Athens Meeting 19-20 June 2003, Contribution by Iraqi CP
[1]
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From: SolidNet
http://www.iraqcp.org , mailto:iraq@iraqcp.org
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by Raid FAHMI

DEMOCRACY: THE OUTCOME OF BITTER PEOPLES' STRUGGLE
NOT INVADORS' GIFT

Dear Comrades,

Allow me first of all to convey the wholehearted greetings
of Iraqi Communists and their supporters to all fraternal
parties participating in this meeting. We express
particularly our thanks and appreciation to our comrades in
the Communist Party of Greece for the successful
organisation of this important meeting.

Today, the world is going through one of its most critical
periods in recent history. The war against Iraq has
far-reaching implications and consequences, not only for
Iraq and the strategic, oil-rich region of the Gulf and
the Middle East, but for the whole world order that was
born after the Second World War. The way that the
United-states prepared, launched and conducted the war
confirmed beyond doubt that the objectives of this war are
far beyond the issue of controlling Iraq, in itself of
great importance, but to reshape in the first place the
whole region politically and strategically in accordance
with the US national interests first and with those of
world capital, second. In marginalizing the United Nations
and adopting a dismissive posture towards international
legality and its European allies, the US acted as an
imperialist power with the affirmed will to remodel the
world order on a unipolar basis under its hegemony. The
exceptional worldwide mobilisation against the war and its
convergence with the movement against capitalist
globalisation has been a remarkable expression of the
level of consciousness reached by people all over the world
regarding the stakes and issues related to this war.

Dear Comrades,
This meeting acquires a special significance at this
crucial juncture in the aftermath of the military
occupation of Iraq, the fall of the bloody dictatorship of
Saddam Hussein and the effective collapse of the Iraqi
State.

The new situation raises a wide range of political and
theoretical issues for the democratic, progressive and
peace loving forces in the world and for the communist and
anti-capitalist forces in particular. We shall dwell on few
of them which are related to the themes of our meeting.

First: three months after the war, how do we assess the
outcome and the results achieved by the anti-war movement ?
What are its perspectives?

We have to admit that the movement has failed to achieve
its objective of preventing the war. However, we hardly
harboured any illusion in this respect. We were aware that
the factors that induced the Bush administration to wage
this illegal and illegitimate war were of strategic and
ideological character and the balance of forces was too
favourable to the war camp to be tilted by the popular
anti-war movement. Yet the movement has scored
significant political gains. It contributed to isolating
the US and its allies on international level as was
reflected by the unprecedented defiance of France and
Germany and the majority of the UN security council members
to the US plans and the failure of the latter to obtain the
approval of the UN Security Council for the war option.
From the point of view of international legality, the US
acted as an outlaw.

The massive anti-war manifestations in the Coalition
countries most involved in the war, namely: United Kingdom,
Spain and Italy have undoubtedly weakened politically the
governing parties and leaderships in these countries. On
the other hand, they succeeded in drawing into the
political movement wide sections of the society, youth in
particular, that had been alienated and kept out of
politics since the eighties.

Perhaps most importantly, the conjunction of the anti-war
movement and the movement for an alternative globalisation
(alter mondialist) have given political clout to the world
public opinion and imposed it as an important actor in
international politics that could not be ignored with
political impunity.

Now that the war has been waged with relatively rapid
military success, will the anti-war movement be able to
maintain its cohesion and its momentum or will it fizzle
out and become demoralized? What will be its driving force
in the future and what will be its forms of action?

The future of the movement is a problematic issue. It is
unrealistic to imagine that the powerful mobilization of
the movement can be maintained once the war is over.
Though the war has not really ended but its wide scale
operations did. No doubt, the pursuance by the US of its
aggressive unilateral foreign policy inspired by the
dangerous new strategic doctrine of pre-emptive war and the
launching of new campaigns against North Korea and Iran
give ample justifications for continuing the mobilisation
against these war policies, but probably at lower levels.

Moreover, the outcome of the war, in favour of the US and
its allies, certainly had a demobilizing impact upon
certain groups that joined the movement. But more
fundamentally, the perspectives have been constrained by
what paradoxically represented its force. The anti-war
movement is characterized by its extreme diversity in
terms of number and nature of organisations and groups.
The movement is structurally composed of very broad
coalitions on the local, national and international levels.
The degree of diversity among its constituent groups and
forces increases as we move from the local to the
international levels. Such a large and diversified movement
could have maintained its unity and cohesion had it not
adopted a simple and clear slogan representing the lower
common denominator, that is "No to the war".

