an aid" workers in camps in Zimbabwe and
Women use public services more than men both because we have lower incomes and because of the sexual division of labour in the family. Bush's 2003 budget increases "defence" spending by 13 percent though there are 33 million people living below the
There.
The Republican right who have been the most gung-ho in support of the current war against Iraq have of course been strengthened by its happening. These are the same people who since the beginning of the Bush administration have been battling to chip away at womens' limited rights to abortion
Scientifically accurate information about abortion and contraception has disappeared
soon. from government web-sites, while federally
education" programmes
At the UN Special Session on Children in 2002 US delegates opposed efforts to help young girls who are victims of rape during war and request abortion. The administrations. tion has frozen millions of dollars of funding for international programmes to advance reproductive health and combat HIV and • This article relies heavily on a much longer article by Dianne Feeley in the March/April edition of the American Marxist
(see p14). THE HOME OFFICE recently announced that they are "working on a fast track procedure" to retur people to Iraq as soon as possible, even those with refugee status (Observer, April 13). "Those who refuse will eventually face enforced repatriation".
They seem to be trying to set a very frightening precedent that even those with full refugee status are not sate
This would tie in with the plans that Britain is pushing within the EU to abolish refugee status as such and replace it with "temporary humanitarian protection" which states would have a duty (not a right) to withdraw as soon as the emergency situation in the given country was apparently over. Kosovans have been being forcibly repatriated for some time. Now the Home Office is preparing to retur Afghans in the same way: the first charter flight for 50 people is expected
It is certainly clear why not everyone from Iraq will feel able to return.
The country is physically dangerous in many ways: awash with unexploded ordnance, including cluster bombs from the recent war, and millions of mines from previous military operaThe Americans and British have just used an estimated 1000 to 2000 tonnes of depleted uranium polluting much, if not all of the country again with this deadly poison. Unless it is cleared up, it will cause cancer and other illness for thousands of years of clean water are rife. It will not necessarily be safe for peo ple who fled because of political or ethnic persecution to go back. The Baathists may regroup and attack old enemies or those they think may inform against them to the new authorities
Contrary to the rhetoric, there is no certainty that a "democratic" government will emerge that respects human rights and the right to free political association. Will there be any more toleration of dissent in this "new" Iraq than before? Not necessarily.
People who left because of problems with a different tribe may still not be safe to go back now. It is not clear that ethnically mixed areas will be safe. Go back
While the vast majority of people from Iraq will want to go back if they think it will be safe enough to do so, some people will feel that their life is now here. They cannot tum back the clock and start again in a country that is very different from the one they left.
Even if the current huge economic dislocation can be overcome quite rapidly, which is not certain, some people will judge that their own economic position would be too precarious for them to return.
No one who wishes to stay here should be forced to retum. The antiwar movement should actively support anyone who refuses to be forcibly retumed to Iraq.
Socialists must take every opportunity to counter the arguments of the government and the right wing press on these issues and support campaigns by and in support of asylum seekers. No one who wishes to stay here should be forced to return.
page 19 of the scan
Spot the policeman in this march of fundamentalists LOYALIST
Ice May 2003 19 The army has promoted prime suspect Gordon Kerr to Brigadier, and to military attaché in Beijing •• ... Before him Deputy Chief Constable John Stalker had suffered a similar fate Appointed in 1984 to investigate an official Royal Ulster Constabulary assassination pol icy, he was sacked two years later, after a smear campaign that is now accepted to have been a frame-up.
Stevens' claim that this is an "out of control" army unit simply doesn't wash. Small groups of officers do