to Mabledon Place. A brief introduction to Unison's history and structure was provided. Unison has since 2004 been actively involved in assisting Iraqi fledging unions with practical support and training programmes. Nick informed the delegation of Unison's wish to continue in its solidarity work with Iraqi/Kurdish unions and asked the delegation what kind of programme they wished to see being conducted in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan? Literacy classes for women workers and assistance in producing materials highlighting women's issues and rights were raised by the delegation. Nick Crook and Polly Jones took the delegation for lunch before seeing them to Amicus Head Office.
Amicus
Tony Burke, Amicus Assistant General Secretary, and Simon Dubbins and Harriet Eisner from Amicus' International Department welcomed the delegation to their Head office. After brief greetings and introductions Simon explained the union's history and structure, which he said, consists of 23 sectors ranging from printing and finance to energy with membership at over one million. Simon also touched on the on-going negotiations of a merger between Amicus and two other major British unions. He talked about the union's European and international engagement and international solidarity work with unions in Colombia, Burma and Venezuela. Then Brother Tony Burke presented Sisters Huda and Hassan with posters of 150-year-old certificates of the union's membership card. Brief discussion and questions followed. The delegation asked why Amicus feels the need to create a big British union. The answer was having greater bargaining power when negotiating with governments or big business (both local or global). They were asked in turn about the daily life of ordinary workers in Iraq and how Amicus could assist.
House of Commons
The delegation visited the House of Commons for a Labour Friends of Iraq briefing chaired by Dave Anderson MP, former President of Unison and Chair of LFIQ, in which Sisters Huda and Violet spoke to the meeting. The Rt Hon Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sent a message of support. The Rt Hon Ann Clwyd MP, the Prime Minister's Envoy to Iraq on Human Rights attended and addressed the meeting (see Annex). In welcoming the delegation, she said in reference to Decree 8750, 'the new government of Iraq, when it is formed, must understand that strong trade unions are vital in Iraq.'
Violet talked about the formation of her union in Basra after the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003 and her union's determination to build a genuinely independent and democratic union that can contribute to Iraq's economic and political stability. She also stated her union's commitment to a secular, federal and fully sovereign Iraq. She concluded by referring to the impact of corruption and terrorism and emphasised the need to expose the former and eradicate the later.
Huda talked about women's experience in Iraqi Kurdistan. She said that Iraqi Kurdistan is relatively safe and more secure than the rest of Iraq. But she said Kurdistani women are often held back by stigma and prejudice. This prejudice is sustained by tribal traditions and customs.
The Women's Minister Meg Munn MP spoke and backed the call to increase women's representation in the Iraqi Assembly and wider fields. Former Labour MP Harry Barnes asked the delegation how Iraqi unions could tackle religious and gender divisions?
Wednesday 8 March
TUC
The delegation met Maggie Foy, the TUC's South East Regional Education Officer who gave an introduction to the work of the TUC educational programme for women. The TUC provides training for 14,000 women a year in her region alone, she said. She made special reference to the TUC Education Work Book for working women. In addition to highlighting the TUC agenda in defending women's rights for equal pay, against sex discrimination and for pension, maternity and childcare rights, she mentioned the TUC's courses for union representatives and the campaign 'Breaking the Silence on Domestic Violence'.
FCO International Women's Day Seminar
The delegation was invited to attend an International Women's Day seminar organized by the FCO. The Rt Hon Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, opened the seminar and it was closed by Kim Howell MP who made special reference to the presence of Iraqi/Kurdish women trade unionists. The seminar talked about the UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and the leading role the UK is taking to implement it.
The delegation then travelled by train to Eastbourne for the TUC Women's Conference.
Thursday 9 March
TUC Women's Conference
At the conference, the delegation made contact with delegates and forged many links - teachers' union NASUWT took them to dinner one night. The delegation also addressed the conference as official guests and spoke at a TUC fringe meeting. End Violence Against Women was the appropriate Conference slogan.
Both Violet and Nazanin addressed Conference and received a warm reception. Nazanin, wearing Kurdish traditional clothes spoke in her native language. Their speeches are reproduced in the Annex.
Sue Rogers, Chair of the TUC Iraq Solidarity Committee, chaired a TUC Fringe meeting on solidarity with women trade unionists in Iraq. In welcoming the delegation she drew attention to the long history of trade union activity in Iraq, which had been suppressed by Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and was now hindered again by Decree 8750.
Sister Hoda from the journalists noted that due to the relative stability of Kurdistan since 1991, trade unions have had the opportunity to flourish and grow. However, she said that there were nonetheless major problems for women due to the persistence of traditional 'tribal customs' and traditions which curtail women's freedoms. At the extreme end of this spectrum she referred to the persistence of 'honour killings', which despite legislation banning them, result in the death of women on a regular basis in rural areas.
Hassana explained that her union, formed in 2003, has a high percentage of women members and an active women's committee. The high number of male deaths in the wars initiated by Saddam Hussein has resulted in many women entering non-traditional skilled jobs such as printing and engineering. Wages and conditions are the major issues in the printing industry. Outdated and dangerous machinery is the norm and has resulted in major health and safety problems - one of the union demands is for danger money. Thus while the union is strongly opposed to privatisation, they are very much in favour of foreign investment to improve and modernise machinery. In addition they demand protection from a labour code and are campaigning for Iraq to sign up to the ILO's conventions. She added that her union is aware of the possibility of anti-unionism on the part of potential foreign investors, which is why they are committed to working with the ICFTU and relevant Global Union Federations to forestall union busting activities.
Both speakers emphasised the enormous threat to the trade union movement posed by decree 8750 and also to the sectarian violence, which threatens the lives of ordinary workers. They urged British trade unionists to do all in their power to campaign for the repeal of Iraq's anti union legislation and at the same time to offer assistance in the training and education of Iraqi women trade unionists.
Friday 10 March
FCO
Niki Velamati of the Iraq Policy Unit welcomed the delegation to the FCO. She asked about life generally in Iraq and about their week's programme in the UK. She asked them whether they knew of UNSCR 1325 and about issues facing Iraqi/Kurdish women. In reference to Decree 8750, Velamati informed the delegation that the FCO has contacted the Minister of Civil Society to protest.
Fire Brigades Union (FBU)
Brian Joyce, the FBU's Treasurer and Executive Member, and Val Salmon, also a Member of the FBU Executive met the delegation at Congress House. Val asked whether women earn the same wage as men in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. The delegation answer was that Iraqi/Kurdish women are campaigning to achieve equal pay for women both in the private and public sector. Val and Brian asked about the conditions of Iraqi/Kurdish firefighters, who need more modern protective clothing, appliances and most importantly training in practical firefighting and operational procedures. Brian and Val informed the delegation of several projects that are currently being organised by the FBU which will support firefighters and the trade union movement in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. They asked about the current political situation within Iraq including their views on a federal Iraq, the war/occupation and withdrawal of British troops. The message from the delegation was the wish for peace combined with a free and democratic, federal and fully sovereign Iraq free of foreign troops. The FBU then hosted a farewell dinner for the delegation.
Conclusion
The aim of the delegation was to raise the profile of women in the Iraqi/Kurdish trade union movements, both among British trade unions and in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. It also provided four Iraqi/Kurdish women trade unionists with the chance to see how women in the British trade union movement organise themselves.
The TUC will continue to support women trade unionists in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, but in particular, this delegation has led the TUC to conclude that:
there is a pressing need to provide trade union training for women in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a wider programme of trade union training;
men in the Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish trade union movements need to be trained about equality and women's rights - why they are important and how to deliver them;
help is needed for literacy classes for women and in particular for young women, targeting those especially in rural areas;
there is a need for assistance in producing materials highlighting women's issues and rights; and
the TUC should take up the issue of honour killings as part of its campaigns on violence against women, in association with Amnesty International's 'Stop Violence Against Women' campaign.
Annex: speeches and messages
Speech by Violet Issa Qalaab of the Oil and Gas Union/South of Iraq
On behalf of Iraqi women and the struggling women in all fields of work I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you on the celebration of Women's Day and your Conference.
First allow me to give a brief history of misery and pain that Iraqi women had to endure.
Before Saddam's regime and all the wars that he caused, Iraqi women were enjoying rights that distinguished them from other women in the Islamic countries.
According to the Iraqi Civil Affairs Law of 1959, women had the right to assume any post in trade unions, judiciary, factories, universities and diplomatic core.
This right was achieved through years of struggle and perseverance, but wars and Saddam's dictatorial regime changed all this.
The amount of suffering Iraqi women had endured and their marginalization from the workplace, as well as family responsibilities had made Iraqi women move away from achieving their goals.
This occurred despite the fact that Iraq was one of the first countries to sign international treaties ending discrimination against women.
The former regime prevented Iraqi women from continuing their education and gave them immense responsibility as the main breadwinner in the family.
With the country in deep crisis and with a shattered economy Iraqi women were forced to take any work to feed her family.
This situation left women confused and desperate and forced the engineer to leave her profession and the doctor to accept being the second wife.
The situation in post-Saddam Iraq has not improved a great deal because of lack of security.
Women began to leave their work for fear of terrorism and frequent and random attacks.
And the rise in prices of goods and rent and fuel, put more pressure on women and their families. Many Iraqi women now live in abandoned and destroyed buildings while living in desolation, scarcity and poor health.
However, despite all these difficulties they are nevertheless still active and play their role to develop the society.
Many Iraqi women became members of trade unions to defend the rights of women workers and women in particular.
Many began to attend international meetings so they gain some experience and the knowledge from the women in the developed world.
Iraqi women also took part in awareness campaigns which have been organised by civil society organisations in order make known their suffering and their rights to officials.
Iraqi women need all moral help to enable them to regain a sense of initiative and will, to solve their problems.
There is an immediate need to have workshops to look into issues regarding Iraqi women specifically and women's rights, health issues, etc
I hope the day will soon come when the world will witness the motivation, determination, and resolve of Iraqi women in the process rebuilding Iraq.
To end my speech, please allow me to say a few words about my union, the Oil and Gas Workers Union and its struggles:
for a Labour Code that adheres to the ILO International Standards;
for social provision such as health, housing and pensions;
to keep oil publicly owned although we support foreign investment to bring technology and skills;
to see Iraq fully sovereign and free from foreign troops;
alongside other forces, to build a democratic, united and federal Iraq; and
we seek your support to reverse Decree 8750.
Speech by Nazanin T Ali , of the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate
I extend to you warm greetings from Kurdistani women workers and we wish you a successful conference.
The invitation you have extended to us, the Kurdistan Workers Syndicate, to take part in this conference, which began on the 8th of March, International Women's Day, conveys a message of solidarity, unity and the shared aims of women around the world in general and women trade unionists in particular.
The universal message that unites us all is our struggle to improve better living conditions for workers and to realise their rights through securing the rights of women to equality and eliminate social injustice, though its advancement differs between one society and others.
The courageous and tireless Kurdistani women have been relentless in their contribution to the national liberation movement of the people of Kurdistan.
Every Kurdistani woman played a heroic role in the long struggle of the Kurdistani people for federalism with Iraq. As a mother or a peshmerga or an activist, Kurdistani women endured political repression, imprisonment and torture.
Kurdistani women suffered untold tragedies brought upon them by Saddam's wars of genocide such as the Anfal operation, chemical attacks and the mass graves.
Husbands and sons were taken away never to be seen again and women were left on their own with no support. Kurdistani women suffered untold oppression from Saddam's fascist policies and chauvinistic rule.
Successive Iraqi regimes have set Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq years back and stopped any advancement in science, culture and education and above all women's rights.
In 1991, a popular uprising swept across Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan in protest against the tyranny of Saddam's regime. Kurdistani women took a leading role along with the rest of society.
It has been 15 years to this day since the people of Kurdistan have proudly been living under the auspices of their hard earned self-rule. During this time Kurdistan saw the election, the founding of the Kurdistan National Assembly and formation of the Kurdistan regional government.
Following the downfall of Saddam, a political process was adopted to create a federal Iraq governed by parliamentary democracy. Kurdish women played a key role during the referendum and in the free and democratic election in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Women participate in the Kurdistan assembly and the Iraqi National Assembly. Women have 25% seats in the Iraqi National Assembly.
Iraqi Kurdistan has just elected a president. His Excellency Masud Barzani. After his election as a president, a decision was taken with his support to set up an agency that deals with affairs of the families of martyred Kurds.
To this day the agency provides a monthly income to families and relatives of those who were killed in Anfal, irrespective of their political persuasion and beliefs, and by allocating plots of land.
Women in Iraqi Kurdistan are free to take part in political work, parliament, government, administration, judiciary and media and in wide civil society organisations.
Kurdistani women have assumed higher posts within all different agencies of the state.
But despite these achievements, women still have to address social issues such as honour killing- which is banned by law- but is still practiced in rural areas.
Finally, we would like to reaffirm the need for unity and accord between women workers and to reiterate our stance that we stand against any form of discrimination.
Yes to the struggle for working rights, better life, equality and social justice!
From the podium of your conference we send our best wishes on the occasion of International Women's Day and solidarity with workers of the world and we wish you all success in your conference.
Jack Straw's message to the House of Commons meeting with Iraqi women trade unionists
I am sorry that I cannot attend your meeting this evening. I wanted though to send you my very best wishes. I know from my regular visits to Iraq of the vital role people such as yourselves are playing in building a new future for the country. You can be assured that in your historic mission you have the support of the UK Government. I do not delude myself about the challenges faced by the people of Iraq. But just as millions of people showed what sort of future they want by voting in December's elections, so the trade union movement in Iraq is showing its determination to defy those who seek to destroy the process of rebuilding your country. In that we offer you solidarity and wish you well.
