Green Left on UN in demand

[Peter Boyle <peterb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

[This article was written for Green Left Weekly before the
Australian "civil society" statement (previous post) was
seen. However, we have been anticipating a push of that
sorts. It is likely that debate will take place in anti-war
coalitions around the country this week.]

Iraq: troops out now

BY PIP HINMAN

Scenes of exuberant ``liberated'' Iraqis and Kurds have
quickly given way to scenes of concern and anger that the US
``liberators'' are preparing to be occupiers.

Even the Sydney Morning Herald's pro-war correspondent Paul
McGeough has had a slight change of heart. In his April 11
article he reported on several conversations  --  including
with his Iraqi-government-appointed minder  --  that
indicate Iraqis don't want the US to stay. ``What are they
really after? Our oil?'', is the increasingly common
question from the same Iraqis who were overjoyed at the
symbolic toppling of the Baath regime on April 9-10.

The war has reached a turning point, but the impact of this
on the peace movement remains to be seen. It shouldn't be
forgotten that this movement had a mobilising capacity not
seen in previous wars, and a similar unity of purpose. It
united broad layers and involved people who had never before
contemplated becoming activists for peace. It's likely that
some may not see the point in continuing to rally. The Palm
Sunday rallies will be a test of that.

Many people can clearly see that the US plans to occupy Iraq
and impose US-friendly dictators, and they object to this.
They know that the US hawks have their sights on Syria and
Iran next and that the US-led ``war on terrorism'' isn't
likely to be over soon. Some peace groups already have plans
to continue protesting against the occupation, with vigils,
teach-ins and the like to keep up the pressure on the
Australian government to bring the troops home.

While the ``Troops out of Iraq'' demand was central to Palm
Sunday rallies around the country, some in the movement have
raised the prospect of calling on the UN to become the
interim administration as the alternative to the US military
administration.

In New Zealand, the Greens have called for the US to
``hand-over interim responsibility for the restoration of
democracy to the United Nations'' and for it to ``to take
charge of Iraqi reconstruction''.

While this may sound okay in theory, in reality, would it be
used to legitimise, through UN endorsement, the occupation
force of the invading countries? Would it be a re-badged
US-British-Australian force? The French and German
governments are also pushing for a share in the post-Saddam
spoils and this is obviously easier to do using the fig-leaf
of the UN. So would the UN administration be a cover for a
multilateral imperialist looting of Iraq?

All sections of the Iraqi population  --  including the
majority Shiite and minority Sunni  --  are saying they want
to be given the opportunity to govern themselves. This also
applies to the Kurds, who are demanding self-determination
--  a demand we should support.

After 35 years of dictatorship, this is the very least that
our movement should campaign for: invading troops out now
and self-determination and self-rule for the Iraqi Arabs and
the Kurds.

What would be the role of a UN interim administration? On
March 23, the Iraqi Communist Party called for
``UN-supervised elections''. Other groups in Iraq, such as
that led by senior Shiite cleric Sayyed Mohammed Hussein
Fadlallah and the national patriotic movement led by Abdel
Amir ar-Rakabi, welcomed the collapse of the Saddam regime
and have called for resistance to foreign occupation.

Iraqis are not children waiting for some paternalistic power
to give them the right to govern themselves. They may have
had much taken away from them by Saddam Hussein's regime
(with the support of the US), but that hasn't reduced their
ability to run their own country in any way. The Kurdish
national minority has been running part of its own territory
for the last decade and should be allowed now to get on with
the job of re-organising its own system of government. The
US and Western European governments could easily pressure
Turkey out of invading the Kurdish territories.

@subh = UN role by request

Any United Nations role in Iraq should be limited, by
invitation and under the control of the Iraqi people. If, in
the non-Kurdish part of Iraq, the local population request
UN assistance in organising elections for a democratic
government, that is one thing. But there is no need for any
group of foreigners (especially not the world's exploiter
nations) to run the country for them.

Some in the peace movement have argued that any UN role
should be opposed, because, as a tool of the imperialists,
it will always work against the interests of working people.
This is wrong. In the case of the UN intervention force in
East Timor, Western governments, including Australia's, were
forced to act against their own immediate strategic
interests by a growing protest movement demanding that a UN
force help quash the Indonesian military and militia units.

Then the Australian government was nervous about upsetting
relations with the then Habibie government. In response to
calls from the Timorese independence fighters themselves,
the threat of mass protest activity forced the government's
hand. It then took several years for the Coalition
government to repair relations with the Indonesian
government with a combination of security and trade deals.

In the case of Iraq, there is not yet a clear, popular call
by Iraqis for either a US or a UN occupation force to stay
in the country. The US is trying to install its own puppet
government and its top choices were a crook or a former
chief of staff from Saddam's army! No wonder even some
Iraqis who initially welcomed the US troops, are now asking
for the US to leave.

The most democratic step would be to have elections as soon
as possible  --  and preparations for that could be carried
out by temporary civil administrations made up by the Iraqis
themselves. This is a far better option than having the
appointees of the oil billionaires, who run the Bush
administration, running an occupation force to prepare the
way for a puppet regime.

But for all this to happen, the occupying forces have to
leave now.

@subh = War reparations

Until the UN Security Council imposed economic sanctions
some 12 years ago, Iraq's oil wealth allowed it to become a
relatively prosperous country. But Iraq's standard of living
took a dramatic turn for the worse during the punishing
``food-for-oil'' program in which basic necessities were
denied, ostensibly to prevent the construction of weapons of
mass destruction. The aggressor countries should be made to
take responsibility for the mess that they've created. A
massive war-reparations program should be started now. It
should not, as World Bank head James Wolfensohn argues, be
done via loans through the UN.

Wolfensohn's comments in the Australian Financial Review on
April 11 reveal what's really behind his push for a ``UN
transition administration''. The World Bank, like other
corporate-lending agencies, wants to ensure that, before any
loans are approved, the repayment schedule is secure. ``From
a practical point of view it is important. We have to lend
to somebody who is willing to repay'', Wolfensohn said.

In short, the peace movement has a responsibility to carry
on with its campaign to force the US-led troops to leave,
and to demand that the West, particularly the ``Coalition of
the Killing'', provides war reparations  --  without strings
attached. This is the best way of offering the oppressed
Iraqi peoples the solidarity they urgently need to get their
lives back together. Any call for UN intervention must be
judged on its merits and can only be supported by the
anti-war movement if it can be demonstrated to be supported
by the peoples of Iraq.

[Pip Hinman is a member of the national executive of the
Democratic Socialist Party.]