OW Report: Occupied Basra News Round-Up
By Ewa Jasiewicz

Dead Driving Occupation Booty, Pissed Off Iraqi Soldiers Up The Ante,
Basra Head of Education Removed, and Unemployed Riot at Al-Khorafi.

Approximately three weeks ago, construction workers employed on
short-term contracts by Kuwaiti construction giant Al-Khorafi rioted
outside the company's Basra HQ. Approximately 60 men trashed and looted
cars, threw rocks, smashed the office's window's and lightly injured the
head of security.

Cellphones were looted from the cars and the vehicles had to be taken to
Kuwait for maintenance.

The group were provoked by 'disgruntled agitators' according to a Khorafi
source, who due to the job-for life logic of the Baath national socialist
economy , thought they would have permanent work and were disappointed at
the short-term job ruthlessness of the reconstruction industry.

Al Khorafi is the biggest subcontractor operating in Iraq, netting
million dollar reconstruction contracts from KBR and Bechtel in key water
purification, electrical and oil sectors.

Mike Stewart, 42, an unfazable easygoing good-cop-like former soldier
with over 20 years experience in the forces explained to Occupation Watch
that there were elements involved in the riot who were not even Basra
residents or contracted on Khorafi projects. Stewart explained that prior
to the attack, Khorafi, trade union leaders and laid-off worker
representatives met and agreed to pay a group of acutely disgruntled
workers a month and half's wages as a goodwill payment and promised to
re-hire them for new project works. Khorafi were surprised to find these
same workers returning after their payment to demand more. 'Leaders of
the demonstration and some of the union leaders came to us after the riot
and apologized for the behavior of some of their number. We did
everything we could to accommodate them and they recognized that'.

Occupation Watch arranged meetings between Al Khorafi representatives and
the head of the Southern Oil Company Union to promote the employment of
unionized workers in the company and for the union to act as an arbiter
and advocate for workers in conflicts arising with the company. Plus also
to a) give weight to the union as a collective bargaining tool and b)
to prevent people un-involved in disputes with the company from
exploiting existing tensions and negotiations which would undermine other
workers already engaged in struggle with Khorafi.

Initially Al-Khorafi had a bad start in Basra. Workers from the Southern
Oil Company Union at Bergeseeya exports station in Iraq's biggest and
most crucial Southern Oil Company physically threw out imported Indian
and Pakistani labourers who were supplanting Iraqi workers, 70% of whom
are unemployed in the governorate. Ma'qal port workers staged a two-day
walk out culminating in protests outside the company's HQ and threats
from tribal leaders to bomb their offices if they didn't start employing
more Iraqi workers. Now, boasts Bill Cravens, Al-Khorafi's Texan
Construction Manager, 'Al Khorafi is paying higher wages than anyone
else in the area - $125 per month (over three times the minimum
state-enterprise employee wage ($40) as decreed by Paul Bremer the
Third's wagetable and is employing more Iraqis than any other
subcontractor'. Kuwaiti labour he says, 'Is used in emergencies only'.
Al-Khorafi is currently wooing the Southern Oil Company trade union
headed by the no-shit-taking or talking Hassan Ju'ma, branded a
communist by Da'awa party devotees and a Da'awa party member by
communist party loyalists. The SOC union tightly controls all access to
the company's locations. No journalists, no foreign workers, no KBR,
Halliburton or any other foreign corporate interference and no NGOs are
permitted. Occupation Watch has been the only organization granted
access to SOC locations, including the most sensitive sites, ugly
gnarled suction stations, far-flung in dustbowl desert. Khorafi sees SOC
as their 'ultimate client' and the Union, rightly, as a force to be
reckoned with. As a result they've donated wheelchairs, blankets,
computers, and desks to the Union and renovated a private hospital for
Khorafi employees to use. Appeasement of and capitulation to, the
demands of Iraqi workers for the means of organisation and empowerment
for their unions and communities seems to be the key to not just
corporate success but corporate tolerance and survival in Basra - on
pain of strike action and physical violence. Despite Al-Khorafi
re-spinning itself into 'Al Iraqi National' akin to the Occupation
Administration governed former Iraqi Media Network, now restyled into Al
Iraqiya, to appeal to Iraqi national pride and patriotism, cannot hide
the fact they are led by foreigners and their profit is creamed from
nearly a century of Iraqi resources and generations being gambled and
manouvered around the blood-drenched global geo-political chessboard.

6 US soldiers were bazook'ad to death last Friday December 26th as they
accompanied a convoy of unknown goods from Kuwait to Taji US Military
Camp. The attack, which also seriously injured an American private
security guard, occurred on the notorious Nassiriyeh highway. This
highway is incomplete at the point where it reached Samarra which means
vehicles must slow down when they reach the highway's cut-off point,
making them easy targets for bandits and resistance fighters. An unknown
quantity of RPGs were launched at the convoy, with a missile hitting a
Cherokee jeep carrying two civilian contractors, injuring one seriously
and devastating it in the process.

