arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Dear Alex,

Your message regarding the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) was copied to me by a friend, and I felt that I must write to you, in your capacity as a representative of the RMT trade union, which has a proud history of struggle for working class rights and international solidarity with workers across the world.

I fully agree with you on two points. Firstly, it was wrong and undemocratic to disrupt the European Social Forum plenary on the occupation of Iraq by an organised small group of hecklers. The second is that no Iraqi was involved in the disruption of the meeting or the shouting down of speakers. I myself was shouted down by the same group of disrupters when I went to the platform to appeal to them to stop the disruption and to stage a quiet and dignified walk-out of the meeting when IFTU general secretary, Subhi Mashadani, starts his speech and to walk quietly back after he finishes.

However, I take issue with the rest of your contribution and appeal to you to take a second look at the dire consequences of the war on Iraq and to revise your opinion of the unelected leadership of the IFTU and of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), which dominates this leadership with the backing the Iraqi National Accord, an organisation of former Ba'athist military and security men led by US-appointed prime minister Ayad Allawi, former Saddamist agent in charge of all Ba’ath party organisations in Europe.

I am sad to say that the (IFTU) leadership, in its present post-occupation reincarnation, appears to have succeeded in convincing you that it is a staunch opponent of the occupation of Iraq and of the institutions set up by the occupation authorities. Alas, this self-projected image of the IFTU is false, and I will explain why below.

Before doing so, I draw your attention that I will list in the course of my arguments the crucial questions that the IFTU need to answer in relation to the occupation of Iraq and the Allawi regime. In asking these questions I have in mind the fact that Bush and Blair were also against the occupation of Iraq and wanted to end it “as soon as possible.” Bush and Blair did do their best to end the dreaded occupation by handing “sovereignty” to the Allawi regime, which in turn “invited” them to remain in Iraq as the “multi-national forces.” Bush and Blair are now “fully committed” to withdrawing the troops the “moment” the newly elected government in Iraq asks them to do so. The “presence” of the US-led forces is merely to make sure that Iraq will have free and fair elections. To withdraw the troops now will lead to civil war and the “murder” of all “active trade unionists and socialists.” Delete “active trade unionists and socialists” and replace with “free Iraqi men and women” if Bush is making the claim. And to legitimise this entire process the US and Britain asked the UN security Council to pass resolutions noting the transition from invasion to occupation, to occupation-plus-Bremer-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), to “multi-national forces” assisting an interim, but sovereign, Iraqi Interim Government until elections are… The UN Security Council noted all this in resolutions 1483 and 1546. Unfortunately and despite their best efforts to assist the people of Iraq, Bush and Blair are now facing a big problem, not of their own making of course, of some cut-throat terrorists who must be crushed before elections are held in Jan 2005. In order to crush them, many Iraqi cities, Shia and Sunni, had to be bombarded and thousands of homes had to be demolished on top of their inhabitants. This collateral damage could go up as the free and fair election date approaches…

This is not intended to introduce an element of cynicism, but to know what people exactly mean when the say “we are against the occupation of Iraq” and “we are for a free, democratic, secular and federal Iraq” and that “UN resolution 1546 offers the best hope for Iraqis to achieve” these goals.

I also have ample and reliable information from within Iraq that the IFTU is not an elected umbrella organisation of all Iraqi trade unions as its name suggests. Indeed, the IFTU itself has not officially claimed that there has been such a conference representing democratically elected trade union bodies across Iraq. However, its self-appointed (or rather party-appointed) leaders, including its general secretary, Subhi Mashadani, and its London-based International Representative, Abdullah Muhsin, have unashamedly given such a false impression to British and other trade unions.

But once the role of the IFTU and ICP leaders is fully understood, and the historical parallels are relevantly drawn, it would be patently obvious that it was wrong to invite Mashadani to an anti-occupation meeting. No prominent supporter of the Vichy regime would have been allowed to set foot in Britain let alone get near a trade union platform or a rally supporting the French people’s struggle against the Vichy regime and its occupation masters. Drawing parallels has its limitation, and one might accurately state that Bush and Blair are not and Hitler and Mussolini. The retort to that is: yes but try telling that to the people at the receiving end of cluster bombs, helicopter gunships, and tank fire in their besieged cities and Baghdad working class neighbourhoods. Try telling them that Allawi is not Vichy.

Most of the current leaders of the IFTU are ICP cadres. And it is impossible to understand the IFTU’s policies and line without recognising this fact and without being acquainted with the party’s line and policies. A party, which was once a proud organisation that had the support of millions of people in Iraq in the late 1950’s and 60’s, is now at the forefront of perfecting the art of justifying the continued US-led occupation of Iraq.