Ann Clwyd's speech to the House of Commons meeting with Iraqi women trade unionists
As the Prime Minister's Envoy to Iraq on Human Rights I am very pleased to see you all here - particularly women from Iraq - because I have a long association with you and it is important that you are here in the week of International Women's Day because you are examples of how much has been achieved in Iraq and the determination of the women of Iraq, despite all the difficulties, to fight for what you believe to be worthwhile.
Some of us were associated for a long period of time with CARDRI - the Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq.
When I was in Iraq 18 months ago I met representatives of the free trade unions and I showed them a CARDRI newsletter from 1987 that had several articles on the crushing of unions by Saddam.
They said to me, oh, we used to hand that out, translated into Arabic, on the streets of Baghdad.
We in CARDRI did not then know that our newsletters were reaching the streets of Baghdad but unfortunately one if not two of those brave men who we met were subsequently killed.
It was very sad that those fighting to restore trade unions in Iraq were being attacked in that way.
That's one of the many reasons why we admire you for standing up for the thing you believe in despite the threats.
And when I was in Basra for the first election it was amazing to see so many women turn out to vote.
The polling stations were being attacked by mortars and many women were present at this particular polling station. I asked the polling clerk what did the women do. He said that they stood there and sang a song of defiance.
So we understand what problems face you and your difficulties and we obviously want to do everything we can to help you.
We know that bodies such as the TUC and the ICFTU have protested against, for example, Decree 8750 and the new government of Iraq, when it is formed, must understand that strong trade unions are vital in Iraq, in all professions, and in consolidating the freedoms and rights which Iraqis are beginning to enjoy for the first time.
On International Women's Day we say in this country that women must be represented at all levels and have equal rights with men.
We who are elected as MPs also understand how difficult the struggle is for women not only in your country but in ours too. For example, for 17 years I was the only woman MP from Wales. So because we have had to struggle ourselves in different circumstances to you, we want you to know that you have our support and solidarity and would be happy to give any assistance we can.
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[1] The Government of Prime Minister al Jaafari issued this Decree in September 2005, restricting trade union control over their finances and authorising a virtual state takeover of the trade union movement. The TUC and the ICFTU immediately protested to the Iraqi government, and the TUC has led (at the request of the GFIW) a worldwide protest against the decree. In January 2006, the ICFTU and the TUC supported an ILO complaint filed by the GFIW against this Decree.
Report (5,500 words) issued 21 May 2006
Monday, May 22
Defending gay and women's rights in Iraq
On May 19th Iraq Union Solidarity members attended a meeting held at Conway Hall by the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association about the plight of women and LGBT people living in Iraq.
Speakers from the OutRage! LGBT rights campaign, along with Houzan Mahmoud from the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), emphasised the day-to-day struggle they faced in a culture of reaction fostered by the Islamist militias in Iraq.
The social stigma of women who refuse to wear the veil and LGBT people is huge. We were told of how death threats, kidnappings and murders are commonplace, particularly thanks to a Fatwa imposed against gays by Ayatollah Al-Sistani. The families of those rumoured to be gay are also highly vulnerable, sometimes killed as they are blamed for their relative's sexuality.
While OutRage! has run a successful campaign to have the Fatwa removed from al-Sistani's website, the situation on the ground has not improved.
Another targeted group is prostitutes - many Iraqis, including many children, have been forced into selling themselves because the poverty brought on by the war and subsequent occupation is so huge. OWFI estimates that at least 2000 women have been kidnapped and made into sex slaves since 2003.
Organisations defending them deserve our solidarity and support. OutRage! contacts in Iraq are working to help create refuges for sex workers under threat, and also to help people escape into neighbouring Jordan and Syria, where the situation is slightly better. OWFI has a consistent record of campaigning for women's rights and defending women in an increasingly reactionary society.
OutRage! - www.outrage.org.uk
Speakers from the OutRage! LGBT rights campaign, along with Houzan Mahmoud from the Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), emphasised the day-to-day struggle they faced in a culture of reaction fostered by the Islamist militias in Iraq.
The social stigma of women who refuse to wear the veil and LGBT people is huge. We were told of how death threats, kidnappings and murders are commonplace, particularly thanks to a Fatwa imposed against gays by Ayatollah Al-Sistani. The families of those rumoured to be gay are also highly vulnerable, sometimes killed as they are blamed for their relative's sexuality.
While OutRage! has run a successful campaign to have the Fatwa removed from al-Sistani's website, the situation on the ground has not improved.
Another targeted group is prostitutes - many Iraqis, including many children, have been forced into selling themselves because the poverty brought on by the war and subsequent occupation is so huge. OWFI estimates that at least 2000 women have been kidnapped and made into sex slaves since 2003.
Organisations defending them deserve our solidarity and support. OutRage! contacts in Iraq are working to help create refuges for sex workers under threat, and also to help people escape into neighbouring Jordan and Syria, where the situation is slightly better. OWFI has a consistent record of campaigning for women's rights and defending women in an increasingly reactionary society.
OutRage! - www.outrage.org.uk
The corporate invasion of Iraq
The London School of Economics will be hosting a meeting on Tuesday 23rd May about the Corporate Invasion of Iraq - organised by LSE Staffers Against the War and supported by Voices.
Speakers: Antonia Juhasz, Greg Muttit, Loukas Christodopoulos.
Location: New Theatre, LSE, Houghton St, London WC2, 23rd May @ 17.30
Speakers: Antonia Juhasz, Greg Muttit, Loukas Christodopoulos.
Location: New Theatre, LSE, Houghton St, London WC2, 23rd May @ 17.30
Saturday, May 13
May ICFTU bulletin on Iraq
Regional Conference on
“The Challenges of Privatization and Social Protection Policy in Iraq -
A Trade Union Perspective”
April 2-4, 2006
Jerusalem Hotel
Amman-Jordan
Final Report
The ICFTU organized a Regional Conference on "The Challenges of Privatization and Social Protection Policy
in Iraq - A Trade Union Perspective" on April 2-4, 2006 in Amman/Jordan. The conference was attended by the
following representatives from the Iraqi workers federations and organizations:
1. GFIW
2. FWCUI
3. IKWSU
4. KGWSU
5. Basra Oil Federation
Representatives of the following international federations/organizations also attended the conference:
1. ITF
2. TUC
3. International Solidarity Center
4. Platform London, a British NGO
- The participants were honored by the presence of Brother Mazen Al-Ma'ayta, President of the GFJTU,
who welcomed the participants to Amman and voiced his hope that the Iraqi people and workers would live in
stability, peace and growth. Brother Al-Ma'ayta paid tribute to the ICFTU solidarity with all the Arab workers
in general and the Iraqi workers in particular.
- Various presentation and country reports were made during the workshop by the following speakers:
1. Representative of the ICFTU/Brussels
2. Representative of the ITF
3. Representative of the TUC
4. Representative of the Solidarity Center
5. Representative of Platform London, a British NGO
- The participants found all the presentations valuable and useful as they were based on academic,
practical and legal bases.
- The proposed opinions and ideas were discussed and shared by all the participants who benefited from
the country papers and reports presented during the workshop. Opinions, ideas, expertise and experiences were
exchanged among the participants. The papers presented were very relevant to the main theme of the workshop.
- After the discussions and exchange of opinions, the participants came up with the following major
recommendations:
First: The Recommendations to the Iraqi Government (Iraqi Stakeholders):
1. To issue, as soon as possible, the draft labor code which had been discussed as a new labor law for the
coming period; To integrate all amendments, opinions and recommendations of trade union federation
representatives and other participants in the ICFTU workshop and the discussions conducted with the Iraqi
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs; To publish the draft law in the media for one month for the purpose of
enriching this draft and the need to involve workers' representatives;
2. To draft a pension and social security law that serves all workers and unifies all salaries, wages, and
minimum and maximum pension for employees and workers;
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
6
3. To conduct dialogue with the Iraqi trade unions before any privatization or restructuring process in any
public department, institution or company;
4. To reject any privatization or "Production-Sharing Agreement" in the oil sector, on the ground that
there is no justification for this to happen;
5. To reject any privatization of the fundamental public utilities, such as health, education, electricity, and
water;
6. To widen the scope of the employment and vocational training offices to include the young workers
throughout Iraq; To coordinate with the other ministries, especially the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to
fill the vacancies by the registered names in the employment offices;
7. To increase the scope of the social security coverage to cover from one worker at the workplace and to
cover all workers under the Pension and Social Security Law;
8. To support and promote the rations card elements because this card is considered the fundamental
source of living for the Iraqi citizen;
9. To implement the principles of transparency and justice in establishing the salaries of those covered by
the social safety net; To use a database; To eliminate red-tape (bureaucracy); To use computers at work;
10. To adopt a national development strategy that creates, among other priorities, decent job opportunities
that respect human dignity and contribute to combating unemployment and poverty;
11. To respect and implement the international and Arab fundamental labor standards ratified by Iraq, and
activate Collective Bargaining;
12. To respect trade union rights and freedoms, not to violate them through intervention in the internal
affairs of trade union and workers organizations, and to abolish Directive No. 150/1987 which transforms
workers into employees, taking into consideration the rights and gains they have acquired;
13. To abolish Directive No. 8750 issued on August 8, 2005 which empowers the government to confiscate
the movable and immovable assets and balances because these assets and balances are trade union money and
the government has no right to freeze them;
14. To reinstate the deducted money of the workers' social security contributions from the Ministry of
Finance and to invest this money in economic ventures that would benefit workers and citizens;
Second: The Recommendations in terms of the International Financial Institutions:
1. The participants demand the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to seek consultations
with workers' representatives in any project they intend to implement in Iraq. The workers will not accept any
decision that would cause harm to the workers and society;
2. The participants request the World Bank to provide funding for industrial development projects that
can generate decent job opportunities to absorb unemployment according to the market needs;
3. The participants urge the World Bank not to privatize the social security system in Iraq due to the
serious negative impact of such a step on the current and future status of the workers in Iraq; and to work in
consultation with the ILO to implement the contents of the ILO Standards and Conventions in this regard;
Third: The Role of the Regional and International Trade Union Organizations:
1. To increase their solidarity, training, and rehabilitation through the cooperation of these organizations
with the Iraqi workers and people;
2. To make the Iraqi trade union voice heard in the international, financial, organizations in order to
integrate the social dimension in their policies and hence maintain the workers' rights;
3. To involve workers' representatives in setting programs and monitoring their implementation in the
development and reconstruction process in Iraq;
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
7
4. The participants demand the ICFTU to intervene with the WTO in order not to liberalize the
fundamental sectors such as health, education, water and electricity;
In the end, the participants expressed their gratitude and appreciation to the organizers and all those who
worked for the success of this workshop and hoped to participate in similar activities in the future.
The Participants
Amman, April 4, 2006
3. ICFTU Protest: Interference in union affairs
Ibrahim Jaafari
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
Bagdad
Iraq
By fax: c/o Iraqi Embassy in Brussels:
02/374.76.15
TUR/FW 18 April 2006
Dear Prime Minister,
Interference in union affairs
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which represents more than 155
million workers through its 236 affiliates in 154 countries and territories, strongly protests against the
interference by your country's Supreme National Commission for Debaathification (SNCD) in the
internal affairs of the Baghdad-based Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).
In a letter to the IFTU dated 8 March 2006, the SNCD orders the IFTU to "implement the Governing
Council's decision No. 3 [regarding] the formation of the preparatory committees and the election
candidates". Attached to the letter was a summary of what the Governing Council's decision consisted
of, including a number of rules for the composition of the IFTU's preparatory Committee and the way
it should, in the SNCD's view, organise trade union elections.
Furthermore, on 23 March 2006, the SNCD sent the IFTU a list with five names of persons that "have
no right to occupy any leadership position in any federation, society, association or union in Iraq".
Mr. Prime Minister, the ICFTU strongly objects against this inordinate interference in the designation
of the leadership of the IFTU. Dictating to a union how to organise its leadership elections, and whom
not to include in it, is a blatant violation of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 87 on
Freedom of Association. Although Iraq did not ratify this convention, it has an obligation as an ILO
member to respect the principles enshrined in it. I therefore strongly urge you to ensure that the IFTU
benefits of complete freedom in organising its trade union elections and designating its trade union
leadership. Finally, I urge you to ratify ILO Convention 87 on the right to freedom of association.
Yours sincerely,
General Secretary
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
8
II. TRADE UNION NEWS
General Union of Oil Employees in Basra
• The ICFTU was informed that the Iraqi government again froze the bank accounts of the
Basra Oil Union, despite an earlier resolution of decree 8750. Union representatives have
stated that the frozen money includes some financial support received from different
international organizations, and hence has nothing to do with governmental money. The Basra
Oil Union fears that the impact of this government action on their union’s activities will be
significant and are asking for support from the ICFTU and the international trade union
organizations.
Kurdistan General Workers Syndicate Union - KGWSU (Erbil-based)
• The KGWSU sent out a memo on the occasion of world women’s day on March 8th,
congratulating the women worldwide and in Kurdistan. KGWSU’s president, Mr Hangaw
Abdullah Khan, praised and thanked the Kurdish women for their suffering and their fight for
democracy and equal rights.
General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW)1
• GFIW Statement on the Death of Iraqi Trade Union Leader, Torki al-Lihabi
The Iraqi labour movement mourns with sadness the death of trade union leader, brother Torki al-
Lihabi, President of the Transport and Communication Workers’ Union (TCWU) who has been killed
in a road traffic accident in Baghdad on the evening of 20 March 2006.
Our late working class hero was instrumental in the formation of the Iraqi Federation Trade Unions
(IFTU) and the creation of his own union, the TCWU after the fall of Saddam's dictatorship. He
played a significant role in the re-birth of Iraq’s independent trade unions by working closely with the
global labour movement. His union was the first to affiliate to the International Transport Workers’
Federation (ITF).
