A short report by Piotr Ciszewski on a meeting in Warsaw, 15 January 2005, from the lewica.pl (the most popular left website in Polish) [1].

Warsaw: a debate on Iraq

Today [15.01.05] a meeting with Paul Hampton was held in Warsaw. Hampton is an activist of British organisation: Workers Liberty. The meeting was organised by the Revolutionary Left Current.

The subject of the meeting was mainly a way of building of anti-war movement. Workers Liberty is a Trotskyist organisation which criticises the activity of British coalition 'Stop the War'. Hampton claims that the coalition had many successes but at last was dominated by the Socialist Workers Party, and now the coalition is its a front organisation. The SWP is in alliance with the Islamists groups linked to religious extremists.

On the base of anti-war movement the SWP tries to build an election coalition RESPECT (Respecting Equality, Socialism, Peace, the Environment, Community and Trade Unionism). The speaker criticised this organisation for walking away from socialist slogans.

Answering the journalist of lewica.pl what is a difference between the Workers Liberty and dirty party tricks of the SWP and if the Workers Liberty has a real alternative, Hampton said that his organisation is mainly focused on contacts with Iraqi employees organisations but admited that Workers Liberty wants to build a political party. The Workers Liberty keeps contacts with Iraqi trade unions and collecting funds for them.

Hampton criticised the Iraqi resistance for spreading the fundamentalist slogans what provoked a heated discussion. A part of meeting participants argued that the resistance is consisted of different organisations and its character could not be generalised. They were proving that Iraq was mainly a secular state and the repeating of Iranian scenario is not very probable and the Islam is for the majority of armed groups only an [ideological] form. The real cause of Iraqi uprising is the poverty and unemployment reaching 70 per cent.

Paul Hampton said also, that WL does not support a slogan of troops out immediately because „it would bring disastrous effects for employees milieus”. At the same time he criticised the attitude of Iraqi Communists. By his opinion the Communist Party of Iraq trusting the puppet government decided to support it and the party is in favor of occupation. The Workers Communist Party of Iraq is against the occupation and decided to boycott the election but has illusions that the situation would be changed by replacement of the USA and allies troops by UN troops.

Some successes were gained by the labour movement. IFTU linked to the Communist Party and Federation of Workers Councils and Trade Unions led a few victorious protests improving the situation of Iraqi employees.

The commentary:

The speaker is right that among the resistance groups are fundamentalist groups . There is no doubt that the anti-war movement is abused by Trotskyists from the SWP for their own purpose. We have the same situation with the Workers Democracy [linked to SWP] in Poland.

But we should not condemn all the resistance which is consisted of over 30 organisations expressing very different political outlooks – from Islamists to Maoists. The activity of Iraqi communist parties, which do not know on which side they should be and do not want to build their own guerilla groups is a proof of their fall. Standing aside they offer a space to be fulfilled by Americans from one side, and Arab nationalists from the second side.

Piotr Ciszewski