Sunday, July 23, 2006
Draft minutes of conference
International conference for solidarity with workers and women in Iraq. London, 1 July 2006.
Present: Iraq Union Solidarity - Pauline Bradley, Becky Crocker, David Broder, Paul Hampton, Karen Johnson
Solidarité Irak - Nico Dessaux, Céline Pauvros, Pascal Descamps
Worker-communist Party of Iraq - Houzan Mahmoud, Nadia Mahmood, Surma Hamid, Dashty Jamal
Worker-communist Party of Iran Hekmatist - Javad Aslani
Alliance for Workers’ Liberty - Martin Thomas
Pagine Marxiste (Italy) - Robert Luzzi
Unaffiliated - Daryo, Bayan Karimi.
Greetings received from: USLAW, AusIraq, and activists in Poland; also a message from Naftana, the UK support group for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.
SITUATION IN IRAQ
Nadia Mahmood introduced. Since the introduction of al-Maliki government, there has been a big surge of violence. It has touched sectors not touched before. For example, 100 workers have been kidnapped in central Iraq and many killed. At the engineering university in Baghdad, 50 students were kidnapped and their fate is unknown. These kidnappings are carried out for sectarian reasons.
Al-Maliki’s security plan has started with a crackdown in the Sunni areas. There is a big Sunni backlash against it. So the security plan has not created more security. Rather the opposite.
Then there’s the killing of al-Zarqawi. Of course we’re glad about it, but it has been followed by a new wave of attacks by the Sunni groups.
The al-Maliki government has announced an initiative for national reconciliation. But neither the Sunni groups nor the Shia groups accept it.
We believe that the government is itself a cause of the violence and conflict.
We’ve seen Shia militias attacking Sunni villages, and with US support.
There is no real government in Iraq, no-one controlling the situation. In Basra recently there has been fighting between the Shia groups. Al-Maliki went to Basra supposedly to sort it out, and announced a curfew. The Shia groups responded with 27 explosions in the streets the same day.
The conflict is going deeper and deeper than before. It’s not just between Kurd and Arab, or between Sunni and Shia, but now it’s also between Shia groups. In Basra, for example, the local Shia groups refuse to recognise the authority of the central government. There is a general collapse into warlordism. So, for example, if a particular Shia armed group controls the hospital in a city, they will decide who can get into it. There is a general collapse of Iraqi society. We’re moving towards a situation where every city is controlled by its own militias.
The Iraqi Freedom Congress represents a hope for the Iraqi people to get out of this situation. A number of trade unions have joined it recently. It has established People’s Houses in many areas. Some farmers in the border area near Basra have established their own IFC group there and taken responsibility for policing the area.
US/UK have brought their troops into Iraq, and the Islamists have brought their armed groups into Iraq too. We need to fight back also on the same level - armed struggle. The question of forming neighbourhood security forces is paramount.
I call on everyone to support and join the Iraqi Freedom Congress.
Martin Thomas: Could the increased social protest in Iraqi Kurdistan become a base for increasing working-class confidence throughout Iraq? What protests are there against the cuts in food rations?
Nadia: The situation in Kurdistan is different. In recent months we see rising social protest there. They are dissatisfied with the PUK and KDP which promised them progress when they got power. Now they see fraud and corruption. It’s different from the south, where there is no government, there is sectarian war, etc.
We need to build on those social protests in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Food rations? They were cut a while back. Now the new government is talking about privatisation. People are angry about it. Organising them to protest about it is difficult when people are so preoccupied with security. Everyone says that every time they leave their house, they don’t know whether they will come back alive. That’s all-overwhelming. On 1 May we could not organise in the streets, because if we did people would be killed.
We are reaching different sectors of workers. They are joining the IFC. We need to build on that.
Javad Aslani: Lots of Iraqi professionals have fled to Jordan. They dislike the religious sectarianism.
Nadia Mahmood: At first people looked to the Islamists to provide services, security, and so on. Now they see the different groups of Islamists fighting each other. The Oil Ministry says that 600,000 barrels of oil each day go from southern Iraq without them knowing where the revenues go. There are vast funds going into the sectarian militias. Vast amounts disappear from reconstruction contracts.
Academics and professors - many of them are being killed, many of the rest have fled.
The workers got kidnapped because they weren’t armed. People need to be armed to defend themselves.
Pauline Bradley: Does IFC have control of some areas? How would you get arms to arm the workers? What is the attitude of the other unions, the IFOU and the IWF?
Nadia Mahmood: IFC sets up People’s Houses. But do we control specific areas? Not yet. Where to get arms? You can buy them in Iraq, but at a price. The trade unions? Many have joined IFC. All of them believe that they need to be armed. IWF has followed the Communist Party of Iraq. Iraqi CP is close to the government. Individual IWF members have joined IFC.
Surma Hamid: Many people have joined IFC to restore people’s power. But many leftists won’t support IFC because they say it is not based on the workers and the trade unions. But trade unions and workers are in IFC. And now workers can see that they need to be armed to defend themselves. What has the IFC done about the kidnappings?
Nadia Mahmood: The violence is widespread - beyond what you can imagine. Unless you can form militias, you have no way of protecting yourself. We couldn’t save the kidnapped workers. What we can do is help people arm themselves to prevent future kidnappings and killings.
Pascal Descamps: Are there armed worker groups in Iraq? Are there even small neighbourhoods where they can protect the local people?
Nadia Mahmood: The WCPI has called for all workers to get armed and also calling for people to join IFC. Our focus is to build a proletarian army around IFC. But it’s a political call, not a specific plan. Around the People’s Houses, we can protect local areas a bit in two or three places. In Iskandiriya and Zafaraniya and Hussaynia, around Baghdad.
Roberto Luzzi: What exactly is IFC? It can’t just be a movement to defend workers against violence. If you arm the workers, you find yourselves fighting other battles. Who controls the armed groups politically? Are there other political forces in IFC besides WCPI?
Nadia Mahmood: The WCPI is the only political party in the IFC. WCPI’s views on occupation and security etc. are the same as IFC’s. IFC includes also many individuals from different backgrounds. Developing militias? We have to start by getting strength in some areas. Will the other forces try to disarm our militias? Yes. We just have to be prepared.
Yanar Mohammed (speaking from Baghdad): Economic situation very bad - prices have risen - there’s an increase in the trafficking of women. OWFI is running a campaign against trafficking and kidnapping of women. Another campaign - against the abuse of women in prisons. OWFI continues to shelter women fleeing violence and honour killings. They want support both moral and financial. A lot of killings of women by Islamist militias, Mahdi Army and others.
