BY PIP HINMAN
Scenes of exuberant "liberated" Iraqis and Kurds have quickly given way to scenes of concern and anger that the US "liberators" are preparing to be occupiers.
Even the Sydney Morning Herald's pro-war correspondent Paul McGeough has had a slight change of heart. In his April 11 article he reported on several conversations — including with his Iraqi-government-appointed minder — that indicate Iraqis don't want the US to stay. "What are they really after? Our oil?", is the increasingly common question from the same Iraqis who were overjoyed at the symbolic toppling of the Baath regime on April 9-10.
The war has reached a turning point, but the impact of this on the peace movement remains to be seen. It shouldn't be forgotten that this movement had a mobilising capacity not seen in previous wars, and a similar unity of purpose. It united broad layers and involved people who had never before contemplated becoming activists for peace. It's likely that some may not see the point in continuing to rally. Palm Sunday was one measure of this.
Many people can clearly see that the US plans to occupy Iraq and impose a US-friendly dictator, and they object to this. They know that the US hawks have their sights on Syria and Iran next and that the US-led "war on terrorism" isn't likely to be over soon.
Some peace groups already have plans to continue protesting against the occupation, with vigils, teach-ins and the like to keep up the pressure on the Australian government to bring the troops home.
While the "Troops out of Iraq" demand was central to Palm Sunday rallies around the country, some in the movement have raised the prospect of calling on the UN to become the interim administration as the alternative to the US military administration.
In New Zealand, the Greens have called for the US to "hand over interim responsibility for the restoration of democracy to the United Nations" and for it to "to take charge of Iraqi reconstruction".
While this may sound okay in theory, in reality, would it be used to legitimise, through UN endorsement, the occupation force of the invading countries? Would it be a re-badged US-British-Australian force? The French and German governments are also pushing for a share in the post-Saddam spoils and this is obviously easier to do using the fig leaf of the UN. So would the UN administration be a cover for a multilateral imperialist looting of Iraq?
All sections of the Iraqi population — including the majority Shiite and minority Sunni — are saying they want to be given the opportunity to govern themselves. This also applies to the Kurds, who are demanding self-determination — a demand we should support.
After 35 years of dictatorship, this is the very least that our movement should campaign for: invading troops out now and self-determination and self-rule for the Iraqi Arabs and the Kurds.
What would be the role of a UN interim administration? On March 23, the Iraqi Communist Party called for "UN-supervised elections". Other groups in Iraq, such as that led by senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah and the national patriotic movement led by Abdel Amir ar-Rakabi, welcomed the collapse of the Saddam regime and have called for resistance to foreign occupation.
Worker Communist Party of Iraq representative Layla Muhammad told Green Left Weekly in Sydney that the WCPI believes the most important demand is for the immediate withdrawal of all US and allied military forces from Iraq.
"The UN must take responsibility for security in the cities", she added, arguing this would be in order to enable people's immediate needs to be met and free and fair elections to be held. The WCPI also supports calls from the Kurdish people for a referendum, and an independent Kurdish state if that is the outcome of such a referendum, and is demanding an end to the sanctions on Iraq.
Iraqis are not children waiting for some paternalistic power to give them the right to govern themselves. They may have had much taken away from them by Saddam Hussein's regime (with the support of the US), but that hasn't reduced their ability to run their own country in any way.
The Kurdish national minority has been running part of its own territory for the last decade and should be allowed now to get on with the job of re-organising its own system of government. The US and western European governments could easily pressure Turkey out of invading the Kurdish territories.
UN role by request
Any UN role in Iraq should be limited, by invitation and be under the control of the Iraqi people. If, in the non-Kurdish part of Iraq, the local population requests UN assistance in organising elections for a democratic government, that is one thing. But there is no need for any group of foreigners (especially not the world's exploiter nations) to run the country for them.
Some in the peace movement have argued that any UN role should be opposed, because, as a tool of the imperialists, it will always work against the interests of working people. This is wrong. In the case of the UN intervention force in East Timor, Western governments, including Australia's, were forced to act against their own immediate strategic interests by a growing protest movement demanding that a UN force help quash the Indonesian military and militia units.
At the time, the Australian government was nervous about upsetting relations with the then Habibie government. In response to calls from the Timorese independence fighters themselves, the threat of mass protest activity forced the government's hand. It then took several years for the Coalition government to repair relations with the Indonesian government with a combination of security and trade deals.
In the case of Iraq, there is not yet a clear, popular call by Iraqis for either a US or a UN occupation force to stay in the country. The US is trying to install its own puppet government and its top candidates are a crook or a former chief of staff of Hussein's army! No wonder even some Iraqis who initially welcomed the US troops are now asking for the US to leave.
The most democratic step would be to have elections as soon as possible — and preparations for that could be carried out by temporary civil administrations made up by the Iraqis themselves. This is a far better option than having the appointees of the oil billionaires, who run the Bush administration, running an occupation force to prepare the way for a puppet regime.
But for all this to happen, the occupying forces have to leave now.
War reparations
Until the UN Security Council imposed economic sanctions some 12 years ago, Iraq's oil wealth allowed it to become a relatively prosperous country. But Iraq's standard of living took a dramatic turn for the worse during the punishing sanctions program in which basic necessities were denied, ostensibly to prevent the construction of weapons of mass destruction. The aggressor countries should be made to take responsibility for the mess that they've created. A massive war-reparations program should be started now. It should not, as World Bank head James Wolfensohn argues, be done via loans through the UN.
Wolfensohn's comments in the Australian Financial Review on April 11 reveal what's really behind his push for a "UN transition administration". The World Bank, like other corporate lending agencies, wants to ensure that, before any loans are approved, the repayment schedule is secure. "From a practical point of view it is important. We have to lend to somebody who is willing to repay", Wolfensohn said.
In short, the peace movement has a responsibility to carry on with its campaign to force the US-led troops to leave, and to demand that the West, particularly the "Coalition of the Killing", provides war reparations — without strings attached.
This is the best way of offering the oppressed Iraqi peoples the solidarity they urgently need to get their lives back together. Any call for UN intervention must be judged on its merits and can only be supported by the anti-war movement if it can be demonstrated to be supported by the peoples of Iraq.
[Pip Hinman is a member of the national executive of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From Green Left Weekly, April 16, 2003.
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