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Leave our country now

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 19 February 2005
10 comments

Wars and conflicts International

We lived through dark days under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. When the regime fell, people wanted a new life: a life without shackles and terror; a life where we could rebuild our country and enjoy its natural wealth. Instead, our communities have been attacked with chemicals and cluster bombs, and our people tortured, raped and killed in our homes.

Saddam’s secret police used to creep over the roofs into our homes at night; occupation troops now break down our doors in broad daylight. The media do not show even a fraction of the devastation that has engulfed Iraq. Journalists who dare to report the truth of what is happening have been kidnapped by terrorists. This serves the agenda of the occupation, which aims to eliminate witnesses to its crimes.

Workers in Iraq’s southern oilfields began organising soon after British occupying forces invaded Basra. We founded our union, the Southern Oil Company Union, just 11 days after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. When the occupation troops stood back and allowed Basra’s hospitals, universities and public services to be burned and looted, while they defended only the oil ministry and oilfields, we knew we were dealing with a brutal force prepared to impose its will without regard for human suffering. From the beginning, we were left in no doubt that the US and its allies had come to take control of our oil resources.

The occupation authorities have maintained many of Saddam’s repressive laws, including the 1987 order which robbed us of basic union rights, including the right to strike. Today, we still have no official recognition as a trade union, despite having 23,000 members in 10 oil and gas companies in Basra, Amara, Nassiriya, and up to Anbar province. However, we draw our legitimacy from the workers, not the government. We believe unions should operate regardless of the government’s wishes, until the people are able finally to elect a genuinely accountable and independent Iraqi government, which represents our interests and not those of American imperialism.

Our union is independent of any political party. Most trade unions in Britain only seem to be aware of one union federation in Iraq, the regime-authorised Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, whose president, Rassim Awadi, is deputy leader of the US-imposed prime minister Ayad Allawi’s party. The IFTU’s leadership is carved up between the pro-government Communist party, Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord, and their satellites. In fact, there are two other union federations, which are linked to political parties, as well as our own organisation.

Our union has already shown it is able to stand its ground against one of the most powerful US companies, Dick Cheney’s KBR, which tried to take over our workplaces with the protection of occupation forces.

We forced them out and compelled their Kuwaiti subcontractor, Al Khourafi, to replace 1,000 of the 1,200 employees it brought with it with Iraqi workers, 70% of whom are unemployed today. We also fought US viceroy Paul Bremer’s wage schedule, which dictated that Iraqi public sector workers must earn ID 69,000 ($35) per month, while paying up to $1,000 a day to thousands of foreign mercenaries. In August 2003 we took strike action and shut down all oil production for three days. As a result, the occupation authorities had to raise wages to a minimum of ID 150,000.

We see it as our duty to defend the country’s resources. We reject and will oppose all moves to privatise our oil industry and national resources. We regard this privatisation as a form of neo-colonialism, an attempt to impose a permanent economic occupation to follow the military occupation.

The occupation has deliberately fomented a sectarian division of Sunni and Shia. We never knew this sort of division before. Our families intermarried, we lived and worked together. And today we are resisting this brutal occupation together, from Falluja to Najaf to Sadr City. The resistance to the occupation forces is a God-given right of Iraqis, and we, as a union, see ourselves as a necessary part of this resistance - although we will fight using our industrial power, our collective strength as a union, and as a part of civil society which needs to grow in order to defeat both still-powerful Saddamist elites and the foreign occupation of our country.

Bush and Blair should remember that those who voted in last month’s elections in Iraq are as hostile to the occupation as those who boycotted them. Those who claim to represent the Iraqi working class while calling for the occupation to stay a bit longer, due to "fears of civil war", are in fact speaking only for themselves and the minority of Iraqis whose interests are dependent on the occupation.

We as a union call for the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces and their military bases. We don’t want a timetable - this is a stalling tactic. We will solve our own problems. We are Iraqis, we know our country and we can take care of ourselves. We have the means, the skills and resources to rebuild and create our own democratic society.