The Iraqi Workers' Federation (IWF), while mourning our departed comrade and acknowledging the
grave loss to his family and our movement, pledges that we shall continue with determination to build
independent, democratic and free Iraqi trade unions.
Long live the working class.
IWF Executive Committee
• ITF’s tribute to Torki al-Lihabi
Tribute to Iraqi trade union leader
1, Please note that there are currently two English translations for the same federation! The GFIW (General
Federation of Iraqi Workers) is regularly called the IWF (Iraqi Workers’ Federation). From a linguistic
perspective, GFIW would be the better translation of the federation’s Arabic name “Al-Ittihad al Aam Li-‘Umal
al Iraq”.
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
9
24 March 2006
The ITF has paid tribute to Torky Al Lihabi, an Iraqi trade union leader who died on 20 March in a
road accident in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
Torky Al Lihabi was President of the Transport and Communications Workers’ Union in Iraq and the
founder of the new transport union in the newly unified General Federation of Iraqi Workers. His was
the first Iraqi trade union to join the ITF. A long-standing fighter for trade union freedoms in Iraq, he
was jailed for many years under Sadam Hussein’s regime. He was also detained by the American
forces in the period following the invasion of Iraq.
Commenting on the news of Al Lihabi’s passing, ITF General Secretary David Cockroft said: “His
death will be a severe loss to those concerned with trade union rights in Iraq and around the world.”
• Continued Violation to the Iraqi Workers Rights - Press Statement Issued by
General Federation of Iraq Workers
Within the series of violating the union rights and freedoms in Iraq, the terrorists attacked a number of
unionists over the period from mid March to mid April. Such attacks varied between kidnapping and
assassination. The terrorists benefited from the state of disarray in the Country and wreaked their
wrath upon the workers and their union organization because they realize the significant role of thee
workers in rebuilding the new Iraq. On 6th April 2006, they kidnapped the unionist Hajem Kate'
Jabbarah (the vice-president of the Agriculture and Food Trade Union – Baghdad Branch, and he was
released on 9th April after he was severely tortured by the kidnappers. Before that, unionist Amer
Eifan, the member of the union committee at the Concrete Factory at Abu Ghraib, unionist Najm
Muhsen Al-Maksousi, the secretary of the union committee at the Ministry of Irrigation/Agriculture
and Food Trade Union, and unionist Nathem Muhsen Aswad, the union committee head at the
Construction and Wood Trade Union, Baghdad Branch were kidnapped, and the fate of the latest is
unknown. The terrorists also put a bomb in the car of Mr. Saleh Jeyyad (the vice-chairman of the
union committee at Transportation Trade Union/ Federation of Basra Trade Unions) where Mr.
Jeyyad's car was exploded and he had some injuries. In addition, the terrorists assassinated a number
of Construction Sector in Baghdad, Nineveh, Basra and Deyala.
On another hand, the government authorities still violate the workers' rights and their union
organization by implementing the decision No. 150 for the year 1987 which bans the union
organization in the public sector and limits it to the private sector, and decree No. 8750 issued by the
Iraqi Council of Ministries which lays hand on the properties of the federations, unions and vocational
associations, and by activating and enforcing these decisions and decrees where the Transportation
Minister advisor issued instructions on the 18th of last March to all Ministry departments not to
cooperate with all trade unions and to send policemen to the arrest the unionists as the case was with
Mr. Nathem Radi the president of Basra Ports Trade Union, and Mr. Zaki Abdul A'ali Zibari , the
secretary-general of Basra Ports Trade Union, and threatened the union office members to quit the
union work and close the union headquarter merely because Basra Ports Trade Union claimed the
workers' rights at the ports sector. In addition, Kufah Police Department arrested the committee
members of Kufah Transportation Union (Transportation Union in Najaf – Federation of Najaf Trade
Unions) on 7th March 2006 and released them against a bail on 9th of the same month.
We don't forget the savage assault of the administrative apparatuses in Babylon Governorate against
the Federation of Babylon Trade Unions and sending policemen for more than once to close down the
federation quarter and confiscate the workers' properties. Such actions is a flagrant intervention in
the affairs of the workers federations and unions and an implementation of the apparatuses policy
which aims to find organizations controlled by the government orders.
In addition to the orders and the procedures of some ministries not to cooperate with the union
organization and to close down the quarters of the union committees to eradicate the democratic
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
10
method and depend on the decisions and decrees issued by the previous dictator regime. Also, decree
No. 8750 issued by the Council of Ministers didn't cancel or dissolve the federations, unions and
cooperatives working in Iraq, which relied in its legitimacy on their rules, election conferences and
bylaws, and most of them were formed after the collapse of the previous regime.
The violation of the union rights and freedoms in Iraq violates the international covenants and
agreements on the union rights and freedoms, and the government should respect these covenants and
implement them, and provide protection to the unionists, and should not oppress or arrest them
because of their union work.
The General Federation of Iraq Workers struggles for an independent democratic union movement,
contributes in the productivity process, strongly stands against the administrative and financial
corruption, and stabilizes the democratic method in our new Iraq.
Executive Office
General Federation of Iraq Workers
18th April 2006
Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI)
• Memo on the killing of workers by terrorist and sectarian violence (Aptil 22nd
2006)
Employees of the Baghdad Municipality killed by terrorists. Workers from the electricity sector,
building industry etc attacked and partially killed during ethno-religious tensions. The FWCUI
demands more security provisions for the workers.
• Memo about a symposium organized by the FWCUI
Symposium about privatization policies of the IFIs held in the General Company for Mechanic
Industries in Alexandria – Iraq on March 23rd. Main topics:
􀃆 IFI policies in Iraq and the privatization project
􀃆 Challenges for the workers and the international labor movement
• Solidarity letter to the workers and students of France
The massive protest that swept France against the anti worker decree recently came to prove the
vitality and depth of radicalism in the labor movement in France where the radical left and workers
are the spear head of the labor and libertarian movement in the world. The march of hundreds of
thousands in Paris streets is the scream of the French workers and the world against the exploitation
and anti workers policies.
In addition the participation of the students confirms the unity and integration of the mass with the
labor movement. This movement coincided with Paris Commune who commemorate the heroic acts of
Paris workers and establishment of the first labor government in the history
The workers in Iraq who watch proudly their colleagues in France, consider their victory as an Iraqi
victory as they face the plans and agendas of the US led invasion. The invasion that brought
reactionary and right wing groups to power crumbled the society and drove it to a potential sectarian
conflict.
We solute the French workers and students
Long live labor movement
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
11
Long live Freedom and equality
Federation of worker councils and unions in Iraq
www.uuiraq.org
March 2006
• Memo on the arrest of Kurdish workers
The FWCUI informs about the arrest of activists Salih alias Usta Hussein and Zimnako Aziz, who
were arrested by the Kurdish authorities together with other workers after they organized a
demonstration (Halabja remembrance) in Suleimaniya. The FWCUI asks the international trade unions
and humanitarian organizations to put pressure on the authorities to free the activists.
III. INTERVIEW WITH EX-NEOCON FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
Interview with Ex-Neocon Francis Fukuyama (BY SPIEGEL ONLINE)
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
Francis Fukuyama has considered himself a neo- conservative for much of his academic career. He
became famous in 1993 with the publishing of "The End of History and the Last Man." Now, though,
he is turning his back on the neo- conservative agenda largely because of the Iraq war and the fervent
support on the behalf of many neo- conservatives for that war. His new book, "America at the
Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy," looks at where the Bush
Administration and the neo- conservatives went wrong in Iraq.
"A Model Democracy Is not Emerging in Iraq"
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your new book, "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the
Neoconservative Legacy," is a rejection of the political views you have held throughout your academic
career. What happened?
Fukuyama: Iraq happened. The process of distancing myself from neo-conservatism happened four
years ago really. I had decided the war wasn't a good idea some time in 2002 as we were approaching
the invasion of Iraq.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why? After all, one of the neo-conservative pillars is a profound belief in
democracy and the spread of democracy.
Fukuyama: I was partly unsure whether the United States could handle the transition to a democratic
government in Iraq. But the biggest problem I had was that the people pushing for the intervention
lacked self-knowledge about the US. When I look back over the 20th century history of American
interventions, particularly those in the Caribbean and Latin America, the consistent problem we've had
is being unable to stick it out. Before the Iraq war, it was clear that if we were going to do Iraq
properly, we would need a minimum commitment of five to 10 years. It was evident from the
beginning that the Bush administration wasn't preparing the American people for that kind of a
mission. In fact, it was obvious the Bush people were trying to do Iraq on the cheap. They thought
they could get in and out in less than a year.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where did this belief come from? Was it naivete, hubris or just plain ignorance?
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
12
Fukuyama: A lot of the neo-conservatives drew the wrong lessons from the end of the Cold War and
the collapse of communism. They generalized from that event that all totalitarian regimes are basically
hollow at the core and if you give them a little push from the outside, they're going to collapse. Prior to
the fall of the Berlin Wall, most people thought that communism would be around for a long time. In
fact, it disappeared within seven or eight months in 1989. That skewed the thinking about the nature of
dictatorships and neo-conservatives made a wrong analogy between Eastern Europe and what would
happen in the Middle East.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it was an invasion based on misinformation and misinterpretation?
Fukuyama: Yes.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There were, of course, a number of justifications offered by the Bush
administration for invading Iraq. Spreading democracy was one element, but so were fear of weapons
of mass destruction and fear of terrorism. How much neo-conservatism went into the final decision to
invade?
Fukuyama: The invasion of Iraq was not based primarily on the desire to democratize Iraq. The US
was sincerely worried about weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration also asserted a
terrorist link -- though I think that was much less honest than the belief in WMDs. The political
constitution of the Middle East was the third of three motivations for undertaking the war.
[…]
Read the full interview at:
Source: SPIEGEL ONLINE - March 22, 2006, 03:55 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,407315,00.html
IV. ANOTHER ICG REPORT ON IRAQ PUBLISHED
The Next Iraqi War? Sectarianism and Civil Conflict
Amman/Baghdad/Brussels, 27 February 2006: Iraqis and the international community
must act urgently to prevent an all-out civil war that would tear the country apart.
“The Next Iraqi War? Sectarianism and Civil Conflict” the latest report from the International Crisis
Group, says efforts to hold Iraq together are on the verge of collapse. It analyses a polarisation that
was not inevitable and prescribes how to stop the downward slide and put Iraq on track to unity,
compromise and reconciliation.
As the result of escalating sectarian violence and rhetoric over the past year, Sunni-Shiite tensions
evident since the removal of Saddam’s regime have become deep rifts. Brutal efforts of some
insurgents to exploit post-war-free-for-all and jumpstart civil war have been met with revenge acts.
The 22 February attack on the al-Askariya shrine in Samara and subsequent reprisals are just the latest
and most spectacular examples.
“There is still time to forge a genuine national compact and promote a national identity but
institutional restraints that so far have prevented a break-up are fast eroding”, says Robert Malley,
Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program Director. “The main burden is on Iraq’s leaders
but they need all the help and pressure the U.S. and others can muster”.
To reverse the trend, the winners of the December 2005 elections must establish a government of
genuine national unity with popular credibility and give Sunni Arab leaders more than just token roles;
the government must make every effort to restore a sense of national identity and address Iraqis’ top
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
13
concerns – personal safety and access to basic amenities. And it must begin to disband the sectarian
militias.
Substantive changes must also be made to the constitution. What has become the blueprint for Iraq’s
dissolution must become an inclusive document that protects all communities’ fundamental interests.
The U.S., neighbours, Europeans and others must push to convince Iraqi leaders to revise key articles
on federalism and oil distribution.
“It’s now up to Iraq’s religious authorities to urge their followers to remain calm in the face of
provocations, and to political leaders to lower their dangerously inflammatory rhetoric, lest a lowintensity
conflict turn into a full-scale sectarian war and the country disintegrate”, says Joost
Hiltermann, Crisis Group’s Middle East Project Director.
*Read the full Crisis Group report on our website: http://www.crisisgroup.org
V. ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
1. World Bank mulls return to Iraq
The World Bank is considering returning staff to Iraq, almost three years after it
withdrew from the country.
Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank president, said it was looking at whether it was feasible to have
personnel on the ground to oversee its activities there. The organisation pulled out in August 2003
after the UN's head office was bombed, and has been running its Iraqi operations out of neighbouring
Jordan. It has offered Iraq $500m (£281m) in loans, its first support since 1973.
'Difficult environment'
The funds - requested by the Iraqi authorities - are designed to help accelerate existing projects to
rebuild Iraq's shattered infrastructure. A World Bank administered trust is already supporting schemes
to train civil servants, rebuild schools, print textbooks, improve health care and provide access to clean
water. The trust has $400m at its disposal for supporting Iraq's most urgent infrastructural needs.
However, this has proved increasingly difficult amid escalating levels of violence and squabbles over
the formation of a new government, still unresolved after December's elections. Corruption concerns
have also undermined some development efforts.
Staff safety
The World Bank said it would only allow staff to return to Iraq if it could guarantee their safety. "One
of the things we are looking at is whether we would be more effective if we had a presence in Iraq,"
Mr Wolfowitz said. "It is a difficult environment to operate in so the disbursement rate is pretty low."
As a former US deputy defence secretary, Mr Wolfowitz was a key architect of the US-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003. His appointment as head of the global development body in 2004 was highly
controversial.
Source: Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/4918258.stm
Published: 2006/04/18 10:36:20 GMT
© BBC MMVI
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
14
2. Iraq conflict thwarts PM Jaafari
By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst
The step which ended months of political deadlock in Iraq was the announcement by the
interim Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, that his political future should be decided
by the Shia alliance which had nominated him for the job.
