Blind Solidarity

Several leftist organizations in Germany are collecting money to benefit the Iraqi resistance. But who and what are they really supporting with this money? Majid al-Khatib, who was exiled by Saddam Hussein, gives us background information.

Several organizations that support anti-imperialist struggles have called for fundraising for "the Iraqi resistance," yet without really understanding to whom this term refers.

The following groups are supporters of the campaign: the "Anti-Imperialist Coordination" in Germany and Austria, "Red Action" in Nuremberg, the "Left Front" in Hungary, a part of the Communist Party of Austria, a few peace groups, and the "Arabic Palestinian Club" in Vienna.

The Geneva convention

With informational events in various German cities, these organizations have tried to find further support for their campaign. In their work, they refer to the Geneva Convention, which grants all peoples the right to resist foreign occupation.

This wide fund-raising campaign has also been justified with reference to the Human Rights Convention of the United Nations. But they have completely ignored the fact that this treaty does not allow terrorism against civilians in the name of resisting an occupying power. And the type of resistance to be deployed is also not prescribed.

In a telephone interview with the Anti-Imperialist Alliance in Vienna, I was told that there are several different groups in Iraq that are fighting against the American presence there. Some are choosing a peaceful route, others terrorism. When I asked which groups the Alliance supports in Iraq, the unambiguous answer was, "all of them."

The majority of Iraqis are against armed resistance

Of course Iraq is an occupied country, regardless of what the US and Great Britain say. Thus, the Iraqi people do have the right to resist occupation. But only the Iraqi people have the right to choose which means of resistance are most appropriate at the present moment.

And the people have unanimously chosen a political and diplomatic path toward ending the occupation with the support of the United Nations and the international community. On my last trip to Iraq—twenty-five years after I had been expelled—this became quite apparent. The active support of the most important political forces in the provisional government has also demonstrated this.

Wars, terror, and the economic embargo

There are reasons why the Iraqis would prefer a political alternative. Three devastating wars destroyed the economy and exhausted the physical and psychological capacities of the country.

In addition, there were terrible internal wars directed against different communities within Iraq, omnipresent terror, death sentences and death brigades, as well as the economic embargo, which forbid millions of children even a glimpse of a banana for many years.

The Iraqi people were completely demoralized. To demand of them now that they rise up against the Americans and fight a violent war against the occupation, would be like demanding of Sisyphus that he roll the huge rock up a mountain peak against the force of gravity. The people wish for peace, quiet, security and their daily bread. Previously stripped of all their rights, the people are first trying to reestablish their dignity before they raise weapons against someone else.

Proponents of violence are isolated

The overwhelming majority of Iraqis are against the occupation and demand an end to it as soon as power has been turned over to the Iraqi people and the security situation has been stabilized. Suicide attacks against civilians, telephone and electricity lines, international human rights organizations, and the United Nations have been decisively rejected.

Those who were among Iraqi society when Saddam Hussein was arrested witnessed the people's enormous sense of gratification, and realized that those who promote terror and suicide attacks are very isolated within Iraqi society.

Who is "the Iraqi resistance"?

What is now being called "the Iraqi resistance" is basically a devil's pact between the remaining Saddam loyalists, the secret security service of the old system, parts of the former presidential guard, Al Qaida members, and Ansar al-Islam and the Jihad.

Joining these groups are also the criminals that Saddam Hussein released from prison in thousands the night before the attack on Baghdad, as well as the military, who were denied privileges, and the Baathists, who suffered losses with the change of powers.

There are of course also some small nationalist groups that are fighting the allied forces with weapons. But they are aiming at Americans or Brits, and not at civilians and those working for foreign organizations. But even these kinds of terrorist acts have been condemned by many Iraqis in the past.

Suicide attacks are not usually carried out by Iraqis

Unlike in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and Japan, suicide attacks were not perpetrated in the past in Iraq. We have not heard of a single Iraqi, neither Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish or Turkmenian, who has become a suicide bomber.

The Republican Army brutally put down an uprising in March 1991, and more than 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives. The resisters were fought to the death, and they suspected that they would probably die. But nonetheless, none of them turned to suicide bombings.

Everyday it is more and more apparent that the suicide bombers are Algerians, Palestinians, Syrians and Saudis (Wahhabites) who have entered Iraq by crossing the border from Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. At the moment there are over 300 foreigners allied with terror networks who are in American prisons in Iraq.

Iraqis are victims of the terror

The latest statistics show that the armed attacks, including suicide bombings, of the "Iraqi resistance" have claimed over 3,000 lives, whereby 300 of the dead were American and British soldiers, and the rest all Iraqis. Besides 700 Iraqi policemen, the victims have been civilians, women and children.

A further international statistic estimates the current population of Iraq at 21 million, including 700,000 war invalids, 750,000 widows and 5 million orphans.

Give to the victims!

There are two possibilities for those in Germany and Austria who are supporting "the Iraqi resistance." On the one hand, they can collect money for the families of victims of the mass graves, for those maimed by the war, and for widows and orphans, in order to take responsibility for lessening the peoples' suffering.

Or they can continue to collect money for those who kill civilians with suicide bombings and who thereby also increase the numbers of invalids, widows and orphans.

And one last question: For more than thirty years we fought against Saddam Hussein's regime. Why was not one penny collected for us during that time?

Translation from German: Christina M. White