First of May 2004:
NO WAR BETWEEN PEOPLE - NO PEACE BETWEEN CLASSES!
From the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad, to several Shiite towns across
southern Iraq, US forces are facing the most intense resistance since
the occupation of Iraq began a year ago. US troops, increasingly bitter
and demoralized, are being ordered on extended
deployments. We see armed uprisings, kidnappings, attacks on oil-pipelines
and convoys, and a desperate US is asking the UN to take a broader role.
While this is written, the outcomes of the situation in Fallujah and Najaf
are uncertain, but in Nasiriyah city a group of armed gangs belonging
to Muktada Al Sadr has, according to ”The Federation of Workers'
Council and Unions in Iraq” – FWCUI, attempted to evacuate
factories and workshops in order to turn them into bastions and
military positions to fight the American and Italian forces.
The answer from both the aluminium and the sanitary supplies factory workers
in Nasiriyah have been to refuse to evacuate their work places despite
many threats made to their lives; declining from turning them into battle
fields which would mean either destroying them or open them for robbery
and looting. They insisted on remaining
inside their factories in order to defend them. The statement from the
FWCUI says:
”We completely reject the turning of workers’ and civilians’
work and living places into reactionary war-fronts between the two poles
of terrorism in Iraq; the US and their allies from one side, and the terrorists
in the armed militias, well known for their enmity to
Iraqi people’s interests, from the other. We will confront the attempts
of these militias aiming at disturbing the security and stability of the
population, and curtail their attempts to push society into civil war
and further destruction and pain.”
As in Iraq, all over the world there is going on a class struggle. What
totally differs the working class from the capitalists, is that we don`t
need the capitalists, but they desperately need us for the death machine
called capitalism. They need us to produce their goods and services in
order to make their profits. They need us as soldiers to kill other fellow
workers and they need us to keep the weapons industry going on, to transport
their equipment and troops, to supply them with food, to produce the lifeblood
of global capitalism the oil.
The capitalist powers are acting as oil junkies desperately searching
for a “fix”, especially when we are approaching 2010. The
period from 2010 is characterized as “Peak Oil”, where the
consumption will increase sharply more than the production, especially
due to the emerging need of energy from states as China and India. The
imperialist battle is, as it is in Iraq, not only about present resources,
but highly about future energy resources and the control of the competitors,
oil-trade currencies, oil-price mechanism and spheres of influence.
This makes a reminder to the controversial draft study made in 1992 by
Wolfowitz, the present US Deputy Secretary of Defence. It asserted that
the key objective of US strategy should be “to prevent any hostile
power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated
control, be sufficient to generate global power”.
Today, US planners are talking about establishing semi-permanent or permanent
bases along a giant swathe of global territory, referred to as "The
Arc of Instability", from the Caribbean Basin and the Andean region,
through Africa, Middle East to Central Asia and South - East Asia. Observers
will note that this “Arc” corresponds well with main regions
of great oil, gas and mineral wealth.
It is no coincidence that Colombia, with its vast natural sources, borders
to the oil-exporter Venezuela and strategic door to the genetic material
in the Amazons and the markets in South America, is heavily militarized
in order to continue the bloody war. Plan
Colombia and the extension called Andean Regional Initiative, is for the
US the military component of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
And if we draw the line to Africa we see the US plans of increasing the
military presence with permanent or semi-permanent bases in Djibouti,
Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Mali, Ghana, and Kenya. A key mission
for US forces in Africa is, according to US officials, to ensure that
Nigeria`s oil fields are secure.
"The Arc of Instability" goes further to the Middle East, and
these days we see that the “Road Map for Peace” openly has
revealed itself as a “Road Map” for occupation and war. In
this conflict, as in the capitalist wars in Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan
and Chechnya, it is the ordinary people who are the victims. In Central
Asia, the Great Game and rivalries of capitalist powers makes it a permanent
area of high tension, and the control of South East Asia is vital for
keeping Japan loyal to the US and to undermine the rising China.
And to underline the historical times we are living in: The significance
of the horrible train bombings in Madrid March the 11th 2004, is that
they will be used as a catalyst for the continued EU integration and militarization
of foreign and domestic politics, just as September the 11th 2001 was
used as a pretence for the US geo-political interests and a dramatic onslaught
against workers conditions and rights. The new member states of the EU
and NATO will be used by the US as buffer zones to undermine Russian and
German/French interests, and we can expect increased tensions between
the capitalist powers.
The EU is now building Rapid Reactions Forces, which within 60 days shall
be operative with flexible and mobile units all over the world, and Fortress
Europe is tightened against asylum seekers and immigrants. The new proposal
from the European Commission of
liberalising the “Services in the Internal Market” will be
a vital part of the capitalist expansion against the conditions of the
working class, just as the campaign against the pensions and public “welfare”.
Global capitalism reveals clearly that the reformist unions are not built
to counter todays offensive. These bureaucratic, centralist "service-corporations"
are dependent on subsidies and legislative aid from the capitalist states,
which are directing the so-called "war against terrorism" towards
a permanent war against the working class and its rights. All over the
world we see development of repressive security states, privatization
of "welfare", mass layoffs, union busting, measures against
the unemployed and poor, tightening of the anti-immigration regimes and
flexibilization of the labour market etc.
As an anarchosyndicalist International the IWA does not support any capitalist,
imperialist power or dictatorship. The IWA, the inheriting of the First
International, recovers the anti-militarist tradition and proposes boycotts
against the manufacturing of arms and general strike against the war.
Since the warfare more and more is outsourced to private companies, it
is important to focus on the military-industrial complex and companies
profiting from wars.
The capitalists and the state need predictable opponents being dependent
on the legal framework, structures, and subsidies. All in order to direct,
control, reduce, split and eventually crush the organisations. The answer
from the anarchists and anarchosyndicalists must be a permanent involvement
in the struggles and direct actions
we as workers are a part of, and by refusing integrating our free associations
into the capitalist system.
Direct actions, propaganda and solidarity must be based on our own strength,
not on class collaboration, as e.g. union elections to enterprise committees.
Economic independence can only be secured by members fees, not on subsidies
from the state. Federalism means that we do not build centralist structures
and funds managed by paid union professionals. Contrary to the reformist
unions, the IWA is fighting on an economical, social, cultural, and anti-militarist
level to replace the capitalism and state by the free federation of workers
free associations - libertarian communism.
The best way to commemorate the Haymarket Martyrs is to speed up working
for their ideas. The Sections and Friends of the IWA have been, and are
active against the capitalist wars in Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan and
Chechnya. And by fighting social- and economical exploitation in Latin
America, opposing repression as e.g. against the Thessaloniki 7, supporting
direct actions as the Spanish CNT-AIT Tomares workers strike, and by initiating
general strikes as the USI-AIT in Italy- to mention some examples, the
International Workers Association is on a coherent path in struggling
for workers self-emancipation!
No war between people - no peace between classes!
Long live the IWA!
Oslo the 26th of April 2004
IWA-Secretariat