He had previously insisted he would not stand down.
Mr Jaafari's misfortune was that he was prime minister at a time when Iraq began its descent into bitter
sectarian conflict.
It is debatable whether any Iraqi leader could have solved the country's most pressing problems.
But it did not help that Mr Jaafari - a softly-spoken former medical doctor in his late 50s - came across
as weak and ineffectual, a well-intentioned intellectual rather than a man of decisive leadership.
Growing criticism
[…]
After Saddam Hussein's fall, Mr Jaafari returned home, helping the Daawa become one of the three
dominant elements in a loose Shia alliance.
After being appointed prime minister last year, however, he came under increasing criticism for failing
to curb the violence and increasing sectarianism, or to improve basic services for ordinary Iraqis.
At the end, his stubborn refusal - right up to the last minute - to stand down alienated his remaining
allies, and it was reportedly only after the intervention of the most senior Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-
Sistani, that he finally relinquished his post.
Source: Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4932692.stm
Published: 2006/04/21 20:34:25 GMT
© BBC MMVI
3. Cautious optimism for new Iraqi PM
The appointment of Shia politician Jawad Maliki to form a new Iraqi government has largely been
welcomed by newspapers in the region. Several Iraqi papers express relief that the months of political
deadlock has finally been broken and call for a government of national unity to be formed swiftly.
But some papers are unimpressed by the "quota system" used to select Mr Maliki, the president and
the parliament speaker. And one Saudi paper fears that the sectarian divisions are too wide for any
government to resolve.
[…]
Source: Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/4938458.stm
Published: 2006/04/24 12:45:18 GMT
© BBC MMVI
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
15
4. Iraqi PM reverts to first name Nuri
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - As Iraqi Prime Minister- designate Jawad al-Maliki sets about naming a
cabinet to battle the country's woes, one of his first tasks is to rename himself.
After adopting the first name Jawad to hide his identity and protect his family when he fled Saddam
Hussein's regime to Syria in 1979, Maliki now plans to revert to his real name, Nuri.
"The name 'Jawad' was a necessary measure during a specific period to protect his relatives from the
dictatorship's regime, but now he wishes to be known by his real name," an official in Maliki's office
said.
Maliki, asked by President Jalal Talabani last Saturday to become premier and form a government of
national unity, must choose a cabinet and submit the names to parliament for approval within four
weeks.
Source: Reuters
5. Jawad al-Maliki: A novice, but outspoken
By Sabrina Tavernise The New York Times
SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2006
BAGHDAD Jawad al-Maliki, the Shiite politician selected Saturday to be Iraq's first permanent prime
minister, is decisive and direct and known for speaking his mind, but has little experience in
governing, Iraqi political leaders said.
Maliki, 55, appeared stiff and nervous before television cameras as he spoke for the first time after his
nomination by Shiite political parties on Saturday morning. […] He appeared to choose his words to
allay fears that he would be too Shiite for the job.
[…]
Maliki has not held a formal role in the Iraqi government since the American invasion, but his lack of
experience in the executive branch might be one of his biggest strengths, some colleagues said. Jaafari,
who agreed to step aside this week, was distasteful to Kurdish and Sunni parties precisely because of
his political track record, which they saw as poor.
[…]
He comes from a middle-class Shiite family in the south of Iraq.
Born in 1950, he grew up in Hindiay, between Karbala and Hilla. Maliki earned a master's degree in
Arabic language and literature in northern Iraq.
He worked in the Education Department in Hilla, according to accounts in Iraqi newspapers, before
fleeing the country in 1979. He spent 23 years in exile from Hussein's rule, mostly in Syria.
Maliki had been broadly considered one of the harder line Shiite politicians, a worldview shaped
during those years of exile, when he ran the Damascus branch of the Dawa party, a religious Shiite
party.
Since crossing back into Iraq secretly in late 2002, not long before the American invasion, he has
played a prominent role in the independent de-Baathification committee, showing himself as an
uncompromising proponent of policies that took members of the Baath Party out of public jobs and
alienated many Sunni Arabs.
[…]
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
16
Perhaps as a measure of how little he is known, he is alternatively described as a hard-liner and as a
man able to compromise. He was one of the main drafters of the country's Constitution last year, and it
was during that time that he forged relationships with Kurdish parties.
"People could reach a modus operandi with him where they couldn't with Jaafari," said one political
adviser who is close to the Shiite bloc. "He's more rational."
Still, some Iraqis expressed reservations that his hard-line reputation and direct approach might
alienate others at the political negotiating table. An Iraqi politician who used to worked closely with
Maliki said he is "inflexible, sticks to his own viewpoints, and is very bold in expressing them," and
that character trait, he said, will eventually get him into trouble with the Kurdish and Sunni parties.
Maliki has been chairman of the Security Committee of the National Assembly, and speaker of the
Shiite bloc, known as the United Iraqi Alliance.
One independent Shiite woman politician said she had experienced difficulties with Maliki because
she was a woman. Shatha al-Musawi said Maliki had refused to include her and three other Shiite
women in a committee that was negotiating over the prime minister's post.
"The incident along with my history of work with him in the National Assembly gave me this
impression that he thinks women are not qualified enough for this kind of job," she said.
Source: IHT / NYT, April 24th
VI. VARIOUS
1. Arab League Plans to Open Office in Iraq
By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 4, 6:56 PM ET
CAIRO, Egypt - The Arab League will open offices in Iraq for the first time since the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion, part of its efforts to help reconcile the country's Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish
communities, the league's chief said Saturday.
The United States has been seeking greater Arab involvement in Iraq, hoping to give legitimacy to the
current government. But Arab nations were long reluctant, fearing participation would be seen as
condoning the U.S. invasion, which many of them opposed.
[…]
But last year, the league made efforts to get involved. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa
visited Iraq, then the league hosted a reconciliation conference in Cairo in November between Iraq's
Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders.
[…]
The league is planning to sponsor a second reconciliation conference, this one in Baghdad, in June.
The league representation office is expected to be opened by the time of the conference and will be
headed by the Moroccan diplomat Mukhtar Lamani, Arab diplomats said.
[…]
Source: SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 4, 6:56 PM ET
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
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2. UN damns 'illegal' Iraq detention
The UN's human rights official in Iraq has said the Iraqi authorities are illegally holding
thousands of people.
Gianni Magazzeni said that of the 15,000 people held under Iraqi control, little more than half were
under the jurisdiction of the justice ministry.
This is the only body with the right to detain suspects for more than 72 hours.
[…]
DETENTION FACTS
29,565 people detained in Iraq
8,300 held legally by the Iraqi justice ministry
14,222 held by coalition forces
6,000 held by Iraqi interior ministry
460 are held by Iraqi defence ministry
More than 14,000 people are also being held by US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
Mr Magazzeni said the UN believed that number was far too high and he urged the US military
authorities to either charge or release them.
[…]
'Torture and execution'
He said the UN still did not have access to prisoners being held in unidentified coalition prisons, and
called for them to be released or handed over to Iraqi authorities to be charged.
"We want them to speed up this process," Mr Magazzeni said. He added that the UN was "very
concerned about ongoing violations" of human rights in Iraq.
"Torture and summary executions happen every day," Mr Magazzeni said.
[…]
Source: Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/4932206.stm
Published: 2006/04/21 17:49:26 GMT
© BBC MMVI
3. Beyond Abu Ghraib: detention and torture in Iraq (BY AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL)
"I have lost a year and a half of my life"
43-year-old former security detainee and father of three daughters following his release in
September 2005; he alleged that he was ill-treated while held in US detention in Iraq.
Introduction
Nearly three years after United States (US) and allied forces invaded Iraq and toppled the government
of Saddam Hussain, the human rights situation in the country remains dire. The deployment of US-led
forces in Iraq and the armed response that engendered has resulted in thousands of deaths of civilians
and widespread abuses amid the ongoing conflict.
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As Amnesty International has reported elsewhere(1), many of the abuses occurring today are
committed by armed groups opposed to the US-led Multinational Force (MNF) and the Iraqi
government that it underpins. Armed groups continue to wage an uncompromising war marked by
their disregard for civilian lives and the basic rules of international humanitarian law. They commit
suicide and other bomb attacks which either target civilians or while aimed at military objectives are
disproportionate in terms of causing civilian casualties, and they abduct and hold victims hostage,
threatening and often taking their lives. Amnesty International condemns these abuses, some of which
are so egregious as to constitute crimes against humanity, in addition to war crimes, and continues to
call on Iraq’s armed groups to cease such activities and abide by basic requirements of international
humanitarian law.
In this report, Amnesty International focuses on another part of the equation, specifically its concerns
about human rights abuses for which the US-led MNF is directly responsible and those which are
increasingly being committed by Iraqi security forces. The record of these forces, including US forces
and their United Kingdom (UK) allies, is an unpalatable one. Despite the pre-war rhetoric and postinvasion
justifications of US and UK political leaders, and their obligations under international law,
from the outset the occupying forces attached insufficient weight to human rights considerations. This
remains the position even if the violations by the MNF that are the subject of this report do not have
the same graphic, shock quality as the images that emerged in April 2004 and February 2006 showing
inmates being tortured and humiliated by US guards at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison and Iraqi youth
being beaten by UK troops after they were apprehended during a riot. The same failure to ensure due
process that prevailed then, however, and facilitated - perhaps even encouraged such abuses – is
evidenced today by the continuing detentions without charge or trial of thousands of people in Iraq
who are classified by the MNF as "security internees".
To read the full report, visit www.amnesty.org
Sunday, Apr. 23, 2006
4. Stolen Away
As criminal gangs run amuck in Iraq, hundreds of girls have gone missing. Are they
being sold for sex?
By BRIAN BENNETT/BAGHDAD
The man on the phone with the 14-year-old Iraqi girl called himself Sa'ad. He was calling long
distance from Dubai and telling her wonderful things about the place. He was also about to buy her.
Safah, the teenager, was well aware of the impending transaction. In the weeks after she was
kidnapped and imprisoned in a dark house in Baghdad's middle-class Karada district, Safah heard her
captors haggling with Sa'ad over her price. It was finally settled at $10,000. Staring at a floor strewn
with empty whiskey bottles, the orphan listened as Sa'ad described the life awaiting her: a beautiful
home, expensive clothes, parties with pop stars. Why, she'd be joining two other very happy teenage
Iraqi girls living with Sa'ad in his harem. Safah knew that she was running out of time. A fake passport
with her photo and assumed name had already been forged for her. But even if she escaped, she had no
family who would take her in. She was even likely to end up in prison. What was she to do?
Safah is part of a seldom-discussed aspect of the epidemic of kidnappings in Iraq: sex trafficking. No
one knows how many young women have been kidnapped and sold since the fall of Saddam Hussein
in 2003. The Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq, based in Baghdad, estimates from anecdotal
evidence that more than 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing in that period. A Western official in
Baghdad who monitors the status of women in Iraq thinks that figure may be inflated but admits that
sex trafficking, virtually nonexistent under Saddam, has become a serious issue. The collapse of law
and order and the absence of a stable government have allowed criminal gangs, alongside terrorists, to
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
19
run amuck. Meanwhile, some aid workers say, bureaucrats in the ministries have either paralyzed with
red tape or frozen the assets of charities that might have provided refuge for these girls. As a result,
sex trafficking has been allowed to fester unchecked.
"It is a problem, definitely," says the official, who has heard specific reports from Iraqi aid workers
about girls being kidnapped and sold to brothels. "Unfortunately, the security situation doesn't allow
us to follow up on this." The U.S. State Department's June 2005 trafficking report says the extent of
the problem in Iraq is "difficult to appropriately gauge" but cites an unknown number of Iraqi women
and girls being sent to Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Persian Gulf countries for sexual exploitation.
Statistics are further made murky by tribal tradition. Families are usually so shamed by the
disappearance of a daughter that they do not report kidnappings. And the resulting stigma of
compromised chastity is such that even if the girl should resurface, she may never be taken back by
her relations.
A visit to the Khadamiyah Women's Prison in the northern part of Baghdad immediately produces
several tales of abduction and abandonment. A stunning 18-year-old nicknamed Amna, her black hair
pulled back in a ponytail, says she was taken from an orphanage by an armed gang just after the U.S.
invasion and sent to brothels in Samarra, al-Qaim on the border with Syria, and Mosul in the north
before she was taken back to Baghdad, drugged with pills, dressed in a suicide belt and sent to bomb a
cleric's office in Khadamiyah, where she turned herself in to the police. A judge gave her a seven-year
jail sentence "for her sake" to protect her from the gang, according to the prison director.
Two other girls, Asmah, 14, and Shadah, 15, were taken all the way to the United Arab Emirates
before they could escape their kidnappers and report them to a Dubai police station. The sisters were
then sent back to Iraq but, like many other girls who have escaped their kidnappers and buyers, were
sent to prison because they carried fake passports. There, they wait for the bureaucracy to sort out their
innocence. What happened to the gang that took them? The sisters hear rumors that the men paid their
way out of jail and are back on the streets. "I don't know what to do if the prison administration
decides to release me," says Asmah, pushing back her gray head scarf to adjust her black hair. "We
have no one to protect us."
Women's advocates are trying to set up halfway houses for kidnap survivors. The locations are secret
to keep the women safe from both trafficking gangs trying to cover their tracks and outraged relatives
who may try to kill the women to restore their clans' reputation. But the new Iraqi government has set
up several bureaucratic roadblocks. Even organizations that do not receive government money have to
secure permission from four ministries and the Baghdad city council for every shelter they hope to
operate. Wringing her hands in exasperation, activist Yanar Mohammed says, "They want to close our
women's shelter and deny our ability to open more."
