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International Peace Conference, London, 10 December 2005 Bright sunshine flooded through the tall windows of the Horticultural Hall in Westminster onto a thousand delegates and more as Tony Benn, president of Stop the War Coalition, opened the conference. Here, as never and nowhere else before, anti-war activists from across the globe have come together. Over the next nine hours, speaker follows speaker. In a short report, it is not possible to do justice to all but best to focus of the three groups stood out amongst the rich mix that made up the day. First, the delegates from Iraq. Not all were able to attend: Sheikh Hussein al Zagani, representative of al Sadr, was refused a visa. So much for bringing democracy to Iraq. Nevertheless, Ayatollah Khalisi, Foundation Congress, Sabah Jawad, Iraqi Democrats against Occupation, Hassan Juma’a, president of Southern Oil Workers Union, and others gave a powerful picture of the resistance to the occupation in Iraq, a resistance that, contrary to the image created by our media, is open, public and democratic and opposes the communalist division of Iraq into Sunni, Shia and Kurd and fights for a united, independent Iraq even though nether these facts nor its activities, including its demonstrations, meetings and public protests, are ever publicised by our mainstream media.
Third, Military Families against the War. Rose Gentle is the leading figure. Peter Brierley, who spoke in Bury, spoke here as well. Also Ben Griffin who has left the SAS as a conscientious objector. He compared Iraq to the Wild West, plundered by the multinational, now with more British ‘security staff’ working there than regular troops. He didn’t volunteer for an illegal war just as the Iraqis didn’t volunteer to be occupied or have ‘production-sharing’ agreements with foreign multinationals. Standing by while others commit crimes is unacceptable. Both in the US and the British military there is a crisis of morale with many soldiers resigning rather than return to Iraq and recruitment in the TA and regiments such as the Black Watch now “near zero”. And both in the US and Britain, the military families are a key part of the anti-war movement. The movement is, of course much broader. In parliament, there is support as shown by Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway’s speeches. Other notable speakers were Tariq Ali, Walter Wolfgang, Craig Murray, Dr Tamimi of the Muslim Association of Britain, Bruce Kent, the father of Babar Ahmed, Ismael Patel, from Friends of Al Aqsa, and Dario Fo. Every major trade union in Britain supports Stop the War as was shown by the speeches from Billy Hayes and Paul Mackney who both called for the anti war movement in the unions to be strengthened. Certain arguments came through again and again. Above all that the occupation is part of the problem not part of the solution, it can only destabilise, not stabilise Iraq, and the occupiers cannot bring freedom to Iraq without leaving it. Now our leaders are talking about exit strategies. Privately many admit the war is unwinnable. There is a danger here that the ‘exit strategy’ will mean only a shift from a ground war to an air war so that ‘the US does the killing and the Iraqis do the dying’ as John Rees put it. And on to what is to done. Most important is to continue to strengthen the international unity shown today. In particular to build the demonstrations in Baghdad, Washington, London, and as many other capital cities as possible, on 18 March 2006, calling for foreign troops out. We will keep marching as long as they keep killing. Then there is the task of bringing the war criminals, Bush, Blair, Rice, Straw, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Co. to justice. We have to persevere in taking on the media as it lies about the occupation and the resistance, insists on calling all Iraqis either Sunni or Shia or Kurd, never just Iraqi. And refuses to carry the important stories such as the use of chemical weapons – white phosphorus – in the attack on Fallujah, a story which Socialist Worker ran only after Channel 4 had refused to cover it because it "didn’t have a happy outcome”. And we have to make sure that we sustain what we have already been able achieve. Namely that, despite the invasion and occupation, there is such a resistance and solidarity movement that it is impossible for Bush to continue attacking those on his ‘Axis of Evil’ list. We have to go on making sure that Iran and Syria don’t follow the path of Afghanistan and Iraq. George Galloway was the last speaker. But there was more. Later, in a nearby school, a couple of hundred delegates watched the world première of Peace Mom, a play about Cindy Sheehan written by Nobel Prize winner, Dario Fo, the world’s most performed living playwright. A forty minute monologue, it was performed by Frances de la Tour. Much of the script is taken directly from Cindy Sheehan’s letters to George Bush. As Dario Fo said afterwards, Cindy Sheehan writes and speaks with an epic quality. A most moving performance, it was an appropriately unique and memorable end to an historic day.
Secretary, Manchester Trades Union Council, 103 Princess St, Manchester
M1 6DD, www.manchestertradescouncil.org.uk For more on the conference see www.stopwar.org.uk |
By Geoff Brown, Secretary Manchester Trades Union Council
Second,
the large contingent of leaders of the anti war movement in the
United States. Most memorably Cindy Sheehan, who demanding to see
Bush to ask him the simple question ‘What did my son die for?’,
camped outside his ranch in Texas and in doing so triggered a phenomenal
growth in opposition to the occupation in the US. To the point where
today the majority of Americans, 60%, want the troops brought home
(40% want this to happen immediately) and a majority also want Bush
impeached for taking the US to war on a lie. The AFL-CIO is now
calling for the withdrawal of US troops. Other US speakers included
Kelly Gordon, member of ‘Iraq Veterans against the War’,
hich now has 300 members. She served eight years in the National
Guard including one year in Iraq where she distributed candy to
Iraqi children wondering how many of them had been orphaned by the
thousands of tons of bombs dropped. Most of her time was spent guarding
Halliburton convoys, one of which, following standard procedure,
did not stop when it ran over a ten year old child.