REPORTS FROM SOLIDARITY GROUPS
David Broder reported from Iraq Union Solidarity. On the British left, a lot of people are opposed to Bush but have no programme beyond that, and so line up behind the Islamic resistance. We spread information on the left about the existence of the Iraqi workers’ movement - that the conflict is not just Islam against the West.
At present we are promoting two DVDs - one about the Iraqi trade unionists’ tour of the USA, and a Japanese DVD about the Iraqi Freedom Congress.
We have monthly organising meetings in London.
We do fund-raising. For example we’ve done collections on the anti-war demonstrations. We’ve put money into the TUC Iraq Appeal. But we’ve also have correspondence with the TUC about the Iraq Appeal and we’re not happy about the answers they’ve given about where the money is going. We want to make the TUC implement the policy they decided at their congress two years ago.
Pauline Bradley (former convenor of Iraq Union Solidarity) reported that she has recently moved to Scotland. There has been a meeting in Glasgow with Hassan Jumaa, and a contact list from it is in the hands of the Scottish Socialist Party. Pauline has met with leading people of the SSP and they are interested in developing Iraq union solidarity activity in Scotland. Unfortunately the SSP is currently in crisis, so there has not been much response since Pauline moved to Scotland.
Nico Dessaux reported from Solidarité Irak. We created SI in November 2003. It was not an initiative from a political organisation or a trade union, but from individuals. We thought there was a problem with the support of some of the left for the Islamist and Ba’thist resistance - same as their effective support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. We created a link with the Union of the Unemployed of Iraq. We’ve done a lot of work, but also faced a lot of difficulties.
The main problem in France is not “Islamo-leftism”. That’s not as strong as in Britain. The main problem is indifference to specific working-class concerns abroad - an attitude that contents itself with being “against the war” without looking into what the victims of the war are doing. We argue that to be effectively “against the war” you have to support progressive forces in Iraq.
Another problem is the problem of who to trust. The left organisations in France have a long tradition of solidarity with movements in other countries, but they have also built up distrust because of having supported movements which turn out not to be what they said they were. To break through that we need hard information, not just general appeals. Also, specific information; for example, information for teachers in France about the situation of teachers in Iraq. From the comrades in Iraq we need that hard, specific information, and the possibility of opening up direct links between unions in the West and unions in Iraq.
There’s a gap between what we can present on the Solidarité Irak web site and the reality in Iraq. We need also from the comrades in Iraq their assessment of what the US forces are doing and so on - the stuff which the other leftist news sources cover.
For example, with the Sud unions in France - they are sympathetic to IFC, but they are always asking for more specific information.
Becky Crocker conveyed a message from Ewa Jasiewicz of Naftana, a group set up in support of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions. Their main focus has been against privatisation of oil resources. They have got articles into various trade union journals, and are bringing Hassan Jumaa over to speak at Marxism 2006.
Martin Thomas: On the Iraqi trade-unionists’ tour of the USA in 2005, sponsored by USLAW, Hassan Jumaa of the IFOU was saying that he would not accept any statement calling for secularism. What shift lies behind him joining IFC? In 2005 also the southern oil workers struck to support the Basra provincial governor’s demand for more oil industry revenue to come to the south rather than go to Baghdad. Although this demand is understandable given the Saddam regime’s neglect and then punishment of the south, it amounts to the workers allowing themselves to be used as a makeweight in the sectional battles of the ruling class. Is the IFOU moving away from that approach?
Nadia Mahmood: The workers do not have control of the oil industry. Hassan Jumaa has joined IFC, and has said the union will support the IFC. Our aim is that the workers should control. Yes, I think the southern oil workers have been used in the battles between Shia factions. Why has Hassan Jumaa changed his mind? He has seen the sectarian war in Iraq and reacted against it. You can hear some Islamists now raising the slogan of secularism, in response to the sectarian war.
Pascal Descamps reported from Solidarité Irak Besançon. We started in 2005 with a meeting sponsored by three trade unions, SUD, CNT, and FSU. We’ve done two sorts of activity. One, to distribute information about the workers’, women’s, and left movement in Iraq. We distribute a bulletin called “The Other Iraq” - “against imperialist occupation, against Islamist reaction, solidarity with the workers’ and feminist struggles in Iraq”. CNT and FSU work in Solidarité Irak Besançon and help us publish "The Other Iraq". We too need more concrete information about the organisations in Iraq.
Javad Aslani: A big conceptual problem exists even when there is adequate information - an attitude of supporting as “anti-imperialist” anything that is against US and Britain - like the attitude that says “Blair out” without saying what should come in. People say “Bush out” without saying what should come in instead, as if it doesn’t matter if the Islamists take power.
We have to understand that the Iraqi situation is not just about Iraq. The world is being reshaped by this war. If Bush wins, the world will become a hell. If the Islamists win, the world will become a hell. We can’t answer that by saying “long live the resistance”. Those who are committed communists have to see the war in Iraq as their war. They have to commit to a positive alternative.
We should support IFC. We’re here to change the world, not just to observe what’s happening.
Dashty Jamal: I want to thank Iraq Union Solidarity and Solidarité Irak. TUC has not given support. Most unions have not even answered our letters. Even after inviting FWCUI leader Falah Alwan to a conference in February 2005, the TUC in recent correspondence refuses to recognise FWCUI as a group to support financially. And Stop The War Coalition have tried to bring in the police against them. SWP does not want to allow us to be present on demonstrations. In France we’ve been to see the CGT, but they have not given a positive response either. IFC is a working-class project.
Houzan Mahmoud: Nico expresses concern about lack of information. But in Iraq you don’t have a stable, well-established situation; and groups like FWCUI have very small resources to produce briefing papers. A trade union in Iraq is not the same as in Britain. It has to be much more political. Also, people in the West expect Western standards in Iraq, e.g. people will have access to telephones - which they don’t.
Pauline Bradley: IUS can do more to take on the argument among the left. IUS has a number of trade union branches affiliated. In future we might be able to get a conference with trade-union delegates. We should be more pushy within the unions.
IRAQ FREEDOM CONGRESS
Houzan Mahmoud: I want to emphasise the importance of supporting the Iraq Freedom Congress. In Iraq there is a difficult situation not just for workers and women, but for society as a whole. Having workers’ and women’s organisations is fine, but not enough to get rid of the occupation and the Islamists. IFC is an umbrella for everyone opposed both to the occupation and to the Islamist militias. Some people say it is not working-class-based. But it is. A lot of unions have joined IFC. IFC wants just to restore civil society and a normal life. Why has IFOU, previously opposed to secularism, joined IFC? It’s the political situation that has pushed them. They know the threat from the sectarian militias. Some areas of Iraq are now under the control of mini-Talibans. This is more than a trade-union issue. Trade unions can’t deal with it except by working through the IFC to set up militias.