That means that for girls like Safah, there are few havens left in Baghdad. In 2003, after Safah's father
died, her grandmother took her to House of Children No. 2 orphanage in Adhamiya without the
knowledge of most of her family. At the orphanage, she was befriended by an affable nurse who spent
hours chatting up Safah, a fresh-faced girl whose fingers are still pudgy with baby fat. The nurse's
modest hijab framed a sweet face that made Safah feel that the nurse was a good, spiritual woman, one
she could trust. The nurse convinced Safah that she could be killed over the shame her disappearance
had brought to her family. The nurse offered to adopt her. But official channels would have taken too
long, so the nurse told Safah to hold her lower-right abdomen, scream and writhe on the carpet of the
orphanage director's office, pretending to have appendicitis and requiring emergency medical
assistance. Once at the hospital, the nurse whisked Safah into a waiting car.
The next three weeks were the worst in Safah's life. "I was tortured and beaten and insulted a lot in
that house," Safah says. She wouldn't provide many details about what happened in the whiskeysoaked
den in Karada. But she says that when it became apparent to her that she was about to be sold
to Sa'ad, the man on the phone from Dubai, she became desperate. She passed word of her
confinement to a neighborhood boy, who reported it to the local police station. Officers raided the
place and arrested the nurse. Bureaucratic red tape somehow kept Safah and the nurse in the same
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
20
prison for six months before Safah was finally released back into the custody of the orphanage a
month ago.
At the orphanage, nestled behind a 10-ft. wall on the breezy banks of the Tigris, Safah can take
computer classes, practice sewing and paint portraits of the family she wishes she had. But she doesn't
feel as safe as she used to there. A social worker tells her that the nurse wasn't at the Khadamiyah
Women's Prison during her last visit. Suddenly Safah rushes out of the room, crying and beating her
head with her hands in the hallway. "If she is released," says Safah, her eyes darting back and forth in
a panic, "I'm not staying here." But deep down she knows she has nowhere else to go.
With reporting by Yousif Basil/ Baghdad, Assad Majeed/ Baghdad
Source: Time Magazine, April 23rd
“The Challenges of Privatization and Social Protection Policy in Iraq -
A Trade Union Perspective”
April 2-4, 2006
Jerusalem Hotel
Amman-Jordan
Final Report
The ICFTU organized a Regional Conference on "The Challenges of Privatization and Social Protection Policy
in Iraq - A Trade Union Perspective" on April 2-4, 2006 in Amman/Jordan. The conference was attended by the
following representatives from the Iraqi workers federations and organizations:
1. GFIW
2. FWCUI
3. IKWSU
4. KGWSU
5. Basra Oil Federation
Representatives of the following international federations/organizations also attended the conference:
1. ITF
2. TUC
3. International Solidarity Center
4. Platform London, a British NGO
- The participants were honored by the presence of Brother Mazen Al-Ma'ayta, President of the GFJTU,
who welcomed the participants to Amman and voiced his hope that the Iraqi people and workers would live in
stability, peace and growth. Brother Al-Ma'ayta paid tribute to the ICFTU solidarity with all the Arab workers
in general and the Iraqi workers in particular.
- Various presentation and country reports were made during the workshop by the following speakers:
1. Representative of the ICFTU/Brussels
2. Representative of the ITF
3. Representative of the TUC
4. Representative of the Solidarity Center
5. Representative of Platform London, a British NGO
- The participants found all the presentations valuable and useful as they were based on academic,
practical and legal bases.
- The proposed opinions and ideas were discussed and shared by all the participants who benefited from
the country papers and reports presented during the workshop. Opinions, ideas, expertise and experiences were
exchanged among the participants. The papers presented were very relevant to the main theme of the workshop.
- After the discussions and exchange of opinions, the participants came up with the following major
recommendations:
First: The Recommendations to the Iraqi Government (Iraqi Stakeholders):
1. To issue, as soon as possible, the draft labor code which had been discussed as a new labor law for the
coming period; To integrate all amendments, opinions and recommendations of trade union federation
representatives and other participants in the ICFTU workshop and the discussions conducted with the Iraqi
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs; To publish the draft law in the media for one month for the purpose of
enriching this draft and the need to involve workers' representatives;
2. To draft a pension and social security law that serves all workers and unifies all salaries, wages, and
minimum and maximum pension for employees and workers;
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
6
3. To conduct dialogue with the Iraqi trade unions before any privatization or restructuring process in any
public department, institution or company;
4. To reject any privatization or "Production-Sharing Agreement" in the oil sector, on the ground that
there is no justification for this to happen;
5. To reject any privatization of the fundamental public utilities, such as health, education, electricity, and
water;
6. To widen the scope of the employment and vocational training offices to include the young workers
throughout Iraq; To coordinate with the other ministries, especially the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to
fill the vacancies by the registered names in the employment offices;
7. To increase the scope of the social security coverage to cover from one worker at the workplace and to
cover all workers under the Pension and Social Security Law;
8. To support and promote the rations card elements because this card is considered the fundamental
source of living for the Iraqi citizen;
9. To implement the principles of transparency and justice in establishing the salaries of those covered by
the social safety net; To use a database; To eliminate red-tape (bureaucracy); To use computers at work;
10. To adopt a national development strategy that creates, among other priorities, decent job opportunities
that respect human dignity and contribute to combating unemployment and poverty;
11. To respect and implement the international and Arab fundamental labor standards ratified by Iraq, and
activate Collective Bargaining;
12. To respect trade union rights and freedoms, not to violate them through intervention in the internal
affairs of trade union and workers organizations, and to abolish Directive No. 150/1987 which transforms
workers into employees, taking into consideration the rights and gains they have acquired;
13. To abolish Directive No. 8750 issued on August 8, 2005 which empowers the government to confiscate
the movable and immovable assets and balances because these assets and balances are trade union money and
the government has no right to freeze them;
14. To reinstate the deducted money of the workers' social security contributions from the Ministry of
Finance and to invest this money in economic ventures that would benefit workers and citizens;
Second: The Recommendations in terms of the International Financial Institutions:
1. The participants demand the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to seek consultations
with workers' representatives in any project they intend to implement in Iraq. The workers will not accept any
decision that would cause harm to the workers and society;
2. The participants request the World Bank to provide funding for industrial development projects that
can generate decent job opportunities to absorb unemployment according to the market needs;
3. The participants urge the World Bank not to privatize the social security system in Iraq due to the
serious negative impact of such a step on the current and future status of the workers in Iraq; and to work in
consultation with the ILO to implement the contents of the ILO Standards and Conventions in this regard;
Third: The Role of the Regional and International Trade Union Organizations:
1. To increase their solidarity, training, and rehabilitation through the cooperation of these organizations
with the Iraqi workers and people;
2. To make the Iraqi trade union voice heard in the international, financial, organizations in order to
integrate the social dimension in their policies and hence maintain the workers' rights;
3. To involve workers' representatives in setting programs and monitoring their implementation in the
development and reconstruction process in Iraq;
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
7
4. The participants demand the ICFTU to intervene with the WTO in order not to liberalize the
fundamental sectors such as health, education, water and electricity;
In the end, the participants expressed their gratitude and appreciation to the organizers and all those who
worked for the success of this workshop and hoped to participate in similar activities in the future.
The Participants
Amman, April 4, 2006
3. ICFTU Protest: Interference in union affairs
Ibrahim Jaafari
Prime Minister
Office of the Prime Minister
Bagdad
Iraq
By fax: c/o Iraqi Embassy in Brussels:
02/374.76.15
TUR/FW 18 April 2006
Dear Prime Minister,
Interference in union affairs
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which represents more than 155
million workers through its 236 affiliates in 154 countries and territories, strongly protests against the
interference by your country's Supreme National Commission for Debaathification (SNCD) in the
internal affairs of the Baghdad-based Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).
In a letter to the IFTU dated 8 March 2006, the SNCD orders the IFTU to "implement the Governing
Council's decision No. 3 [regarding] the formation of the preparatory committees and the election
candidates". Attached to the letter was a summary of what the Governing Council's decision consisted
of, including a number of rules for the composition of the IFTU's preparatory Committee and the way
it should, in the SNCD's view, organise trade union elections.
Furthermore, on 23 March 2006, the SNCD sent the IFTU a list with five names of persons that "have
no right to occupy any leadership position in any federation, society, association or union in Iraq".
Mr. Prime Minister, the ICFTU strongly objects against this inordinate interference in the designation
of the leadership of the IFTU. Dictating to a union how to organise its leadership elections, and whom
not to include in it, is a blatant violation of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 87 on
Freedom of Association. Although Iraq did not ratify this convention, it has an obligation as an ILO
member to respect the principles enshrined in it. I therefore strongly urge you to ensure that the IFTU
benefits of complete freedom in organising its trade union elections and designating its trade union
leadership. Finally, I urge you to ratify ILO Convention 87 on the right to freedom of association.
Yours sincerely,
General Secretary
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
8
II. TRADE UNION NEWS
General Union of Oil Employees in Basra
• The ICFTU was informed that the Iraqi government again froze the bank accounts of the
Basra Oil Union, despite an earlier resolution of decree 8750. Union representatives have
stated that the frozen money includes some financial support received from different
international organizations, and hence has nothing to do with governmental money. The Basra
Oil Union fears that the impact of this government action on their union’s activities will be
significant and are asking for support from the ICFTU and the international trade union
organizations.
Kurdistan General Workers Syndicate Union - KGWSU (Erbil-based)
• The KGWSU sent out a memo on the occasion of world women’s day on March 8th,
congratulating the women worldwide and in Kurdistan. KGWSU’s president, Mr Hangaw
Abdullah Khan, praised and thanked the Kurdish women for their suffering and their fight for
democracy and equal rights.
General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW)1
• GFIW Statement on the Death of Iraqi Trade Union Leader, Torki al-Lihabi
The Iraqi labour movement mourns with sadness the death of trade union leader, brother Torki al-
Lihabi, President of the Transport and Communication Workers’ Union (TCWU) who has been killed
in a road traffic accident in Baghdad on the evening of 20 March 2006.
Our late working class hero was instrumental in the formation of the Iraqi Federation Trade Unions
(IFTU) and the creation of his own union, the TCWU after the fall of Saddam's dictatorship. He
played a significant role in the re-birth of Iraq’s independent trade unions by working closely with the
global labour movement. His union was the first to affiliate to the International Transport Workers’
Federation (ITF).
The Iraqi Workers' Federation (IWF), while mourning our departed comrade and acknowledging the
grave loss to his family and our movement, pledges that we shall continue with determination to build
independent, democratic and free Iraqi trade unions.
Long live the working class.
IWF Executive Committee
• ITF’s tribute to Torki al-Lihabi
Tribute to Iraqi trade union leader
1, Please note that there are currently two English translations for the same federation! The GFIW (General
Federation of Iraqi Workers) is regularly called the IWF (Iraqi Workers’ Federation). From a linguistic
perspective, GFIW would be the better translation of the federation’s Arabic name “Al-Ittihad al Aam Li-‘Umal
al Iraq”.
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
9
24 March 2006
The ITF has paid tribute to Torky Al Lihabi, an Iraqi trade union leader who died on 20 March in a
road accident in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
Torky Al Lihabi was President of the Transport and Communications Workers’ Union in Iraq and the
founder of the new transport union in the newly unified General Federation of Iraqi Workers. His was
the first Iraqi trade union to join the ITF. A long-standing fighter for trade union freedoms in Iraq, he
was jailed for many years under Sadam Hussein’s regime. He was also detained by the American
forces in the period following the invasion of Iraq.
Commenting on the news of Al Lihabi’s passing, ITF General Secretary David Cockroft said: “His
death will be a severe loss to those concerned with trade union rights in Iraq and around the world.”
• Continued Violation to the Iraqi Workers Rights - Press Statement Issued by
General Federation of Iraq Workers
Within the series of violating the union rights and freedoms in Iraq, the terrorists attacked a number of
unionists over the period from mid March to mid April. Such attacks varied between kidnapping and
assassination. The terrorists benefited from the state of disarray in the Country and wreaked their
wrath upon the workers and their union organization because they realize the significant role of thee
workers in rebuilding the new Iraq. On 6th April 2006, they kidnapped the unionist Hajem Kate'
Jabbarah (the vice-president of the Agriculture and Food Trade Union – Baghdad Branch, and he was
released on 9th April after he was severely tortured by the kidnappers. Before that, unionist Amer
Eifan, the member of the union committee at the Concrete Factory at Abu Ghraib, unionist Najm
Muhsen Al-Maksousi, the secretary of the union committee at the Ministry of Irrigation/Agriculture
and Food Trade Union, and unionist Nathem Muhsen Aswad, the union committee head at the
Construction and Wood Trade Union, Baghdad Branch were kidnapped, and the fate of the latest is
unknown. The terrorists also put a bomb in the car of Mr. Saleh Jeyyad (the vice-chairman of the
union committee at Transportation Trade Union/ Federation of Basra Trade Unions) where Mr.
Jeyyad's car was exploded and he had some injuries. In addition, the terrorists assassinated a number
of Construction Sector in Baghdad, Nineveh, Basra and Deyala.
On another hand, the government authorities still violate the workers' rights and their union
organization by implementing the decision No. 150 for the year 1987 which bans the union
organization in the public sector and limits it to the private sector, and decree No. 8750 issued by the
Iraqi Council of Ministries which lays hand on the properties of the federations, unions and vocational
associations, and by activating and enforcing these decisions and decrees where the Transportation
Minister advisor issued instructions on the 18th of last March to all Ministry departments not to
cooperate with all trade unions and to send policemen to the arrest the unionists as the case was with
Mr. Nathem Radi the president of Basra Ports Trade Union, and Mr. Zaki Abdul A'ali Zibari , the
secretary-general of Basra Ports Trade Union, and threatened the union office members to quit the
union work and close the union headquarter merely because Basra Ports Trade Union claimed the
workers' rights at the ports sector. In addition, Kufah Police Department arrested the committee
members of Kufah Transportation Union (Transportation Union in Najaf – Federation of Najaf Trade
Unions) on 7th March 2006 and released them against a bail on 9th of the same month.
