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NEWS & LETTERS, April-May 2006New anti-war group to promote solidarity with struggles in IraqNew York--A new anti-war group, the National Organization for the Iraqi Freedom Struggles, is in the process of being launched. The group opposes the Iraq war on the basis of international people-to-people solidarity with the freedom movements in Iraq. Unlike those tendencies in the U.S. anti-war movement which are silent about the Iraqi civil movements or make abstract pronouncements about the “right to resist” the occupation, this organization makes distinctions among those doing the resisting. Its founding statement demonstrates that it is possible to take an antiwar position that unconditionally opposes the actions of imperialist war and occupation, while not tacitly supporting reactionary forces within Iraq. Here is its founding statement: The National Organization for the Iraqi Freedom Struggles (NO-IFS) is a coalition of individuals who have come together to oppose the U.S. war against Iraq by supporting the secular, democratic, and progressive movements in Iraq that are struggling for freedom against the occupation and against the Ba’athists and the political Islamists of all stripes, who aim to impose a theocratic state on the Iraqi people. We intend to be an organized presence within the American anti-war movement on the basis of the following principles: (1) We recognize the brutality under which the people of Iraq live, due to a recent history that includes dictatorship, wars, economic sanctions, and especially the current occupation by foreign troops, accompanied by indiscriminate killing and systematic torture. The presence of these troops has helped to promote indigenous reactionary forces that often target women, trade unionists, and innocent civilians. The Iraqi people cannot be free as long as foreign armies occupy their land. We therefore demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops and military bases from Iraq, and an end to the U.S.-created “democratic process” that is part of the occupation. We also deem it necessary to stop the “next war” before it happens. To this end, we will help educate Americans as to the causes of continual U.S. intervention overseas. (2) We recognize the overwhelming, steadily growing opposition of Iraqis to the occupation, but also the sharp divisions within the opposition. Accordingly, we do not support “the resistance” as such. In particular, we oppose all forms of outright or tacit support for the political Islamist and Ba’athist forces that overwhelmingly make up the armed insurgency. We reject all suggestions that non-Western peoples are somehow less entitled than we are to freedom from oppression by foreign and indigenous reactionary forces. (3) We support the secular, democratic, and progressive freedom struggles in Iraq--the Iraqi women, workers, and youth who have created their own organizations within Iraq, who oppose both the occupation and the terrorist reaction, and who fight for the rights of women, workers, national minorities, and GLBT people. For instance, we support the efforts of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq to prevent the imposition of Sharia law and to maintain women’s shelters; the struggle led by the Basra Oil and Gas Workers Union, in defiance of threats and assassinations, against the privatization of the industry; the demand for secular government put forward by the Iraqi Freedom Congress, a new coalition of several civil groups; and the IFC’s efforts to build a non-sectarian, multi-ethnic society based on neighborhood assemblies in communities of Baghdad and Kirkuk. These struggles and their accompanying ideas are the latest instance of a long and rich history of indigenous Iraqi mass movements for self-emancipation--much of it secular, feminist, and multiethnic--that existed prior to the Ba’athist dictatorship. Although these groups are at present relatively small and weak, this is no reason to neglect them. On the contrary, it is a reason to make our support of them an urgent priority. (4) We advocate that the anti-war movement as a whole adopt this approach to ending the war and occupation--active support for the secular, democratic, and progressive freedom struggles against both the U.S. occupation and the indigenous reactionary forces. This type of solidarity is a central way to build and sustain our movements here. It is by evincing an unyielding, principled commitment to human freedom and to people struggling for freedom--not by explicitly or tacitly supporting a supposedly “lesser evil” -- that the antiwar movement and other movements will be able to grow. NO-IFS is asking people to lend their names to support the statement and help build the organization. You can find information on how to support the founding statement on its website, www.no-ifs.org; or write to NO-IFS, P.O. Box 5, Planetarium Station, New York, NY 10024-0005, or email mail@no-ifs.org. * * * Against Iraq occupation [caption for pictures from demonstrations in Chicago and San Francisco] Demonstrations around the world protested the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq which entered its fourth year on March 20. |
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