David Broder: It’s not true that the only role of trade unions is to deal with economic issues in the factories. The workers’ movement is the only force that can deal with the big social issues properly. Why set up a popular front to deal with them?
Javad Aslani: We have to put political demands on the agenda, otherwise we will go for whoever is safest. The IFC can provide an alternative which can mobilise people.
Surma Hamid: We have no illusions about the role of the working class in changing society. But in Iraq there is no society. Many unions have joined IFC because there is no security. It is growing very fast.
Nadia Mahmood: If workers and trade unions in Iraq consider that IFC is their alternative, why can’t the workers in the UK see it the same way?
Martin Thomas: Democracy and secularism cannot be won by separating them from the working-class social battles, over food rations, public services, jobs, wages, in which workers can be united and can see secular rather than mystical solutions to their problems. IFC says it wants to become the government. But it has no social programme: its programme is the democratic and secular bits of the WCPI programme without the worker and communist bits. So what would an IFC government do about the social issues? How could it survive as a government with no social programme? Better than the IFC approach would be seeking a united front of workers’ organisations on democratic and social issues.
Paul Hampton: We agree that there needs to be a political alternative. We support workers’ militias. But look at the experience with the ANC in South Africa. There you had society dissolving. Workers were mobilised to come behind the ANC on the basis of putting the political issues first, and the social issues for a later stage. That was false. In South Africa a workers’ party was the answer, and we think in Iraq the same. We should carry on this debate.
Pauline Bradley: You can test an organisation by standing in elections. Why doesn’t IFC stand in elections? What have you done to connect with union federations not in IFC?
Dario: People who might want to support IFC are revolutionaries, not people like the TUC. If you ask TUC to support an organisation which wants to take power and whose founding members are communists, it won’t be sympathetic. Building a revolutionary movement in Iraq means a different audience from building trade-union solidarity with trade unions in Iraq. We should build a broad trade-union solidarity movement without attaching it too much to one political group.
FUTURE ACTIVITIES
Martin Thomas proposed:
1. To prepare a budget, and then launch an appeal in the labour movement for funds to organise, a speaking tour of Britain and France by an FWCUI representative and if possible also an IFOU representative, within the next year. The IWF should also be invited to send speakers to participate in the meetings on this tour.
2. To run a campaign of fund-raising in the European labour movement for the Iraqi labour movement, the proceeds to be channelled to the major Iraqi union federations via USLAW's Iraqi Labor Solidarity Fund.
3. Noting that according to the TUC, the £40,000 so far raised by the TUC Iraq Appeal has gone mainly to organising conferences and similar in Amman - very little of it directly to trade-union organisations within Iraq - to run a campaign in the British labour movement demanding that the TUC Iraq Appeal allocates future funds to direct support for trade-union organising within Iraq.
4. To campaign for the repeal of the Iraqi government's Decree 8750.
5. To organise protests outside US embassies in as many cities as possible - London, Paris, Warsaw, Sydney, etc. - on or around 8 August 2006, the first anniversary of Decree 8750, in solidarity with the workers' and women's movements in Iraq.
6. To note the existence among us of different views as to political assessment of the Iraqi Freedom Congress initiative, but to express our solidarity with the main organisations behind the IFC - FWCUI, IFOU, OWFI, UUI, WCPI - against both the US/UK occupation and the sectarian militias in Iraq.
Roberto Luzzi: Our group in Italy was formed in opposition to the Italian involvement in the invasion of Iraq. We split from Lotta Comunista because they would not denounce Italian involvement. We find that most of the Italian left see supporting the Iraqi resistance as the only practical way to be against imperialism. We say that the Iraqi resistance is a reactionary force and we are with the workers. There is a third force in Iraq. We want links with the Iraqi workers. So this initiative is very important for us. I agree with the doubts expressed about the Iraq Freedom Congress. But we want to participate in the international link-up.
Nadia Mahmood: I think supporting IFC is the most important task - the way to change things on the ground not just by workers’ and women’s organisations, but by a range of organisations coming together. We want to launch an IFC satellite TV channel. Samir Adil has published an appeal to all freedom-lovers to collect $1 million for IFC.
Nico Dessaux: On point 1 we don’t agree with inviting IWF to take part. It would be like inviting the official state unions from China. On point 2, this is the same as what we have done before. Point 3, on the TUC, is just a British problem. Point 4, on decree 8750: yes, we campaign against it, but how? Point 5: demonstrations? Yes, if we could get thousands of people. But we are not that strong. To have demonstrations would already show how weak we are. Point 6: Solidarité Irak has no problem with IFC.
Dashty Jamal: I disagree with some points. “Supporting the labour movement”? Who does that mean? The IFTU/ IWF does not represent the working class in Iraq. The IFC is a working-class project. The WCPI is campaigning for a socialist republic and a workers’ state. But we are in a dark scenario in Iraq. We should vote to support FWCUI, OWFI, and IFC.
Pascal Descamps: In Besançon we have supported the FWCUI, but not the IWF.
Javad Aslani: The proposals lack ambition. We should drop points 4 and 5. Better a general day of solidarity with the Iraqi labour movement. On point 6 we should invite individuals to join IFC.
Houzan Mahmoud: The TUC has raised £40,000 but not given a penny to the FWCUI. Why? A speaking tour in Britain would be important. I disagree with point 6. On organising pickets, I agree with Nico. It would be a show of weakness. Better to organise a seminar or conference where we can debate the pro-resistance people like Tariq Ali or Tony Benn. On IFC, it has to be up to individuals to join.
Martin Thomas: Point 1 suggests a tour like the USLAW-organised tour by Iraqi trade unionists of the USA in 2005, which we thought was positive. That included IFTU/ IWF. Also FWCUI participates with IFTU/IWF in the joint committee of Iraqi union organisations set up at an ICFTU-sponsored meeting in Amman in 2006. It would be inconsistent and destructive to reject IFTU/IWF participation in a speaking tour.
Decision on the points: Points 5 and 6 fall. Points 2 and 3 agreed.
Point 1? The first sentence is agreed. The final sentence? Also agreed.
So points 1, 2, and 3 agreed, with the addition (proposed by Houzan Mahmoud) that we should also invite a speaker from OWFI; and the addition (proposed by Dashty Jamal) of “including FWCUI” at the end of point 3.
