Interview conducted by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! July 6, 2007
- As the Iraqi cabinet approves part of a controversial oil law, we speak with Faleh Abood Umara, the general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions and a founding member of the oil workers union in Iraq. He calls on Iraqi lawmakers to reject the legislation. We also speak with Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union and the first woman to head a national union in Iraq.
Amy Goodman: In Iraq, opposition is growing among some Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions to a controversial oil law backed by Washington. Draft legislation on the distribution of oil wealth in Iraq was approved by the Iraqi cabinet last Tuesday and could go to parliament for review as early as this week. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called the bill "the most important law in Iraq."
US lawmakers have demanded Iraq advance the measure before Congress approves additional war funding, but critics say the law would leave Iraq's oil open to foreign takeover. A parliamentary boycott by Sunni and Shia factions is expected to slow the bill's passage.
In addition, six Nobel Peace Prize laureates have released a statement in opposition to the legislation. The laureates include Betty Williams, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchu, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Wangari Maathai. The statement read, in part, "The Iraqi oil law could benefit foreign oil companies at the expense of the Iraqi people, deny the Iraqi people economic security, create greater instability and move the country further away from peace."
Last month, the Iraqi oil workers union went on a strike to protest the law. Two leading union members recently traveled to the United States to meet with members of Congress and attend last week's US Social Forum in Atlanta. Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein is president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union, the first woman to head a national union in Iraq. Faleh Abood Umara is the general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions and a founding member of the oil workers union in Iraq. In 1998 he was detained by Saddam Hussein's regime for his activities on behalf of his coworkers. Well, they recently came to New York and joined us in our firehouse studio. I began by asking Faleh Abood Umara to describe the current situation for oil workers in Iraq and why he's protesting this proposed oil law.
Faleh Abood Umara: [translated] With regards to the situation of the Iraqi oil workers, they're persevering in their work and preserving the Iraqi oil wells. The reason we went on strike was to make twenty-seven demands, which we submitted to the Iraqi prime minister. He agreed to them, but the minister of oil did not implement the demands that led to the strike.
The most important point or one of the most important points is our demand not to rush through the new Iraqi oil law, because we believe that this oil law does not serve the interests of the Iraqi people. So we ask our friends in the United States, as well, to stand in solidarity with us and publicize the ill effects of this law, so that it never is agreed upon in the parliament.
Goodman: Explain the law.
Umara: [translated] According to Article 111 of the Iraqi Constitution, which states that the oil and gas of Iraq are owned by the Iraqi people and they have the right to control it. But when you look into the details of the law, many of the articles of the law actually conflict with this preamble of the law, the most important point of which is the issue of the production-sharing agreements, which allows the international oil companies, especially the American ones, to exploit the oil fields without our knowledge of what they are actually doing with it. And they take about 50% of the production as their share, which we think it's an obvious robbery of the Iraqi oil.
We also object to the procedure by which these companies are given the contracts for exploiting the oil, because it allows the granting of the contracts with the aid of foreign advisers. We demanded that it's actually the Iraqi experts that need to be consulted with regards to the granting of the contracts.
In brief, there is hardly an article in the law that actually benefits the Iraqi people. But they all serve American interests in Iraq. And we know well that the law was actually written here in the United States, with the help of James Baker and Ms. Rice and the experts from the IMF. And it serves the interests of the American government and not the Iraqi people.
We're still negotiating with the Iraqi parliament and the Iraqi government, and we succeeded in halting the discussion of the law in the parliament until next October. And we hope that we will manage to modify some of the articles of the law. As regards to the strike, we actually declared victory last week.
Goodman: We're also joined by Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, who is the first woman to head a large union in Iraq. It's the electrical workers union. Can you talk about why you're here and why you protested at [BearingPoint] Cross, at this military contractor?
Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein: [translated] She thanks you for this opportunity to talk. We were invited by the US Labor Against the War to talk directly to the American people about the problems that we're suffering under the occupation and ask for the support to pressure the American administration to pull out the armed forces out of Iraq.
As regards to the demonstration, it's an account of our certainty that this company was consulted in the formulation of the Iraqi oil law. There was a technocratic committee that was convened in Iraq, headed by Mr. Barham Salih, the vice president, and this committee consulted many foreign firms, and BearingPoint is one of those companies. That's why we demonstrated against this company and to ask this company and others to stop interfering with Iraqi affairs, because it's companies like these, plus the IMF, who are the ones who are pressuring the Iraqi government to pass this law.
