Those pursuing the witch-hunt of anti-war MP George Galloway have been forced into some embarrassing retreats. The Mail on Sunday has admitted that documents it published - purporting to show that Galloway was in the pay of the Iraqi regime - were forgeries. The revelations in the Telegraph, based on documents miraculously 'discovered' in a bomb-devastated Iraqi ministry building, look more fraudulent by the day. Yet Galloway is still suspended from the Labour Party on the say-so of the general secretary David Triesman. At the time of writing, this suspension has not been discussed in any elected body of the Labour Party.
Galloway's crime was to say that the war on Iraq was ille. gal and to call on troops not to fight in such an unjust war. In suspending him, the Blairite leadership has signalled its determination to attack the entire anti-war movement.
The Stop the War Coalition has circulated the following model resolution. Raise it in your trade union branch. Model Resolution Galloway MP by the Labour Party.
This body therefore resolves to: ly lifts the suspension. Galloway Petition. [email protected].
This branch is opposed to the suspension of George
George Galloway has been the most prominent anti-war campaigner in Britain during recent months. His views are similar to those held by millions of people in Britain, includ ing many trade union members who support the Stop the War Coalition. The attack on George Galloway is an attack on the whole anti-war movement and must be opposed. 1) Write to David Triesman, General Secretary of the Labour Party, demanding that The Labour Party immediate2) Circulate the Stop the War Coalition Defend George 3) Send a message of support to George Galloway at galInternational resistance Sarah Parker
page 16 of the scan
ta first glance the Kurds of Iraq would seem to have emerged rellatively unscathed from the war. They suffered nothing comparable with the devastation in Baghdad and other parts of southern Iraq from the Americans and British and no chemical weapons attacks by Saddam Hussein.
Kirkuk, historically a Kurdish city with a significant Turkoman minority until the Baathists started driving them out in order to Arabise the place because of the oil reserves, was returned to Kurdish control. The Baathists were removed from Mosul, also a Kurdish city until a similar process of Arabisation started about 70 years ago.
The leaders of the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) see no option but to continue with their alliance with the US, in spite of worries as to where it will lead. But just as with the Arab and other populations of Iraq, the future well-being of the Kurds is far from assured. nee June 2003
PUK Peshmergas entering Kirkuk
The Kurdish areas also rely on this programme, so they too will feel the pinch if it goes. But the programme has had a contradictory effect for the Kurds
Apart from the inadequacy of the rations, the oil-for-food programme combined with sanctions meant that most people suffered a big drop in income, and had to buy the cheapest food they could afford
In the Kurdish areas, formerly one of the best agricultural parts of Iraq, many farmers had their goods undercut by cheap UN supplies. They were priced out of the market and many turned to smuggling and other precarious forms of economic activity.
Probably the reports of Kurds injured while trying to extract metal from unexploded munitions, in order to sell it, refer to desperate people who used to work in agriculture.
Presumably the US intends to abolish this state funded guarantee of some sort of minimum level of nutrition as soon as possible, though I have seen no discussion of what, if anything, they propose to replace it with