Protest and Sit-In Tuesday July 29th, Baghdad

The Union of the Unemplyed in Iraq - UUI will be holding a street protest
followed by a sit-in, at an undisclosed location, to highlight vast
unemployment in Iraq. A general gathering will be held in front of the
union's office in Al Rashid Street, close to the old Turkish Restaurant
at the location of the old 'General Union of the Workers of Iraq'
building at 9am on Tuesday July 29 2003. The final location of the sit-in
will be announced later at the gathering.

The UUI calls upon 'all freedom loving people, workers organisations,
humanitarians and all those who oppose the hunger and deprivation in
Iraq, to join us in this protest. We are determined that are demands be
immediately met by the authorities'.

The demands are:

- That the new state, complying with Geneva Coventions on the
obligations of occupying powers to provide for the welfare of its
occpied population, secures social benefits for the Iraqi people. This
means providing benefit for the unemployed. $100 per month is the amount
demanded by the UUI.

- Recompensation for the doctors, teachers, nurses and state emplyees who
have not been paid for almost 4 months.

The new state currently consists of a 'Governing Council' made up of over
50% Iraqi exiles, handpicked by the Occupation Administration. No
elections or public consultations were held on the selection of the new
GC despite member and Shia cleric Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum declaring its
creation 'a manifestation of the free will of all Iraqis'. The Occupation
Administration is headed by 'Ambassador' Paul Bremer - renamed as such at
the inaugural G.C meeting two weeks ago. Bremer was former ambassador and
head of the US State Department's counterterrorism office from 1986 to
1989 - facilitating the US's funding and training of Contra
'Counterrevolutionaries',rightwing paramilitary deathsquads and thier
democratically-elected-government toppling efforts in Central America
which left some 200,000 slain in Guatamala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Bremer was also former assistant to former Secretaries of State William
P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger.

The UUI is the initiative of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq. The UUI
came into force, after being a secret underground organisation, in 1993.
The founding thinker of the organisation is 'Iranian Marx' Mansoor
Hekmat. The WCP is the first political current to create a feminist
organisation in Iraq - The Organisation of Womens Freedom in Iraq -
established June 22 2003 - as well as the only organisation to speak out
against the death penalty, for childrens rights and for rights and
defence of Prostitutes. The WCP has set up women's refuges in Kurdistan
and is looking to do the same in Baghdad.

See  http://www.wpiraq.org/english/ for more details on the Party's
politics.

For more details please email  farismahmood2003@yahoo.com or
 wcpi@sympatico.ca

or call either 001 8821 66 33 22 or 001 9143 60 26 86 (Ewa Jasiewicz or
Caiomhe Butterly - Voices in the Wilderness) to arrange interviews with
organisers prior to the event or speak to them directly on the day


Solidarity Action Ideas

There may be many who may not agree with all the politics of the WCP Iraq
or any Party or Party structure in general, however, as a protest, the
July 29th demo and sit-in should be welcomed as yet another chance to
reclaim the streets of Baghdad from tanks and Hummers and speak truth to
power about the dire economic and social conditions in Iraq. Until a
civil society/grassroots autonomous forms of social space and organising
take root (there hasn't been any actual 'civil society' for 35 years due
to the dictatorships absolute grip on all social spaces and
institutions)and a more generalised popular political as well as military
resistance movement to the Occupation and exploitation of Iraq gains
momentum, manifestations of social disobedience and challenges to the
Occupation Authority represent chances and for many, new experiences, for
generating future insurrection and new social/political alliances and
relationships.

- solidarity demos/actions in your home town or city, ideally outside
local offices or HQs of corporations profiting from the war, the
preventable aftermath chaos and the increasingly more brutal occupation
such as:

Bechtell (awarded contract for the reconstruction of Iraq)
Dynacorp (awarded contracts for running the security and police services
in Iraq, also responsible for training elite guards in Saudi Arabia)
Kellogg Brown & Root - subsidiary of Oil services and Construction giant
Halliburton - providing food for all the US troops and
Halliburton itself, awarded contracts for running Iraqi oilfields
union busters Stevedoring Services of America (responsible for locking
out International Longshore and Warehouse Union workers last
septermber), now contracted to run the Iraqi Port of Umm Qasr.