· Hassan Juma’a Awad is general secretary of Iraq’s Southern Oil Company Union and president of the Basra Oil Workers’ Union

hssnawad@yahoo.com

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Stor...

Forum posts

  • Mark me down as one American in total agreement with this courageous union leader.

  • This man is 100% correct. It is HIS country and he as well as the majority of citizens want U.S. out. Unfortunately, as long as W. is in control they will never leave and give up contracts and oil control.
    We are sickened in the U.S. by the number of your fellow citizens that are being killed in your country, we want our President to leave and let you take control of your Iraq, but ALL he cares about is money and power!

  • We are trying to wake up the dumb asses that believe everything they see on the censored, corporate controlled, self serving, US media. We don’t have a nation of courageous citizens, but cowards who would rather have a government of corruption, deceit, murder, and lies. We are corporatists or fascists. All we know is greed.

    We got the government we deserve and you don’t have to worry, when our economy collapses, there are going to be allot of blank faces saying, "oops, how did this happen, I didn’t know". Then we will be ripe for the picking.

    George Bush knows what he’s doing, his mission is clear, instigate another attack on the American people so he can justify invading another country. Americans have become so scared of their own shadows, they will lay down and let themselves be walked over. Then, like all megalomaniacs who try to conquer the world, he will end up going to far, stretching his private army to thin, and he will lose. Well, actually, he won’t lose anything, the American people will. We have already lost our dignity, now George Bush and his white collar mafia want the entire world to hate us...then we will truely be worse then our old friend Adolf Hitler and Americans will have to face reality that we have become our worst enemy.

    Thanks to the complicit US media who would rather feed us Michael Jackson stories then the truth, the lies will only get bigger, it’s already blatant for all to see. The world knows it, we know it, and they know we know it. This is why eventually, the concentration camps will come, "but they will be differen’t then Hitler’s, more humane" our government will tell us. They will convince the American people that it’s our only choice if we want to be "safe". First came the patriot act, then part II, just a few more laws and they will be able to round up american citizens without warrants, without justification, and most likely, it will be your neighbor who doesn’t like what you say about our FURER that will turn you in.

    So cheer up, soon we will have our own concentration camps, where we send the "un-americans"...the ones that can think independently and don’t rely on tv for information. First we will start with Muslims of course, then we will work through the socialists, communists, anarchists...once we get rid of the strongest opposition, then we will go after the gays and finally democrats(that speak out-we still have to pretend we have democracy to make it look good).

    Then, once everyone is scared of the secret police, assassinations, and torture in the "secret prisons", we will be able to set our sites on the rest of the world. You heard him yourself. "Your either with us or against us." That means, shut your mouth and do as your told.

    Soon people like me will be rounded up and murdered(much like in your old dictatorship), but if you read this, know that some of us did not want this, know that some Americans do actually believe in the constitution, some of us know our government committed the crime of the century that set the stage for our neo-nazi agenda of world domination, which is built on a foundation of lies that will be it’s eventual undoing.

    Some of us tried to stop them, remember that, because one day the sun will shine on our children again and we will know the suffering our two people shared under the guise of American freedom. Some of us here, have the courage to stand up and are willing to be murdered by our government and fellow citizens for speaking out and trying to tell people the truth. But at least we’ll die with honor on our own soil, defending the freedom that so many would take from us, just like you.

    • I agree that your worst case scenario is their plan, but don’t you see this whole scam as coming unravelled? Bush is too f*@king stupid to pull it off. The only people still fooled are those that rely on tv news- but more and more are waking up everyday.

      More and more military men are realizing they’ve been duped, perhaps one day soon mass mutiny by the troops will open up Americans eyes. With troops waking up, there will be nobody left to conquer- i mean ’liberate’ - the world. With nobody left to enforce their police state, their plan cannot work.

      All the troops have to do is look at bush’s budget- a blatant war-on-the-poor, which most of the troops are. Bush is screwing over their families, but also trying to buy them off, $100,000 for you if you’re kid dies in Iraq..... sick sick sick.

