Re: AUT: Information on Iraq was antiwar movement

[Peter van Heusden <pvh@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> >>>> On a practical level, their policy is to shut out foreign workers to
> give jobs for Iraqis; they
> are nationalists through and through. Perhaps an argument can be construed
> that this is sensible when you have 70% unemployment (another figure that
> would seem  inflated), but I am not so sure.
>
> I wonder to know where you find that ? I had, on contrary, be suprised of
> the strong antinationalism they developpe. Note that UUI is Union of
> Unemployed in Iraq, not of Iraqi Unemployed...
>

On the employment question... certainly UUI is fighting for 'jobs', which
means that they will be swayed by their constituency - unemployed Iraqis.
Its the same here in South Africa - very difficult to fight against all
sorts of chauvinisms (including 'jobs for people from our area') when
unemployment is 70% (in some areas - overall unemployment in South Africa
is 30-40% - unemployment in Iraq would be difficult to measure because
unpaid back pay makes employment a more nebulous thing).

On the other hand, besides chauvinism, the other thing about who gets
employed is the use of foreign workers as scabs by the CPA. Like in the
example I read recently, of US engineers being moved into 'rebuild' a
water treatment plant. Seems the previously state-owned company in charge
wasn't acceptable, so it went to a private contractor - who looked over
the plans for some time and eventually ended up implementing the plans
drawn up by the old state-owned company. :) In this case, foreign workers
under the control of the CPA were clearly used against Iraqi workers.

As to Baathism - it seems, from what I've read, that Baathists continue
to work their way into just about everything. This is not surprising,
given the ubiquity of their control in the past, and the compliant
attitude of the CPA towards keeping administrators in place.

Peter
--
Peter van Heusden                     pvh@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Tel: +27 (0)83 256 0457



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