.... T excaped the westem bombing cam he Iraqi town of Fallujah largely
paign. Shortly after the end of the war its citizens elected a local authority and were peacefully trying to return to normal life. US troops entered the town, took over the local school for their headquarters and, when people protested about this, they shot 17 of them dead. This was followed by a 'hearts and minds' campaign which included night time raids, abductions and beatings.
Over the last year Fallujah has become a centre for the resistance to the occupation. Helicopters have been brought down and the Americans have been forced out of the centre of the town. They have been replaced with newly trained Iraqi police whom the US want to see bearing the brunt of the casualties. On February 14 the police station in Fallujah was attacked and many of these new police were killed.
The situation in Fallujah is a microcosm of what is happening throughout the Sunni areas of Iraq. In the Shia south the resistance has focused on the demands by Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani for immediate elections and on the questions of unemployment (currently over 80% in Iraq) and the restoration of basic services.
There are now emerging accounts of the brutality of British troops in the region, which mirror those of the US troops further north.
At Camp Bucca detention centre, south of Basra, British troops are accused of kicking to death at least seven Iraqis. Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price is attempting to take up the cases of those Iraqis who have been killed by our boys'.
He is facing implacable opposition from the Labour Government which now says it cannot guarantee his safety if he goes to Basra to investigate more fully. There are also investigations into another 18 Iraqi civilians killed by British forces.
US consul Paul Bremer has announced that there can be no elections for at least 15 months and maybe longer. The country will be turned over to an appointed puppet government in June, which will legitimise the occupation and the contracts that have been awarded to US multinationals.
After almost a year of occupation, everyday life for most Iraqis is even worse than it was under Saddam Hussein. There is no doubt therefore that resistance to the occupation will continue and increase over the coming period. What should be the focus of the anti-war movement?
Self-determination for the people of Iraq is central to the demands of the international anti-war movement. In the US the San Francisco longshore (dockers) union has voted to stop work on March 20 and has called for other branches to join their action.
Their demands are: 'end the war and occupation of Iraq' and 'withdraw US troops immediately. Previously the same union has initiated solidarity actions against the war and opposed the privatisation of the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr by the Stevedoring Services of America. Their protests have been attacked by the police.
Trades unions here have mobilised against the war and now most national trades unions are affiliated to the Stop the War campaign. March 20 will be an international day of protest action against the occupation of Iraq, the wider war on terror and the accompanying decimation of civil liberties.
The defence of civil liberties is a priority for the anti-war movement. There have so far been no terror attacks in Britain but Home Secretary David Blunkett has seen fit to announce the largest expansion of the security services since the Second World War.
This includes renewing the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act which allows unlimited detention of foreign nationals. Blunkett also wants to extend this to British citizens while introducing new legal powers including lowering the standard of proof. If he has his way our 'little Guantanamo' at Belmarsh will expand rapidly. Further, M15 will expand its staff from 2,000 to 3,000 and now the 'evidence' from telephone taps will be admissable in court cases
The erosion of civil liberties has nothing to
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do with protecting the population. It has everything to do with constructing an authoritarian state machine the eventual target of which will be the Labour Movement
itself.
Blunkett is building on the ground prepared by previous Tory governments. It is clear that this new Labour administration regards the Labour Movement much as Thatcher did: as 'the enemy within Therefore the unity of the broad forces represented in the anti-war movement must be maintained and expanded.
At the centre of these attacks is also the criminalisation of asylum seekers, themselves often refugees from the very countries that have been attacked by the West.
The decision not to proceed with the prosecution of GCHQ whistle-blower Katharine Gun and the court victory of the Fairford protestors show how much the government is on the back foot about both the legality of the war and the strength of the anti-war movement. We can build on these successes Fraud
The 'war on terror' is a fraud. Not only was the invasion of Iraq illegal and immoral but so was the now largely forgotten war in Afghanistan. Much was made of the capture of so-called Al Qaida members at the end of the Afghan war.
However it is now clear that most of those detained in Guantanamo are Taliban conscripts arrested when they surrendered in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan.
Many thousands of those who surrendered were massacred by the Northern Alliance operating under the control of US special forces; hundreds of the rest were taken to Cuba.
On March 20 the anti-war movement will march once more. This will by an international day of action against the war on terror'. In Britain the slogans of the march will focus attention not just on the occupation but on the deceit and lies that Blair used to pursue the case for war.
Blair argued that the real interests of Britain lay in maintaining the special relationship with US imperialism. We now know that in April 2000, while Blair was in Texas, Bush