We don't forget the savage assault of the administrative apparatuses in Babylon Governorate against
the Federation of Babylon Trade Unions and sending policemen for more than once to close down the
federation quarter and confiscate the workers' properties. Such actions is a flagrant intervention in
the affairs of the workers federations and unions and an implementation of the apparatuses policy
which aims to find organizations controlled by the government orders.
In addition to the orders and the procedures of some ministries not to cooperate with the union
organization and to close down the quarters of the union committees to eradicate the democratic
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
10
method and depend on the decisions and decrees issued by the previous dictator regime. Also, decree
No. 8750 issued by the Council of Ministers didn't cancel or dissolve the federations, unions and
cooperatives working in Iraq, which relied in its legitimacy on their rules, election conferences and
bylaws, and most of them were formed after the collapse of the previous regime.
The violation of the union rights and freedoms in Iraq violates the international covenants and
agreements on the union rights and freedoms, and the government should respect these covenants and
implement them, and provide protection to the unionists, and should not oppress or arrest them
because of their union work.
The General Federation of Iraq Workers struggles for an independent democratic union movement,
contributes in the productivity process, strongly stands against the administrative and financial
corruption, and stabilizes the democratic method in our new Iraq.
Executive Office
General Federation of Iraq Workers
18th April 2006
Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI)
• Memo on the killing of workers by terrorist and sectarian violence (Aptil 22nd
2006)
Employees of the Baghdad Municipality killed by terrorists. Workers from the electricity sector,
building industry etc attacked and partially killed during ethno-religious tensions. The FWCUI
demands more security provisions for the workers.
• Memo about a symposium organized by the FWCUI
Symposium about privatization policies of the IFIs held in the General Company for Mechanic
Industries in Alexandria – Iraq on March 23rd. Main topics:
􀃆 IFI policies in Iraq and the privatization project
􀃆 Challenges for the workers and the international labor movement
• Solidarity letter to the workers and students of France
The massive protest that swept France against the anti worker decree recently came to prove the
vitality and depth of radicalism in the labor movement in France where the radical left and workers
are the spear head of the labor and libertarian movement in the world. The march of hundreds of
thousands in Paris streets is the scream of the French workers and the world against the exploitation
and anti workers policies.
In addition the participation of the students confirms the unity and integration of the mass with the
labor movement. This movement coincided with Paris Commune who commemorate the heroic acts of
Paris workers and establishment of the first labor government in the history
The workers in Iraq who watch proudly their colleagues in France, consider their victory as an Iraqi
victory as they face the plans and agendas of the US led invasion. The invasion that brought
reactionary and right wing groups to power crumbled the society and drove it to a potential sectarian
conflict.
We solute the French workers and students
Long live labor movement
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
11
Long live Freedom and equality
Federation of worker councils and unions in Iraq
www.uuiraq.org
March 2006
• Memo on the arrest of Kurdish workers
The FWCUI informs about the arrest of activists Salih alias Usta Hussein and Zimnako Aziz, who
were arrested by the Kurdish authorities together with other workers after they organized a
demonstration (Halabja remembrance) in Suleimaniya. The FWCUI asks the international trade unions
and humanitarian organizations to put pressure on the authorities to free the activists.
III. INTERVIEW WITH EX-NEOCON FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
Interview with Ex-Neocon Francis Fukuyama (BY SPIEGEL ONLINE)
FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
Francis Fukuyama has considered himself a neo- conservative for much of his academic career. He
became famous in 1993 with the publishing of "The End of History and the Last Man." Now, though,
he is turning his back on the neo- conservative agenda largely because of the Iraq war and the fervent
support on the behalf of many neo- conservatives for that war. His new book, "America at the
Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy," looks at where the Bush
Administration and the neo- conservatives went wrong in Iraq.
"A Model Democracy Is not Emerging in Iraq"
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your new book, "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the
Neoconservative Legacy," is a rejection of the political views you have held throughout your academic
career. What happened?
Fukuyama: Iraq happened. The process of distancing myself from neo-conservatism happened four
years ago really. I had decided the war wasn't a good idea some time in 2002 as we were approaching
the invasion of Iraq.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why? After all, one of the neo-conservative pillars is a profound belief in
democracy and the spread of democracy.
Fukuyama: I was partly unsure whether the United States could handle the transition to a democratic
government in Iraq. But the biggest problem I had was that the people pushing for the intervention
lacked self-knowledge about the US. When I look back over the 20th century history of American
interventions, particularly those in the Caribbean and Latin America, the consistent problem we've had
is being unable to stick it out. Before the Iraq war, it was clear that if we were going to do Iraq
properly, we would need a minimum commitment of five to 10 years. It was evident from the
beginning that the Bush administration wasn't preparing the American people for that kind of a
mission. In fact, it was obvious the Bush people were trying to do Iraq on the cheap. They thought
they could get in and out in less than a year.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where did this belief come from? Was it naivete, hubris or just plain ignorance?
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
12
Fukuyama: A lot of the neo-conservatives drew the wrong lessons from the end of the Cold War and
the collapse of communism. They generalized from that event that all totalitarian regimes are basically
hollow at the core and if you give them a little push from the outside, they're going to collapse. Prior to
the fall of the Berlin Wall, most people thought that communism would be around for a long time. In
fact, it disappeared within seven or eight months in 1989. That skewed the thinking about the nature of
dictatorships and neo-conservatives made a wrong analogy between Eastern Europe and what would
happen in the Middle East.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So it was an invasion based on misinformation and misinterpretation?
Fukuyama: Yes.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There were, of course, a number of justifications offered by the Bush
administration for invading Iraq. Spreading democracy was one element, but so were fear of weapons
of mass destruction and fear of terrorism. How much neo-conservatism went into the final decision to
invade?
Fukuyama: The invasion of Iraq was not based primarily on the desire to democratize Iraq. The US
was sincerely worried about weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration also asserted a
terrorist link -- though I think that was much less honest than the belief in WMDs. The political
constitution of the Middle East was the third of three motivations for undertaking the war.
[…]
Read the full interview at:
Source: SPIEGEL ONLINE - March 22, 2006, 03:55 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,407315,00.html
IV. ANOTHER ICG REPORT ON IRAQ PUBLISHED
The Next Iraqi War? Sectarianism and Civil Conflict
Amman/Baghdad/Brussels, 27 February 2006: Iraqis and the international community
must act urgently to prevent an all-out civil war that would tear the country apart.
“The Next Iraqi War? Sectarianism and Civil Conflict” the latest report from the International Crisis
Group, says efforts to hold Iraq together are on the verge of collapse. It analyses a polarisation that
was not inevitable and prescribes how to stop the downward slide and put Iraq on track to unity,
compromise and reconciliation.
As the result of escalating sectarian violence and rhetoric over the past year, Sunni-Shiite tensions
evident since the removal of Saddam’s regime have become deep rifts. Brutal efforts of some
insurgents to exploit post-war-free-for-all and jumpstart civil war have been met with revenge acts.
The 22 February attack on the al-Askariya shrine in Samara and subsequent reprisals are just the latest
and most spectacular examples.
“There is still time to forge a genuine national compact and promote a national identity but
institutional restraints that so far have prevented a break-up are fast eroding”, says Robert Malley,
Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program Director. “The main burden is on Iraq’s leaders
but they need all the help and pressure the U.S. and others can muster”.
To reverse the trend, the winners of the December 2005 elections must establish a government of
genuine national unity with popular credibility and give Sunni Arab leaders more than just token roles;
the government must make every effort to restore a sense of national identity and address Iraqis’ top
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
13
concerns – personal safety and access to basic amenities. And it must begin to disband the sectarian
militias.
Substantive changes must also be made to the constitution. What has become the blueprint for Iraq’s
dissolution must become an inclusive document that protects all communities’ fundamental interests.
The U.S., neighbours, Europeans and others must push to convince Iraqi leaders to revise key articles
on federalism and oil distribution.
“It’s now up to Iraq’s religious authorities to urge their followers to remain calm in the face of
provocations, and to political leaders to lower their dangerously inflammatory rhetoric, lest a lowintensity
conflict turn into a full-scale sectarian war and the country disintegrate”, says Joost
Hiltermann, Crisis Group’s Middle East Project Director.
*Read the full Crisis Group report on our website: http://www.crisisgroup.org
V. ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
1. World Bank mulls return to Iraq
The World Bank is considering returning staff to Iraq, almost three years after it
withdrew from the country.
Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank president, said it was looking at whether it was feasible to have
personnel on the ground to oversee its activities there. The organisation pulled out in August 2003
after the UN's head office was bombed, and has been running its Iraqi operations out of neighbouring
Jordan. It has offered Iraq $500m (£281m) in loans, its first support since 1973.
'Difficult environment'
The funds - requested by the Iraqi authorities - are designed to help accelerate existing projects to
rebuild Iraq's shattered infrastructure. A World Bank administered trust is already supporting schemes
to train civil servants, rebuild schools, print textbooks, improve health care and provide access to clean
water. The trust has $400m at its disposal for supporting Iraq's most urgent infrastructural needs.
However, this has proved increasingly difficult amid escalating levels of violence and squabbles over
the formation of a new government, still unresolved after December's elections. Corruption concerns
have also undermined some development efforts.
Staff safety
The World Bank said it would only allow staff to return to Iraq if it could guarantee their safety. "One
of the things we are looking at is whether we would be more effective if we had a presence in Iraq,"
Mr Wolfowitz said. "It is a difficult environment to operate in so the disbursement rate is pretty low."
As a former US deputy defence secretary, Mr Wolfowitz was a key architect of the US-led invasion of
Iraq in 2003. His appointment as head of the global development body in 2004 was highly
controversial.
Source: Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/business/4918258.stm
Published: 2006/04/18 10:36:20 GMT
© BBC MMVI
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
14
2. Iraq conflict thwarts PM Jaafari
By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst
The step which ended months of political deadlock in Iraq was the announcement by the
interim Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, that his political future should be decided
by the Shia alliance which had nominated him for the job.
He had previously insisted he would not stand down.
Mr Jaafari's misfortune was that he was prime minister at a time when Iraq began its descent into bitter
sectarian conflict.
It is debatable whether any Iraqi leader could have solved the country's most pressing problems.
But it did not help that Mr Jaafari - a softly-spoken former medical doctor in his late 50s - came across
as weak and ineffectual, a well-intentioned intellectual rather than a man of decisive leadership.
Growing criticism
[…]
After Saddam Hussein's fall, Mr Jaafari returned home, helping the Daawa become one of the three
dominant elements in a loose Shia alliance.
After being appointed prime minister last year, however, he came under increasing criticism for failing
to curb the violence and increasing sectarianism, or to improve basic services for ordinary Iraqis.
At the end, his stubborn refusal - right up to the last minute - to stand down alienated his remaining
allies, and it was reportedly only after the intervention of the most senior Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-
Sistani, that he finally relinquished his post.
Source: Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4932692.stm
Published: 2006/04/21 20:34:25 GMT
© BBC MMVI
3. Cautious optimism for new Iraqi PM
The appointment of Shia politician Jawad Maliki to form a new Iraqi government has largely been
welcomed by newspapers in the region. Several Iraqi papers express relief that the months of political
deadlock has finally been broken and call for a government of national unity to be formed swiftly.
But some papers are unimpressed by the "quota system" used to select Mr Maliki, the president and
the parliament speaker. And one Saudi paper fears that the sectarian divisions are too wide for any
government to resolve.
[…]
Source: Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/4938458.stm
Published: 2006/04/24 12:45:18 GMT
© BBC MMVI
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
15
4. Iraqi PM reverts to first name Nuri
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - As Iraqi Prime Minister- designate Jawad al-Maliki sets about naming a
cabinet to battle the country's woes, one of his first tasks is to rename himself.
After adopting the first name Jawad to hide his identity and protect his family when he fled Saddam
Hussein's regime to Syria in 1979, Maliki now plans to revert to his real name, Nuri.
"The name 'Jawad' was a necessary measure during a specific period to protect his relatives from the
dictatorship's regime, but now he wishes to be known by his real name," an official in Maliki's office
said.
Maliki, asked by President Jalal Talabani last Saturday to become premier and form a government of
national unity, must choose a cabinet and submit the names to parliament for approval within four
weeks.
Source: Reuters
5. Jawad al-Maliki: A novice, but outspoken
By Sabrina Tavernise The New York Times
SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2006
BAGHDAD Jawad al-Maliki, the Shiite politician selected Saturday to be Iraq's first permanent prime
minister, is decisive and direct and known for speaking his mind, but has little experience in
governing, Iraqi political leaders said.
Maliki, 55, appeared stiff and nervous before television cameras as he spoke for the first time after his
nomination by Shiite political parties on Saturday morning. […] He appeared to choose his words to
allay fears that he would be too Shiite for the job.
[…]
Maliki has not held a formal role in the Iraqi government since the American invasion, but his lack of
experience in the executive branch might be one of his biggest strengths, some colleagues said. Jaafari,
who agreed to step aside this week, was distasteful to Kurdish and Sunni parties precisely because of
his political track record, which they saw as poor.
[…]
He comes from a middle-class Shiite family in the south of Iraq.
Born in 1950, he grew up in Hindiay, between Karbala and Hilla. Maliki earned a master's degree in
Arabic language and literature in northern Iraq.
