Cuba
Peter Frost (Write On, GLW #542), criticises GLW for publishing my article on the "independent libraries" project in Cuba (GLW #541), I would like to make a number of points.
Firstly, he incorrectly asserts that some of the 75 opponents of the Cuban Revolution who were jailed in April, were sentenced to prison for owning private libraries. As I pointed out in my article, even these so-called librarians have admitted that they have never been harassed or arrested for owning a private library. What they were jailed for was aiding and abetting the US government in its attempt to overturn the Cuban Revolution.
The money paid to these "dissidents" was channelled through the US government's Agency for International Development and the CIA. Recipients of this money must demonstrate a clear commitment to US government-directed "regime change" in Cuba and support for "free markets". As such, these people are not dissidents, but paid agents of the US government who were employed to do a specific task help bring down the Cuban revolutionary government and install a pro-US puppet regime.
Similarly, the three men who were executed were not "dissidents", but armed terrorists encouraged by the US government. They hijacked a ferry, endangering the lives of 40 Cubans citizens. In the past, such hijackings have resulted in the deaths of many innocent Cubans.
Frost states: "I know it is tough to criticise friends, but surely this is part of our duty as members of the Left."
I suggest he takes the time to read James Petras' article, "The responsibility of the Intellectuals: Cuba, the US and Human Rights" (<www.rebelion.org/petrasenglish.htm>) in which Petras correctly points out that the duty of the left at any given time is "to distinguish between the defensive measures taken by countries and peoples under imperial attack and the offensive methods of imperial powers bent on conquest".
Defending the freedom of those who collaborate with the imperialist superpower to overthrow the Cuban government a government that has the support of the big majority of Cuban working people would simply result in Cuba becoming another Chile and would lead to a reversal of the many social gains that millions of Cubans have worked and fought so hard for.
Kim Bullimore
Campsie, NSW
Iran
Emma Corcoran's article "Don't send detainees back to die" (GLW #540) reports on an Iranian refugee called Muhammad who is said to be "too frightened to return to his homeland because he is a Christian a 'crime' punishable by death in Iran".
This statement could be taken as implying that Christianity as such is illegal in Iran. This is not the case. Muhammad's problem is that he was formerly a Muslim but changed his religion. As he himself is quoted as saying: "Iran is Muslim, but I changed to Christian. So I had to leave. If you change religion they kill you."
Iran's constitution gives "recognised religious minorities" (including Christians, though not Bahais) the right to form religious societies, though these societies are required not to violate "Islamic standards" (whatever that may mean.).
Iran has a religiously repressive regime. The prohibition on Muslims changing their religion is one example of this. The requirement that members of other religions abide by "Islamic standards" is another. We should solidarise both with those fighting for greater freedom inside Iran and those fleeing the country. But when we denounce the repression we should be careful to be accurate.
Chris Slee
Melbourne
Iron-bar in Bali
The endorsement by an Australian federal minister (Wilson Tuckey, ABC News, June 14) of a suspected further arson attack on Canberra's Aboriginal Tent Embassy as a "sign of growing community anger about the embassy" must have given great heart to the murdering bastards who bombed the Bali nightclubs.
And Tuckey's sneer at the embassy as "not only illegal they're greatly unhygienic" will only add to the Howard government's image as a sleazy gang of brutish half-witted louts.
Perhaps Amrozi will quote Tuckey to his Bali prosecutors. After all, his extremist outrage was allegedly triggered by community anger at bar and brothel tourism. He might even cite Tuckey's nickname, Iron-bar allegedly the minister's weapon of choice in dealing with Aboriginal patrons during his former vocation of hotel-keeping.
Now that arson attacks are an approved method of political expression in Australia, how long before those inspired by the inept Tuckey end up taking life to further the grubby goals of Howardism-Hansonism?