The party's slogan, before the invasion, was “No to war and no to Saddam's dictatorship.” The first half of the slogan was not acted upon energetically and the opposition to the invasion was tempered by some equivocal statements in the party’s main organ, Tareeq Al-Sha’ab, and by its leaders, who surreptitiously took part in pre-war US administration and British government organised conferences of some Iraqi opposition leaders, some of whom later served as collaborators appointed by the occupation authorities.

However, this prevarication was dramatically ended few months after the fall of Baghdad to US tanks, the collapse of Saddam’s tyrannical regime. Political imperatives, logic and the interests of the Iraqi people would have necessitated bringing into greater prominence the party’s opposition to the war and the subsequent occupation. Instead, the party solemnly declared, on 13 July 2003, that its secretary general, Hameed Majeed Mousa, would join the Paul Bremer appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). Though anticipated by people familiar with the party leadership’s history and manoeuvres, that statement came as a shock to some of the party members whom I met in Baghdad last year. From that day onwards, the party was seen by most Iraqis as a collaborationist force, with some of its leaders receiving their salaries from the occupation authorities.

Under the hammer blows of the Iraqi people’s magnificent struggle against the occupation, the IGC and its US master, Paul Bremer, were so isolated and discredited that Bremer had to disband the IGC last June in favour of passing “sovereignty” to the US-appointed Iraqi Interim Government led by the CIA “asset”, Ayad Allawi. The ICP fully supported the formation of Allawi’s puppet regime, and has one senior and two junior ministers serving under Allawi and his US bosses. US ambassador Negroponte, the mastermind of terror organisations in El-Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, and now bunkered at Saddam’s Republican Palace in Baghdad, is the real political ruler of Iraq with 160,000 occupation troops and over 40,000 foreign mercenaries at his disposal. He is hard at it to build an Iraqi force to kill other Iraqis and subdue the people using Saddamist methods. So were does the IFTU stand on all this.

You need do no more than read translations of the ICP’s communiqués and Tareeq Al-Sha’ab editorials to know were Abdullah Muhsin and Subhi Mashadani get their political line from. Indeed, an IFTU article by Muhsin in the Morning Star last year was almost an abridged translation of a party statement on the political situation in Iraq. What I am trying to put the spotlight on here is not that a trade unionist is exercising his or her right to be also a party cadre but that the party line the IFTU leaders adhere to is, in practice, a collaborationist line.

Their protestations to the contrary, misleading some people abroad, are laughable to most Iraqis. The few Iraqis that you met at the ESF were ICP activists, some from here in London and others flown in with Mashadani from Baghdad. They were mobilised to support Mashadani’s appearance at the ESF conference. I too, being a friend of some of them, was standing with them near the platform and engaged them in discussion later. Some were in a state of denial about the occupation of Iraq, calling the US-led forces a necessary, if temporary, “foreign presence” A phrase used by Allawi and the latest ICP central committee statement. Others acknowledged the occupation but strongly believed that there was no alternative to belonging to the occupation-created institutions. The obvious point of saying you can’t end the occupation by serving in its highest levels of political structures was answered with strong attacks on the notion of armed resistance. I suggested that they could lead the peaceful struggle to end the occupation by following the great example of Ghandi and boycotting the occupation authorities and all their institutions. The answer was “we don’t have a Ghandi.”

People who are reasonably well informed on Iraq will benefit a great deal from closely examining the IFTU website (set up in London) (http://www.iraqitradeunions.org). Reading the headlines of the website, you would be forgiven to think that there was no war or invasion of Iraq and tens of thousands of people did not die at the hands of the US-led occupation. Nor has there been a US bombardment of Najaf, the working class districts of Baghdad, particularly Sadr city, Falluja, Samarra and many other cities in the past weeks and months…

The IFTU, rightly, very strongly and swiftly condemns the atrocities committed by the terrorist gangs. But they always do so in the manner of Bush, Blair, Allawi and the occupation forces. They always try to portray the hugely popular patriotic resistance as “remnants of the Saddam regime” and “secretive anti-democratic” forces. On the other hand, the IFTU and the ICP is yet to launch a campaign against the massacres committed by the occupation forces. Associating the resistance with terrorist gangs is one of the most insidious acts of the IFTU and the ICP. They dare not condemn openly, in Arabic, in Iraq, but they always issue statements following terrorist crimes trying to surreptitiously suggest that the Zarqawi and the other terrorists are the resistance in Iraq.

In fact the only very strongly worded IFTU statement on its website is dated 3rd March 2004 condemning the murder of civilians by unknown terrorists who bombed Shia mosques/shrines in Karbala and Khadimyia. The wording of the statement is very interesting in the way it mimics the occupation authorities’ style of condemning such atrocities. Those particular bombings were widely described by Iraqis at the time as the work of occupation forces’ agent provocateurs out to incite civil war between Sunni and Shia. People of the Baghdad district of Khadimya stoned the US forces and accused them of perpetrating the crime. These forces moved in on that day (2nd March) within minutes of the bombing of the famous shrine, thinking that the people would welcome them as their protectors. Obviously, for those who know the reality of IFTU, it is not surprising that the statement does not even mention the occupation.