1. To prepare a budget, and then launch an appeal in the labour movement for funds to organise, a speaking tour of Britain and France by an FWCUI representative and if possible also OWFI and IFOU representatives, within the next year. The IWF should also be invited to send speakers to participate in the meetings on this tour.
2. To run a campaign of fund-raising in the European labour movement for the Iraqi labour movement, the proceeds to be channelled to the major Iraqi union federations via USLAW's Iraqi Labor Solidarity Fund.
3. Noting that according to the TUC, the £40,000 so far raised by the TUC Iraq Appeal has gone mainly to organising conferences and similar in Amman - very little of it directly to trade-union organisations within Iraq - to run a campaign in the British labour movement demanding that the TUC Iraq Appeal allocates future funds to direct support for trade-union organising within Iraq, including FWCUI.
Céline stated that Solidarité Irak was not taking part in the vote.
Paul Hampton noted that all the ideas are of course subject to ratification by the participating organisations.
MESSAGE FROM IRAQ
Houzan Mahmoud reported a message from Ara Khajador, a founder of the Iraqi oil union in 1958, and his experiences with international solidarity when he was jailed in 1948.
She also reported messages from USLAW and AusIraq.
IRAN
Javad Aslani introduced a discussion. The current furore about Iran’s nuclear development is reminiscent of the “weapons of mass destruction” furore about Iraq before 2003. As then, it is not the real issue. We should not be taken in by the talk of “the international community”. The international institutions are largely controlled by the USA. Towards the end of May there was a series of demonstrations in the Turkish-speaking area of Iran, of a reactionary character. The USA is fanning that sort of ethnic rivalry and sponsoring a “Congress of the Oppressed Peoples of Iran”. The USA is trying to pull the Iranian regime into line, while at the same time they would support them against any progressive or civic alternative.
There have been recent women’s demonstrations in Iran. There is large potential support for women’s equality in Iran.
In Iranian Kurdistan the Worker-communist Party of Iran Hekmatist has been promoting the idea of Freedom Guards. It has been very popular with young people. The Freedom Guards promote an open and progressive atmosphere where they have strength. And politics in the area needs to be armed to be effective.
Economic problems persist. There is high unemployment among a very young population, and an economy based on exporting oil and importing almost everything else.
Iran also has the highest level of drug abuse in the world. There are 2.7 million registered drug addicts. Drug abuse is a big problem even for children around the age of 11 or 12.
Bayan Karimi questioned the description of the Turkish-speaking uprising as reactionary. It was in reaction to the media describing the Turkish speakers as donkeys. Freedom Guard? I’m not so sure. Kurdistan has long been highly militarised. Why not go to Tehran and have a Freedom Guard there?
Pascal Descamps: Any information on the women’s demonstration of 12 June?
Martin Thomas: The USA’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq - carried out by a US administration drunk with confidence about their ability to reshape the world by military blows - and their aftermaths, have inadvertently much strengthened the Iranian regime. The current stand-off between the USA and Iran arises from US fear of that strengthening; and, in fact, its main result so far is the USA backing down on its 27-year-old policy of refusing diplomatic dealings with Tehran.
Javad Aslani: There is no question that the Iranian regime is racist against minorities, including the Turkish-speakers. But suddenly this time, because of one joke in a children’s section of paper, there is a huge uprising, and the demands were not for equal rights or against the regime, but against “the Armenians, the Russians, and the Persians”. We do not need to take sides in this conflict. The uprising was fuelled by interference by the Turkish and Azerbaijani governments and the USA. We don’t want to see a re-run of what happened in Yugoslavia.
Bayan Karimi: nonetheless, we must support the Azerbaijani right to self-determination.
Javad Aslani: But the movement did not ask for Azerbaijani self-determination.
Freedom Guards? We’ve launched them in Iranian Kurdistan rather than in Tehran because we are stronger in Kurdistan and not strong enough in Tehran.
12 June movement? Two leaders have been arrested. One has fled Iran. Others are in jail on smaller charges.
Bus workers? Their leader is still in prison and being denied medical treatment. About 120 busworkers have been suspended from their jobs.
Student protests have been escalating. Two leaders are in prison. There’s a strong movement to get them released.
Roberto Luzzi: I don’t know enough to say much about the question of Azeri rights in Iran; but the Kurdish question should be seen as a whole, not just as an Iraqi or an Iranian or a Turkish issue. About the international conflict around Iran - it’s not just a fight between the USA and the Iranian regime. It’s an international struggle in which the Europeans and the Japanese are at odds with the USA. Italy is the main commercial partner of Iran. Germany has a lot of interests in Iran too. They are jousting for influence in Iran and the region. We have to take all this into account, but we cannot conclude by supporting the Iranian regime. Here too we should speak of a Third Camp, a class camp, against both the USA and the Iranian regime. In Italy, if we were just to oppose the USA, we could end up implicitly backing Italian capitalist interests.
Present: Iraq Union Solidarity - Pauline Bradley, Becky Crocker, David Broder, Paul Hampton, Karen Johnson
Solidarité Irak - Nico Dessaux, Céline Pauvros, Pascal Descamps
Worker-communist Party of Iraq - Houzan Mahmoud, Nadia Mahmood, Surma Hamid, Dashty Jamal
Worker-communist Party of Iran Hekmatist - Javad Aslani
Alliance for Workers’ Liberty - Martin Thomas
Pagine Marxiste (Italy) - Robert Luzzi
Unaffiliated - Daryo, Bayan Karimi.
Greetings received from: USLAW, AusIraq, and activists in Poland; also a message from Naftana, the UK support group for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.
SITUATION IN IRAQ
Nadia Mahmood introduced. Since the introduction of al-Maliki government, there has been a big surge of violence. It has touched sectors not touched before. For example, 100 workers have been kidnapped in central Iraq and many killed. At the engineering university in Baghdad, 50 students were kidnapped and their fate is unknown. These kidnappings are carried out for sectarian reasons.
Al-Maliki’s security plan has started with a crackdown in the Sunni areas. There is a big Sunni backlash against it. So the security plan has not created more security. Rather the opposite.
Then there’s the killing of al-Zarqawi. Of course we’re glad about it, but it has been followed by a new wave of attacks by the Sunni groups.
The al-Maliki government has announced an initiative for national reconciliation. But neither the Sunni groups nor the Shia groups accept it.
We believe that the government is itself a cause of the violence and conflict.
We’ve seen Shia militias attacking Sunni villages, and with US support.
There is no real government in Iraq, no-one controlling the situation. In Basra recently there has been fighting between the Shia groups. Al-Maliki went to Basra supposedly to sort it out, and announced a curfew. The Shia groups responded with 27 explosions in the streets the same day.