The political platform of the movement avoided the issues
that would have alienated some groups for the sake of wide
mobilization, such as a clear condemnation of the
dictatorship in Iraq. A calculated ambiguity towards the
Iraqi regime allowed some pro-Saddam groups to be present
in the anti-war manifestations and among some eminent
figures of the movement, notably in the United Kingdom and
the United States who made frequent visits to Baghdad as a
form of solidarity with Iraqi people while the regime
continued the massacres against the people and pursued
policies that aggravated their plight. This rather
one-sided approach has been often justified on the basis of
the necessity of according priority to the constitution of
anti-imperialist coalitions, the Iraqi regime considered as
an anti-imperialist force being in direct confrontation
with the US.

The second issue we would like to be discussed relates to
the relationship between anti-imperialist struggle and the
struggle for democracy in many "Third World countries"
governed by dictatorial regimes. In the past the struggle
for democratic political rights has often been subordinated
to that against external imperialist domination or threats.
Bitter experiences have shown that there is a very close
interconnection between the struggle against imperialism
and war on the one hand and that against dictatorship, for
freedom and democracy. A similar interconnection exists
between the objectives of durable peace and the founding of
freedoms and democracy. No significant social, economic
and cultural progressive gains can be maintained without
the people concerned enjoying the freedoms necessary to
defend and benefit from these achievements.

The question of democracy and deep democratic reforms is a
central issue for socio-economic and socio-political
development. The US has waged its war against Iraq under
the banner of liberating Iraq and instituting democracy.
Our party rejected the war option and denounced the claim
that war and foreign occupation can bring democracy.
Democratic rights are a favour or a gift but won by the
people through long and rather bitter struggle. Events
since the end the war and the occupation of Iraq by
American and British forces seem to confirm this basic
historical rule. The occupying authority has excluded
Iraqis from all the political decision-making giving to
them a mere consulting role. It is always obstructing
also all the efforts aimed at constituting a legitimate
Iraqi provisional government which enjoy full authority.

Finally, we believe that the issue of forms of cooperation
and coordination can be addressed by analysing pros and
cons of the forms of common action developed by the
anti-war coalitions and the alter-mondialist movement. The
most successful forms are those that have flexible
structures with no permanent centralized bodies of
decision-making. However, in all the coalitions there have
always been a backbone driving force constituted by few
organisations. Despite a certain reticence by some NGOs
towards the involvement and participation of political
parties and trade-unions in these network type movement, it
is broadly accepted that their involvement was beneficial
to the movement provided that no hegemonic practices are
made. The successful manifestation during the World Social
Forum in Florence and subsequent ones by the anti-war
movement are concrete examples of successful and effective
cooperation.

Our party is in favour of developing forms of coordination
among communist parties with strict respect for the
principles of independence and equality. Informal meetings
are extremely useful to develop the exchange of views and
experiences among parties, to reach common understanding
of the problems and issues facing our parties.

Dear Comrades
Under the Bush administration, war has become an instrument
of extending ultra liberal globalisation. Events over the
past two years brought further evidence that violence and
wars are imbedded in ultra liberalism and unfettered market
forces. As the events in Iraq seem to show under the
American occupation, the globalisation under the present US
Administration regulates disorder rather than creating
order and building democracies. Having effectively
dismantled the Iraqi state, the US makes no secret of its
plans to create a neo-liberal state where American
transnational corporations control its economy and its oil
wealth. Until such a model arises, Iraq is maintained under
military occupation and direct American rule. But while
our people had a powerful desire to get rid of the criminal
rule of Saddam Hussein, they want to bring about a genuine
democratic change which allows them to exercise their
inalienable right to decide their destiny with their own
free and independent will. Foreign occupation and US
direct military rule are firmly rejected under any pretext.

In the present complex conditions under the occupation
characterized by insecurity, collapse of services,
mounting crimes, severe economic hardships (more than 60 %
of unemployment) and among the horrors of the dozens of
mass graves discovered so far , the Iraqi people and their
democratic forces are in urgent need for active and
effective solidarity. Such a solidarity is crucial to
support our struggle to empower the Iraqi people and enable
them to exercise the right to determine their destiny with
their own free will.