These one-sided, well-synchronised statements on terrorism are designed to apologise for Bush’s policies in Iraq, or for what Blair portrayed as the engagement of the occupation forces in a “second war” in Iraq, the war against terrorism. As it happens, the vast majority of Iraqis reject Zarqawi and his ilk - as do the resistance and its supporters in Falluja, Basra, Najaf, Sadr City and across Iraq. Many even suspect that the occupation forces are somehow encouraging the likes of Zarqawi, or at least failing to prevent their crimes, as a way of obscuring the fact that most Iraqis now actively support a patriotic and widespread resistance movement. While rightly condemning Zarqawi, the IFTU and the ICP are keeping quiet about the Israeli-trained American assassination squads. (See reports, undenied by Bush or Blair, published by Seymour Hersh).

Does the IFTU mention anywhere that the occupation forces have admitted that the attacks on them by the resistance rose in August to 2,700 ? Does it mention how many of these 2,700 attacks a month were claimed by Zarqawi? Six. Six headline-grabbing, TV-dominating, stomach-churning moments.

The mildest and furtively stated criticisms are reserved for the US bombardment of the cities. ‘Bombing cities in which civilians die is not the way to defeat the terrorists’ is the best we can hope for from the IFTU and the ICP in the way of condemning the US-led war crimes, being assisted by the Allawi regime, which the ICP is part of.

Just as Iraq's 25 million people were reduced, in the public's mind, to the threat from weapons of mass destruction, ready to be unleashed by Saddam within 45 minutes, the resistance is now being reduced, with the help of the IFTU and the ICP, to a single hoodlum by the name of Zarqawi.

And just as we should have been told, before the war, whether the 45-minute from dooms day referred to “battle field or long range missiles” to see if the war was legal or had a moral foundation, we today need to be aware the IFTU and ICP assisted war on terrorism is nothing but a new deceitful attempt to wage a new war against the Iraqi people to serve the interests of Bush administration and the neo-cons, and multiply the profits of the transnational companies.

So what does the IFTU stand for in Iraq today? On the front page of the English version of the website there is a picture of the leaders of the IFTU seated under an IFTU banner. The words on the banner are worthy of verbatim translation, because they sum up the IFTU’s main demands and platform for Iraq and its working class after the invasion and the occupation of the country:

“ The General Federation of Trade Unions in Iraq [this is the full and more accurate translation of the IFTU’s name] struggles for:

- Defending the fundamental rights of the Iraqi working class.
- Endeavouring to restart the wheel of production as soon as possible
- The immediate improvement of the economic and social conditions of the workers"

It is unreal. No war, no occupation, no torture and murder of workers, no privatisation, no selling of Iraq’s assets to the US and British transnationals, no Bremer and Allawi re-enactment of Saddam’s 1987 law banning trade unions and strikes, no US bombardment of working class districts, no workers falling victim to radiation emanating from the US and British depleted Uranium shells, no working class children dying of water born diseases stemming from raw sewage (also fed into the Tigris and Euphrates), because the greatest military and economic power in the world can’t bring electricity supplies to the sewage plants to their pre-war levels,…

These slogans remind me of the yellow unions under Saddam when they were allowed to talk about everything, and make all manner of demands, as long as they did not criticise the mass murderer and the political nature of his regime.

If you dig deeper into the website you will find ICP justifications for joining the occupation-appointed bodies dressed up as IFTU stands. The IFTU’s Abdullah Muhsin relies on the nimbleness of the party’s phraseology when writing, on behalf of the IFTU, on the Bremer-appointed Iraqi Governing Council:

“The UN helped in forging a compromise and the idea of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) was born. Both Iraqis and the UN supported it. The US and UK administrations agreed. In July 2003 the IGC was formed.

The IGC, despite the fact that is not the best or the preferred ultimate perfect model of running Iraq post-Saddam, nevertheless remains an acceptable alternative to the US vision. It represents all sections of Iraqi society - including Arabs, Kurds and other nationals.”

A Bremer-appointed IGC is “an acceptable alternative to the US vision” ? And there is much more where that quotation comes from. Reading the ICP and IFTU literature gives all well-informed people on Iraq immunity against subterfuge, collateral oxymorons, deceit, dissembling and much more. There is a very good reason why the IFTU and ICP have to camouflage their practice with such contortions: they are addressing the left in Iraq, not renowned for their propensity to be easily fooled about their own society, and the are addressing anti-war and progressive opinion abroad. This is their role and that is why the CIA, Bremer and Allawi kept the ICP on board all the US-appointed or approved bodies. Why else does the CIA do that to a small organisation which doesn’t even register in all the opinion surveys held in Iraq since the occupation? There is another very good reason: to confiscate the glorious memory, dating back to 1920, of the tens of thousands of Iraqi socialists, secular democrats and, since 1934, communists who died at the alters of British colonialism, Ba’athist fascism and US imperialism in Iraq. There is nothing like renegade, persons or organisations, to accomplish this mean task.

