US blockade aids Iraqi regime
FARIS MAHMOOD, a member of the politburo of the Workers Communist Party of Iraq (WCPI) is in Australia until early next year. He spoke to Green Left Weekly's PAUL BENEDEK.
In Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan (in the north), the national liberation struggle has forced open some democratic space, enabling the WCPI to organise openly. In southern Iraq, however, gangsterism reigns supreme, and the WCPI is forced to work underground.
A massive network of secret police organisations, headed by the son of Saddam Hussein, involves 3 million of the 118 million people in Iraq.
The United States-led economic blockade has compounded the problems faced by the people. "The embargo and the regime [Saddam Hussein's Baath Party] work together to devastate the Iraqi people", Mahmood said. "The embargo has served not only to kill tens of thousands of people and push many more into poverty, but also to reduce the expectations of the Iraqi people."
The regime uses the blockade to weaken opposition to its anti-people policies. While the blockade prevents Iraq from importing basic medicines, it enables the regime, which never provided enough medicines to the people, even before the blockade, to argue that hospitals must fund themselves.
The blockade has also made labour highly exploitable. "There are no unions allowed, except 'yellow' unions which are used by the regime to spy on workers", Mahmood said. Such severe repression makes organisation very difficult, and resistance usually comes in the form of spontaneous, uncoordinated action.
Still, the WCPI has been able to lead demonstrations of tens of thousands, particularly around demands for laws to end the atrocities commonly inflicted on women. Other large protests have occurred on May Day and International Women's Day.
The Worker Communist tendency (including the Worker Communist parties of Iraq and Iran) is organised in 14 countries outside Iran and Iraq. It builds solidarity with the struggles in those countries and makes links with other struggles around the world. The WCPI can be contacted in Sydney at (02) 9890 8362.