[Marxism] "Resistance to Occupation Will Grow": Iraqi exile in Guardian

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is an interesting assessment from an Iraqi exile, from the Dec.
15 Guardian, which I have picked up from GI Special.  It is a reminder
that there is more to the Iraqi people's opposition to occupation and
denial of sovereignty than just the armed resistance. There are also a
growing number of specific conflicts around elections, impositions of
officials, trade union rights, and other matters. A degree of
democratic rights are being taken, not given by the occupiers.

I am sure that many Iraqis are overjoyed to see Saddam in custody,
but, in my opinion, his capture by the imperialist occupiers
represents no gain for the Iraqi nation. His trial by an international
imperialist court in the Hague or  in Iraq under conditions of
occupation and US control will advance US interests, not those of the
Iraqi people.  The US rulers have no right to capture him, hold him,
interrogate him, and so on.  No trial of Saddam will be legitimate
except one by the people, free of imperialist occupation, whom he
oppressed fundamentally in the interests of imperialism.

This is also my view of the current trial of Slobodan Milosevic in the
Hague, in which there are also important violations of basic human
rights taking place including his continued detention and the use of
frame-up methods in the trial, and it remains my view of the
post-World War II Nuremberg trials.  We have nothing to gain from
imperialist victor's justice.  The world's worst criminals are
preparing a show trial of one of their hit men.

And Saddam's greatest crime -- and I know there are many big ones --
was his complicity in the destruction of the sovereignty and
independence of the Iraqi nation. His nonstop retreat may  have
reflected the cowardice of a cringing bully,  but above all it
expressed justified fear that organizing effective resistance to the
conquest of Iraq would have led to the destruction of his criminal
regime.
Fred Feldman


Insurrection In Hilla

?Resistance To Occupation Will Grow?



The Guardian: By Sami Ramadani December 15, 2003



(Sami Ramadani was a political refugee from Saddam's regime and is a
senior lecturer in sociology at London Metropolitan University)



The joy was deep, but the pain, too, was overwhelming as I remembered
relatives and friends who lost their lives opposing Saddam's tyranny
or in his wars.



I remember my disappeared and dearest school friend, Hazim, whom I
hugged goodbye in 1969 at the canteen of the college of medicine in
Baghdad.  I never saw him again. Although only 15, Hazim had the
courage to distribute anti-Ba'athist leaflets at our school in Baghdad
within months of the 1963 CIA-backed coup that brought the Ba'athists
to power. I remember, too, my dear friend Ghassan, who died in a
hospital in Canada after many years in exile. He didn't live to see
the moment he had waited so long for.



What will the Americans do with their captive? Is Saddam going to face
a trial? Will the truth of his mass murders and crimes come out? Will
the trial shed light on how the US backed him and supplied him with
chemical weapons? Will it reveal how the US encouraged him to launch
the war on Iran, causing the death of a million Iranians and Iraqis?
Will the trial go into the alliances with and support for Saddam by so
many of members and parties now in the US-appointed Iraqi Governing
Council? The dark clouds over Iraq haven't lifted yet.



Thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by the US-led unjust and
immoral war, and the death toll continues to rise as innocent people
are being killed in US military raids, bombardments and Sharon-style
collective punishment, and harmed by the depleted uranium shells used
by the US-led forces. So at this moment of joy, other questions keep
intruding: Who is going to try Bremer, Bush, Rumsfeld and Blair? Will
Iraq ever be free?



One thing I do know: Saddam was not leading the resistance from his
dirty little hole.  This was acknowledged yesterday by an unlikely
source - Sherif bin Ali, a relative of the last Iraqi king, Faisal II,
and a strong supporter of the US-led invasion. "The truth must be
spelt out," he said, "Saddam has nothing to do with the resistance.
His cowardly surrender confirms what we have known all along... It is
time to negotiate with the resistance. It is time to call on the
resistance to declare a truce."



It has suited the US to blame Saddam for the resistance to the
occupation and to use him as a pretext for the continued occupation.
But Bin Ali is merely confirming what the CIA and US Congress sources
have recently confirmed: that there are no less than 15 organisations
involved in the resistance, which enjoys widespread support.   A
recent CIA report admitted that, "there are thousands in the
resistance - not just a core of Ba'athists", and concluded that "the
resistance is broad, strong and getting stronger".



Saddam's surrender is likely to embolden the political forces in Iraq
which, until now, feared that a call for the immediate end to the
occupation might help Saddam return to power.



The largely peaceful resistance in Baghdad and the so-called Shia
areas of Iraq will also attract greater attention.  In the past two
weeks, trade union leaders in Baghdad and the south have been
arrested.  The occupation authorities shamelessly used Saddam's 1987
law barring trade union activity within state institutions.  But such
opposition will be difficult to suppress.



This week in Hilla, a so-called Shia city, a militant but peaceful
mass insurrection succeeded in deposing Iskander Jawad Witwit, the
US-appointed governor. The thousands who besieged the governor's
office called for free elections to replace him.



Now that Saddam is no longer a bogeyman to scare the people with,
trade union and other mass opposition is likely to increase,
complementing and coalescing with the armed opposition.



One demand is now uniting nearly all Iraqis, from armed resisters to
trade unionists to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.  Elections!  And it is
the one demand to which the US has refused to agree, because it has
accurately assessed the likely result.  That is also why it swiftly
moved to stop elections of city mayors and why, a few weeks ago, it
sacked the elected dean of Baghdad university after his outspoken
criticisms of the occupation authorities.



Saddam's ignominious end is likely to weaken US-led efforts to divide
the Iraqis along sectarian and national lines. In memory of all those
who died resisting Saddam's tyranny, the peaceful and armed resistance
is likely to intensify and attract greater support across the world,
including that of the American people.


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