Did the trade unions in Britain take such a considerate and caressing stance towards the institutions set up by the occupation forces in Europe? Or, indeed, would the TUC and the unions have been so supportive of an occupation-imposed authority if Hitler’s forces occupied Britain? I am bringing these rather stark examples, because it is sometimes forgotten that the Iraqi people and their land have been occupied by the mightiest military forces in the world and that the Iraqi people expect, and are entitled to, not only sympathy but active support in their struggle for liberation and democracy. They don’t expect the collaborators in their midst to be held up as representatives of the oppressed working class and people of Iraq. They certainly don’t expect it from democratic and proudly free unions such as the RMT. I have no doubt that the misleading picture painted by the IFTU and ICP leaders has had its toll. I also have no doubt that this is a temporary state of affairs. Not least, because US Abram tanks and Apache helicopters on the one hand and the valiant resistance, peaceful or armed in legitimate self-defence, speak much louder than the honeyed words of the IFTU and ICP leaders.

The RMT and other unions could also examine the fact that, for eight long years long, the ICP leaders played a similar role in relation to Saddam’s tyrannical regime to the one it is playing today in relation to the US-led occupation. From 1972 to 1978, they were tireless in their efforts within Iraq and here in Britain to convince the unions and the Labour party to accept Saddam’s tyranny as a reformed regime, which was implementing “progressive and patriotic measures”, and to support the party in proudly joining Saddam’s “Patriotic and Nationalist Progressive Front.” They had two party politburo members serving as ministers under Saddam. It was worker, student, and other organisations, which the party then controlled, which undertook that task. All these organisations, including the IFTU, were later disbanded by the party because Saddam ordered it to do so, as part of being in the “same trench,” as he was fond of reminding the ICP leaders. Saddam, who was described then by the ICP leaders as representing the “left wing” of the Ba’ath party, even published a pamphlet entitled “One Trench or Two Trenches?” to remind them of their role, which included the crushing of the 1977 Karbala uprising. Iraqis, and ICP members, who continued to expose Saddam’s fascist policies abroad, and even those he killed and tortured at home, were dubbed as “infantile leftists” or “reactionary Kurds.”

The RMT, UNISON and other trade unions, including my own union, NATFHE, should also take on board the fact that the IFTU wasn’t accidentally chosen by the Bremer-appointed IGC as the sole organisation representing Iraqi workers (albeit outside the banned state sector). There is other such umbrella organisations led by other parties in Iraq, including Iraqi Kurdistan, and including the non-party controlled Union of Unemployed Workers (which is now part of the Federation of Workers Councils and Trade Unions). The IGC’s sponsorship of the IFTU was born out of a deal struck between the Communist party and the Iraqi National Accord, led by the CIA asset, Ayad Allawi.

There are also individual unions such as the Basra oil workers union and the South oil workers union, both of which are strong unions that took part in a widely supported strike, stopping oil exports in protest at the US bombardment of Najaf in August. Both these unions don’t recognise the IFTU leadership as speaking on their behalf. Workers across Iraq are entitled to ask what did the IFTU leaders do to lift the siege of Najaf and to stop the bombardment of the cities?

One incident that exposed the IFTU’s duplicity here in Britain was its active campaign to support Tony Blair’s move to invite Ayad Allawi to address the Labour party conference. This is what the IFTU told the Guardian:

“The invitation to the interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to address the Labour party conference is a opportunity for those who honourably opposed the war to extend support to Iraqi democrats who are trying, in the most difficult circumstances, to construct a vibrant civil society.

Allawi is criticised for having been a Ba'athist but many decent people joined the Ba'ath party - and he was nearly assassinated by Saddam's agents in Britain. The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions strongly supports the current process to prepare the ground for democratic elections. His presence at Labour's conference is an excellent opportunity for a real dialogue with him.
Abdullah Muhsin
Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions”

Who else could defend and try to legitimise the CIA’s man in Iraq and Saddam’s former thug with such left and liberal sounding eloquence? Having failed in that mission, Tony Blair and other Labour party leaders made sure that the IFTU and the Kurdish partner of an Iraqi minister were given ample opportunity to spread confusion at the conference and get it to, in effect, support President Bush’s policies in Iraq. For let us not forget that President Bush also says that the US will leave Iraq as soon as the future elected Iraqi government asks to do so!