He worked in the Education Department in Hilla, according to accounts in Iraqi newspapers, before
fleeing the country in 1979. He spent 23 years in exile from Hussein's rule, mostly in Syria.
Maliki had been broadly considered one of the harder line Shiite politicians, a worldview shaped
during those years of exile, when he ran the Damascus branch of the Dawa party, a religious Shiite
party.
Since crossing back into Iraq secretly in late 2002, not long before the American invasion, he has
played a prominent role in the independent de-Baathification committee, showing himself as an
uncompromising proponent of policies that took members of the Baath Party out of public jobs and
alienated many Sunni Arabs.
[…]
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
16
Perhaps as a measure of how little he is known, he is alternatively described as a hard-liner and as a
man able to compromise. He was one of the main drafters of the country's Constitution last year, and it
was during that time that he forged relationships with Kurdish parties.
"People could reach a modus operandi with him where they couldn't with Jaafari," said one political
adviser who is close to the Shiite bloc. "He's more rational."
Still, some Iraqis expressed reservations that his hard-line reputation and direct approach might
alienate others at the political negotiating table. An Iraqi politician who used to worked closely with
Maliki said he is "inflexible, sticks to his own viewpoints, and is very bold in expressing them," and
that character trait, he said, will eventually get him into trouble with the Kurdish and Sunni parties.
Maliki has been chairman of the Security Committee of the National Assembly, and speaker of the
Shiite bloc, known as the United Iraqi Alliance.
One independent Shiite woman politician said she had experienced difficulties with Maliki because
she was a woman. Shatha al-Musawi said Maliki had refused to include her and three other Shiite
women in a committee that was negotiating over the prime minister's post.
"The incident along with my history of work with him in the National Assembly gave me this
impression that he thinks women are not qualified enough for this kind of job," she said.
Source: IHT / NYT, April 24th
VI. VARIOUS
1. Arab League Plans to Open Office in Iraq
By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 4, 6:56 PM ET
CAIRO, Egypt - The Arab League will open offices in Iraq for the first time since the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion, part of its efforts to help reconcile the country's Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish
communities, the league's chief said Saturday.
The United States has been seeking greater Arab involvement in Iraq, hoping to give legitimacy to the
current government. But Arab nations were long reluctant, fearing participation would be seen as
condoning the U.S. invasion, which many of them opposed.
[…]
But last year, the league made efforts to get involved. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa
visited Iraq, then the league hosted a reconciliation conference in Cairo in November between Iraq's
Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders.
[…]
The league is planning to sponsor a second reconciliation conference, this one in Baghdad, in June.
The league representation office is expected to be opened by the time of the conference and will be
headed by the Moroccan diplomat Mukhtar Lamani, Arab diplomats said.
[…]
Source: SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Writer Sat Mar 4, 6:56 PM ET
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
17
2. UN damns 'illegal' Iraq detention
The UN's human rights official in Iraq has said the Iraqi authorities are illegally holding
thousands of people.
Gianni Magazzeni said that of the 15,000 people held under Iraqi control, little more than half were
under the jurisdiction of the justice ministry.
This is the only body with the right to detain suspects for more than 72 hours.
[…]
DETENTION FACTS
29,565 people detained in Iraq
8,300 held legally by the Iraqi justice ministry
14,222 held by coalition forces
6,000 held by Iraqi interior ministry
460 are held by Iraqi defence ministry
More than 14,000 people are also being held by US-led coalition forces in Iraq.
Mr Magazzeni said the UN believed that number was far too high and he urged the US military
authorities to either charge or release them.
[…]
'Torture and execution'
He said the UN still did not have access to prisoners being held in unidentified coalition prisons, and
called for them to be released or handed over to Iraqi authorities to be charged.
"We want them to speed up this process," Mr Magazzeni said. He added that the UN was "very
concerned about ongoing violations" of human rights in Iraq.
"Torture and summary executions happen every day," Mr Magazzeni said.
[…]
Source: Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/4932206.stm
Published: 2006/04/21 17:49:26 GMT
© BBC MMVI
3. Beyond Abu Ghraib: detention and torture in Iraq (BY AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL)
"I have lost a year and a half of my life"
43-year-old former security detainee and father of three daughters following his release in
September 2005; he alleged that he was ill-treated while held in US detention in Iraq.
Introduction
Nearly three years after United States (US) and allied forces invaded Iraq and toppled the government
of Saddam Hussain, the human rights situation in the country remains dire. The deployment of US-led
forces in Iraq and the armed response that engendered has resulted in thousands of deaths of civilians
and widespread abuses amid the ongoing conflict.
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
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As Amnesty International has reported elsewhere(1), many of the abuses occurring today are
committed by armed groups opposed to the US-led Multinational Force (MNF) and the Iraqi
government that it underpins. Armed groups continue to wage an uncompromising war marked by
their disregard for civilian lives and the basic rules of international humanitarian law. They commit
suicide and other bomb attacks which either target civilians or while aimed at military objectives are
disproportionate in terms of causing civilian casualties, and they abduct and hold victims hostage,
threatening and often taking their lives. Amnesty International condemns these abuses, some of which
are so egregious as to constitute crimes against humanity, in addition to war crimes, and continues to
call on Iraq’s armed groups to cease such activities and abide by basic requirements of international
humanitarian law.
In this report, Amnesty International focuses on another part of the equation, specifically its concerns
about human rights abuses for which the US-led MNF is directly responsible and those which are
increasingly being committed by Iraqi security forces. The record of these forces, including US forces
and their United Kingdom (UK) allies, is an unpalatable one. Despite the pre-war rhetoric and postinvasion
justifications of US and UK political leaders, and their obligations under international law,
from the outset the occupying forces attached insufficient weight to human rights considerations. This
remains the position even if the violations by the MNF that are the subject of this report do not have
the same graphic, shock quality as the images that emerged in April 2004 and February 2006 showing
inmates being tortured and humiliated by US guards at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison and Iraqi youth
being beaten by UK troops after they were apprehended during a riot. The same failure to ensure due
process that prevailed then, however, and facilitated - perhaps even encouraged such abuses – is
evidenced today by the continuing detentions without charge or trial of thousands of people in Iraq
who are classified by the MNF as "security internees".
To read the full report, visit www.amnesty.org
Sunday, Apr. 23, 2006
4. Stolen Away
As criminal gangs run amuck in Iraq, hundreds of girls have gone missing. Are they
being sold for sex?
By BRIAN BENNETT/BAGHDAD
The man on the phone with the 14-year-old Iraqi girl called himself Sa'ad. He was calling long
distance from Dubai and telling her wonderful things about the place. He was also about to buy her.
Safah, the teenager, was well aware of the impending transaction. In the weeks after she was
kidnapped and imprisoned in a dark house in Baghdad's middle-class Karada district, Safah heard her
captors haggling with Sa'ad over her price. It was finally settled at $10,000. Staring at a floor strewn
with empty whiskey bottles, the orphan listened as Sa'ad described the life awaiting her: a beautiful
home, expensive clothes, parties with pop stars. Why, she'd be joining two other very happy teenage
Iraqi girls living with Sa'ad in his harem. Safah knew that she was running out of time. A fake passport
with her photo and assumed name had already been forged for her. But even if she escaped, she had no
family who would take her in. She was even likely to end up in prison. What was she to do?
Safah is part of a seldom-discussed aspect of the epidemic of kidnappings in Iraq: sex trafficking. No
one knows how many young women have been kidnapped and sold since the fall of Saddam Hussein
in 2003. The Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq, based in Baghdad, estimates from anecdotal
evidence that more than 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing in that period. A Western official in
Baghdad who monitors the status of women in Iraq thinks that figure may be inflated but admits that
sex trafficking, virtually nonexistent under Saddam, has become a serious issue. The collapse of law
and order and the absence of a stable government have allowed criminal gangs, alongside terrorists, to
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
19
run amuck. Meanwhile, some aid workers say, bureaucrats in the ministries have either paralyzed with
red tape or frozen the assets of charities that might have provided refuge for these girls. As a result,
sex trafficking has been allowed to fester unchecked.
"It is a problem, definitely," says the official, who has heard specific reports from Iraqi aid workers
about girls being kidnapped and sold to brothels. "Unfortunately, the security situation doesn't allow
us to follow up on this." The U.S. State Department's June 2005 trafficking report says the extent of
the problem in Iraq is "difficult to appropriately gauge" but cites an unknown number of Iraqi women
and girls being sent to Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Persian Gulf countries for sexual exploitation.
Statistics are further made murky by tribal tradition. Families are usually so shamed by the
disappearance of a daughter that they do not report kidnappings. And the resulting stigma of
compromised chastity is such that even if the girl should resurface, she may never be taken back by
her relations.
A visit to the Khadamiyah Women's Prison in the northern part of Baghdad immediately produces
several tales of abduction and abandonment. A stunning 18-year-old nicknamed Amna, her black hair
pulled back in a ponytail, says she was taken from an orphanage by an armed gang just after the U.S.
invasion and sent to brothels in Samarra, al-Qaim on the border with Syria, and Mosul in the north
before she was taken back to Baghdad, drugged with pills, dressed in a suicide belt and sent to bomb a
cleric's office in Khadamiyah, where she turned herself in to the police. A judge gave her a seven-year
jail sentence "for her sake" to protect her from the gang, according to the prison director.
Two other girls, Asmah, 14, and Shadah, 15, were taken all the way to the United Arab Emirates
before they could escape their kidnappers and report them to a Dubai police station. The sisters were
then sent back to Iraq but, like many other girls who have escaped their kidnappers and buyers, were
sent to prison because they carried fake passports. There, they wait for the bureaucracy to sort out their
innocence. What happened to the gang that took them? The sisters hear rumors that the men paid their
way out of jail and are back on the streets. "I don't know what to do if the prison administration
decides to release me," says Asmah, pushing back her gray head scarf to adjust her black hair. "We
have no one to protect us."
Women's advocates are trying to set up halfway houses for kidnap survivors. The locations are secret
to keep the women safe from both trafficking gangs trying to cover their tracks and outraged relatives
who may try to kill the women to restore their clans' reputation. But the new Iraqi government has set
up several bureaucratic roadblocks. Even organizations that do not receive government money have to
secure permission from four ministries and the Baghdad city council for every shelter they hope to
operate. Wringing her hands in exasperation, activist Yanar Mohammed says, "They want to close our
women's shelter and deny our ability to open more."
That means that for girls like Safah, there are few havens left in Baghdad. In 2003, after Safah's father
died, her grandmother took her to House of Children No. 2 orphanage in Adhamiya without the
knowledge of most of her family. At the orphanage, she was befriended by an affable nurse who spent
hours chatting up Safah, a fresh-faced girl whose fingers are still pudgy with baby fat. The nurse's
modest hijab framed a sweet face that made Safah feel that the nurse was a good, spiritual woman, one
she could trust. The nurse convinced Safah that she could be killed over the shame her disappearance
had brought to her family. The nurse offered to adopt her. But official channels would have taken too
long, so the nurse told Safah to hold her lower-right abdomen, scream and writhe on the carpet of the
orphanage director's office, pretending to have appendicitis and requiring emergency medical
assistance. Once at the hospital, the nurse whisked Safah into a waiting car.
The next three weeks were the worst in Safah's life. "I was tortured and beaten and insulted a lot in
that house," Safah says. She wouldn't provide many details about what happened in the whiskeysoaked
den in Karada. But she says that when it became apparent to her that she was about to be sold
to Sa'ad, the man on the phone from Dubai, she became desperate. She passed word of her
confinement to a neighborhood boy, who reported it to the local police station. Officers raided the
place and arrested the nurse. Bureaucratic red tape somehow kept Safah and the nurse in the same
ICFTU IRAQ NEWSLETTER (2) 2/05/2006
20
prison for six months before Safah was finally released back into the custody of the orphanage a
month ago.
At the orphanage, nestled behind a 10-ft. wall on the breezy banks of the Tigris, Safah can take
computer classes, practice sewing and paint portraits of the family she wishes she had. But she doesn't
feel as safe as she used to there. A social worker tells her that the nurse wasn't at the Khadamiyah
Women's Prison during her last visit. Suddenly Safah rushes out of the room, crying and beating her
head with her hands in the hallway. "If she is released," says Safah, her eyes darting back and forth in
a panic, "I'm not staying here." But deep down she knows she has nowhere else to go.
With reporting by Yousif Basil/ Baghdad, Assad Majeed/ Baghdad
Source: Time Magazine, April 23rd
(Minimalist) reply to our letter
May 9 2005
Dear Ms Bradley,
I am in receipt of your letter of April 26. I will ignore the many offensive and frankly outlandish comments and assertions in your letter and address simply the issue raised in relation to the demonstration on March 18.
The WCPI was asked to move its stall in Parliament Square because it was in the area where we were setting up tables to collect signatures for the petition for an enquiry into the decision to go to war against Iraq. The SWP stall was not put in front of the WCPI stall – it was on the opposite side of a very wide paved area. Stewards asked for this second stall to be taken down for the same reason. At no time were the police involved in any way at all. I know all this because I was there at the time.
We see no virtue in a debate with your group regarding Political Islam. You are not an StWC affiliate, and I have seen nothing to suggest that such an event would generate any light.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Murray
Chair
StWC
Dear Ms Bradley,
I am in receipt of your letter of April 26. I will ignore the many offensive and frankly outlandish comments and assertions in your letter and address simply the issue raised in relation to the demonstration on March 18.
The WCPI was asked to move its stall in Parliament Square because it was in the area where we were setting up tables to collect signatures for the petition for an enquiry into the decision to go to war against Iraq. The SWP stall was not put in front of the WCPI stall – it was on the opposite side of a very wide paved area. Stewards asked for this second stall to be taken down for the same reason. At no time were the police involved in any way at all. I know all this because I was there at the time.