Goodman: Can you talk about how you came to be head of the electrical workers union as a woman?
Hussein: [translated] After the fall of the regime in 2003, union committees were formed in September of 2003. I was elected as head of one of these committees, and I was elected as president of the union in 2004, during the founding conference. My term was two years. So after the interim two years, I was elected -- my term was renewed again after that.
Goodman: Does it make you a target to be a union leader in Iraq now?
Hussein: [translated] In the beginning, because our work actually interfered with the interests of some groups in Iraq, we were threatened. But now work is easier.
Goodman: Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union, the first woman to head a national union in Iraq, and Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions, speaking -- he's from Iraq, speaking to us recently in our firehouse studio. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. We'll return to the rest of that conversation. Stay with us.
break
Goodman: Amer Tawfiq, from the soundtrack of the film About Baghdad, co-directed by Sinan Antoon, an Iraqi poet, novelist and filmmaker who will be joining us in our firehouse studio in a few minutes, after we finish the conversation with the two leading Iraqi union members. They were in the United States recently to meet with members of Congress. Faleh Abood Umara is the general secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions, founding member of the Oil Workers Union in Iraq. And Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein is the president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union. She's the first woman to head a national union in Iraq.
I asked her to talk about what the US occupation means in Iraq and to describe the situation in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.
Hussein: [translated] It's more stable than other places in -- like in Baghdad, because they handed the security over to Iraqi forces security and the British forces were redeployed to the outskirts of the city. But the situation in Iraq, in general, and Basra, just like any other part of Iraq, suffers from the situation. It's not very good, especially economically. We have about 65% unemployment rate, and nine million Iraqis live in poverty. The services are really bad, especially electricity. So for every hour of electrical current, we have six hours of black out, and sometimes they skip the actual hour of electrical current. And this is really an adverse situation, because it's really hot and humid in the south.
Goodman: And how did that compare under Saddam Hussein?
Hussein: [translated] The electrical situation was better under Saddam. At least during the night you would have a constant electrical current. And this situation is such, because of the sabotage and exploding the power stations in the center of Iraq.
Goodman: How has life changed for women in Iraq, in Basra, where you are?
Hussein: [translated] As a part of the Iraqi society, they suffer like everybody else, but also there were laws that were issued under the occupation that specifically targeted women, especially Law No. 137, which canceled the old civil law and delegated all issues that have to do with civil law to the local communities and religious communities, religious authorities. We took this very seriously and went out in demonstrations until the new law was canceled, but it was reintroduced through the new constitution, and we now demand the cancellation of this article.
As far as women's rights are concerned, women are not completely suppressed. As you can see, I am right here in front of you. And we have 25% of the parliament members who are women, and we seek, we hope that it will soon become 40%. And this is a result of our struggle and determination that women in Iraq will have their rightful place.
Goodman: Faleh Abood Umara, your thoughts on the occupation? Do you think US troops would leave immediately? And what would that mean for Iraq?
Umara: [translated] We consider that the occupation is vile to us. The main problem of Iraq is the occupation. I don't think there would be extraordinary troubles when or if the occupation forces leave. And even assuming such an occurrence, we can eventually solve our problems ourselves. Our main problem is the occupation.
Goodman: Finally, Faleh Abood Umara, why did you have trouble coming into this country? And are you afraid of returning back to Iraq?
Umara: [translated] I cannot be afraid of my own country. I love my country, and I'm prepared to lay my life for it.
I think that the technical problem I had had to do with a conversation I had with an American ambassador, because he accused me of not being diplomatic because I used the term "occupation forces," instead of the "multinational forces" or "friendly forces." So I discovered just before leaving that there was a problem with the termination date on the visa, so I was returned from the airplane, basically, in Amman, and I had to stay three more days in Amman before joining Hashmeya. And thanks to interference and pressure from friendly members of the Congress, who interfered and talked to the embassy over there in Amman, they expedited the correction of the date on the visa so that I could arrive here and give my message to the American people.
Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!
Federation of Oil Unions in Iraq From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Founded in October of 2005 from unions that had begun organizing after the invasion, the Federation of Oil Unions of Iraq is the largest independent union consortium in Iraq, with tens of thousands of members. It fully opposes the occupation.
