Iraqi Leader: "Devastation, Death, Instability---This Is The Occupation"

[Itsthetruth]

US Labor Against The War
June 23rd, 2005

Iraqi union leader: "Devastation, death, instability--this is the occupation"
by Kathleen Wilkes

(Kathleen Wilkes is a longtime labor activist and writer; publisher of Two-Headed Alien Shrinks Labor Movement, a collection of labor and political cartoons by Gary Huck and Mike Konopacki; and former communications director of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union.)


MADISON, WI--Amjad Al-Jawhary is a man with one heart divided between two nations: Canada, his adopted country, where he can keep his family safe; and Iraq, his homeland, where he and his fellow trade unionists are challenged by insurgents, occupation forces, corruption and greed in their pursuit of economic justice through union organizing. "The occupation has achieved nothing but devastation, death, instability, and economic devastation" he said. "Human value is down the drain... Soldiers raid homes, take people captive, hold them captive for a month, a year, two years... There is no court. This is the occupation."

Lack of official status hasn't stopped Iraqi unions from agitating for change. And that's put them dead in the middle of the conflict between the insurgents and occupation forces. The insurgents oppose them because they support a non-sectarian approach to government; the occupation thwarts their efforts to organize and has jailed and harassed union leaders and destroyed union offices.

Formed along religious and ethnic lines, the new government, he said, has caused even greater division among Iraqis. It may have even fueled the insurgents by favoring the occupation. "Iraq is on the verge of a civil war," Al-Jawhary warned, noting that his union and others support a secular state and "have condemned the elections" in Iraq. They also adamantly oppose the US/British occupation.

The insurgents, he insisted, are not of nor wanted by the vast majority of Iraqis: "I want you to go and tell the people there are Iraqis who are progressive, who want to live. It's not needed to show religious fanatics and killers. We never had a tradition of suicide bombers; they came from outside Iraq. there was not one single incident. Today it is the aftermath..."

http://uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=8348