08.09.2004

Iraq puppet unions

Houzan Mahmoud argues that the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions should not be trusted

In a letter published in The Guardian Abdullah Muhsen, the “representative” of Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in London, described the invitation of the unelected interim Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, by Tony Blair to address the Labour Party conference as “an 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” (August 18).

No-one who demonstrated against the war on Iraq would want Abdullah Muhsen to talk on their behalf like this; those who opposed the war, including myself, did not do so to bring puppets, and agents of the CIA like Allawi and his associates to power in Iraq. While we were “honourably” opposing the war, Allawi and other current members of the interim government were having meetings and making agreements with the USA to attack Iraq and create a bloodbath for Iraqi civilians. So this invitation is a shameless insult to all those who fought against this war and its countless victims.

Ayad Allawi is a Ba’athist thug; he is another dictator like Saddam. He wants to implement a law which would allow a state of emergency to ban any gatherings. He wants to bring back the death penalty in order to bring “stability to Iraq”. These are the credentials of the so-called “democrat” that Muhsen is talking about; the same kind of “democrats” who have just shot dead six prisoners in police custody, according to one of Australia’s top journalists.

It is not Allawi and his fellow gangsters - brought to power and imposed against the will of secular and progressive people in Iraq by the US-UK governments - who will construct a “vibrant civil society”. It is us, the people of Iraq, workers, women, and socialists of Iraq, who will construct a free, egalitarian, prosperous, secular, modern and progressive Iraq.

A “vibrant civil society” will be built by those who have been fighting the war and the occupation and defending people’s rights. It will be built by those who have stood up to the ominous rise of the islamists who want to return Iraq to the religious barbarity of the Middle Ages under the rule of islamic sharia. It will be built by workers, women and people of Iraq, and not by upstart despots like Allawi who, from day one, backed by the US military, have been attacking demonstrations for jobs, social security, civil, labour and women’s rights.

It is the workers who are organising and mobilising themselves in the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and Workers Councils and the Union of Unemployed of Iraq and women’s rights activists of the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq who have been fighting against occupation and political islam, who have put the real foundation of a civil, modern and secular society, and not you or your union, nor your “democratic” Allawi, who are part of the US government’s dark agenda and serving its interests in Iraq.

In his letter, Muhsen goes on to defend Allawi’s history. He says: “Allawi is criticised for having been a Ba’athist, but many decent people joined the Ba’ath Party.” Those decent Iraqis that Muhsen is talking about are workers and women in Iraqi society who were forced or often sentenced to long prison terms, or even execution, if they did not join the Ba’ath Party. In order to protect their own lives and the lives of their families, they had to join. But for a top official like Ayad Allawi, who has been involved in killings and crimes against the people of Iraq, it is a different story. Allawi was voluntarily committing crimes against the people and for his party and Ba’athist friends, such as Saddam Hussein. These are two entirely different things.

Some people - including unfortunately some left groups - who had been supporting Muhsen’s federation have been disappointed and outraged by what he wrote in The Guardian. But for me this came as no surprise at all. This is the true nature of the IFTU, which we have been warning about since the beginning of the occupation. We told you which camp they represent and what their aims and agenda are.

Today Iraq is a battleground for islamists and forces of the ‘new world order’, but the third force is the secular and progressive front, which has a very different standpoint and represents different interests. This camp is promoting secularism, modernity, equality, welfare, freedom and humanity in Iraq in the midst of the chaos created by the US occupation. It stands purely for workers’, women’s and people’s rights, for full and unconditional equality, and it is represented by the Union of Unemployed, Federation of Trade Unions and Workers’ Councils, Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, organisations that defend secularism in Iraqi society, and above all by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq.

For those who have opposed the war and occupation of Iraq and the imposed interim government, it is time to lend support to and to show solidarity with this third camp, the people’s camp - the only alternative for getting out of the catastrophe that the Iraqi people have been subjected to. This camp is the real hope and the only humanitarian solution to the war, occupation, poverty, religious reaction and lack of rights.

The IFTU has been acting against the interest of the working class and is a tool in the hands of the imposed interim government to violate the rights of workers in Iraq. It is the new version of the state-sponsored, anti-labour Ba’athist unions. It should be denied any kind of support. Workers in Europe should refuse to ally with them, because of their opposition to workers’ rights in complicity with the interim government.

The IFTU enjoys the backing of the US-UK, as well as the recognition and support of Allawi’s interim government. Any support or recognition offered to them will be direct support for the government of Allawi and against the interests of the workers and people of Iraq.