Last Monday morning saw discharged soldiers from the dissolved Iraqi army
stage what could be their last formal protest outside CPA South HQ.
Crowds ranging from 150 to 700 former troops have been holding regular
and increasingly antagonistic demonstrations involving tyre burning, rock
throwing, physical assaults and angry abuse, aimed at anyone associated
with the occupation including foreign contractors, journalists, and Iraqi
workers from within the Palace. British troops have responded by firing
heavy rounds of live ammunition. Such action is a violation of the UN's
Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms By Law Enforcement
Officials which require state officers to exercise restraint and act
proportionally to the seriousness of any offence. Such use of live ammo
has injured five and killed one bystander in the past five months of the
ex-soldier's campaign, according to the demonstrators. 'We do not bring
guns to the demonstrations, we never have arms, we don't shoot', say
protestors.

May's Iraqi army liquidation saw 60,000 freshly sacked soldiers in Basra
governorate alone. The former officers have received three payments from
the CPA since the beginning of the occupation. 100,000 ID ($60) and $20
in May, $50 in August and a final $150 in November. Now they are
demanding a regular monthly survival payment of $15 per month, to be
assured and met within 10 days. 'If they don't give us our money we will
teach them a lesson they won't forget for the rest of their lives' swears
Sami Samawi, echoed by throngs of Zahkaaan (Fed Up)) and desperate
looking men. One approaches me and says blankly, in broken English, '34
years in army. Why no money? Where I go? I have family, baby. Two months
without babymilk', he stalls, looks down, says 'thankyou' and then moves
away quietly. 'This is their last chance', says another, vibrant with
anger, 'How much does a British soldier get per day!!??' about 50 quid
($75) I tell him, provoking a small uprising of exhasparated gestures and
shouts, 'We don't care about our lives! All we care about is our
dignity', yells another.

Asked why they don't join the new Iraqi army, of which over a third of
new recruits have quit due to poor pay ($60 per month) and the enormous
risks they face, crowd-members answer, randomly, 'We have no relation
with it..We don't belive in the cause of this new
army...We don't want to join....Its from the occupation, we don't want
itWe are waiting for the chance to form our own army...We want to wait
until we're an army, a real army and then we'll drive out them
(occupiers) out'.

Following negotiations with soldier representatives the CPA rejected the
$15 demand. Since this, plus a massive bomb threat (more on that later),
British troops have had a higher and heavier presence on the streets,
with tank and jeep units seen with in creasing frequency rather than the
average 2-jeep patrol. Heavily armoured camoflage troop carriers have
also been seen cruising the streets for the first time ever during the
entire nine months of occupation. Black uniformed and ski-masked snipers,
unseen in the past two months have also been seen riding erect in the
standard Landrover jeeps. Basra residents say that these are Daawa party
members with knowledge of Baath-loyalists, now collaborating with British
forces and hiding their faces to avoid revenge attacks. The word on the
street is that the Baath are still strong, still organising, and
co-ordinating secretly, but no longer really feared. Or not to the
panic-trauma collective social psychosis-producing levels they were
before.

Unknown assailants mounted a drive-by machinegun attack on a British
patrol in Basra on Tuesday evening. The attack took place in the town
centre off Arbhatash Tamooz street at around 8pm. An eyewitness who drove
through the incident reported seeing one soldier injured in the shoulder
but could not report any more due to having to flee the crossfire.

Wednesday morning saw two cars packed with explosives found at Sa'ad
Square - located at the entrance to Basra from Safwahn, Kuwait and Um
Qsr. Threats written on paper were left thrown in the surrounding streets
demanding for 'major attacks on the British'. British bomb disposal
experts managed to neutralize the devices which had the power to totally
blow up Sa'ad Square - a space of 50 by 50 metres. Informers were
responsible for alerting the Occupation Authorities to the carbombs. No
group claimed reponsibilities for the thwarted attack.

Two weeks ago, Ahmad Maliki, Chief of the Education Department in Basra,
was arrested and beaten by Occupation troops for refusing to leave his
position. Maliki was not elected into his position. Maliki issued an
order for the hejab to be compulsary wear for girls in schools, colleges,
universities and institutions, with any disobedience resulting in
dismissal and expulsion for both students and teachers.

Maliki, a former Daawa Party member, also demanded tax payments from
teachers, removed Baathists 'as he liked', cancelled new years day
holiday in Basra, and declared himself head of the Basra Education
Workers Union all unilaterally and without approval from or election by
any teachers, local council or trade union members. He has since been
released.

Ewa Jasiewicz, Occupation Watch, has been living in Iraq (Baghdad and
Basra) for the past 6 months. You can contact her on 00965 789 5523

www.occupationwatch.org