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HUMAN RIGHTS, AMERICAN STYLE, PART 4
Since the United States have taken over their oil,
Iraqis are surviving on charity
More than 4 million Iraqis have lost their jobs
following the invasion of their country by the United
States. To take the measure of the drama represented
by this figure, it must be multiplied by five to
obtain the 20 million Iraqis (women and children) who
survive on little bits of nothing under the
indifference of the new masters of Iraq, all too busy
with their looting strategy and subcontracting of
power in this country.
From the first bombardments to this day, that is
almost six months, workers and their families have
been without resources and their situation is
deteriorating day by day. To make their demands in
what is now pompously called The New Iraq, they have
created the Union of the Unemployed. This organisation
has made repeated requests to the occupation forces,
without any result whatsoever. Once again, it
mobilized its members for another demonstration on Abu
Nawas street, Tuesday July 29th. The rallying point
was an old bank building, burned down during the war,
which was now home to the Communist Party of Iraq.
Actually, unemployed workers were not the only ones
gathering there. Other action groups such as the
Organisation for the Freedom of the Iraqi Women, the
Union of Iraqi Workers, among others, had come to show
their support. There was a lot of activity all around
the offices of the party. The street was alive with
approximately 800 persons, in small groups, while
interviews and other meetings with journalists
covering the event were taking place in the offices
inside the building. The preparation of placards and
slogans was being completed.
This is the 8th demonstration weve had since May 1st
, 2003, declares Kacem Madi, secretary-general of the
Union of the Unemployed. But he maintains that this
action will be different from the previous seven. The
demonstrators are ready to continue their action until
they obtain their rights, which means either a job or
an unemployment allowance. In reality, they all know
that they will not have a job, since all the
infrastructures destroyed by the US army have remained
in that state. And even salesmen can no longer work
because of the bandits and other thieves who steal
their merchandise before they reach their sales point.
For all these workers, the Union is asking an
unemployment allowance, until the occupation forces
restore security and employment in Iraq.
There are still no statistics to know exactly how many
Iraqi men and women have lost their employment because
of the war. According to Kacem, there are around four
million. Among them, a large majority have had no
income over the last six months. This is truly a
tragedy for these families who have already lost so
much in this war, stresses Kacem Madi.
The Union which he represents has organised 8
demonstrations for the same demands: a job or an
unemployment allowance. At each demonstration, he
recounts, the representatives of the occupation forces
meet and discuss with us, promise to solve the
problem, but each time their promises are not
fulfilled and we are forced to take to the streets
again. From Major Patterson to David Jones (of the
Oil for Food programme) as well as from other US
military and civilian people in charge, the Union has
obtained nothing but empty promises.
This situation lead to a decision to change their
program of action.
This Tuesdays demonstration takes place in torrid
heat and the demonstrators, not the least discouraged,
are shouting slogans calling for democracy, employment
and the end of the occupation. The demonstration then
proceeds to the headquarters of the Council commonly
called El-Beit Al-madani. For nearly one hour, the
demonstrators shout slogans in front of the building
guarded by US soldiers equipped with heavy artillery.
Later, the demonstration becomes a sit-in. This was
the new initiative introduced in the protest programme
of the Union of the Unemployed. They had adopted a
resolution to set up a tent in front of the building
to establish a permanent presence. They call this
action civil disobedience. But all they got back
from the Americans was a Bush style ultimatum:
Disperse the demonstration, otherwise there will be no
talks!
But the Iraqi workers are encouraged by the presence
of the media and by the messages of support they have
received from outside; and they have drawn the lessons
from the preceding fruitless meetings. So they refuse
to submit and decide to continue their action and to
camp on location, as planned. After all, isnt
peaceful demonstration a democratic right? But things
will quickly take a turn towards dictatorship. At 8:30
pm, there is a first visit from soldiers who come to
ask the demonstrators to leave the premises. But the
latter show the permit to demonstrate that was granted
to them and refuse to comply. The 3 soldiers leave,
only to return later in stronger numbers around 1:00
am, during the curfew. And they have not come to
discuss. They invade the tent and arrest all the
coordinating team, 21 persons in total, who are taken
away and locked up in a room. They are regrouped
together in a corner of the room, forced to sit on the
floor, and then isolated with barbed wire. They were
detained in these conditions, without water and
without food, until 11:00 am the following day.
We could not even move, declares Ali Djaafri, aged
over fifty, my knees and legs were really aching but
each time I was trying to stand to alleviate my pain,
the soldiers were shouting sit down!. It was very
humiliating. At no other time during the occupation
has my resentment towards the US soldiers been that
strong. I became fully conscious of my colonised
situation and I was ashamed in front of the younger
Iraqis in our group. I would have preferred death
rather than having to live through this at 58 years
old.
Amar Djaafri is one the the 120,000 members of the
Union of the Unemployed. He has worked all his life in
a local administration which was totally burned down,
after being looted and vandalised like the vast
majority of the infrastructures of the Iraqi state.
The country was no longer keeping up with technology.
Almost everything was operating on paper, not
computers: universities,
administrations, hospitals, etc. All the archives have
vanished in the fires. Which makes Khaled, another
unemployed worker, say: No other country has known
the kind of colonisation that we are living in Iraq.
The US army has torn down everything which Iraqi life
was made of. We have no references anymore, anywhere.
By burning the archives of a State, and destroying the
history and culture of a people, the United States
have truly committed an unprecedented crime. All in
Iraq, workers, students, or any other sector of Iraqi
society are unanimous in saying that the future does
not look promising. And all are preparing for it,
notably by organising the struggle against the
occupation of their country.
«There are 35 million American citizens living in
poverty and injustice in the United States, it is
unthinkable that the US authorities establish a
democracy for the Iraqis! declares Kacem of the Union
of the Unemployed.
Baghdad, August 4th, 2003.
Zehira Houfani (writer and journalist),
Montreal member of the Iraq Solidarity Project (PSI/ISP)
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