Iraqi Labor Leader: We Will Defend Our Oil

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21886/

 

Iraqi Labor Leader: We Will Defend Our Oil By David Bacon, Pacific News Service Posted on April 28, 2005, Printed on April 28, 2005 http://www.alternet.org/story/21886/ LONDON -- As U.S. and British forces entered Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and the Saddam Hussein regime crumbled, those who had been driven underground by Hussein's rule began to breathe again. From Syria, Britain, Scandinavia and elsewhere, exiled trade union radicals began to make the long journey home. The first post-Saddam days saw a ferment of labor organizing. A general strike broke out in Basra, after the British troops tried to install a notorious ex-Baath Party leader as mayor. Within a month, the city already had a labor council bringing together many new unions. Among those who had resisted Hussein's brutal dictatorship within Iraq was an oilfield technician, Hassan Juma'a Awad. A veteran of the Shiite uprising in southern Iraq of 1991, Juma'a had begun to speak openly about the bad conditions in the fields and refinery of the Southern Oil Company, where he'd worked for three decades. Following Hussein's downfall he quickly became the most important labor leader in southern Iraq, and today is the biggest single obstacle to the Bush administration's main goal for the occupation -- the privatization of the country's oil. Oil is Iraq's lifeblood, and the southern fields produce 80 percent of it. That puts the hands of this workforce on the spigot controlling the country's wealth. Like the oil workers in Iran who brought down the Shah in 1978, Iraq's oil workers know their power, and have already used it to deal important defeats to the occupation regime. "Without organizing ourselves, we would have been unable to protect our industry, which we had been looking after for generations," Juma'a Awad says. "It was our duty as Iraqi workers to protect the oil installations since they are the property of the Iraqi people, and we are sure that the U.S. and the international companies have come here to put their hands on the country's oil reserves." In fact, within just a few short months of Hussein's fall, Southern Oil Company workers found themselves up against the best-connected U.S. corporation in Iraq -- Halliburton -- whose former CEO, Dick Cheney, is now U.S. vice president. As the occupation began its grinding course, KBR, the Halliburton construction subsidiary, showed up at the SOC facilities. Its no-bid contract with the U.S. Defense Department gave it a mandate to begin reconstruction and get the oil flowing again to tankers off the coast in the Persian Gulf. KBR hired a Kuwaiti subcontractor, Al Khoorafy, which stood ready to bring in hundreds of foreign employees to do the work. Faced with replacement of their jobs, in a city where unemployment soared to 70 percent, Juma'a Awad and his coworkers stood firm. They told KBR that if they brought in a single person, they would stop the oil installations completely. "Iraq will be reconstructed by Iraqis, we don't need any foreign interference," Jum'a said. At first KBR tried to cut a deal to split the jobs with Iraqis. But the oil workers refused to accept any outside help. Eventually, KBR brought in the reconstruction supplies on trucks, unloaded them, and left. The next challenge came in September 2003. The occupation administration issued Order 30, lowering the base wages for Iraq's public sector workforce, including oil workers, from $60 to $35 per month. It also cut subsidies for food and housing. "We asked ourselves, how can it be that the workers in our industry would get $35 a month?" Juma'a Awad recalls. "The American administration wasn't willing to cooperate with us, so we had a short strike. We managed to get the minimum salary up to 150,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $100. This was the beginning of our struggle to improve the income of oil workers." The union effectively doubled the wages of many. Today, a laborer with 20 years experience earns about 420,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $300, a month. A chicken in the market costs about 1,500 dinars, or $1. The strike had other repercussions. In Basra's power generation plants, workers threatened similar action and won increases as well. Not surprisingly, they asked Juma'a Awad to negotiate for them. "Now we have workers' councils in 23 areas of southern Iraq, and represent over 23,000 workers," Juma'a Awad says. "The occupying forces tried their best to stop us, because they saw this as a danger. They were aware that organized workers would have power." Juma'a Awad says the occupying forces told the unions they had no legal right to represent oil workers. "We were elected by the workers. That's the only kind of legitimacy we need," he says. Like all Iraqi unions, the General Union of Oil Workers opposes the occupation. "We want the occupation to end immediately, and the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces," he explains. While there might be security problems if the troops depart suddenly, Juma'a Awad says he's not worried. "We are able to look after ourselves and our own security." But privatization, he believes, is the largest threat. "This coming fight is more important even than the struggle against the occupation, since the U.S. is seeking to privatize all sectors of the Iraqi economy," he says. In that fight, Juma'a Awad sees the current government, created as a result of the January elections, as an uncertain ally. "The next government should not only ensure the security of the Iraqi people, but also stop the privatization of industry. We oppose that very strongly, especially in oil. It is our industry. We don't want a new colonization under the guise of privatization, with international companies taking control." © 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/21886/

All We Need is Love by Carol Wolman

All We Need is Love by Carol Wolman

John 15: ⁹ As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

 

It is easy to hate humanity these days.  From the point of view of any other species, we are the despoilers, the destroyers, the wreakers of havoc on this beautiful planet.  From our own point of view, we are self-destructive, fouling our nest with no thought for the future.  From a godly point of view, we are selfish, greedy, short-sighted, quarrelsome. 

 

It is especially easy to hate Americans.  From the point of view of any other nation, we are divided into three camps: the suicidally psychotic rapture cultists who provide the pious rulers with their base and legitimacy; the great muddled middle, which is confused by the TV propaganda, cowed by the threat of "terrorists", and knows which side its bread is buttered on; and the "progressives", probably the majority, who see how evil and destructive Bush is, but are too wimpy and cowardly to do much about it.

 

Many of us hate what America has become: a dollar-driven, mindless culture, appearing not to notice that it is being sucked dry by the Bush crime family.  A bullying, terrorizing rogue nation which is spreading uranium dust across the globe and pouring fossil fuel energy into the rapidly heating atmosphere.

An outlaw nation that claims to be on a godly crusade, while refusing to be bound by international treaties, and lying and plundering at will.   A shameless nation that has not the grace to apologize to the Iraqi people for the senseless murder of 100,000 civilians, the leveling of cities, the torture and terrorizing of the population.

 

Can God love us enough to overcome our self-hatred?  Can we find enough godliness within ourselves to justify our struggles for survival?  Do we deserve the sacrifice that Jesus made for us?  Do we love our children enough to do for them what He did for us?

 

Standing up to the corporate beast, the military dragon, and the false prophets of the rapture cult takes great courage.  We, the peacemakers, can rest assured that we are led by the Prince of Peace.   John 15: ⁹ As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.  

 

Our battle is described in Chapter 19 of Revelation: 

 

^{Rev 19: 11}And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.    ¹⁹And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

 

We are His army.  Our weapons are truth and righteousness. 

 

Rev 19:  ¹⁵And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

 

Our wrath at the hypocritical blasphemy of the pious rulers and the depredations of the corporate beast will enable us to overthrow them, impeach Bush, restore sanity to our planet.

 

  ^{Rev 19: 20}And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

 

Keep your faith.  We will prevail.

 

John 15: ⁹ As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.  

 

In the name of the Prince of Peace,   Carol Wolman