That eloquence in defending the US-chosen prime minister extends to the US occupation itself. Let us see how the US-led occupation is being opposed but, at one and the same time, accepted de facto and de jure by the IFTU, echoing its ICP master’s voice:

“As a consequence of the war, the occupation and the failure of Iraqi parties to agree on holding of a national conference April 2003 to elect a transitional government, the occupation authorities (US and UK) became de facto the transitional authority in Iraq. Their authority was further consolidated by the UN Security Council resolution 1483, which internationalised the occupation of Iraq.

The US administration interpreted one of UN resolution 1483 articles, which relates directly to the formation of an Iraqi political transitional authority as meaning that the new Iraqi political body would exist merely to advise and assist the occupation authority during the transitional period of the occupation. All Iraqi forces rejected this flawed idea. The UN helped in forging a compromise and the idea of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) was born. Both Iraqis and the UN supported it. The US and UK administrations agreed. In July 2003 the IGC was formed.

The IGC, despite the fact that is not the best or the preferred ultimate perfect model of running Iraq post-Saddam, nevertheless remains an acceptable alternative to the US vision. It represents all sections of Iraqi society - including Arabs, Kurds and other nationals.”

So, the Bremer-appointed IGC was the fault of the Iraqis for not holding a national conference, and, in the circumstances, the best possible outcome. The IFTU goes on to list some of the wonderful achievements of the defunct and totally discredited IGC, including:

“Preparing the ground to end the occupation, dissolving itself and handing power to an Iraqi interim government (which was achieved on 28 June 2004)”

Let us read on to see what a left-wing and liberal defence of the evolution of the US-led occupation sounds like, and how one could shelter behind another UN resolution to accept the occupation and openly defend the next US-led occupation tactics and the US-chosen regime:

“The unanimous UN resolution 1546 on Iraq is an important signal for ending the occupation and regaining Iraqi national sovereignty. It will help to undermine anti-Iraqi terrorism and will assist Iraqi democrats - like the new trade union movement - to help build a secular and secure civil society.

Whilst the IFTU is aware that the legacy of Saddam's dictatorship, war, sanctions and the effect of the recent invasion will not be eradicated on June 28th, the IFTU nonetheless welcomes and endorses the commitment given in the resolution to the ending of the power of the Coalition Provisional Authority on that day and handing the political power to the Iraqis. The interim government is not an end in itself- it is a means to an end. Its role must be to prepare Iraq for full democratic sovereignty. This will include full authority and control over Iraq's financial and natural resources. The IFTU will play a full part in this process and will seek to ensure that workingmen and women are alerted to the importance of participating in the democratic renewal of their country.

The IFTU also support the convening of a national conference to reflect the diversity of Iraqi society. The concrete goal of the national conference is elect 100 seat transitional assembly that will oversee the current interim government until national elections are held in January 2005.”

Can’t be clearer can it. Even down using the phraseology of the US generals who officially call all people resisting the occupation as “anti-Iraqi” forces. Every military communiqué on bombarding Najaf, Sadr city, Samarra, Tel Afar, Falluja and other cities and villages referred to the eradication of the “anti-Iraqi” forces or terrorists.

It is time to call a spade a spade: the leaders of the IFTU and ICP are the left-wing sounding, trade-union ‘friendly’ face of the Allawi CIA-chosen regime and of the continuing occupation of Iraq.

It is time to call a spade a spade: the leaders of the IFTU and the ICP are part of a left-wing sounding, trade-union ‘friendly’ campaign to oppose the immediate withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq under the pretext of keeping them to prevent civil war and to hold elections in January.

It is time to call a spade a spade: the leaders of the IFTU and the ICP are part of a left-wing sounding, trade-union ‘friendly’ propaganda war designed to justify the “new war” to crush the resistance of the Iraqi people by portraying entire cities towns and villages across Iraq as hideouts for mass murderers and terrorists such as Zarqawi.

I and many trade unionists in Britain of Iraqi origin, who opposed Saddam’s tyrannical regime for decades, were shocked and dismayed that most of the unions at the recent Labour party conference accepted the message from the ICP, IFTU leaders and other Allawi collaborators and voted against a resolution calling for the withdrawal of the occupation forces. This is tantamount to abandoning the Iraqi people to be crushed by the US tanks and cluster bombs. This is tantamount to abandoning solidarity with the workers and people of Iraq.

The Iraqi people’s blood is as precious as that of the people of Europe who resisted the fascist forces, even if today the British Government and the US administration refuse to count the Iraqis they have killed and are continuing to kill. And Iraqi collaborators can be as treacherous and deceitful as any of the collaborators in Europe under the Nazi jackboot. For the Iraqi people in their besieged cities today, and for the thousands of tortured people at Abu Ghraib and other prisons, the US tanks, helicopter gunships and heavy bombs are no different from the Hitler’s forces in France or Albania.