First organized in the Southern Oil Company Union in May of 2003, Iraq's oil workers began organizing what became the General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE). They have pushed to keep Iraq's resources in the hands of Iraqis, while the union remained independent of any political parties and influences from the foreign occupation. It has not affiliated to either of the two major union federations of Iraq: the Iraqi Communist Party-connected Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions or the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq-influenced Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq, but it has worked with both groupings.
As SOCU, the oil workers engaged in direct action to expel Baathist managers from oil facilities, occupation forces began moving in to attempt to take over administration of the industry. Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) led this, and was also militantly removed by the SOCU workers, along with subcontracted laborers. With threats to strike, the union was able to gain wage increases over what the USA-led occupation was willing to pay. KBR eventually took over much of the administration of the oil industry, although resistance in the form of strikes in June and August of that year, and blockades, continued. In cases where occupation forces threatened force, the SOCU workers warned that they would be met with armed resistance.
In June 0f 2004, the GUOE was formed from the workers of the major oil companies: Southern Oil Company, Southern Gas Company, Southern Refinery Company, Iraqi Drilling Company, the Oil Carrier Company, the Gas Packing Company, the Oil Production Company, the Oil Projects Company, and the Oil Pipe Lines Company. In May 2005, the GUOE organized a large conference against privatization with hundreds of unionists and representatives of other international groups. More strikes came in July and August, usually with outcomes favorable to the workers. In October, union president Hassan Jumaa Awad led the group to change its name to the Federation of Oil Unions of Iraq. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Oil_Unions_in_Iraq
Iraq Sunni party severs US ties 26 October 2008 ( Aljazeera )
Sunni Arab party has suspended dealings with American military personnel.
Iraq's biggest Sunni Arab political party has suspended dealings with American military personnel and civilians following a raid by US-backed Iraqi forces near Fallujah in which one man was killed.
The Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), headed by Tareq al-Hashemi, the Iraqi vice-president, said on Saturday that there had been a "hidden political motive" in the killing.
US forces said that one man, who they alleged was an anti-government fighter, had been arrested and that one person had been killed in the joint US-Iraqi raid, carried out on Friday.
But the IIP said in a statement that five people had been detained and one killed "in his bed", and that the targets of the raid were senior party officials.
The IIP said it would suspend all communication with US personnel until it got "a convincing explanation of what happened, accompanied by an official apology".
It also demanded assurance those responsible would be punished, compensation for the victims and the release of the five detainees.
Supporters of the IIP demonstrated against the raid on Saturday.
Security threat
The incident has inflamed tensions in Anbar province, where Fullaja is located, ahead of provincial elections scheduled for the end of January.
Following the US invasion of Iraq, Anbar province had been the scene of major battles between US forces and Sunni fighters until 2006, when Sunni tribal leaders agreed to join forces with the US against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The move established the so-called Awakening Councils, which later spread to other Sunni areas.
The councils are seen as a successful US move in Iraq and have been one of the main reasons for recent security gains.
But the IIP has been locked in a bitter rivalry with the Sunni tribal leaders who joined forces with the US and that has raised concerns that the political tensions could spark violence and disrupt the Awakening Councils.
American forces handed over security responsibility for the province to the Iraqis on September 1, but they retain a presence in Anbar, which stretches west from Baghdad to the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
fp .. At the heart of the dispute is the city of Kirkuk, home to 900,000 Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, which sits on one of the country's biggest oil fields. It lies outside the northern zone run by the Kurdistan Regional Government, but is in practice run by Kurdish peshmerga fighters and a Kurdish intelligence service, the Asaysh, which works closely with US intelligence.
Arabs and Turkmen residents, who represent 40% of Kirkuk's population, claim they live in fear, particularly of the Asaysh.
By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: June 20, 2009
BAGHDAD — A suicide truck bomb exploded in a volatile region of northern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 68 people and wounding nearly 200 more, even as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki pledged that attacks like it would not stop or slow the withdrawal of American troops.
The deadly blast in Taza, in northern Iraq, left a huge crater.
Also on Saturday, the British government said the bodies of two men, believed to be among five Britons kidnapped by Shiite militants in 2007, had been turned over to British authorities in Baghdad.