Iraq is today the front where the US is putting in
execution its global strategy of reshaping the region and
breaking down all resistance, to its domination and to the
ultra liberal global world which the Bush Administration
wants to impose on our planet. It is therefore, vital for
the anti-war movements to develop peaceful and moral
alternatives to the US war policy, and to extend their
solidarity to national democratic forces in Iraq in order
to prevent the US and the United Kingdom from accomplishing
the remainder of their strategic objectives in Iraq and the
region. An equally urgent task should be to enhance the
role of the UN in empowering the Iraqi people and opening
up the prospects of democratic change through free
elections supervised by the UN.

Athens Meeting 19-20 June 2003, Contribution by Iraqi CP
[2]]
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From: SolidNet
http://www.iraqcp.org , mailto:iraq@iraqcp.org
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BRIEF REPORT ABOUT THE CURRENT SITUATION IN IRAQ

The following are some brief points regarding the position
of the Iraqi Communist Party following the US-British war
on Iraq and the speedy collapse of Saddam's dictatorial
regime:

The fall of the hated dictatorial regime on 9th April 2003
was received with a feeling of relief and hope that this
momentous event, which our people had been awaiting for so
long, will bring about an immediate end to the war, sparing
our people further bloodshed and suffering, avert the
dangers of foreign occupation, and also enable the Iraqi
people to exercise their inalienable right to decide their
destiny and political future, with their own free will,
without any foreign interference.

The spontaneous reaction of the people was a clear
expression of their powerful desire to get rid of Saddam's
criminal rule and the nightmare of fascist-type
dictatorship which seemed to continue forever..

But the Iraqi people and their democratic forces made it
clear that they did not want to replace one dictator with
another. They have also firmly rejected foreign occupation
and US direct military rule under any pretext..

Iraqi Communists, who had rejected both war and
dictatorship, called for an immediate halt to the war, and
a return to international legitimacy and the UN, acting
within the framework of its responsibilities for preserving
security and peace in the world.

The UN was called upon to shoulder its responsibility, in
accordance with its Charter and the Geneva convention
(1949), to ensure protection for the lives of Iraqi
innocent civilians and to prevent further violations of
their human rights by occupying forces.

Urgent calls were also made for delivering urgent medical
and humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, and to
lift the UN economic blockade imposed for more than 12
years.

The party leadership urged the people to organise
themselves, set up local Popular Committees to run their
own affairs, and to put an end to criminal acts of looting
and vandalism.

The party declared its rejection of foreign occupation and
military-civilian rule, under any pretext. The US and
Britain were held fully responsible, as occupying powers,
for protecting the lives and property of the Iraqi
population, in accordance with the Geneva convention.

It was also stressed that Iraq's national wealth and
resources, especially oil, must be protected as they belong
the Iraqi people who alone have the right of disposal over
these resources through democratically elected
constitutional bodies.

In order to deal with the grave crisis faced by the country
in the aftermath of war, as a result of political power
vacuum and effective collapse of the state, the Iraqi
Communist Party, along with all other principal political
forces, called for holding a broadly-based National
Conference to elect a transitional coalition patriotic
government which enjoys full authority. This government
would prepare a draft constitution, ensure democratic
freedoms, and prepare conditions and prerequisites for free
elections under UN supervision, at the end of the
transitional period, as an essential step along the path of
building a constitutional democratic Iraq.

Another important task of the proposed Iraqi transitional
coalition government would be to negotiate a speedy end to
US-British occupation and full restoration of Iraq's
national sovereignty and independence.

Following the adoption by the UN Security Council last
month of Resolution 1483, the US-British occupation
authority has been trying to form and impose an interim
Iraqi Council of consultative nature and with no real
powers. These attempts have been so far been rejected by
the overwhelming majority of Iraqi political forces, which
have called instead for setting up an Iraqi interim
coalition government without interference by any foreign
quarter.

In this respect, an effective input by the international
community, through the UN, and based in international
legitimacy, is crucial to empower the Iraqi people and
enable them to exercise the right to determine their
destiny with their own free will.

Our party has always made it clear that it was opposed to
both the war and Saddam's dictatorship. It will continue to
stand with the people, fighting on their side and
politically mobilising them to achieve a free independent
and democratic Iraq.

At this difficult juncture, and in the complex and critical
period ahead, internationalist solidarity with Iraqi
Communists and democratic forces is a crucial factor in
ensuring that the Iraqi people are empowered to exercise
their right to determine their destiny, putting an end to
foreign occupation and opening up the prospects for radical
democratic change, to achieve freedom, peace and social
justice, in a unified and democratic federal Iraq.