We see no virtue in a debate with your group regarding Political Islam. You are not an StWC affiliate, and I have seen nothing to suggest that such an event would generate any light.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Murray
Chair
StWC
Our letter to the STWC
Dear STWC,
You may be aware that Iraq Union Solidarity (IUS) is an activist campaign, which makes solidarity with the emerging Iraqi trade unions. We collect money for Iraqi unions, help publicise their struggles, help to get them to speak at union conferences and set up direct links between workers in Iraq and in the UK.
I’m sure you can appreciate that trying to form trade unions in Iraq is a very difficult and dangerous thing to do. It has taken over 200 years in the UK for us to form and enjoy legal trade unions. In Iraq, workers are still fighting for the basic necessities which our ancestors won centuries ago; such as to be allowed to organise, to have facilities, to not have state interference, and to be consulted on workplace matters. In IUS we constantly hear stories of Iraqi trade unionists who have been killed, arrested, tortured, assassinated, silenced, abused or restricted either by coalition forces or sectarian forces who are hostile to trade unions. We would expect that anyone who genuinely wants peace and democracy in Iraq, would welcome the formation of trades unions there, and would give them as much help as possible.
It is therefore with deep sadness and outrage that we learned at our last meeting, that leaders of STWC had once again attacked the Iraqi left/Iraqi trade unionists. Dashty Jamal reported to us that he and the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (who have helped to form the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq) were harassed by STWC stewards. WCPI had a bookstall with a banner reading “No to America, No to Political Islam” which was blocked by STWC stewards. STWC stewards put an SWP stall up in front of the WCPI stall, blocking its access. Dashty asked politely several times for STWC to remove their stall, when they failed to comply, he removed it himself.
Also STWC stewards called the British police to harass the Iraqi comrades saying, “We have organised this demo.
You can’t have banners which say that.” IUS was not aware that STWC have become the Thought Police, who call on the British state police to help them out to suppress the Iraqi left.
Dashty also reported that whilst an Iraqi woman called Nadia Mahmood was being interviewed and filmed, STWC stewards and others shouted, jeered, harassed and abused her.
These events coupled with statements made in the past by leaders of STWC, we find to be wholly unacceptable.
It is possible that the STWC stewards who conducted these attacks, did not agree with the statement on the WCPI banner. We believe that dialogue and debate is the best way of resolving disagreements, not the suppression of such ideas. I will repeat my previous invitation to STWC for a debate on the question of political Islam and the role of Iraqi trades unions; though I expect that this request will be ignored.
Above all we would like an apology to Dashty, Nadia, the WCPI, FWCUI for this incident and the IFTU (now part of the FWI) for the attacks they have endured from leading members of STWC, who claim to uphold the principle of “Respect.”
We hope to hear from you soon about this very serious matter, though if you ignore this letter we will conclude that you are simply continuing your pattern of ignoring or suppressing views, which you are unable to deal with. This might be tolerable if we were discussing something trivial, but you know that we are not. To continue your tactics will inevitably destroy the STW movement, empower sectarian forces in Iraq, enflame the civil war there and will benefit no one who genuinely wants peace and democracy in Iraq.
Yours Sincerely
Pauline Bradley
Convenor
You may be aware that Iraq Union Solidarity (IUS) is an activist campaign, which makes solidarity with the emerging Iraqi trade unions. We collect money for Iraqi unions, help publicise their struggles, help to get them to speak at union conferences and set up direct links between workers in Iraq and in the UK.
I’m sure you can appreciate that trying to form trade unions in Iraq is a very difficult and dangerous thing to do. It has taken over 200 years in the UK for us to form and enjoy legal trade unions. In Iraq, workers are still fighting for the basic necessities which our ancestors won centuries ago; such as to be allowed to organise, to have facilities, to not have state interference, and to be consulted on workplace matters. In IUS we constantly hear stories of Iraqi trade unionists who have been killed, arrested, tortured, assassinated, silenced, abused or restricted either by coalition forces or sectarian forces who are hostile to trade unions. We would expect that anyone who genuinely wants peace and democracy in Iraq, would welcome the formation of trades unions there, and would give them as much help as possible.
It is therefore with deep sadness and outrage that we learned at our last meeting, that leaders of STWC had once again attacked the Iraqi left/Iraqi trade unionists. Dashty Jamal reported to us that he and the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (who have helped to form the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq) were harassed by STWC stewards. WCPI had a bookstall with a banner reading “No to America, No to Political Islam” which was blocked by STWC stewards. STWC stewards put an SWP stall up in front of the WCPI stall, blocking its access. Dashty asked politely several times for STWC to remove their stall, when they failed to comply, he removed it himself.
Also STWC stewards called the British police to harass the Iraqi comrades saying, “We have organised this demo.
You can’t have banners which say that.” IUS was not aware that STWC have become the Thought Police, who call on the British state police to help them out to suppress the Iraqi left.
Dashty also reported that whilst an Iraqi woman called Nadia Mahmood was being interviewed and filmed, STWC stewards and others shouted, jeered, harassed and abused her.
These events coupled with statements made in the past by leaders of STWC, we find to be wholly unacceptable.
It is possible that the STWC stewards who conducted these attacks, did not agree with the statement on the WCPI banner. We believe that dialogue and debate is the best way of resolving disagreements, not the suppression of such ideas. I will repeat my previous invitation to STWC for a debate on the question of political Islam and the role of Iraqi trades unions; though I expect that this request will be ignored.
Above all we would like an apology to Dashty, Nadia, the WCPI, FWCUI for this incident and the IFTU (now part of the FWI) for the attacks they have endured from leading members of STWC, who claim to uphold the principle of “Respect.”
We hope to hear from you soon about this very serious matter, though if you ignore this letter we will conclude that you are simply continuing your pattern of ignoring or suppressing views, which you are unable to deal with. This might be tolerable if we were discussing something trivial, but you know that we are not. To continue your tactics will inevitably destroy the STW movement, empower sectarian forces in Iraq, enflame the civil war there and will benefit no one who genuinely wants peace and democracy in Iraq.
Yours Sincerely
Pauline Bradley
Convenor
Monday, May 8
Tim Lezard on Iraqi trade unionism
An Article by The Former President of the British NUJ, Tim Lezard on his Recent Visit to Iraq
The New Statesman
A struggle to exist
Monday 1st May 2006
New Statesman
Tim Lezard on Iraqi trade unionism
Bakar Hussein shrugs his shoulders and looks embarrassed when asked
about his stint in his namesake's jails. The political researcher, who
looks older than his 37 years, spent a year inside the notorious Red
House, a purpose-built torture centre in Sulaymaniyah, in Iraqi
Kurdistan.
"We've all suffered," he says. "What makes my story special?" His tale
of hour-long sessions with his hands bound tightly behind and above
his head, his body suspended from a meat hook and wired up to an
electricity generator is, he insists, not unusual. "I'd pass out
because the pain of the torture was so great," he recalls. "Then I'd
be taken down, unconscious, and thrown back into my cell with my
friends. I didn't expect to leave the Red House alive."
Now free from the Red House and from Saddam Hussein's regime, Bakar
and his fellow trade unionists face a different, but no less deadly,
enemy: suicide bombers. "There is a genocide of working people," says
Adnan al-Safar, the media officer for the Iraqi Federation of Workers'
Trade Unions. He is speaking to a delegation of British politicians
and trade unionists who have travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan on a
fact-finding mission.
"Our main problem is terrorists because they are targeting workers
every day, especially labourers queuing for work." As he says this,
there is a murmur of agreement from the other Iraqis gathered round
the restaurant table, together representing more than a million Iraqi
workers. One of them adds: "The terrorists are killing poor people;
wealthy people are safe."
The five-hour meeting, half of it held in the dark because of the
power cuts that plague the city, is believed to be the first such
gathering since the fall of Saddam three years ago. Apart from
terrorism, the 22 Iraqis present agree that their single largest
problem is Decree 8750. Passed by Iraq's ruling body last August, this
decree permits the government to "take control of all monies belonging
to trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies".
The British government, while publicly praising the new democracy in
Iraq, has done nothing to prevent this attack on the independent trade
unions that should be playing a vital role. "We've tried to build new,
independent trade unions, totally different from the old ones, but
Decree 8750 is stopping us," says the vice-president of the Iraqi
workers' federation, Hadi Ali. "We struggled to beat Saddam. Now we
are struggling to build a strong, federal and democratic Iraq."
The generosity of our hosts belies the poverty of a country starved of
investment. They need money to help them rebuild their society - many
workers are not paid even the minimum wage, earning just 70,000 dinars
(£27) a month. While being wary of the consequences of opening their
markets to foreign companies, they accept they cannot resist the
overtures of global capitalism for much longer. "Privatisation gives
us new challenges," admits al-Safar. "We need to learn how to face the
multinational companies without letting them violate legislation and
workers' rights."
But before then, they need to be free to organise their independent
trade unions. Despite the security situation, they are optimistic, and
look forward to the day when Decree 8750 is repealed. Al-Safar says:
"I hope the new government - when it comes - brings a national unity
that sees unions as friends and supporters of democracy."
That is a hope shared by the Labour MP Dave Anderson, who was part of
the UK delegation. "Iraq may be on the knife-edge of full-scale civil
war," he says, "but there is another Iraq and a non-sectarian future
through its growing labour movement, which could hold the key to
uniting the country in peace and prosperity. Iraqi unions want urgent
assistance to retrieve their independence and to boost their clout as
a social partner in reconstructing Iraq, and we'll do all we can to
help them get back on their own two feet. We're already hoping to set
up a trade-union radio station, and now we're raising funds to help
them print a newspaper, too. They need only £900 a month, and we're
hoping trade unionists in the UK can help that dream come true."
Tim Lezard
The writer is a former president of the NUJ. More details of the
campaign to repeal Decree 8750 at:
[http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk and to make a donation to the
TUC's Aid Iraqi Unions Appeal, go to
http://www.tuc.org.uk/international
The New Statesman
A struggle to exist
Monday 1st May 2006
New Statesman
Tim Lezard on Iraqi trade unionism
Bakar Hussein shrugs his shoulders and looks embarrassed when asked
about his stint in his namesake's jails. The political researcher, who
looks older than his 37 years, spent a year inside the notorious Red
House, a purpose-built torture centre in Sulaymaniyah, in Iraqi
Kurdistan.
"We've all suffered," he says. "What makes my story special?" His tale
of hour-long sessions with his hands bound tightly behind and above
his head, his body suspended from a meat hook and wired up to an
electricity generator is, he insists, not unusual. "I'd pass out
because the pain of the torture was so great," he recalls. "Then I'd
be taken down, unconscious, and thrown back into my cell with my
friends. I didn't expect to leave the Red House alive."
Now free from the Red House and from Saddam Hussein's regime, Bakar
and his fellow trade unionists face a different, but no less deadly,
enemy: suicide bombers. "There is a genocide of working people," says
Adnan al-Safar, the media officer for the Iraqi Federation of Workers'
Trade Unions. He is speaking to a delegation of British politicians
and trade unionists who have travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan on a
fact-finding mission.
"Our main problem is terrorists because they are targeting workers
every day, especially labourers queuing for work." As he says this,
there is a murmur of agreement from the other Iraqis gathered round
the restaurant table, together representing more than a million Iraqi
workers. One of them adds: "The terrorists are killing poor people;
wealthy people are safe."
The five-hour meeting, half of it held in the dark because of the
power cuts that plague the city, is believed to be the first such
gathering since the fall of Saddam three years ago. Apart from
terrorism, the 22 Iraqis present agree that their single largest
problem is Decree 8750. Passed by Iraq's ruling body last August, this
decree permits the government to "take control of all monies belonging
to trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies".
The British government, while publicly praising the new democracy in
Iraq, has done nothing to prevent this attack on the independent trade
unions that should be playing a vital role. "We've tried to build new,
independent trade unions, totally different from the old ones, but
Decree 8750 is stopping us," says the vice-president of the Iraqi
workers' federation, Hadi Ali. "We struggled to beat Saddam. Now we
are struggling to build a strong, federal and democratic Iraq."
The generosity of our hosts belies the poverty of a country starved of
investment. They need money to help them rebuild their society - many
workers are not paid even the minimum wage, earning just 70,000 dinars
(£27) a month. While being wary of the consequences of opening their
markets to foreign companies, they accept they cannot resist the
overtures of global capitalism for much longer. "Privatisation gives
us new challenges," admits al-Safar. "We need to learn how to face the
multinational companies without letting them violate legislation and
workers' rights."
But before then, they need to be free to organise their independent
trade unions. Despite the security situation, they are optimistic, and
look forward to the day when Decree 8750 is repealed. Al-Safar says:
"I hope the new government - when it comes - brings a national unity
that sees unions as friends and supporters of democracy."
That is a hope shared by the Labour MP Dave Anderson, who was part of
the UK delegation. "Iraq may be on the knife-edge of full-scale civil
war," he says, "but there is another Iraq and a non-sectarian future
through its growing labour movement, which could hold the key to
uniting the country in peace and prosperity. Iraqi unions want urgent
assistance to retrieve their independence and to boost their clout as
a social partner in reconstructing Iraq, and we'll do all we can to
help them get back on their own two feet. We're already hoping to set
up a trade-union radio station, and now we're raising funds to help
them print a newspaper, too. They need only £900 a month, and we're
hoping trade unionists in the UK can help that dream come true."
Tim Lezard
The writer is a former president of the NUJ. More details of the
campaign to repeal Decree 8750 at:
[http://www.labourfriendsofiraq.org.uk and to make a donation to the
TUC's Aid Iraqi Unions Appeal, go to
http://www.tuc.org.uk/international
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