The conflict is going deeper and deeper than before. It’s not just between Kurd and Arab, or between Sunni and Shia, but now it’s also between Shia groups. In Basra, for example, the local Shia groups refuse to recognise the authority of the central government. There is a general collapse into warlordism. So, for example, if a particular Shia armed group controls the hospital in a city, they will decide who can get into it. There is a general collapse of Iraqi society. We’re moving towards a situation where every city is controlled by its own militias.
The Iraqi Freedom Congress represents a hope for the Iraqi people to get out of this situation. A number of trade unions have joined it recently. It has established People’s Houses in many areas. Some farmers in the border area near Basra have established their own IFC group there and taken responsibility for policing the area.
US/UK have brought their troops into Iraq, and the Islamists have brought their armed groups into Iraq too. We need to fight back also on the same level - armed struggle. The question of forming neighbourhood security forces is paramount.
I call on everyone to support and join the Iraqi Freedom Congress.
Martin Thomas: Could the increased social protest in Iraqi Kurdistan become a base for increasing working-class confidence throughout Iraq? What protests are there against the cuts in food rations?
Nadia: The situation in Kurdistan is different. In recent months we see rising social protest there. They are dissatisfied with the PUK and KDP which promised them progress when they got power. Now they see fraud and corruption. It’s different from the south, where there is no government, there is sectarian war, etc.
We need to build on those social protests in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Food rations? They were cut a while back. Now the new government is talking about privatisation. People are angry about it. Organising them to protest about it is difficult when people are so preoccupied with security. Everyone says that every time they leave their house, they don’t know whether they will come back alive. That’s all-overwhelming. On 1 May we could not organise in the streets, because if we did people would be killed.
We are reaching different sectors of workers. They are joining the IFC. We need to build on that.
Javad Aslani: Lots of Iraqi professionals have fled to Jordan. They dislike the religious sectarianism.
Nadia Mahmood: At first people looked to the Islamists to provide services, security, and so on. Now they see the different groups of Islamists fighting each other. The Oil Ministry says that 600,000 barrels of oil each day go from southern Iraq without them knowing where the revenues go. There are vast funds going into the sectarian militias. Vast amounts disappear from reconstruction contracts.
Academics and professors - many of them are being killed, many of the rest have fled.
The workers got kidnapped because they weren’t armed. People need to be armed to defend themselves.
Pauline Bradley: Does IFC have control of some areas? How would you get arms to arm the workers? What is the attitude of the other unions, the IFOU and the IWF?
Nadia Mahmood: IFC sets up People’s Houses. But do we control specific areas? Not yet. Where to get arms? You can buy them in Iraq, but at a price. The trade unions? Many have joined IFC. All of them believe that they need to be armed. IWF has followed the Communist Party of Iraq. Iraqi CP is close to the government. Individual IWF members have joined IFC.
Surma Hamid: Many people have joined IFC to restore people’s power. But many leftists won’t support IFC because they say it is not based on the workers and the trade unions. But trade unions and workers are in IFC. And now workers can see that they need to be armed to defend themselves. What has the IFC done about the kidnappings?
Nadia Mahmood: The violence is widespread - beyond what you can imagine. Unless you can form militias, you have no way of protecting yourself. We couldn’t save the kidnapped workers. What we can do is help people arm themselves to prevent future kidnappings and killings.
Pascal Descamps: Are there armed worker groups in Iraq? Are there even small neighbourhoods where they can protect the local people?
Nadia Mahmood: The WCPI has called for all workers to get armed and also calling for people to join IFC. Our focus is to build a proletarian army around IFC. But it’s a political call, not a specific plan. Around the People’s Houses, we can protect local areas a bit in two or three places. In Iskandiriya and Zafaraniya and Hussaynia, around Baghdad.
Roberto Luzzi: What exactly is IFC? It can’t just be a movement to defend workers against violence. If you arm the workers, you find yourselves fighting other battles. Who controls the armed groups politically? Are there other political forces in IFC besides WCPI?
Nadia Mahmood: The WCPI is the only political party in the IFC. WCPI’s views on occupation and security etc. are the same as IFC’s. IFC includes also many individuals from different backgrounds. Developing militias? We have to start by getting strength in some areas. Will the other forces try to disarm our militias? Yes. We just have to be prepared.
Yanar Mohammed (speaking from Baghdad): Economic situation very bad - prices have risen - there’s an increase in the trafficking of women. OWFI is running a campaign against trafficking and kidnapping of women. Another campaign - against the abuse of women in prisons. OWFI continues to shelter women fleeing violence and honour killings. They want support both moral and financial. A lot of killings of women by Islamist militias, Mahdi Army and others.
REPORTS FROM SOLIDARITY GROUPS
David Broder reported from Iraq Union Solidarity. On the British left, a lot of people are opposed to Bush but have no programme beyond that, and so line up behind the Islamic resistance. We spread information on the left about the existence of the Iraqi workers’ movement - that the conflict is not just Islam against the West.
At present we are promoting two DVDs - one about the Iraqi trade unionists’ tour of the USA, and a Japanese DVD about the Iraqi Freedom Congress.
We have monthly organising meetings in London.
We do fund-raising. For example we’ve done collections on the anti-war demonstrations. We’ve put money into the TUC Iraq Appeal. But we’ve also have correspondence with the TUC about the Iraq Appeal and we’re not happy about the answers they’ve given about where the money is going. We want to make the TUC implement the policy they decided at their congress two years ago.
Pauline Bradley (former convenor of Iraq Union Solidarity) reported that she has recently moved to Scotland. There has been a meeting in Glasgow with Hassan Jumaa, and a contact list from it is in the hands of the Scottish Socialist Party. Pauline has met with leading people of the SSP and they are interested in developing Iraq union solidarity activity in Scotland. Unfortunately the SSP is currently in crisis, so there has not been much response since Pauline moved to Scotland.
Nico Dessaux reported from Solidarité Irak. We created SI in November 2003. It was not an initiative from a political organisation or a trade union, but from individuals. We thought there was a problem with the support of some of the left for the Islamist and Ba’thist resistance - same as their effective support for the Taliban in Afghanistan. We created a link with the Union of the Unemployed of Iraq. We’ve done a lot of work, but also faced a lot of difficulties.
The main problem in France is not “Islamo-leftism”. That’s not as strong as in Britain. The main problem is indifference to specific working-class concerns abroad - an attitude that contents itself with being “against the war” without looking into what the victims of the war are doing. We argue that to be effectively “against the war” you have to support progressive forces in Iraq.
