arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

2. Geneva Conference In Defence of ILO Conventions, 13 June 2004

Two days before the Conference, on 11 June, a delegation of the International Campaign Against the Occupation and For Labour Rights in Iraq was received in Geneva by Dan Cunniah, Secretary of the Workers' Group on the ILB Governing Body. The International Campaign was represented by the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions (ICATU), the Algerian UGTA, US Labor Against the War (USLAW), the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI), the Union of Unemployed Workers in Iraq (UUI), the International Liaison Committee (ILC). The ILC members included a representative of the Conference Hosting Committee.

The delegation raised a number of points and questions in support of the complaint lodged by the FWCUI and UUI with the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association. This Complaint establishes that ILO Conventions 87 and 98 are being breached in Iraq, especially by the publication of Decree No.16, by which the Iraqi Governing Council decided to grant recognition to only one trade union. The Complaint already has received the support of hundreds of trade union branches, national trade unions, trade union federations and trade union confederations in more than 40 countries around the world. The Complaint was officially registered on 2 June as Case No.2348 by the ILO's Freedom of Association Branch, which means that the ILO recognises the FWCUI and the UUI as legitimate trade unions.

Stop the war Coalition UK, will publish this statement on the Iraqi Federation of trade Unions IFTU on monday (see attachment) and Iam sure it will be ciculated widely in the ESF. If Mashhadani still wants to turn up on Friday we should be ready for him. There are a lot of damning information about this group, some of it could be found on their own website.

STOP THE WAR COALITION AND THE IFTU

Since the bloody and illegal invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq by US and British armies, the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) has consistently called for the withdrawal of foreign troops and the ending of the occupation. This position commands the support of the great majority of the British people, and was recently reaffirmed as the unanimous position of the TUC. It also commands the support of the majority of the Iraqi people, as evidenced by opinion polling carried out by the occupation forces themselves.

At the same time StWC has always refrained from taking any position on the internal development of Iraq, since this is solely the preserve of the Iraqi people themselves. Affiliates of the Coalition have, of course, developed their own links with Iraqi organisations, according to their particular policies or spheres of interest.

However, the recent activity of the representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) in Britain compels the StWC to make its position clear. In recent weeks the IFTU representative has:

 Urged that the Labour Party conference welcome the puppet Iraqi premier Allawi, at a time when the entire anti-war movement was demanding that the invitation be withdrawn, which it subsequently was.
 Shared a platform with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the UK government’s “human rights envoy” to Iraq Ann Clwyd, respectively a leading architect of and an indefatigable apologist for the war and the occupation.
 Most shamefully of all, energetically lobbied the trade union affiliates of the Labour Party to oppose a motion, reflecting the union’s own agreed policies, calling on Blair to set an early date for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.

In this last undertaking the IFTU representative worked as the direct instrument of the government and the Labour Party apparatus, which prepared and distributed his statements to delegates and ensured him access to union delegations. Indeed, the statement by the IFTU representative issued by the Party was not merely supportive of the continued military occupation of his country, but could also be read as supportive of the original invasion of Iraq.

There is little doubt that this intervention played a significant part in persuading some major trade unions (and perhaps constituency delegates too) to abandon their agreed policy on the occupation (affirmed at the TUC just two weeks earlier).

It is understandable that British trade unions should wish to express their support to the working class of Iraq in its extremely difficult struggles, and the StWC has always encouraged such support insofar as it falls within our political remit. The IFTU is one of a number of trade union and workers’ organisations in Iraq, distinguished from others by its support for the Allawi government and, it is now apparent, for the foreign occupation on which that government depends for its existence.

The IFTU has, however, attempted to divide the anti-war movement from the trade unions by taking advantage of the goodwill towards it shown by a number of unions for honourable reasons of solidarity, the lack of understanding of the actual nature of different organisations in Iraq, and the climate of pre-election pressure from the government on trade union delegations.

As a result, several affiliated trade unions at the Labour Party conference voted for a policy of effectively open-ended licence for the occupation and against the early withdrawal of British troops.

The StWC hopes that the leading unions will restate their previous policy of an end to the occupation. The coming weeks and months are likely to see still bloodier battles within Iraq, with a growing number of deaths both of Iraqis and of British and US soldiers. It remains most likely that the war and the occupation will remain the dominant political issues in the months leading up to the next British general election. The trade union movement must find a voice on these developments and cannot remain within the confines of the statement agreed at the Labour Party conference.

With regard to the IFTU, the StWC condemns its political collaboration with the British government, exemplified at the Labour Party conference and its view that genuinely independent trade unionism in Iraq can develop under a regime of military occupation (including the daily bombardment of major Iraqi cities) by the USA and Britain.

The StWC reaffirms its call for an end to the occupation, the return of all British troops in Iraq to this country and recognises once more the legitimacy of the struggle of Iraqis, by whatever means they find necessary, to secure such ends.

Stop the War Coalition
October 2004


Nog enkele losse reacties:

It is a complete scandal that a speaker of the IFTU is on the plenary at the ESF next week, all the more so without speakers from the UUI and FWCUI, unions which have formally raised a complaint at the ILO directorate in Geneva against the banning of any union but the IFTU (which went into bed with the occupation at the time of Bremer's edicts (I can dig out the order on labour association of Bremer for those who don't know it! and the IGC).
For those who don't know the background, I'm here appending the formal report on the Geneva meeting written up by CC for those who don't know the background. It's bad enough that the Blairites wheeled these folk into the TUC meetings at the Labour Party meeting -- but the ESF? The mind boggles.
How is the ESF organised? At the very least we should be able to insist that the Plenary be stopped without representation from the UUI & FWCUI as there is a formal complaint before the ILO about freedom of association?!

I'm convinced the peace movement MUST distribute a flyer to oppose Mashadani's presence. This has never been seen before. Imagine Maréchal Pétain, leader of the Vichy government, was given a forum in London 1940-'45. I think that in those days he would have been arrested in London, locked up and have a dead sentence after the war. Where is this world going, when even some progressive circles accept this !
And I notice that many groups and individuals oppose Mashadani's presence.
The working group of the ESF said that only a few people made objections and that the objections came too late. All lies. There is apparently a hidden agenda behind all this. Did you know they dropped Ben Bella from this plenary? This is the world upside down.
Remember: Iraqi people and their culture are being erased from the face of the earth in the most atrocious imperialist war this world has ever seen and Mashadani is one of their footmen.
Plus: the resistance of the Iraqi people is the best guarantee to preserve world-peace. If Iraqi's were all Mashadani's, the US would now be in Syria, Iran, North Korea and other "rogue states", maybe even in France. We should all be extremely grateful for the Iraqi resistance, because their martyrs
are also our martyrs. They died for our sake also. And they are giving their lives so that their ànd our children have some chance to live in peace.
If the famous US neocon McCain states in an interview that US occupation forces will remain in Iraq for at least 10 to 20 years, when does Mashadani think it will be the right time to start the resistance? And what is he doing in a plenary called "end the occupation"?
I know I'm getting emotional over this issue, but I'm really angry.
I admire the patience of the Iraqi's who will sit next to the Emperor's right hand in this plenary.


Mashadani is the General Sec of IFTU, this is the same group that helped The Blair government in the Labour party conference recently. We objected to his participation, and others did so as well. This group belongs to the Iraqi Communist Party-central committee, claims to represent the trade Union movement in Iraq. They have been quite active recently among British trade unions. They need to be confronted and exposed as apologists of the occupation.