Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

The Iraqi Communist Party, whose members form the leadership of the IFTU, has joined the government of lyad Allawi, and holds three

Socialist Resistance no20  |  page 9-10

This is scanned newsprint, not web text. The original PDFs carried no text layer at all, so every word here was read off the page by OCR. Expect dropped opening letters, run-together words and wrong characters. There was no contents page to cut the paper up by, so the articles were found from the size of their headlines: a headline may carry its kicker, and where an article ran beside a boxed panel a few lines of the neighbour can appear. The scanned issue is the authority; this text is here so the words can be found at all.

2] the IFTU was working openly with those who had supported both the war and subsequent occupation, such as Jack Straw and Ann Clwyd.

3] STW condemned the political collaboration of the IFTU with Blair and their joint lobbying of the trades unions to oppose the troops out resolution.

At the heart of this is a real political disagreement about the nature of the occupation and the nature of the resistThis disagreement is fomented by the role played in the IFTU by the Iraqi Communist Party.

The Iraqi Communist Party, whose members form the leadership of the IFTU, claims to be opposed to the occupation. However the ICP has joined the government of Iyad Allawi, and holds three ministerial posts in that government.

In a lengthy political statement dated 1 September 2004 the ICP argued that the creministerial posts in that government. out a statement saying that STW 'agreed to provide a platform to a known collaborator.

This is a lie on several levels. The IFTU speaker was invited by the RMT and UNISON and by the TUC to a plenary organised by the ESF itself.

Workers Power, who attended all the programme drawal from Iraq' held the line.

STW is now organising a trades union conference with the help of our affiliated trades unions in which the discussion will centre on the campaign to end the occupation and building links with trades unions in Iraq.

It is through such work that we will establish a real underPollock.

Of course there will be ebbs and flows in any campaign: but counterpose, Workers Power and others do, direct action to the national demonstration proposed for March 19 is to lose the plot entirely.

Three years in, and this war is in its early stages. Not only will the war worsen in Iraq but the spotlight now, with Bush's re-election, falls on Iran. Never has it been more important to maintain the unity of the anti-war movement on a principled basis, and to broaden the campaign both here and abroad.