Iraq
Content about workers' struggles, war and events in Iraq.
Iraqi oil union bank account frozen
The Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers' union, both abroad and within Iraq.
The Iraqi regime’s decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers’ union, freezing the writers’ union accounts and the September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal.
Class war in the Middle East
Capitalism and Islam are twin parasites in the ‘Arab states’ – but workers are fighting back hard reports John Shute
The Gulf city-state of Dubai is, according to recent estimates, the fastest-growing city on earth, and is, after Shanghai, certainly the world’s biggest building site.
Basra oil workers strike
Workers at the Oil Transportation Company in Basra were on strike this week.
A translation of a statement released by the General Union of Oil Employees in Basra regarding strike action by workers at the Oil Transportation Company. More news and updates will follow shortly.
A one day strike took place on the 21/2/2006 organised by union members in the Oil Transport Company in Basra. The strike took place for the following reasons:
Nipped in the bud - Iraq's new intellectual property laws
Iraq's revised intellectual property laws have stifled any chance of escaping US control, reports Rob Ray.
The trademark and patent offices in Baghdad reopened soon after the invasion on 19th September 2003. Since then they have been working primarily with Iraq's original pre-invasion system, but some major changes have been introduced as part of the occupation's time as the Coalition Provisional Authority.
The corporate plunder of Iraq
The looting of billions of dollars of Iraq’s oil wealth is unprecedented in the history of corporate crime, writes criminologist Dave Whyte.
The neo-liberal transformation of Iraq is portrayed as a humanitarian venture. Western corporations and occupying governments now talk of the liberation of Iraq from the “tyranny of Saddam’s planned economy”.
1991: About Class Struggle in Iraq - ICG
We have published several articles describing the insurrections of March 1991 in Iraq, which were written as and when information was able to reach us. Shortly after the end of the Gulf War, we also published in French the text "Proletariat contre nationalisme" (Communisme No.36) in which, from a distance of just over a year, we tried to draw the lessons from these struggles.
1990-1991: A Comrade's Testimony: A Journey to Iraq (includes leaflets from Kurdish areas)
From Communism #7
On August 1st 1991 there was a loud bang during the night in Tehran and we heard that a food storage warehouse had been blown up in protest at delays in distribution of welfare food allowances. People had been waiting two months for their social security food supplies. Apparently, nighttime explosions are quite common, public buses being the most frequent targets.
1988: Massacre in Halabja - ICG
From Communism #6
1990-1991: The Kurdistan Shoras Resistance - AF
Short article with patchy information about the movements of Shoras - workers' councils - in Kurdistan, 1990-91, after the first Gulf War
[500 words]
1991: Ten Days that shook Iraq - inside information from an uprising, by Wildcat (UK)
An account of the uprisings in Southern Iraq and Kurdistan in 1990-91 which involved large numbers of mutinous troops who had deserted during the Kuwait Gulf War. The uprisings were crushed by Saddam, with the complicity of US and Allied forces
