29.08.2007
Maintaining disorder
Support Iraq oil workers: end the occupation, says Jim Moody
British troops are to leave Basra in southern Iraq for an outside base. Painting this as part of a 'handover to the Iraqis' stretches the limits of credulity. It is at least partly a retreat; some would call it a defeat.
But for the US Republicans at least the occupation is bringing steady progress and the troops must remain 'until the job is done'. President George W Bush's speeches continue to contrast the situation in Iraq with the ignominious retreat from Vietnam in 1973 - if only the US had remained, all would have been well. While history rarely repeats itself, Bush is nonetheless still faced with 'another Vietnam'. He cannot win; his fake 'democracy' is falling apart before his eyes.
The Republican administration's vaunted 'surge' has been a disaster and basically Britain wants out. But Gordon Brown will obviously not break with the US and pull out unilaterally. Brown has therefore tried to paper over differences.
The occupation has brought social disorder and turmoil and militias that fight it out on the streets of Iraq's towns and cities. US forces are truly the biggest militia amongst many, but nothing more than a militia nonetheless. They can only ensure that none of the rival groups emerge victorious and thus their presence perpetuates the very social chaos Bush claims they are combating. That is why increasing troop numbers can achieve nothing.
According to figures released by the Iraqi Red Crescent Society last weekend, Iraq's internal refugees from the death and destruction wrought by the USA and the UK now total just over one million, out of a population of 28 million. This means that the number of those displaced within Iraq is up a staggering 150% compared to the beginning of this year and before the arrival of Bush's 30,000 'surge'. But the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) considers the situation to be even worse: "IOM estimates that there are some 1.9 million Iraqis displaced internally, and over two million in neighbouring states, particularly Syria and Jordan" (www.iom.int). On that basis, 14%, or one in seven, of Iraqis are currently refugees.
Yet some on the left - most notably the Alliance for Workers' Liberty - claim absurdly that the occupation is playing some sort of progressive role. According to Sean Matgamna, it is preventing "far worse chaos and carnage" (Solidarity August 9). The AWL has wanted us all along to believe it allows space for the development of 'normal' politics, including trade union organisation. How can anyone organise 'normal' unions in occupied Iraq? People for the most part can barely organise their daily lives, let alone their workplaces. And that is without considering the mass unemployed.
There is such general social decay that it is often unsafe even to walk down the street. It is a fact that the US-UK occupation has created chaos and carnage. These imperialist allies have certainly proved that they can destroy, but they have also demonstrated that they are incapable of building anything. Iraqis, apart from a few pro-western lickspittles, want the occupiers gone.
The AWL's call to forget the occupation and instead support Iraqi trade unions in practice ties in with the line of the TUC, which itself is backed by the British government in this - a futile pretence at establishing safe institutions in a country unable to function, all the while pretending that the occupation is helping to restore order and deliver democracy. This is social-imperialism, which the majority (at least) of the AWL appears happy to promote. Instead of dealing with the main question, the US-UK occupation, which represents the highest expression of anti-democratic politics, the AWL seeks to downgrade it to a secondary question.
There are times when unions have been supported by imperialism, of course (remember Solidarnosc?). In the current situation in Iraq sponsoring pro-occupation unions suits the purposes of the US. But the Bush administration is not so fond of unions that take a different view. Just a few weeks ago, at the behest of their masters, the Iraqi government banned the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions. IFOU leaders are anti-occupation and quite unambiguous in their opposition to the privatisation that the imperialists want to foist on the people of Iraq.
The US administration through its loyal satraps has demonstrated that it will not hesitate to move against those unions it considers troublesome - previously there have been raids on union HQs. And now, following pressure from the US, Iraq's oil minister, Hussein Shahrastani, issued decree number 12,774 on July 18 - the IFOU is deemed "political" and therefore banned (the fact that it not only demands an end to the occupation but calls for resistance to it might be pertinent here). Shahrastani ordered his ministry to make use of 'decree number 150' from a 1987 law passed under Saddam Hussein. Only last year, Iraq's government froze all unions' bank accounts and other financial assets in a doomed attempt to whip them into line.
In part, Shahrastani's decree reads: "The minister has directed that all members of all unions be banned from participating in any committee if they use their union identification, since these unions have no legal status to work within the state sector. They should not be permitted to use the offices and equipment of the [ministry's] companies, because they do not have legal status within the state sectors." The US-UK's Iraqi replacement for Saddam Hussein's government has thus now done exactly the same as he did in prohibiting oil workers from unionising.
The US-sponsored Iraqi government has totally ignored calls for a stand-alone law covering workers' rights, which the 2005 constitution was supposed to guarantee. Such a law has not even been drafted, let alone enacted. It is no coincidence that Iraq has the world's third largest oil deposits, after Saudi Arabia and Iran, with untapped reserves yet to be brought online. It is in this context that the move against the IFOU should be seen.
The IFOU, which claims 26,000 members throughout the 10 state oil companies operating in the south of Iraq, maintains that the banning order was imposed because the oil unions are a threat to the despised oil law that the US is aiming to railroad through the Iraqi parliament. This law would cream off oil profits to private oil companies outside of Iraq. Already in June this year oil workers went on strike in protest at this new law: while US fighter jets circled and buzzed the strikers' demonstrations, they failed to intimidate or to dampen the workers' spirits.
A few days ago the IFOU issued a statement protesting against the banning order. "The Federation of Oil Unions, which is leading the struggle of the working class in the oil sector in order for the workers to receive their rights and in order to protect Iraq's oil wealth, is currently being subjected to a vicious attack headed by the minister of oil ... This position is due to our union's position towards the American imperialistic project known as the oil and gas law. We view this law as an illegal way to seize the wealth of Iraqis without any economic or political excuse ... our union is an integral part of the national Iraqi movement."
The 2005 constitution guaranteed a major role for foreign companies that they are impatient to enjoy. In order to get their hands on its oil, though, Iraq's parliament had to pass a new oil sector investment law allowing foreign companies to assume a major role in the country, overturning the existing situation where this was prohibited. The tame Iraqi cabinet endorsed the draft law in July, though the occupation parliament has been less accommodating to the foreign companies' rip-off.
It is essential to organise solidarity action with Iraqi workers and their unions. But at the same time we must step up our campaigning against the occupation itself, which, far from providing trade unions with an environment in which to operate, is making their work near impossible.