I am confident that Britain’s unions and most Labour party members will eventually see through and reject these collaborators, much as the Iraqi people rejected their calls to support Saddam’s regime from 1972 to 1978, and much as they are rejecting their calls today to support the US-appointed Allawi regime.

I am also confident that Britain’s trade unions and most Labour party members will sooner or later stand by the Iraqi people’s struggle against the US-led occupation of Iraq and for liberation and democracy.

Best wishes,
Sami
21 October 2004

PS: Alex, I would like to draw your attention some of my articles on Iraq to give you a fuller picture of my analysis of Iraq before and after the war:

1. Whose interests at heart? 18 March 2003, written on eve of US-led invasion of Iraq:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,916235,00.html

2. Bring the British troops home. 26 June 2003, on resistance and popular sentiment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,985132,00.html

3. Patriots and invaders. 27 September 2003, on my visit to Baghdad:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1050760,00.html

4. Resistance to occupation will grow. 15 December 2003, on Saddam’s surrender:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1107178,00.html

5. Iraqis told them to go from day one. 09 April 2004, on spread of resistance:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1188857,00.html

6. America has sown the seeds of civil war in Iraq. 03 July 2004, on US poisonous role in Iraq:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1253127,00.html

7. The true face of resistance in Iraq. 30 September 2004. Written on eve of the Labour party conference voting on Iraq:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1316000,00.html

**************************************************
Sami Ramadani,
Department of Applied Social Sciences,
London Metropolitan University, City Campus,
Old Castle Street,
London, E1 7NT

Tel: 020 7320 1280
Fax: 020 7320 1034
Email: Sami.Ramadani@londonmet.ac.uk

London Guildhall University and the University of North London
merged on 1st August 2002 to form London Metropolitan University
**************************************************

Dear all,

I see that the discussion about Mashadani's presence is continuing, not only on the ESF-site, but also on this list. I thank Jan very much for sending Sami Ramadani's superb analysis on the IFTU. I strongly encourage everybody to read it. I met Sami in London, and he was the organiser of the protest-action that would have taken place, but was disrupted.
And as I (and many other delegates) stated before - you can read this in precious comments from delegates, that I sent to the list -: "It is indeed a pity that the action could not take place as planned, with an intervention to explain the action, a leaflet to distribute to all participants, and a walk-out on Mashadani. But the advantage of the 'incident' is that everybody has now been forced to think and discuss about it."
Jan stated: "I started the opposition against this provocation on the ESF mailing list and have been under attack in various ways. Thanks for all the good work you did to get the message out. I think that we who warned against the disaster have come out of this with honour. And it will be on the record."
The WTI organising committee has taken a very clear position on this from the very beginning. Jan was one of the whistle-blowers about Mashadani, and I thank him for that. Later on, more and more people got involved in the protest, once the truth got out: the British Stop the War Coalition, the (very large) London Iraqi community, people from the English Green Party, European Trade Unions, peace movements etc. etc. We encouraged them to act, and proposed to do a joint action of some sort.

Sami's account of the facts however, has a minor error when he states that: "I fully agree with you on two points. Firstly, it was wrong and undemocratic to disrupt the European Social Forum plenary on the occupation of Iraq by an organised small group of hecklers. The second is that no Iraqi was involved in the disruption of the meeting or the shouting down of speakers. I myself was shouted down by the same group of disrupters when I went to the platform to appeal to them to stop the disruption and to stage a quiet and dignified walk-out of the meeting when IFTU general secretary, Subhi Mashadani, starts his speech and to walk quietly back after he finishes." Saying that no Iraqi was involved in the disruption or the shouting down of speakers, is not correct. He should have also made a distinction between some people in the front and the majority of protesters in the middle and the back of the central aisle towards the stage.
In the Guardian f.i. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/esf/story/0,,1330097,00.html you can read that: "Iraqi exile and novelist Haifa Zangana admitted she had encouraged people at a previous meeting to attend the debate with the intention of forcing Mr Mashadani off the stage. "If he is the trade union secretary he should have been elected by the workers but he has been appointed by the government. He is part of the puppetry [of the US]." ..." The two-hour scheduled debate ended after just 50 minutes following a raucous showdown between a minority of determined protesters - many of them Iraqis - and the platform of speakers."
I was sitting (and later standing) next to Haifa and other Iraqi's, and they have shouted, believe me. I was standing next to Haifa when Hélène Mulholland, the Guardian journalist who wrote the article, made a short interview with Haifa during this meeting, while the action took place. The organised "small group of hecklers" Sami is talking about, were the few people in the front who have taken advantage of the situation to disrupt in a way that most of the delegates didn't like, mainly because then we couldn't listen to the rest of the interesting panel of speakers to give their speech.