The truck bombing, the worst single attack this year in Iraq, occurred shortly after noon prayers in a residential neighborhood near a mosque in Taza, a town south of Kirkuk, the capital of an oil-rich region that lies on the tense ethnic fault line between Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds, according to officials and witnesses.
The force of the blast gouged a crater in the ground and badly damaged dozens of homes, burying victims in the rubble, people and officials at the scene said, expressing fear that the death toll would rise even more.
The area is populated largely by the Turkmen, the third largest ethnic group in Iraq after Arabs and Kurds, who have their own territorial claims in the region.
The bombing took place only hours after Mr. Maliki spoke before a daylong conference of Turkmen political leaders at the Babel Hotel in Baghdad to discuss territorial disputes in Kirkuk and other issues ahead of national elections scheduled for January.
Mr. Maliki called for unity among Iraq’s ethnic groups and warned that “those who move in the dark” wanted “to affect the upcoming elections on the behalf of malicious motives and destructive goals.”
As he has in recent weeks, he also championed a June 30 deadline for the withdrawal of most American combat forces from Iraq’s cities — though he referred only broadly to “foreign forces” on Saturday, as he has been wont to do lately — and called the date both a day of “national unity” and “national challenge.”
He vowed that the latest attacks would not force Iraq to reconsider the deadline for American withdrawals, negotiated under the security agreement that took effect this year and affirmed by President Obama when he visited Iraq briefly in April, even if attacks continued.
“Even those who were talking about getting the occupiers, start to call for keeping foreign troops,” he said, without specifying whom, “but we are saying to them that those forces cannot stay.”
He urged Iraqis not to “be upset if a violation happens here or there” and pledged that the government would maintain security. “We will not retreat,” he said.
In London, the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said officials were trying to identify the bodies, which were handed over to British officials late Friday.
Five British citizens were captured in May 2007, including a computer consultant, Peter Moore, who was working in Iraq’s Finance Ministry, and four bodyguards. There was no word on the fate of the other three kidnapped men.
Mr. Miliband said that the remains had not been formally identified, but that the families of the hostages “fear the worst.” His reference to their “remains” suggests that the men might have died some time ago.
The announcement comes on the heels of the release by the American military earlier this month of a high-profile Shiite militant affiliated with the group believed to be responsible for the kid- napping. The release was part of a broad effort to persuade Shiite militant groups to put down their arms and join the political process and many hoped it would spur the release of the hostages.
Two Shiite leaders said the release was part of a deal that could lead to the release of the Britons. The United States did not confirm any link between the release of the militant and the hostages.
The group, Asa’ib al-Haq, spun off from the movement linked to the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr after he embraced a cease-fire. It is believed to have strong ties to the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to the American military.
Although violence has declined significantly since the worst of Iraq’s sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007, attacks continue almost daily against Iraqi and American forces, while an intermittent pattern of major attacks continue to wreak havoc, often aimed at civilians in markets, mosques and other public places.
On June 10, a car bomb killed at least 28 people at a market in Al Batha, near Nasiriya in largely Shiite southern Iraq. On May 20, a car bomb struck a popular takeout restaurant in a Shiite neighborhood in western Baghdad.
Many of the attacks appear intended to stoke sectarian tensions, and all have raised concerns — and increasingly anger — that Iraq’s security forces are not prepared to provide more security as American support steadily diminishes.
In Taza, Jenkiz Burhan, a taxi driver, said he lost his wife, his mother and his father in Saturday’s blast. “I blame the Iraqi government and the multinational forces,” he said.
Mustafa Abdullah Zain al-Abedeen, 28, a farmer, said he had returned home for lunch near the site of the bombing when the windows shattered and part of the ceiling collapsed.
“Then I got out of the house to find my neighbors’ house had been damaged,” he said in a hospital in Kirkuk, where many of the wounded were taken. “Smoke, fire and dust were everywhere. It was the first time in my life I saw such a scene.”
A police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, estimated that the truck carried two tons of explosives, which accounted for the extent of the damage. All of the victims appeared to be civilians.
“Our neighborhood is full of blood and bodies,” said Fatma Abdul Hussein, a resident. “Why? We do not want anything except to live in a secure and stable town.”
Alissa J. Rubin and Abeer Mohammed contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Taza and Kirkuk, Iraq.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
