Iraq's other resistance: Oil workers in Basra fight privatisation

[Dirk39]

Iraq's other resistance

Oil workers in Basra are ready to fight privatisation

Greg Muttitt
Friday June 3, 2005
The Guardian

Faced with daily reports of car bombs and kidnappings, it's difficult to feel optimistic about Iraq. But last week in the south of the country I heard a very different story. A story of the movement that has formed to rebuild the country's economy and national pride, to create an Iraq with neither the tyranny of Saddam nor the pillage of military occupation.

Last week Basra saw its first conference on the threat of privatisation, bringing together oil workers, academics and international civil-society groups. The event debated an issue about which Iraqis are passionate: the ownership and control of Iraq's oil reserves.

Article continues
The conference was organised by the General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE), which was established in June 2004 and now has 23,000 members. Focused as much on the broader Iraqi public interest as on members' concerns, its first aim was to organise workers to repair oil facilities and bring them back into production during the chaos of the early months of occupation.

This effort by the workers required both courage - often in conflict either with coalition troops or remnants of the Ba'athist regime - and considerable ingenuity, putting back together a working oil industry with minimal resources.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1498155,00.html

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[whistle]

1. Oh, you don't have to worry about those Iraqis, the private....

...military forces are taking care of them one by one.

[cap]

2. I hope they privatize the oil industry

that will be the end of the pipe dreams of the neocons. The workers will blow up the pipelines and refineries and they know how to sabotage the plants so that they are irreparable. There will be no oil coming out of Iraq. And all the 3rd World Slave Labor that Halliburton can marshal will not be enough to put humpty dumpty back together again. This will cause an enormous impact on oil prices... we will all burn together.

Someone will tell the story of the privatization of Iraq's government and how firing 500K workers at the onset of the occupation fueled the resistance movement.

[wallwriter]

3. First war, then privatization.

This has got to be the biggest case of armed robbery in recent memory.

[Cocoa]

4. now THIS is courage

this is the real enemy of the occupiers, the real threat. They could care less about the insurgents destroying Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces.

But nationalizing the oil? No fucking way are they going to let that happen without a fight to the death with every bloody trick in the book.

And the people doing it know it of course. Like I said REAL COURAGE.

[struggle4progress]

5. Thanks, Dirk! eom