But then again: the most important thing is that it was a big mistake to invite Mashadani, and that it was right to not give him the opportunity to speak at the ESF. I can give you the comments of some people:
"Mr George Galloway also attacked the decision to invite Mr Mashadani. "There was a place for registering in a demonstrative way the disapproval of such a person representing a "puppet" regime which is drowning Falluja in blood with its American strike force," he said. "But no protest which actually stops a democratic meeting taking place should go that far."
"George Monbiot (columnist of a.o. the Guardian) demanded that people expose those who help and facilitate such policy as war criminals. He called on members of the audience to stop such people being given a platform, and suggested that the microphones should be ripped out of their hands."
Jaime Ballesteros, president of OSPAAAL (a very influencial peace movement in Spain and Latin America), who was a speaker in an anti-war seminar the next day, was scandalized by the presence of Mashadani at the ESF, and approved of any action to prevent Mashadani to speak.
I could go on giving examples.

We cannot narrow the discussion to the point that disrupting a meeting is a good or a bad thing, democratic or undemocratic. Things got out of hand, but that could have been expected. In the same article in the guardian: "Unconfirmed reports from delegates suggest that the protest was staged, and that the panel speakers themselves had been pre-warned that Mr Mashadani would be prevented from speaking." Everybody knew something like this would have happened.
We have to concentrate on the issue if inviting Mashadani was a good or a bad decision, and investigate the machinations and lobbying of certain pro-occupation forces to introduce the emperor's right hand in a plenary called "End The Occupation". Let's not be naive. A lot of efforts have been made by Blair's Labour Party and its affiliates to introduce this "Trojan Horse". The people of the ESF who decide on speakers, should be much more careful and inform themselves thoroughly before accepting persons like Mashadani. What happened should be a lesson for the next ESF gatherings.

First let me tell you that there wasn't any "violence". Shouting can be hardly labelled as "violent behaviour". I haven't seen any "punching" or "fighting". Neither did the Guardian's journalist. Neither did the Iraqi's. Neither did the people of the Belgian Trade-Unions. None of us felt "threatened" in any way.

Second: I lived through the Vietnam era, protested against Apartheid, the US interference in Middle America etc...
Imagine what would have happened when a high ranking South African government official would have spoken in a meeting "End Apartheid". We would have strongly opposed to his presence and I'm shure he wouldn't be able to speak. We disrupted demonstrations of fascists who carried banners with "Long Live Franco". We disrupted meetings where US representatives came to defend the US position in Vietnam.
Was this democratic behaviour? Yes it was. We defended the positions of the majority of the world population against the oppression by the Western politics and exploitation by Western multinationals.
So why now this tolerance towards representatives of the "Fourth Reich" at the ESF in London? Why using the word "democracy" here, when we defend an overwhelming majority of the Iraqi people? It's for the Iraqi's we do this. Because the occupation is wrong, no matter if a "democratic majority" would say otherwise.

One Iraqi I spoke with at this plenary got very angry against the delegates who wanted Mashadani to speak. He shouted:"it's normal you want that man to speak, you British all benefit from this occupation." Of course this was not a "politically correct" statement, but it indicates that he felt abandoned by the "majority", as he has felt abandoned by the "world community" for the past 14 years. This Iraqi was not a "young hothead", but a very intelligent man of 63 years old. While Mashadani would have made his "speech", bombs would have fallen on Fallujah, children would have died of Leukemia because of depleted uranium. Could we really have accepted that? And I recall Jan's words: "I think that we who warned against the disaster have come out of this with honour. And it will be on the record". Indeed I think he's right. Iraqi people (and Third world people in general) are very reluctant to support initiatives (like the WTI), they've seen initiatives like these come and go, and still nothing has changed. And so they want proof that we really defend them before they join an initiative like this. Imagine the WTI approving the presence of Mashadani in the name of some vague conception of "democracy". I would step out, believe me, the sooner the better. Iraqi's have seen who really opposed the war in '91, they've seen who had a consequent position against UN sanctions. They now saw our position on Mashadani.... and they approved of it. So we must never allow anyone to reduce the protests against Mashadani to "the actions of a few anarchists". Some people (among them Blair's Labour party) would very much like that to isolate protest voices. The discussion must be about what Mashadani represents and the disgrace of his presence at the ESF.

Haifa Zangana has written an article in the Guardian today. If one can understand the anger and the despair of the Iraqi's, one shurely must be able to understand the anger against Mashadani.

In solidarity.
Dirk Adriaensens.