Another problem is the problem of who to trust. The left organisations in France have a long tradition of solidarity with movements in other countries, but they have also built up distrust because of having supported movements which turn out not to be what they said they were. To break through that we need hard information, not just general appeals. Also, specific information; for example, information for teachers in France about the situation of teachers in Iraq. From the comrades in Iraq we need that hard, specific information, and the possibility of opening up direct links between unions in the West and unions in Iraq.
There’s a gap between what we can present on the Solidarité Irak web site and the reality in Iraq. We need also from the comrades in Iraq their assessment of what the US forces are doing and so on - the stuff which the other leftist news sources cover.
For example, with the Sud unions in France - they are sympathetic to IFC, but they are always asking for more specific information.
Becky Crocker conveyed a message from Ewa Jasiewicz of Naftana, a group set up in support of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions. Their main focus has been against privatisation of oil resources. They have got articles into various trade union journals, and are bringing Hassan Jumaa over to speak at Marxism 2006.
Martin Thomas: On the Iraqi trade-unionists’ tour of the USA in 2005, sponsored by USLAW, Hassan Jumaa of the IFOU was saying that he would not accept any statement calling for secularism. What shift lies behind him joining IFC? In 2005 also the southern oil workers struck to support the Basra provincial governor’s demand for more oil industry revenue to come to the south rather than go to Baghdad. Although this demand is understandable given the Saddam regime’s neglect and then punishment of the south, it amounts to the workers allowing themselves to be used as a makeweight in the sectional battles of the ruling class. Is the IFOU moving away from that approach?
Nadia Mahmood: The workers do not have control of the oil industry. Hassan Jumaa has joined IFC, and has said the union will support the IFC. Our aim is that the workers should control. Yes, I think the southern oil workers have been used in the battles between Shia factions. Why has Hassan Jumaa changed his mind? He has seen the sectarian war in Iraq and reacted against it. You can hear some Islamists now raising the slogan of secularism, in response to the sectarian war.
Pascal Descamps reported from Solidarité Irak Besançon. We started in 2005 with a meeting sponsored by three trade unions, SUD, CNT, and FSU. We’ve done two sorts of activity. One, to distribute information about the workers’, women’s, and left movement in Iraq. We distribute a bulletin called “The Other Iraq” - “against imperialist occupation, against Islamist reaction, solidarity with the workers’ and feminist struggles in Iraq”. CNT and FSU work in Solidarité Irak Besançon and help us publish "The Other Iraq". We too need more concrete information about the organisations in Iraq.
Javad Aslani: A big conceptual problem exists even when there is adequate information - an attitude of supporting as “anti-imperialist” anything that is against US and Britain - like the attitude that says “Blair out” without saying what should come in. People say “Bush out” without saying what should come in instead, as if it doesn’t matter if the Islamists take power.
We have to understand that the Iraqi situation is not just about Iraq. The world is being reshaped by this war. If Bush wins, the world will become a hell. If the Islamists win, the world will become a hell. We can’t answer that by saying “long live the resistance”. Those who are committed communists have to see the war in Iraq as their war. They have to commit to a positive alternative.
We should support IFC. We’re here to change the world, not just to observe what’s happening.
Dashty Jamal: I want to thank Iraq Union Solidarity and Solidarité Irak. TUC has not given support. Most unions have not even answered our letters. Even after inviting FWCUI leader Falah Alwan to a conference in February 2005, the TUC in recent correspondence refuses to recognise FWCUI as a group to support financially. And Stop The War Coalition have tried to bring in the police against them. SWP does not want to allow us to be present on demonstrations. In France we’ve been to see the CGT, but they have not given a positive response either. IFC is a working-class project.
Houzan Mahmoud: Nico expresses concern about lack of information. But in Iraq you don’t have a stable, well-established situation; and groups like FWCUI have very small resources to produce briefing papers. A trade union in Iraq is not the same as in Britain. It has to be much more political. Also, people in the West expect Western standards in Iraq, e.g. people will have access to telephones - which they don’t.
Pauline Bradley: IUS can do more to take on the argument among the left. IUS has a number of trade union branches affiliated. In future we might be able to get a conference with trade-union delegates. We should be more pushy within the unions.
IRAQ FREEDOM CONGRESS
Houzan Mahmoud: I want to emphasise the importance of supporting the Iraq Freedom Congress. In Iraq there is a difficult situation not just for workers and women, but for society as a whole. Having workers’ and women’s organisations is fine, but not enough to get rid of the occupation and the Islamists. IFC is an umbrella for everyone opposed both to the occupation and to the Islamist militias. Some people say it is not working-class-based. But it is. A lot of unions have joined IFC. IFC wants just to restore civil society and a normal life. Why has IFOU, previously opposed to secularism, joined IFC? It’s the political situation that has pushed them. They know the threat from the sectarian militias. Some areas of Iraq are now under the control of mini-Talibans. This is more than a trade-union issue. Trade unions can’t deal with it except by working through the IFC to set up militias.
David Broder: It’s not true that the only role of trade unions is to deal with economic issues in the factories. The workers’ movement is the only force that can deal with the big social issues properly. Why set up a popular front to deal with them?
Javad Aslani: We have to put political demands on the agenda, otherwise we will go for whoever is safest. The IFC can provide an alternative which can mobilise people.
Surma Hamid: We have no illusions about the role of the working class in changing society. But in Iraq there is no society. Many unions have joined IFC because there is no security. It is growing very fast.
Nadia Mahmood: If workers and trade unions in Iraq consider that IFC is their alternative, why can’t the workers in the UK see it the same way?
Martin Thomas: Democracy and secularism cannot be won by separating them from the working-class social battles, over food rations, public services, jobs, wages, in which workers can be united and can see secular rather than mystical solutions to their problems. IFC says it wants to become the government. But it has no social programme: its programme is the democratic and secular bits of the WCPI programme without the worker and communist bits. So what would an IFC government do about the social issues? How could it survive as a government with no social programme? Better than the IFC approach would be seeking a united front of workers’ organisations on democratic and social issues.
Paul Hampton: We agree that there needs to be a political alternative. We support workers’ militias. But look at the experience with the ANC in South Africa. There you had society dissolving. Workers were mobilised to come behind the ANC on the basis of putting the political issues first, and the social issues for a later stage. That was false. In South Africa a workers’ party was the answer, and we think in Iraq the same. We should carry on this debate.
Pauline Bradley: You can test an organisation by standing in elections. Why doesn’t IFC stand in elections? What have you done to connect with union federations not in IFC?
