Basra Assault Threatens Trade Unionists (NAFTANA / MR)

[struggle4progress]

In a series of telephone calls from Basra over the past 48 hours, Iraqi trade union activists appeal for solidarity and describe how the so-called 'Security Plan' started midnight 24 March with intense shelling and fire from all kind of weapons ...

Naftana, the UK support committee for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions in the struggle for democratic trade unionism in Iraq, condemns British collusion in the preparation of the assault on Basra city and British participation in air strikes. Naftana urges all to join in calling for an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Iraq, ending the US-led occupation, and for the payment of reparations to Iraq ...

... Various reports reveal that the present carnage was coordinated and agreed with British and American leaders. Naftana believes they commanded it.

Why? The tide of national public opinion has turned against long-term troop deployment in both the UK and the USA. If the war was fought for oil and total domination of Iraq, then those most closely associated to those interests must speed up their plans. The present onslaught aims to break popular resistance, especially from the Sadrist movement, to the passage of the oil law and to the occupation itself ...

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/basra280308.html