Call for international protests against sanctions on Iraq
The following statement was issued by Jalal Mohammed from the Worker Communist Party of Iraq (email <shemal1@ihug.com.au> or <zarya@ihug.com.au>) and John Percy, national secretary of Australia's Democratic Socialist Party (email <intl@dsp.org.au>) on July 10. It is slightly abridged.
The sanctions imposed by United States imperialism on the Iraqi masses will have been in place for 10 years on August 6.
Ten years ago, the dominating political event was the collapse of the eastern bloc, which was portrayed by the capitalist ruling classes as the final collapse of communism and all liberation movements and the aspirations of humanity for freedom.
The United States and its allies had launched a savage attack against the Iraqi masses, started on August 6, by imposing the economic embargo and followed by a disastrous and incredibly destructive war, which is according to all standards the most bloody war in the contemporary era.
The military war has stopped, but the genocide still continues due to the US-enforced sanctions. Since 1990, the Iraqi masses, and in the first place workers and other vulnerable and deprived sections of society, have suffered from terrible starvation, illnesses and other miseries, due to this barbaric policy.
It is claimed that this embargo is to defend the Iraqi masses from Saddam Hussein's regime, but in reality these sanctions, which so far have killed 1.5 million human beings, actually give support to his continued rule.
According to credible documents and official statistics, the embargo has resulted in half of Iraq's population of 22 million living on the poverty line, and the reduction of the average individual Iraqi's income in to US$3 a month. Iraq has become one of the poorest countries in the world, even though it is among the top 10 oil-producing countries.
The United States and the United Kingdom insist that the sanctions not be lifted. They claim that the economic embargo has to remain because the Iraqi dictatorship does not respect human rights, while they support to the hilt the regimes in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, which are the most inhuman, barbaric and dictatorial regimes in the world.
At other times, they claim that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction, or that it can produce such weapons, while all the officials of the United Nations disagree with these claims. Moreover, the US itself is the biggest producer of such weapons. It does not impose economic embargoes on other countries that possess these weapons or have the ability to produce them, like Israel and India.
Capitalist regimes do not comply with the workers' and peoples' needs and desires without strong pressure forcing them to do so. The lifting of the economic embargo on Iraq will not happen through polite appeals to the US government's kindness or by convincing it of the horrible results of its policy.
The US and Britain can be forced to lift the sanctions immediately and unconditionally only through the action and solidarity of the working class, all radical and progressive parties and human rights organisations.
Such solidarity of the workers' and left organisations to lift the embargo on the Iraqi masses will give a boost to the progressive movement worldwide and it will give new hope to the international working class about the importance and effectiveness of international solidarity. It will be a strong blow to the bourgeoisie worldwide and will prove that the workers' struggle and desires for liberation are alive, growing and substantiated by the daily practices of millions of human beings.
We in the Worker Communist Party of Iraq and the Democratic Socialist Party call on you to show solidarity with the just struggle of the Iraqi masses for the immediate lifting of the sanctions marking the 10th anniversary of their imposition by arranging protests and demonstrations on August 3 in front of the consulates and embassies of the US and Britain.
Down with the sanctions! Lift the blockade immediately! Long live international working-class solidarity!
Please notify us by email of any plans you carry out in your country. We'll keep you informed of actions in other countries.
[For more information on the effects of the sanctions, contact the Worker Communist Party of Iraq at <shemal1@ihug.com.au>.]