PRESS BLACKOUT ON IRAQI TRADE UNION LEADER'S MURDER

[leftchick]

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1446&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Iraqi trade union leader Hadi Salih, International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was tortured and killed in his home in Baghdad Tuesday night--but a Nexis search reveals not a word has yet appeared in the U.S. Press.

"According to a report today from the IFTU, Salih was severely tortured before being put to death. Evidence of torture was visible on his head and body. His hands and legs had been tied. He was blindfolded, then strangled with electrical wire. Iraqi trade union sources believe that the atrocity was carried out by remnants of Saddam Hussein’s secret police, the Mukharabat," said the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in a statement.

On a visit to Europe last year, Salih "outlined the problems facing Iraqi trade unionists including lack of funds, the continued implementation of anti-union laws brought in by the Ba’athist dictatorship and attacks from US forces on IFTU offices."

U.S. Labor Against War issued a statement on Salih's murder which said in part: "In the past three months, IFTU members and rank-and-file workers have been murdered and kidnapped as they tried to carry out normal union activity, or simply do their jobs. On November 3, four railroad workers were killed, and their bodies mutilated. On December 25, two other train drivers were kidnapped, and five other workers beaten. On the night of December 26, the building of the Transport and Communications Workers in central Baghdad was shelled. Together with the assassination of Hadi Salih, these horrifying crimes are making Iraq as dangerous a place for union activists as Colombia."

"Salih's murder underscores the indifference of the U.S. and its puppet government to the fate of trade unionists in Iraq who are trying to organize workers and collectively bargain for their rights. The ultimate source of violence in Iraq is the US occupation. The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions calls for the end of the occupation and the US war. Salih's murder does not bring this end one step closer. Instead, it seeks to terrorize Iraq's labor movement, and other parts of its civil society, to keep them from seeking any peaceful means of gaining political power in the interest of its working people."

[NashVegas]

1. Oh Hell

It's hard enough to get mainstream media to cover our own labor issues - does anyone think the NYT gives a crap about Iraqi workers?

[Tempest]

2. The Mukharabat, my ass!

This was obviously Negroponte's doing.

Trade unionists were a target of Negroponte's death squads in Central America.

[eridani]

3. Unions still fighting back

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1417222,00.html

We lived through dark days under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. When the regime fell, people wanted a new life: a life without shackles and terror; a life where we could rebuild our country and enjoy its natural wealth. Instead, our communities have been attacked with chemicals and cluster bombs, and our people tortured, raped and killed in our homes. Our union has already shown it is able to stand its ground against one of the most powerful US companies, Dick Cheney's KBR, which tried to take over our workplaces with the protection of occupation forces.

We forced them out and compelled their Kuwaiti subcontractor, Al Khourafi, to replace 1,000 of the 1,200 employees it brought with it with Iraqi workers, 70% of whom are unemployed today. We also fought US viceroy Paul Bremer's wage schedule, which dictated that Iraqi public sector workers must earn ID 69,000 ($35) per month, while paying up to $1,000 a day to thousands of foreign mercenaries. In August 2003 we took strike action and shut down all oil production for three days. As a result, the occupation authorities had to raise wages to a minimum of ID 150,000.

We see it as our duty to defend the country's resources. We reject and will oppose all moves to privatise our oil industry and national resources. We regard this privatisation as a form of neo-colonialism, an attempt to impose a permanent economic occupation to follow the military occupation.

We as a union call for the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces and their military bases. We don't want a timetable - this is a stalling tactic. We will solve our own problems. We are Iraqis, we know our country and we can take care of ourselves. We have the means, the skills and resources to rebuild and create our own democratic society.

Hassan Juma'a Awad is general secretary of Iraq's Southern Oil Company Union and president of the Basra Oil Workers' Union