    • I am an independent writer from the Czech Republic. My generation experienced the Soviet occupation of my country (1968-1991) that upset and often wrecked the course of our lives. Myself I had to leave my country for exile and could return home only after long 14 years. I dare say that I can recognize the signs of a totalitarian regime, of a rising dictatorship, because I’ve gained this knowledge through my personal experience.

      That’s why I am very worried by the turn that has taken your country since GWB’s accession to power. I can smell the stench of the above in the words and acts of your government and I would like to put you on guard of this danger. If you fail to stop the neocons soon, you might undergo the risk of waking up one day in a totalitarian country.

      And once you’ve lost your freedom, it would be very hard to get it back, you can believe me this, I know what I am speaking about. I wouldn’t want to watch you taking the same path as we did. If you don’t act now, later on it might be already too late!

      The society in my country is still crippled after the long years of non-liberty and it is very hard to regain the human dignity and democracy once you’ve lost them. Just an example: although we had experienced an invasion of foreign armies ourselves in the past, today we are participating to the US led coalition in Iraq.

      Doing to the others the same, what Soviets used to do to us. And do you know what is the saddest thing in this? That people in my country don’t care! Not because they would be so insensitive, but simply because they are not informed on the facts as our mainstream media follow the government policy line and inform our public in tendentious and servile way (analogous to the US media’s). And as most of the Czech people don’t speak foreign languages they can’t get objective information abroad as you Americans easily can because the huge majority of Internet sites is in your mother tongue. We have still a long road to go before we rebuild a democratic and human society we once had been.

      I believe that there is only one way how to improve this situation - providing people with objective information, so they could make up their minds independently. And here the independent media play an important role.

      They can be found in my country too and they are becoming more and more popular and listened by our folks no more satisfied by the official propaganda. I am contributing to one of these independent Internet news servers (Britske listy) and yesterday I posted there the Czech version of the above article by Hassan Juma’a Awad. Keeping the hope that at least those Czechs with access to the Internet (16% of our households) will wake up and look at the Iraqi war without propaganda tinted lies and prejudices.

      But my inner feeling is that any real healing has to come from your direction at first. It is up to you, the American people, to act before the world will turn its back on you horrified by the crimes committed in your name by a government, that you the citizens of the USA had freely elected!

      Link to my article:
      – http://www.blisty.cz/2005/2/21/art2...

      My personal website:
      – http://www.bushka.cz/bushkaperson/i...

    • It has been said that America is the most powerful force in the world and that the second most powerful force is the American people. It is shaming to me, and clearly to many of my fellow citizens, that 51% of Americans voted out of fear and also out of faith in the actions of GWB. I agree with this writer from the Czech Republic that dissent and courage to go against GWB and his supporters must grow. I am ashamed at the lack of intelligence of the American people. Where’s the moxie that made us both obnoxious but okay at the same time? Since when did it become shameful to be intellectual and sensitive here? It seems obvious to many of us that fear is a tool well used by the seemingly stupid Bush et al to cower the least educated and most isolated Americans. This is all too indicative of the advent of Facism.

    • Thank God that people like me, and most other Americans, don’t believe the "BS"...that has

      been stated here in these responses. Yes, I’m prior-service and am grateful for the US forces

      and The President. Most here need a life, but hell I fought for it. By-the-way, soldiers in Iraq that

      I know believe and feel good about why they are there in Iraq.

    • You are not only blind, you are also dumb, and most Americans do not agree with Bush’s war or what he is doing to our environment, or our economy, or trying to disenfranchise taxpayers of their money from social security...not even if Bush screams fear, fear, fear everyday of his next 3.8 years. Only the stupid believe he was elected and that we have honest elections. You fascist supporters may have the main stream media propaganda machine all to yourselves but you can’t lock up our minds and we are on to you and your Bu$h, and we will find ways to continue to oppose Bu$h’s Nazi state.

  • Amen. It’s just too bad this article won’t have any real impact on those who can change things.