Dario: People who might want to support IFC are revolutionaries, not people like the TUC. If you ask TUC to support an organisation which wants to take power and whose founding members are communists, it won’t be sympathetic. Building a revolutionary movement in Iraq means a different audience from building trade-union solidarity with trade unions in Iraq. We should build a broad trade-union solidarity movement without attaching it too much to one political group.
FUTURE ACTIVITIES
Martin Thomas proposed:
1. To prepare a budget, and then launch an appeal in the labour movement for funds to organise, a speaking tour of Britain and France by an FWCUI representative and if possible also an IFOU representative, within the next year. The IWF should also be invited to send speakers to participate in the meetings on this tour.
2. To run a campaign of fund-raising in the European labour movement for the Iraqi labour movement, the proceeds to be channelled to the major Iraqi union federations via USLAW's Iraqi Labor Solidarity Fund.
3. Noting that according to the TUC, the £40,000 so far raised by the TUC Iraq Appeal has gone mainly to organising conferences and similar in Amman - very little of it directly to trade-union organisations within Iraq - to run a campaign in the British labour movement demanding that the TUC Iraq Appeal allocates future funds to direct support for trade-union organising within Iraq.
4. To campaign for the repeal of the Iraqi government's Decree 8750.
5. To organise protests outside US embassies in as many cities as possible - London, Paris, Warsaw, Sydney, etc. - on or around 8 August 2006, the first anniversary of Decree 8750, in solidarity with the workers' and women's movements in Iraq.
6. To note the existence among us of different views as to political assessment of the Iraqi Freedom Congress initiative, but to express our solidarity with the main organisations behind the IFC - FWCUI, IFOU, OWFI, UUI, WCPI - against both the US/UK occupation and the sectarian militias in Iraq.
Roberto Luzzi: Our group in Italy was formed in opposition to the Italian involvement in the invasion of Iraq. We split from Lotta Comunista because they would not denounce Italian involvement. We find that most of the Italian left see supporting the Iraqi resistance as the only practical way to be against imperialism. We say that the Iraqi resistance is a reactionary force and we are with the workers. There is a third force in Iraq. We want links with the Iraqi workers. So this initiative is very important for us. I agree with the doubts expressed about the Iraq Freedom Congress. But we want to participate in the international link-up.
Nadia Mahmood: I think supporting IFC is the most important task - the way to change things on the ground not just by workers’ and women’s organisations, but by a range of organisations coming together. We want to launch an IFC satellite TV channel. Samir Adil has published an appeal to all freedom-lovers to collect $1 million for IFC.
Nico Dessaux: On point 1 we don’t agree with inviting IWF to take part. It would be like inviting the official state unions from China. On point 2, this is the same as what we have done before. Point 3, on the TUC, is just a British problem. Point 4, on decree 8750: yes, we campaign against it, but how? Point 5: demonstrations? Yes, if we could get thousands of people. But we are not that strong. To have demonstrations would already show how weak we are. Point 6: Solidarité Irak has no problem with IFC.
Dashty Jamal: I disagree with some points. “Supporting the labour movement”? Who does that mean? The IFTU/ IWF does not represent the working class in Iraq. The IFC is a working-class project. The WCPI is campaigning for a socialist republic and a workers’ state. But we are in a dark scenario in Iraq. We should vote to support FWCUI, OWFI, and IFC.
Pascal Descamps: In Besançon we have supported the FWCUI, but not the IWF.
Javad Aslani: The proposals lack ambition. We should drop points 4 and 5. Better a general day of solidarity with the Iraqi labour movement. On point 6 we should invite individuals to join IFC.
Houzan Mahmoud: The TUC has raised £40,000 but not given a penny to the FWCUI. Why? A speaking tour in Britain would be important. I disagree with point 6. On organising pickets, I agree with Nico. It would be a show of weakness. Better to organise a seminar or conference where we can debate the pro-resistance people like Tariq Ali or Tony Benn. On IFC, it has to be up to individuals to join.
Martin Thomas: Point 1 suggests a tour like the USLAW-organised tour by Iraqi trade unionists of the USA in 2005, which we thought was positive. That included IFTU/ IWF. Also FWCUI participates with IFTU/IWF in the joint committee of Iraqi union organisations set up at an ICFTU-sponsored meeting in Amman in 2006. It would be inconsistent and destructive to reject IFTU/IWF participation in a speaking tour.
Decision on the points: Points 5 and 6 fall. Points 2 and 3 agreed.
Point 1? The first sentence is agreed. The final sentence? Also agreed.
So points 1, 2, and 3 agreed, with the addition (proposed by Houzan Mahmoud) that we should also invite a speaker from OWFI; and the addition (proposed by Dashty Jamal) of “including FWCUI” at the end of point 3.
1. To prepare a budget, and then launch an appeal in the labour movement for funds to organise, a speaking tour of Britain and France by an FWCUI representative and if possible also OWFI and IFOU representatives, within the next year. The IWF should also be invited to send speakers to participate in the meetings on this tour.
2. To run a campaign of fund-raising in the European labour movement for the Iraqi labour movement, the proceeds to be channelled to the major Iraqi union federations via USLAW's Iraqi Labor Solidarity Fund.
3. Noting that according to the TUC, the £40,000 so far raised by the TUC Iraq Appeal has gone mainly to organising conferences and similar in Amman - very little of it directly to trade-union organisations within Iraq - to run a campaign in the British labour movement demanding that the TUC Iraq Appeal allocates future funds to direct support for trade-union organising within Iraq, including FWCUI.
Céline stated that Solidarité Irak was not taking part in the vote.
Paul Hampton noted that all the ideas are of course subject to ratification by the participating organisations.
MESSAGE FROM IRAQ
Houzan Mahmoud reported a message from Ara Khajador, a founder of the Iraqi oil union in 1958, and his experiences with international solidarity when he was jailed in 1948.
She also reported messages from USLAW and AusIraq.
IRAN
Javad Aslani introduced a discussion. The current furore about Iran’s nuclear development is reminiscent of the “weapons of mass destruction” furore about Iraq before 2003. As then, it is not the real issue. We should not be taken in by the talk of “the international community”. The international institutions are largely controlled by the USA. Towards the end of May there was a series of demonstrations in the Turkish-speaking area of Iran, of a reactionary character. The USA is fanning that sort of ethnic rivalry and sponsoring a “Congress of the Oppressed Peoples of Iran”. The USA is trying to pull the Iranian regime into line, while at the same time they would support them against any progressive or civic alternative.
There have been recent women’s demonstrations in Iran. There is large potential support for women’s equality in Iran.
