The Iraqi election shows how bourgeois democracy is intended to deny workers the ability to obtain power... Democracy and colonialism, Iraqi-style
WORKERS, MAY 2005 ISSUE
The final outcome of the much-heralded Iraqi elections bears some resemblance to Michael Howard's election statement — "vote Blair, get Brown". But in the case of Iraq, it was "vote for an end to the foreign occupation of your nation and get a President who does not even believe in the existence of Iraq".
A clear majority of Iraqis who voted, did so for alliances that said they wanted a timetable for early withdrawal of US-led troops, and of course those who boycotted the election mainly supported the resistance to the occupiers. But because of the way the electoral system was skewed to favour US puppets, Iraqis now have the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan as president. Two years ago his private army marched with US troops facilitating the invasion, and in return he wants an independent Kurdistan allied to the US, with the oil wealth of Kirkuk added, once they've finished their ethnic cleansing of non Kurds from the city.
Puppets
So the election has replaced one puppet who worked for both MI6 and the CIA by another who seeks the destruction of Iraq. This result is supposed to be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, but it just proves that bourgeois democracy is intended to deny workers the ability to obtain power. We know this from our own experience in Britain.
But if that result isn't cynical enough, just look at the way Blair has tried to neutralise opposition to the war in Britain in the run up to the general election. In order to head off a trade union challenge calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq, Blair has played a blinder. "Why don't you listen to the Iraqi unions and communists," he declared. Instead of responding to Blair, "Why don't you listen to British trade unions and communists", some fell hook, line and sinker for Blair's three-card trick. Labour MP Ann Clwyd, (who, funded by millions of US government dollars under its Iraq Liberation Act, had worked with another CIA/MI6 Iraqi stooge, Ahmad Chalabi, to lay the ground for the invasion of Iraq), introduced to a Labour conference some Iraqi "trade unionists" who wanted British trade unions to help them rather than attack the Labour Party, despite objections from some established Iraqi trade unions.
This was enough for many trade union delegates to the conference to ignore their agreed policy of an end to the occupation and instead declare, as a much easier option, their solidarity with a group of "trade unionists" (IFTU). These had been presented to the conference of the ruling party of one of the main occupying powers, and whose leaders were exiles and members of the political parties incorporated into both the first and second US-controlled governing bodies in Iraq. They were delivered by Blair's personal representative in Iraq with links to the US, and Iraqis linked to the intelligence services.
This has been accompanied by a deliberate change of language by the self-styled Labour Friends of Iraq, who describe those Iraqis resisting the occupation as "fascists, baathists and jihadists".
If we assume that Blair would do nothing in relation to Iraq without the permission of Bush, we have to ask ourselves why Blair would praise the Iraqi Communist Party (which participated in the US-controlled governing bodies that were anti-union and froze the assets of unions), and why the British government has just given £250,000 to the British TUC to train IFTU stewards in those well-known bastions of trade unionism Kuwait and Jordan as well as Iraqi Kurdistan. The driving force for this would appear to be Unison, which should have known better — but it gets Blair off the hook in the run up to the general election.
Political organisations, especially Iraqi ones, that set up in exile in London for many years are at the very least under constant surveillance by British intelligence and at worst are penetrated by them. It means that we just don't know who is who.
But all this is simply a repeat of history. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the British TUC recreated a German trade union movement to ensure it was free of communist influence. This result of the Cold War set in stone an institutionalised anti-communism within international trade unionism. Today the ICFTU carries out US government policy in attacks on Cuban unions in the International Labour Organisation. The AFL/CIO union centre in the US, which is the main influence in the ICFTU, has been meddling with Venezuelan yellow unions that supported the US-inspired coup attempt against the elected President Chavez.
Then there were the South African unions that grew out of the struggle against apartheid. A national trade union officer who in the 1990s worked closely with South African unions, many of whose leaders were communists, has told Workers that he was under constant pressure to persuade the union leaders to cooperate with ICFTU or Public Services International — even though the South Africans believed that the representatives of these organisations were linked to the intelligence services or politically dubious. His worst fears were confirmed when he returned from a visit to Johannesburg to face a blatant, but of course unsuccessful, attempt by a senior officer in the TUC to recruit him to the intelligence services to spy on South African trade unions.
Colonialism has many aspects. But trying to recreate the culture of the occupying power is always a strong element. It would appear that the US intends to create in Iraq at least two vassal states, both with an ultra neo liberal economy and hosting US bases. That requires a compliant trade union movement or none at all, but certainly not a trade union movement committed to national sovereignty and independence. Not a lot different from the EU Constitution then.