Iraq

In 1988 the SWP suddenly became very 'anti-imperialist'. It became a loud cheerleader for what it sees as progressive or revolutionary nationalisms. It still talks of socialism and class struggle, but now these are proposed as merely the best means to secure the greater nationalist end. It fiercely supports Iraq in the Gulf War. It insists fanatically that it is not even worth thinking about an appeal to the Israeli working class, that Israel must be destroyed, and that a 'two-state' solution in Palestine is worthless even as an interim measure. The war, which began in September 1980, is...

Anyone who doubts whether international labor solidarity makes a difference should speak to Hassan Juma'a Awad, President of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU). Months after the Ministry of Oil lodged a criminal complaint against Brother Juma'a and after seven or more postponements, his case was finally heard by a Basra count. The July 1st hearing didn’t last long. In 30 minutes the court decided to drop the charges. The company lawyer and the prosecutor repeated the accusations against Hassan but could produce no evidence that the Iraqi economy suffered any damage as a consequence of...

In May the Turkish state oil company agreed a oil exploration deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq alongside US company ExxonMobil. Iraqi oil resources are vast, but heavily concentrated in Northern Iraq under the administration of the KRG. That and the KRG’s relative stability has attracted many multinationals, and governments (Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Israel) to the autonomous area. There has been increasing pressure on the KRG by the Iraqi Federal Government to stop all further deals and for all investment decisions to be made at the national level. The KRG have said if...

At a hearing on 3 June, the Iraqi Southern Oil Company lawyer presented a list of charges against Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) leader Hassan Juma’a based on a letter from the Inspector General of the Iraq Ministry of Oil in Baghdad. The SOC claims that strikes which Hassan’s union has organised have caused them financial damage. Hassan, and his international supporters, believe that he has done no more than carry out his legitimate and legal duties as a trade union activist. The judge has given the SOC until 17 June to provide evidence of the financial damages to the company they...

Sectarian attacks have reached a new high in Iraq. Most are bombings by Sunni-sectarian militias aimed at Shias. The link with the civil war in Syria is not tight. The driving force seems to be frustration among the Sunni Arab minority (15 to 20% of the population, but politically dominant for centuries before 2003, including under the Ottoman Empire) against the Shia-Islamist-dominated regime of Nouri al-Maliki. Maliki’s support for Assad (he lived in Syria, then Iran, when in exile from the Saddam Hussein regime), is a subordinate element. Iraqi oil production has increased 50% above its...

A court hearing on a “criminal complaint” against Iraqi oil workers’ leader Hassan Juma’a has been postponed until 19 May. The complaint is being brought by lawyers working for the Southern Oil Company, against whom Juma’a’s Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions has a long history of organising. However, SOC lawyers have so far failed to present any evidence or witnesses to support their complaint. They blame the Ministry of Oil for failing to provide them with requested material, but the court judge has told the SOC that 19 May is its last chance. He has also affirmed that, based on evidence he has...

To mark the 10th anniversary of the start of the Gulf War in 2003, we reprint below extracts from Solidarity articles about the start and the aftermath of the war. David Aaronovitch writes in the Observer: “If, in a few weeks time, the Security Council agrees to wage war against Saddam, I shall support it.” Others who consider themselves to be broadly on the left put the same case, from Salman Rushdie to Christopher Hitchens. These are people who backed the war in Afghanistan after September 11, and who felt their stand was vindicated. Those opposing war, including this newspaper, warned of...

The main issue facing Iraqi workers is the government’s attempt to impose a new labour code. Workers have been working without an official labour code since the fall of the Ba’athist regime. Effectively people have been working on the basis of established traditions, conventions, and practises rather than a legal code. There was a draft in 2004, but in our view this was worse than the 1936 labour law of the old monarchy! The new labour code also perpetuates Saddam Hussein’s 1987 ban on unions and collective bargaining in the public sector. The new draft includes 156 articles, and we have...

Assad's massacres in Syria make one wish for a benign world government that could prevent the horrors, or even for divine intervention. But neither will happen. Some on the left respond to the omission by "demanding" that the USA and other big powers act like a benign world government, or deity. They are smoking the "liberal-interventionist" opium pipe. Many of them, including Nick Cohen of the Observer , did that over Iraq. Reality trips them up. Aghast, Cohen in his Observer column of 28 May 2012 quoted an un-named kindred spirit: "If you want to know what price a great man will sell his...

Your support needed to prevent the suppression of Freedom of Expression in Iraqi Kurdistan! Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. We call upon the entire international human rights organizations All those who defend the rights of journalist, all political parties, parliament members and freedom loving figures: Support us in our campaign to prevent...