In Iranian Kurdistan the Worker-communist Party of Iran Hekmatist has been promoting the idea of Freedom Guards. It has been very popular with young people. The Freedom Guards promote an open and progressive atmosphere where they have strength. And politics in the area needs to be armed to be effective.
Economic problems persist. There is high unemployment among a very young population, and an economy based on exporting oil and importing almost everything else.
Iran also has the highest level of drug abuse in the world. There are 2.7 million registered drug addicts. Drug abuse is a big problem even for children around the age of 11 or 12.
Bayan Karimi questioned the description of the Turkish-speaking uprising as reactionary. It was in reaction to the media describing the Turkish speakers as donkeys. Freedom Guard? I’m not so sure. Kurdistan has long been highly militarised. Why not go to Tehran and have a Freedom Guard there?
Pascal Descamps: Any information on the women’s demonstration of 12 June?
Martin Thomas: The USA’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq - carried out by a US administration drunk with confidence about their ability to reshape the world by military blows - and their aftermaths, have inadvertently much strengthened the Iranian regime. The current stand-off between the USA and Iran arises from US fear of that strengthening; and, in fact, its main result so far is the USA backing down on its 27-year-old policy of refusing diplomatic dealings with Tehran.
Javad Aslani: There is no question that the Iranian regime is racist against minorities, including the Turkish-speakers. But suddenly this time, because of one joke in a children’s section of paper, there is a huge uprising, and the demands were not for equal rights or against the regime, but against “the Armenians, the Russians, and the Persians”. We do not need to take sides in this conflict. The uprising was fuelled by interference by the Turkish and Azerbaijani governments and the USA. We don’t want to see a re-run of what happened in Yugoslavia.
Bayan Karimi: nonetheless, we must support the Azerbaijani right to self-determination.
Javad Aslani: But the movement did not ask for Azerbaijani self-determination.
Freedom Guards? We’ve launched them in Iranian Kurdistan rather than in Tehran because we are stronger in Kurdistan and not strong enough in Tehran.
12 June movement? Two leaders have been arrested. One has fled Iran. Others are in jail on smaller charges.
Bus workers? Their leader is still in prison and being denied medical treatment. About 120 busworkers have been suspended from their jobs.
Student protests have been escalating. Two leaders are in prison. There’s a strong movement to get them released.
Roberto Luzzi: I don’t know enough to say much about the question of Azeri rights in Iran; but the Kurdish question should be seen as a whole, not just as an Iraqi or an Iranian or a Turkish issue. About the international conflict around Iran - it’s not just a fight between the USA and the Iranian regime. It’s an international struggle in which the Europeans and the Japanese are at odds with the USA. Italy is the main commercial partner of Iran. Germany has a lot of interests in Iran too. They are jousting for influence in Iran and the region. We have to take all this into account, but we cannot conclude by supporting the Iranian regime. Here too we should speak of a Third Camp, a class camp, against both the USA and the Iranian regime. In Italy, if we were just to oppose the USA, we could end up implicitly backing Italian capitalist interests.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Letter of Invitation to Conference
Dear Friend,
Solidarity with the Iraqi workers' and women's movements
Conference 1 July 2006, London
Please come to the conference on "Solidarity with
the Iraqi workers' movement" on Saturday 1 July,
13:30 to 17:30 at the Resource Centre, 356
Holloway Road, London N7 (Seminar Room One).
The purpose of this conference is to bring
together groups from across Europe which are
campaigning in support of the workers' and
women's movements in Iraq, fighting for an
egalitarian and secular politics against both the
US/UK occupation and the sectarian militias. It
is open to all groups which share these basic
priorities.
We can exchange information about our campaigning
activities; discuss developments in Iraq and
establish points of agreement and common
understanding; and discuss possible international
initiatives and campaigns.
The provisional agenda is:
1. Reports on the situation in Iraq, by activists recently returned
from Iraq.
2. Reports on activity from campaigns represented
at the meeting, including IUS and Solidarité Irak.
3. Presentation of and discussion on the Iraq Freedom Congress
initiative.
4. Discussion on follow-up activities, including
the possibility of a further, larger conference
at a later date.
5. Exchange of views on the situation in Iran and
activities in solidarity with the workers' and
women's movements in Iran, against both the US
war threat and the Islamic regime.
You may be interested to know that immediately
following the conference and also in the Resource
Centre, at 18:30, the well-known American writer
Greg Palast will be speaking on his new book "Mad
House", about big business and the Iraq war, as
part of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty summer
school going on in the Resource Centre that same
weekend, 1-2 July.
Best wishes,
David Broder, for Iraq Union Solidarity
Nicolas Dessaux, for Solidarité Irak
Houzan Mahmoud, for the Abroad Organisation of Worker-communist Party
of Iraq
Martin Thomas, for the Alliance for Workers' Liberty
Solidarity with the Iraqi workers' and women's movements
Conference 1 July 2006, London
Please come to the conference on "Solidarity with
the Iraqi workers' movement" on Saturday 1 July,
13:30 to 17:30 at the Resource Centre, 356
Holloway Road, London N7 (Seminar Room One).
The purpose of this conference is to bring
together groups from across Europe which are
campaigning in support of the workers' and
women's movements in Iraq, fighting for an
egalitarian and secular politics against both the
US/UK occupation and the sectarian militias. It
is open to all groups which share these basic
priorities.
We can exchange information about our campaigning
activities; discuss developments in Iraq and
establish points of agreement and common
understanding; and discuss possible international
initiatives and campaigns.
The provisional agenda is:
1. Reports on the situation in Iraq, by activists recently returned
from Iraq.
2. Reports on activity from campaigns represented
at the meeting, including IUS and Solidarité Irak.
3. Presentation of and discussion on the Iraq Freedom Congress
initiative.
4. Discussion on follow-up activities, including
the possibility of a further, larger conference
at a later date.
5. Exchange of views on the situation in Iran and
activities in solidarity with the workers' and
women's movements in Iran, against both the US
war threat and the Islamic regime.
You may be interested to know that immediately
following the conference and also in the Resource
Centre, at 18:30, the well-known American writer
Greg Palast will be speaking on his new book "Mad
House", about big business and the Iraq war, as
part of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty summer
school going on in the Resource Centre that same
weekend, 1-2 July.
Best wishes,
David Broder, for Iraq Union Solidarity
Nicolas Dessaux, for Solidarité Irak
Houzan Mahmoud, for the Abroad Organisation of Worker-communist Party
of Iraq
Martin Thomas, for the Alliance for Workers' Liberty