Peter Woodforde
Melba ACT
Iraq
Iraq has often been a source of concern for international policy-makers over the last 12 years. Of course, it should be noted that Iraq was never viewed as a serious threat in many Western political circles when it attacked Iran in 1980.
On the contrary, even some optimistic politicians in the West were of the opinion that the war might act as a double containment. This means that Iran's religious fundamentalism on one hand, and Iraqi expansionism on the other hand, would be curbed simultaneously and automatically without a need for outside intervention!
In fact, all these pleasant fantasies were immediately evaporated by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It was soon after that the Americans opened their eyes and began to see Iraq and its former dictator as a real threat to their interests.
The Baath Party founded by Michel Aflaq could never [win] Iraqi people's sympathy for two main reasons. First, it was indeed a contradictory combination of socialism and nationalism ideologically. Second, Iraq consists of a complicated ethnic and religious combination. Consequently, the lack of popular support pushed the Baath Party gradually into more despotic and repressive manners.
When Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979, the Baath Party sank completely into the quagmire of an irreversible military tyranny. At first, Saddam's capricious and adventurous policies dragged Iraq into a devastating and useless eight-year war with neighbouring Iran. After that, under smashing economic and social woes he desperately invaded Kuwait, which was followed by the Gulf War and military intervention of the allied forces in 1990.
The Iraqi regime was near to collapse towards the end of the war. However, the US and its allies, frightened by Shiites' and Kurds' uprisings, left Saddam in power. This was actually catastrophic for the two religious and ethnic groups because thousands of them were cruelly massacred and buried in mass graves by Saddam's regime.
Today, Saddam Hussein, after 24 years of dictatorship, is gone but Iraq is still under the allied forces' occupation.
At present, the political and ideological vacuum caused by the sudden fall of a tyrannical regime is mainly being filled by a kind of religious extremism. In the meantime, the occupation forces' obvious failure to overcome the people's post-war difficulties helps strengthen radical religious views put forward by some extremist groups.
Nasser Frounchi
Instructor of journalism, Torbat-e-Jaam University, Iran [Abridged]
Lopsided report
More than 60 people packed out Solidarity Salon in Melbourne on June 24 for a vibrant forum featuring an exchange between Arabs and Jews on how to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East.
I hardly recognised the event from your lopsided report in GLW #540. Three of the five sponsors of the event the Australian Arab Association, Radical Women and the Committee in Defence of Iraqi Womens Rights get completely disappeared. Two of the speakers Anice Morsy, vice-president of the Australian Arab Association, and international guest speaker Henry Noble, who is the national secretary of the US Section of the Freedom Socialist Party are similarly ignored.
Morsy, a consultant to the Arab Women's Solidarity Association, explained that women are the first victims of war. He argued that Zionism is as dangerous for Jews as it is Arabs and said lasting peace could not be achieved in the Middle East "unless there were no winners or losers".
Noble stressed that the UN cannot provide the solutions. In a frank and comradely dialogue he explained: "I say this with respect for the situation of our comrades in Iraq who are desperate to avoid a civil war". Noble elaborated: "The UN was formed at the end of World War II as a way for the victors to control the world. It has been very effective as a tool primarily of US imperialism: consider the 13 years of sanctions against Iraq, and 50 years of failure to do any more than feed Palestinians. It was no help in keeping the US from crushing revolutions in the Congo, Angola, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Grenada, Bolivia, the Phillipines, Somalia, Haiti and the Balkans. It always represents the super-powerful countries against the exploited majority. Other than for aid distribution via UNICEF and relief organisation I believe it's worthless for our purposes."
Noble and Surma Hamid, from the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, agreed that socialism is necessary to bring lasting peace in the Middle East. However, they disagreed about what to call for now. In contrast to Hamid's call for UN involvement, Noble proposed the establishment of workers' and neighbourhood councils, organised on a national level, to call a national assembly charged with writing a new constitution.
Alison Thorne
Event coordinator
Melbourne [Abridged]
From Green Left Weekly, June 25, 2003.
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