|
|
|
|
Since the end of the Second World War, when the US forced the Italian
government to discharge its Communist Party cabinet members as a
prerequisite for aid, to its support for the coup attempt in Venezuela
in 2003, the US has been regularly subverting elections around the
globe for the benefit of its own corporate elite.
Ever fearful that foreign governments might, among other things,
introduce labour and environmental legislation detrimental to US
investments, Washington has opposed the principle of democracy on
almost every continent, even helping to overthrow democratically
elected governments whenever it felt its interests threatened (e.g.
Iran in 1953, Guatemala 1954, Congo 1960, Ecuador 1961, Bolivia 1964.
Greece 1967, Fiji 1987).
Nor have its methods been peaceable. Indeed its agents in the CIA have
carried out assassination of prominent individuals with as much
indifference as its embassies have supported right-wing death squads
and bloody coup attempts throughout Central and South America. Across
the world, the US has backed dictators of every hue, turning a blind
eye to their horrendous affronts to the democratic process.
We are now to believe that the US, presently occupying “sovereign Iraq”
(for President Bush has declared Iraq is now “sovereign”), a country
with sizeable oil reserves, and which has lost 100,000 of its people
since the US-UK invasion, will see that free and democratic
elections take place on 30 January. Bush has since informed the people
of Iraq – the same Iraq in which the CIA helped Saddam Hussein pull off
the military coup that originally brought him to power: “We will help
you build a peaceful and representative government that protects the
rights of all citizens. And then our military forces will leave.”
John Negroponte, the US Ambassador in Iraq, has been adamant that the
US will not allow a delay in the 30 January vote. Speaking to reporters
he stated that the elections would go ahead and that the security
situation would be improved by then, and went so far as to say that
conditions in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces were already safe enough for
elections to be held.
He said: “I think once they realize that the elections will go forward
as planned, then they [Sunni opponents of the election] are going to
have to deal with that reality” (Washington Post, 1 December). However
the Sunni resistance looks set to spiral, his comments coming
just after it was reported that US deaths in Iraq in November matched
the post-invasion record set in April – 135 troops dead.
In Washington and London, the claim is that the ongoing attacks
by insurgents are an all-out attempt to disrupt the coming elections,
when in truth the overriding fact is that many Iraqis still see the US
as an army of occupation whose presence they have a right to oppose. An
opinion poll carried out in September by the US-led Coalition
Provisional Authority confirmed that opposition to the US presence was
widespread. It revealed that just 2 percent of Iraqi Arabs – that is,
minus the Kurdish population – agreed wholeheartedly with the
occupation. If anything, this shows that in spite of the age-old
hostilities between Sunnis and Shiites, one thing that could unite them
is their hostility to an occupying army of 138,000 – a figure set to
increase before the election.
Securing the peace in Iraq in time for the elections has so far meant
installing a pliable puppet regime, and implementing Order 39, which
the Economist (25 September 2003) described as “a capitalist’s dream”
and which opened up the Iraqi economy to complete foreign takeover. It
has meant the deliberate bombing of homes, hospitals and religious
buildings by squadrons of bombers and helicopter gun-ships, turning
cities into rubble (Fallujah was napalmed), cutting off water,
electricity and medical supplies and spreading hunger and disease.
A comprehensive new study by the British-based charity organisation
Medact, which looks at the impact of war on health, reveals that acute
malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of 6 months and 5
years has increased from 4 percent prior to the invasion to 7.7 percent
since the invasion and that about 400,000 Iraqi children are suffering
from ‘wasting’ and ‘emaciation’ conditions of chronic diarrhoea and
protein deficiency.
Despite such facts as these, Washington would have it that people in
Iraq are being irrational in not supporting US-organised elections.
As we go to press, Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish politicians are at odds
over whether elections can take place on 30 January as planned. Iraq's
60 percent Shia majority, who clearly suffered worst under Saddam’s
reign, are keen for the elections to go ahead on time, knowing they are
likely to consolidate the increased power they have enjoyed since
overthrow of the essentially Sunni president Saddam. However, as rebels
have continued their assaults on other towns since the fall of
Fallujah, a campaign led by Sunni politicians has gathered momentum,
with Shia leaders claiming that a postponement of the election date
would only play into the hands of the insurgents.
The head of the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in
Iraq, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, has insisted that the elections go ahead. He
has been backed by 42 mainly Shia and Turkmen parties who have issued a
statement to say moves to delay the elections were illegal.
Conversely, Adnan Pachachi, a former Sunni minister, is heading a group
of 17 political parties asking that the 30 January vote be delayed by
six months because of the violence, fearing the insurgency in Sunni
towns will discourage people from voting, thus disenfranchising them.
Significantly, the two major Kurdish parties have also signed up to the
delay
Alawi, the interim leader appointed by Washington to run Iraq, has said
that in centres of resistance like Fallujah elections could be
“delayed” until stability existed there, without the vote being
invalidated, or in other words Washington-style democracy would will be
available in the first instance only to those who did not resist the
occupation by US forces.
Alawi, it seems, has no real control over the situation, and though it
is said he has the power to cancel the election if he wished, there
still exists the US hand-picked seven-member commission set up to run
the elections, which can bar any candidate or party from standing and
which will be deciding who is and who is not eligible to stand as a
candidate.
Under the rules, the Iraqi electorate will vote for a 275-member
Transitional National Assembly. Political parties will submit a list of
candidates and every third name has to be a woman’s. Those Parties with
alleged connections to militias are disqualified from taking part,
along with former leading members of the Baath Party.
The US hopes to have 150,000 troops in place in time for the election,
evidence if ever it was needed that the crisis in Iraq is escalating.
It was not so long ago that Bush was boasting how US troops had been
greeted as liberators and projected that the country could be policed
with 50,000 troops by the end of 2003. Now military analysts are
cautioning that the Iraq army and police force will not be in a
position to police the country for another ten years. So much, then for
Bush’s claim that once a legitimate Iraqi government is up and running
the troops will be on their way home.
And as for the post-election situation, make no mistake, any government
elected in Iraq will be permitted to function only so long as it
kowtows to the dictates of Washington. Whatever, government is elected
to ‘rule’ Iraq on 30 January it will only be allowed to do so with the
endorsement of the White House.
Here in Britain, Bush’s sidekick, Tony Blair, is likewise looking
forward to a post-election regime in Iraq that has no real say on
foreign investment. Moreover, Blair is desperate for elections to take
place in Iraq for the simple reason that he needs something resembling
a foreign policy success to present to voters in the run up to the
election. Indeed any good news at all at the moment would be welcomed
by New Labour.
The essential goal of the Bush regime in the Middle East remains the
same as that of preceding administrations going back to WWII, and that
is to reinforce control of the region’s oil reserves and the profits
that arise from them. Furthermore, Washington is well aware that
control of Middle East oil gives the US enormous leverage over its
economic rivals, Europe, Japan and China, all of whom are more
dependent on Middle Eastern oil than the US. China in particular is
expected to have the same oil demands as the US within 25 years.
That Iraq has huge oils supplies is the sole reason the US cannot allow
a government – freely elected by its people and one advocating a
US departure – to exist.
JOHN BISSETT
|
|