Chaos, murder and mayhem

Kidnapping and killing is a daily reality in Iraq, but in the west the atrocities go unrecorded and the dead are unnamed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1335170,00.html
Haifa Zangana
Monday October 25, 2004
The Guardian

The kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is shocking but not surprising. We have come to accept that the same thing might happen to any of our family or friends. In fact, it already has happened to my dearest friend Nada.
Last month, her nephew Baree Ibrahim, an engineer, was kidnapped. I remember Baree very well from the mid-70s. Here is his aunt's account of what happened:

"Dear Haifa,

"My nephew Baree was picked up on September 25 and no ransom was asked. Actually the kidnappers didn't contact his family, and this led us to believe that they mistook him for someone else as he looked so European. He was beheaded on SaturdayOctober 2.

"I had a phone call from his brother to tell me to tune to al-Jazeera. I saw on TV, Baree talking with mute sound and the writing at the bottom of the screen saying that Iraqi engineer Baree Nafee Dawood Ibrahim was beheaded by 'Jamaa ansar assunna' and the detail of the beheading procedure can be seen on one of the Islamic sites. I called my sister immediately. She was unable to answer the phone. They couldn't mourn him traditionally because the body was not found. A couple of days later his brother was in Baghdad. He and his cousins went every day to the hospital's mortuary to look for Baree's body but they couldn't find him. They even went to look for his body in side streets but to no avail.

"My sister and her immediate family are all now in Amman, Jordan and my other brother and sisters and their children are preparing to leave Iraqs for Syria. At the moment there are about 2 million Iraqi in Jordan and the same in Syria and Lebanon. Some 200,000 Christian Iraqis have fled the country in the last couple of months. This is the freedom and democracy promised to the Iraqis. Nada."

This is the daily reality in the new Iraq, especially in Baghdad. An average of 100 Iraqis are killed every day. Kidnapping for profit or revenge is widespread. Young girls are sold to neighbouring countries for prostitution.
Madeline Hadi, a nine-year-old girl, was kidnapped from her father's car in the al-Doura district of Baghdad. Zinah Falih Hassan, a student in al-Warkaa secondary school, also in Baghdad, was kidnapped on her way back from school. Asma, a young engineer, was abducted in Baghdad. She was shopping with her mother, sister and male relative when six armed men kidnapped her. She was repeatedly raped.

Mahnaz Bassam and Raad Ali Abdul Aziz were kidnapped last month along with two Italian aid workers and subsequently released. Unlike the Italians, the two Iraqis did not receive media attention in the west. No one prayed for them.

And aid workers are not the only victims - 250 university professors and scientists have been killed in the past year, according to the Union of University Lecturers, and more than 1,000 academics have left the country

Iraqi journalists are also frequently harassed, threatened and attacked by occupying troops. This year, 12 of the 14 journalists killed were Iraqi, and six Iraqi media workers were also killed. Many journalists have also fled the country.

More than 100 Iraqi doctors and consultants have been killed or kidnapped in the past year. A spokesperson for the Iraqi Medical Society described the kidnappings as "intimidating and forcing them to leave the country". The latest victim was Dr Turki Jabar al Saadi, chair of the Iraqi veterinary society. He was shot in the head on October 21. None of these killings has been investigated. These atrocities go unrecorded. The dead are unnamed.

There are indeed reasons for all this chaos, murder and mayhem. Those reasons lie in the nature of invasion, war and, most crucially of all, occupation.

The US-led occupation forces presented themselves as champions of liberation, freedom and democracy. What they have achieved is chaos, collective punishment, assassinations, abuse and torture of prisoners, and destruction of the country's infrastructure.

The "sovereign" interim government has, like the Iraqi Governing Council before it, proved to be the fig leaf shielding the occupying forces from Iraqis' frustration and outrage.

Powerless, and with no credibility among Iraqi people, the interim government's failure is disastrous. In addition to the lack of security, there is not the slightest improvement in electricity supply, the availability of clean water, employment, or health and education services. Fighting between occupying troops and various Iraqi groups has become widespread in more than 12 cities.

Without the consent of the Iraqi people, Ayad Allawi and President Ghazi al-Yawer declared that it was the wish of the populace that the occupying troops remain. They also stood aside while F16s and helicopter gunships showered densely populated areas in Sadr city, Falluja, Samraa, Najaf, Kut, Kufa, Tel Afar and elsewhere. The resistance in Falluja is now so persistent that Iraq's director of national intelligence admitted: "We could take the city, but we would have to kill everyone in it." British troops are going to be deployed to achieve this.

In his last monthly press conference before the invasion of Iraq on February 18 2003, Tony Blair said that removing President Saddam will "save a lot of lives" as well as removing the chemical and biological weapons." The people who will celebrate the most will be the people of Iraq, he continued.

We are not celebrating. Death is covering us like fine dust. Four-fifths of Iraqi people demand the immediate withdrawal of occupying forces from Iraq. Margaret Hassan is one of them. Will Tony Blair listen this time?

· Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist

haifa_zangana@yahoo.co.uk